Wall Street’s financial leaders have been paraded before Congress to explain their efforts to restore stability to our financial system. Obama has turned on the populist spigot to demonize Wall Street to justify bigger taxes and fees and hip shot regulation.

Wall Street deserves the scrutiny and reform is needed.  Yet this fiasco was as much a government failure.  Fannie Mae was exempt from regulation by the SEC, FDIC and the Fed.  When Congress was solidly warned about excessive risks taken by the Fannies,they rejected calls to increase oversight, largely along party lines. Little protest is heard from the halls of Congress over some of the huge bonuses paid to Frank Raines and others at Fannie Mae while the system was imploding.

Some recent regulations such as the mark to market rules made this crisis much worse than it would have otherwise been.  Other regulations such as control  of derivatives  by the Commodities Futures Trading Commissions were removed (under Clinton) at a pivotal time. The Fed ’s monetary policy was also a factor.

A hearing to truly understand what happens and what needs to be done would have our Congressmen on the other side of the microphone.

The job numbers reported for December were down -85,000; a very disappointing result. It seems layoffs are slowing down but no new hiring is coming on line.  I would like to take this opportunity to review my opinion on this over the last six months.

On December 2, 09

The Second Wave of Unemployment

Those of us who took a wait and see approach will generate another wave of layoffs. It will not be the thousands from a single large plant that makes national headlines.  It will be a dozen here and a few there as the small businesses across America face the reality.  Some will throw in the towel and just close; some will be forced to close or sell at bargain prices because of a lack of credit, others will finally get small enough to survive.

Either way private wealth  (and the taxes it generated) will be destroyed and unemployment will continue to climb.

November 9, 2009

Unemployment Hits Double Digits

This president and his Congress are absolutely clueless about creating jobs. While they argue about how many jobs they have created, they miss the obvious truth.

The government, regardless of party, has never created a single job.  Every job ‘created’ in the public sector has been at the expense of at least one job, probably more,  in the private sector.

July 30, 2009

The John Galt Option

You have to be an economic moron not to understand that this will sharply curtail economic growth, investment and hiring. Any of these changes would have an impact, but the collection of such disincentives has a staggering impact on the decisions of small businesses.

Unless this direction is changed unemployment will soar and economic growth will stagnate for a long time.