The full page ad in Ruppert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal for its “Future of Finance Initiative” starts off by saying that the financial system has stopped working.
I completely disagree.
The financial system is working for the first time since Bob Rubin and his colleagues created the “strong dollar policy” complete with gold market manipulation and mortgage bubble. It is working because a wide group of market participants do not want to invest capital in unproductive activities or banks, lawyers and accounting firms that intentionally engage in criminal fraud.
To date, the Fed and Treasury theory is that $10 trillion of central bank and government guarantees and subsidies will permit a fraudulent system to continue to function. The answer is, of course, no it won’t. Hence, the proposal for a new initiative to make sure markets are not allowed to work.
I got my MBA at Wharton. I have heard it all my life and I know it is true. When something is unproductive, overpriced or unhealthy, markets shift capital away. That is a good thing.
A market is like a human body in trauma. It moves the blood away from the toes and preserves it for the heart, brain and lungs.
However, the institutions that made this mess—the likes of Goldman Sachs, Sullivan & Cromwell, The Carlyle Group, and the academic institutions that give them air cover and many more – are now persuaded that a financial system that no longer trusts them needs “fixing” and they are the men for the job. They want to show us how we can shift more blood out of the heart, lungs and brain and into them and their fellow toes.
This conundrum of keeping the unproductive in control is why the Administration is proposing a massive defense and enforcement budget. Only financial totalitarianism can keep something this expensive and destructive going.
Such arrogance proves that we do indeed need markets to continue to work. We need those who need $10 trillion of bailouts (and counting) to fail and, as legendary investor Jim Rodger suggests, learn how to drive a taxi, or better yet a tractor.
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