Saturday, January 25, 2014

The Future of Monetary Policy

Larry Summers: "this is a nightmare, I got to get some sleep."
 Yep, here we are now, for the most part, our banking system.  This whole fiasco starts with a spark light by Larry Summers under the Clinton Administration but snowballed out of control because the lack of regulations which the regulators them self-were involved that graded the paper.  From here you can't really blame one man, this ended up being an orchestra of greed and manipulation.

From Wikipedia: (a brief timeline, if you will, to how we got here)

Deregulation of derivatives contracts, on July 30, 1998, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Summers testified before the U.S. Congress that "the parties to these kinds of contract are largely sophisticated financial institutions that would appear to be eminently capable of protecting themselves from fraud and counterparty insolvencies." At the time Summers stated that "to date, there has been no clear evidence of a need for additional regulation of the institutional OTC derivatives market, and we would submit that proponents of such regulation must bear the burden of demonstrating that need."  In 1999 Summers endorsed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act which removed the separation between investment and commercial banks, saying "With this bill, the American financial system takes a major step forward towards the 21st Century."

Barack Obama as President in January 2009, Summers was appointed to the post of Director of the National Economic Council.  In this position, Summers emerged as a key economic decision-maker in the Obama administration, where he attracted both praise and criticism.  There had been friction between Summers and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, as Volcker accused Summers of delaying the effort to organize a panel of outside economic advisers, and Summers had cut Volcker out of White House meetings and had not shown interest in collaborating on policy solutions to the economic crisis.  Peter Orszag, another top economic adviser, called Summers "one of the world's most brilliant economists.

In 2013, Summers emerged as one of two leading candidates, along with Janet Yellen, to succeed Ben Bernanke as head of the Federal Reserve System in 2014. The possibility of his nomination created a great deal of controversy with some Senators of both parties declaring opposition.  On September 15, Summers withdrew his name from consideration for the position, writing "I have reluctantly concluded that any possible confirmation process for me would be acrimonious and would not serve the interest of the Federal Reserve, the Administration or, ultimately, the interests of the nation's ongoing economic recovery." (end Wikipedia)

Central banks around the world took extraordinary measures to reboot the global economy.  What are efficient and responsible options for ending monetary stimulus?  

So however you view Larry Summers this man is a closer and on this panel at Davos he really gives George Osborne Chancellor of the Exchequer and Second Lord of the Treasury of the United Kingdom much support in this debate.  Watch Summers face when the narrator rips on Osborn, time stamp starts @ 54:00 to 54:18 also Haruhiko Kuroda is 31st and current Governor of the Bank of Japan taps Summers's shoulder and slips him a note, watch from time stamp 24:00 to 24:35, this man is highly respected in his realm.  Not only that you might understand why he did not take the Fed Chair, the man did not like what happen to the nation and around the world.  Even though the man created this spark that turned into a brush fire, he came back to help.  I really don't know if we had anyone more qualified  in economics than Summers and by his personality, this guy is a rock.  Not all men a created equal, it's quite possible if not already that Summers will be known as the Einstein of the economics of our time.

World Economic Forum

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