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Your guest was a breath of fresh air. Someone smart AND with a conscience. Haven't seen that in a long time.

Regarding the comments on this page: When will people stop and think for a minute and realize that Democracy and Capitalism are not the same thing.

most of us did not want to "play the market" with our hard-earned retirement funds. i'd venture to say that if we were earning the steady 3% (or less) of our parents' take, we'd have chosen it over the fast gain/fast loss dictum of the market. the government allowed corporate american to divest what would have been our pensions (or some semblance thereof) into the market instead, thus propping up banks and all those entities who enjoy the status of banks these days without the pesky oversite.

could we have protested this? not successfully. and not if we wished to have any sort of retirement funds at all.

this isn't working.

calls'em seems to have a friend with this site's police. nice!

scott--will add that the government does not control the means and pace of production, either, for those who keep whining about socialism.

calls'm, thanks for the lucid analysis.

Why am I responding to this twattle? Oh, wretched soul that I am. Lord, rapture me really really soon.

Calls'em
wrong again!!
but keep the laughs coming

Brett -

Using the highest possible figures for the socialized medicine side, there are now still 260,000,000 people with health insurance in the country - that is 85% of the country. How do you explain that? That is a great success of capitalism, not a great failure. Single payer will wreck health care for many more people then it helps. Let's fix what's broken - not break what works. Let's help the 15% without ruining things for the 85%. The government can't make everybody rich, but it can make everybody poor.

hjs -

Why do I get the feeling that you get a kick out of being bad and being punished, at least gently ? Am I wrong?

Calls'em
guess that covers everyone then!
also consider the right wants daddy to punish me when I don't or won't conform.

To: Calls'em:

True, neither is dead even though the GOP have done all they could to: 1) rule by fiat, not Constitution or law 2) mess up the economy even worse than Reagan - see latest Census figures on income, health insurance coverage, etc.

hjs, scott, chuck, et al:

The problem with today's American liberals is they have no self confidence, no ambition and no spirit of competition. They want to live in hovels, get food stamps and feel sorry for themselves -- blaming mommy, daddy and Bush, Cheney and Rove; while asking Mommy, Daddy and the Gov't to help them out. So sad for them and the future. Unfortunately, the Capitalists have had too much of the above referenced characteristics.

calls'em, I am unable to track what you might be trying to say.

12 tricia you've been working as a wall st professional for 18 yrs and you are complaining that 700k a wild overestimate of what folks make there...what is your family's income exactly (and your logic, if not hard cash, for spending your working life there)?

Calls'em
"brained washed liberal zombies" who pay the bills for the south, plains and mountain states

hjs - the crowd of capitalists at the Capital was as deep as for Obama's inauguration, only not as far back on the Mall. I estimated 250,000 - 350,000. I didn't have a view of how big the crowd was on Penn Ave. once the speeches started. But they are capitalists - they paid their own way to DC -- they weren't given free lunches and bussed there by ACORN, SEIU and other unions and groups expecting to wet their beaks at the troth of corruption. And remember too that North East is filled with brained washed liberal zombies, so people had to come from all over America to get a crowd that size and they did.

I am weary of hearing that "we all" engaged in the foolish behavior that undermined the U.S. economy. In fact there are legions of us who have always lived well within our means and planned carefully for the future. Meanwhile, business reporters have too often joined the cheering section for the latest bubble. So, please, enough with the "we." If any journalists are in a confessional mood, let them say "I" instead.

Hmm. Do we really think keeping China imports flowing into the U.S. are really keeping our poorest citizens safe? Cmon.

Gordon Smith: You are so right. Just remember, the AARP and FDA get 25% of their income from PHARMA, there are more contractors then soldiers in Iraq. Remember Cheney's closed door enrgy meetings? Where's Teddy Roosevelt when you need him.

This is all very old news. Ya all have sent too much time listen to the words and not watching the actions (of the very powerful) few.

"Is democracy too weak to stand up to capitalism?" Is that a joke? That "fight" was over a long time ago. As long as there are special interest groups, off shore bank account, blackmail, etc. then your vote is an illusion. You're not electing representation. You're electing the guy / gal who gets to play the puppet to the real power - and that power is the power of green.

Wake up people. EVERYTHING that's being discussed has been going on for years. What's shocking is that anyone is shocked about where it has lead us.

People who accuse the government intervention in the economy in the wake of last year's collapse as being "socialist" know nothing about socialism. Socialism, according to Marx, rises out of capitalism's internal collapse. The government's intervention, first Bush's and then Obama's, was precisely a capitalist intervention in preventing capitalism's collapse. If socialism was going to have a chance in the US, it would be more likely if the government hadn't intervened. Obama is no more a socialist than Warren Buffet.

K.O.!

Is Obama under the impression he was elected

To serve as referee in a boxing bout?

Wrong. Americans chose him as their fighter

To get in the ring and knock the obstructionist out.

Calls'em As I Sees'em,

Please stop copy and pasting for Rush Limbaugh's blog.

Try and and have an original thought all by your little self.

Regards.

Also,

What is the logic of a system that sets up a society for those who want to open businesses and for those who want to be millionaires when they are such a small percentage of the population? We would scoff at a system that tries to set people up to be Hollywood stars, Professional Athletes.

Why do we con people in thinking that they can be a millionaire when they are a small part of the population?

If people don't think they can be millionaires, would that change our attitude towards politics, economics etc?

and JKG's son....

A simple solution to increase accoutability of the banking sector and reduce tax payer support is to have the banks pay insurance.

As individuals and corporations pay tax for future problems and and disasters so too should banks. They can take out as much insurance as they deem to be prudent. If a problem arises that exceeds the payout of their policy it would be their problem not the American tax payer.

Brian don't shill for Geithner...

I recommend to all the work of John Kenneth Galbraith, who was writing on all of this 20 years, 30 years, 50 years ago.

I notice you say finance co's. are saying more regulation isn't needed because the *consumers* have learned their lesson fron the collapse, not that *they* have.

or see your fellow Capitialists at:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1213056/Up-million-march-US-Capitol-protest-Obamas-spending-tea-party-demonstration.html#

1. CMOs are not new. I remember them from when i worked on wall st in 1989. they were structured into tranches that were rated from AAA on down. the difference may have been that the investment bank selling the CMOs usually retained the most risky tranche or the residual. so they bore the risk of nonpayment. that should be a requirement going forward.

2. also, bonuses back n 1989 were often paid out in cash but were technically structured as a loan that was forgiven over 3-5 years. this was for retention purposes but it could also work as a way to look back on the actual performance of the deals the bankers worked on.

Here! Here! Robert from NYC. But we aren't dealing with economics. This is religion. That Private Profit trumps ALL other considerations -- even life, in the case of health insurers -- is an Article of Faith in the United States.

People care about democracy and Capitalism -- see how many:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1213056/Up-million-march-US-Capitol-protest-Obamas-spending-tea-party-demonstration.html?printingPage=true

-- Apparently the foreign press now covers America more truthfully then our own media.

The problem is we did let the market work. There was no regulation. Everything the banks did was entirely legal. I am a member of the left, but I do agree the bailouts were wrong (at least to this extent). I for one, believe that letting Lehman fail was the right thing to do. Let the free market work, fine. Look what happened. The world's largest insurer would be gone, nobody would have insurance right now. They underwrote half the world. We would have a huge depression right now. But from where I sit, these people deserve to fail. By bailing them out, they learn nothing and revert to the same practices. Its happening already. My question is for the free-marketers. What would you have done? Just let AIG, Citigroup, Fannie mae, et al just go under? All of those jobs gone? Good luck getting a mortgage. How are small businesses going to get credit for payrolls. I have yet to hear anybody come up with an alternative. I don't support the bailouts, but something has to be done. The Great Depression lasted almost 10 years. Only the war got us out of it. The free market caused the depression. Now it did this. I'd like someone else to come up with a solution instead of just blaming the left.

Brian, many of us did not do anything wrong and we are paying for this crisis with more and more taxes at the local level because local government has lost income from real estate sales, etc., etc. Every town or city in New York State is raising taxes as a result of this meltdown, so my increased property taxes are making up the difference. The bankers that made all of these bad loans made out and still have their money.

can we please please go back to laissez faire capitalism. poison meat, water and air. no more corn, beef, oil subsidies. no more welfare payments to the south or plains states from the northeast. no SSI or medicare.

(That said, Ms. Morgenson's mentor Floyd Norris actually does fit into your criteria, although he is more of a reporter rather than a so called journalist, so you need to read his articles then piece them together to get the big picture).

@12

Not to be disrespectful to the present guest but financial reporters able to do with regard to the future what Ms. Morgenson is doing with regard to the past become traders, not journalists or economists.

It's a pay thang.

Rc
aren't we the government?

Speaking about bonuses, I know no other industry, besides Wall Street, where bonuses are based only on individual performance. Most other industries, base bonuses on individual, group and company performance. It seems that structuring Wall Street bonuses similarly would be beneficial.

Quoting Tocqueville? Comical! Tocqueville wrote 170 years ago, when the US was thick in the slavery YET the inequality of economic distribution LESS than it is today.

As for any illegality of Obama's moves: I take it that Calls'em also thinks FDIC takeover of insolvent banks is illegal. The Resolution Trust Corporation was illegal (remember the Savings & Loan disaster?)

Perhaps the United States needs 5 years of the Dick Cheney/Robert Nozick Night Watchmen State. No public roads, no public schools, no social security or medicare or medicaid, no public assistance of any kind for any corporation, no public WATER. NO PUBLIC ANYTHING except defense, police, courts.

Let the right-wing have what it claims it wants. We'll have the Hobbesian war of all against all and Dick Cheney & Co will be the first to learn what the state of nature really means.

Please as Ms. Morgenson why there is no real reporter like Cy Hirsh or David Halberstam in the financial realm. Ms Morgenson is really good at retrospectively scolding "bad boys," but never ferrets out the bad stuff until it is too late. Where's the real reporting.

Excellent point RC. So true.

There is at least one problem with the caller David's idea of linking bonuses to long-term, rather than short-term, profits is that a new market of securities will quickly crop up of trading future bonuses. Much like the one that now exists for life insurance policies on holders who are not yet dead.

What I find ridiculous is when reporters talk about bank bonuses and lump ALL bankers in the same boat. I am the wife of a Wall Street Banker and when I hear that Goldman Sachs’ 30,000 employees “average” income is $700,000 a year (as reported this past weekend in the NY Times), I am screaming mad at the flagrant lies that are perpetuated.

Yes there are some that receive huge bonuses annually and I do agree to the outrageous amounts are inappropriate, but after 18 years in this industry, with some of the most highly profiles firms, I can honestly say they are a minority. Many years the lower employees didn’t receive any bonuses at all because the higher-ups were on guarantees and these bonuses seriously affected peoples basic living needs: rents in NYC, mortgages for modest homes in the suburbs and also saving for the possibility that you could be cut any time as no job on Wall Street comes with an absolute contract (alike union jobs or government employment where it takes practically an act of congress to remove the unproductive). Never mind the poor quality of life because you work long hours and see little of your family (for 12 years my husband rose every morning at 4:30am and didn’t get home until 9 or 10pm).

I do appreciate people’s frustrations at Wall Street but remember it is only a chosen few.

Tricia

How much of this has to do with a philosophy of "the government is evil" that has been perpetuated in earnest by Ronald Reagan, applied in a modified form by Bill Clinton and accelerated by George W. Bush.

How can you regulate anything if the dominate philosophy is that government is the problem not the solution?

Calls'em
75k say some sources, but how was the teabagging. hope u'all had fun out there. i remember how the anti-war protests weren't covered in the media also, lucky for u, u have fox to report your type of 'news"

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaa to what you just read, these folks have been brainwashed. That's what's been done to Americans over the past 3 decades, brainwashing to the open market that lead us to where we are.

"We" all went admitted to the failure of Communism 20 years ago so why do "we" so resist to admit the failure or American Capitalism? It failed and it's time to get to get on with getting a system in place that works for everyone.

in the same vain I'd like to ask capitalism ,what is it NOT good for. defense, education, healthcare, and other essential social functions should not be left to the whims of the market to compete with the greed of shareholders

Capitalism and democracy are not dead despite the illegal actions of Obama and the Fed to take over the banks, auto manufacturing, the health care industry and other sectors of the economy through bizarrely radical proposals by Obama's Tsars, like Van Jones (recently fired), Cass Sunstein & John Holdren, among others. Why are these radicals so resentful of the success that has brought the highest standard of living to more people than any other system in the history of the world? Why do people like Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Schumer and Weiner want to destroy this country?

PS - Brian, why no coverage of the 9-12 march on Washington, DC? These are capitalists who love America and Liberty. There were clearly at least 250,000 - 350,000 people there, while many sources put the crowd even higher. You cover 3 people protesting on a street corner, if it’s one of your pet causes like immigration or sexual orientation, but God forbid some mostly middle aged white folks from Middle-America protest, then there is no coverage at all. There were also tens of thousands of tax protesters at many other events around the country. This is a movement that continues to grow, yet remains uncovered by you, WNYC and NPR. Shame on you!

PS #2 - Why no coverage of ACORN scandals? As individuals, they are “uber-capiatists” only all their money comes from government sources and donations from SEIU and teacher unions. They are wonderful tax cheating folk who have no problem getting Gov’t loans for prostitutes who want to buy houses to set up brothels with under-aged illegal alien girls. Thank god the Obama administration finally threw them under the bus and fired them from doing the US Census -- that would have been good. Yet, no coverage from you? What’s up -- too many ACORN contributors to the station? Shame on you!

PS #3 - And finally, why no coverage of the Van Jones affair - he wanted to destroy capitalism? Not relevant to your listeners? Shame on you!

The Left's gleeful renewed attack on capitalism (and its inherent individual liberties and personal freedoms) brings to mind Tocqueville's observation that some Americans "are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in poverty than be unequal in freedom."

How far must the American Capitalism go before it becomes a true free market, like China's is now?