3/14/09

Why would a special interest lobbying grouprepresenting financial institutionsdownplay the costs of a bailout recommended for some of its members?

IIF backs bad bank, Forbes, 3/13/09


 


…hesitation over up-front fiscal costs


 and difficult pricing issues


 fails to recognize that the real long-term costs to the economy of inaction


may well be much greater than the net fiscal imbalances over time


 that are created by the bad bank approach


 


Action is needed now


 


 A pragmatic approach


 weighing both mark-to-market and cash flow valuations


 can lead us out of this thicket


 


Institute of International Finance


IIF members include most of the world's largest commercial banks


and investment banks


 as well as a growing number of insurance companies


 and investment management firms


 


Associate members include multinational corporations


 


FII Membership List


 


Are some who reaped exorbitant Wall Street bonuses


when mark to market accounting created gains


among those who want the same relatively accurate accounting suspended


as valuations retard profits?


 


Should shareholder and debt investors reap profits


from money borrowed from a nation’s children


to save companies responsible for creating the need to be bailed out?


 


Banks want G20 to set up pricey bad bank


 Critics say the financial sector is holding the economy hostage, Marketwatch, 3/13/09


 


Should economic plans designed to fix large, complex predicaments


rely on those who created and profited from the initial problems


who may not have wanted to identify and confront them


when they were small, relatively unknown and lucrative?


 


The proposal of any new law or regulation


which comes from [businessmen]


ought always to be listened to with great precaution


 and ought never to be adopted


 till after having been long and carefully examined


 not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention


 


 It comes from an order of men


whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public


 who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public


 and who accordingly have, upon many occasions


 both deceived and oppressed it


 


Adam Smith


Could financial market intervention delay real recovery?

No comments: