The financial media does a poor job of
commenting on financial matters, by scapegoating big business and
Wall Street, repeating populist political comments.
Another
example is the subject of repos. The elimination of repos
sales off the books of Lehman Brothers had relatively little to do
with the use of bank guarantees by the government, or eliminating
mark-to-market accounting, for all banks. The latter, and not repos,
were the villains in the financial meltdown of 2008/2009.
Some
in the financial media, as well as the administration have ignorantly
treated each financial institution problem as part of a group, to be
treated alike, by similar regulatory treatment.
Thus,
every entity that has been in trouble in the past is tossed in
the same basket; AIG, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Fannie Mae,
Freddie Mac, Bear Stearns, and so on. Each had its own peculiar
problems and could have been rescued in its own way, probably without
heavy-handed government assistance.
The
media has done a poor job of sorting this out for the average citizen
to understand.(See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and
@BusinessNewshole tweets.)
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