Speechless.
langer: A weekend bombshell from Philip Greenspun:
Wall Street banks have had profitable quarters. JPMorgan Chase reported $3.6 billion in profit (more than $1 billion per month). Goldman Sachs was only slightly behind, at $3.2 billion. These profits supposedly came from “trading.” I asked a friend who has worked in the money business how this was possible. “For someone to make money trading, there has to be someone on the other side of every trade who is losing money. Where does each bank find someone who can lose $1 billion every month?”
He explained that “carry trade” would be a more accurate description of what they’re doing. Because of the Collapse of 2008 financial reforms, the big investment banks are able to borrow money from the U.S. government at 0 percent interest. Then they can turn around and buy short-term bonds that pay 2 or 3 percent annual interest. Now they’re making 2 percent on whatever they borrowed. They can use leverage to increase this number, by pledging some of the bonds that they’ve already bought as collateral on additional bonds.
I asked if they were taking any risk in order to earn this return. “If interest rates went up to 20 percent, even though the bonds are short-term, the price of the bond could fall enough to make the trade a money-loser.” (Though since the banks are too big to fail, they would simply be bailed out with additional taxpayer funds.)
What kind of bonds are they buying? Are they investing the money in American business? “No, they are mostly buying Treasuries.” So the money is just being shuffled from one Federal bank account to another, with each Wall Street bank skimming off $1 billion per month for itself? “Pretty much.”
(via Jason Kottke)
Today's dubious idea: temporarily loosen regulation
squashed:
While I think extending unemployment and reforming healthcare will do a lot to soften the pinch of the recession, private industry will probably have to pull us out of it. And, since the large businesses have no interest in expanding until we’re through this, a lot of that expansion will likely come from innovative small business. A lot of people are getting to the point where they need income anyway they can get it. Perhaps that means making things to sell online or at a farmer’s market. Perhaps that means creating a service people didn’t know they wanted.
Unfortunately, the knowledge barriers to setting up your own business without running afoul of a variety of laws are relatively high. What are the rules about payroll? Should you incorporate? How do you do it? How long do you need to retain records? Where and how can you advertise? How can you dispose of waste? How much do you have to pay your employees? How do you have to document them? What licenses do you need to have?
Most of these rules are, in general, fairly good rules. But we may be at a point where we wouldn’t mind if somebody inadvertently broke a few of them if they created a few jobs and expanded the economy. Could we, for two to four years or so, create a general policy of not enforcing certain laws and regulations against businesses under a certain size that make goodfaith errors in complying with some of these laws? At the end of the period, enforcement would go back to normal. Is this a terrible idea?
[emphasis added]
Yes, that is a terrible idea.
We have this thing called deregulation, it made our utilities absolutely awful. Temporary deregulation for business won’t be good for the rest of us either; and I have little faith that regulation would actually be reinstated.
A much better solution that would create a positive business and labor climate would be to provide resources to people wanting to start their own business. Classes, counseling and legal guidance on how to plan and start a business would foster more sustainable and lasting growth.
Loosening regulation may cause a temporary flood of activity, but an enormous proportion of businesses would fail due to poor management.
As for the detrimental effect on workers it would cause, andrewfmorrison said it best.
The working class has gotten screwed enough already without a loosening of labor laws.
ps: Is figuring out minimum wage so complex that it’s a barrier to innovation? No it isn’t. There’s no excuse not to pay your workers a living wage, much less minimum wage.
