(np) so apparently Summers is no great loss to the Obama administration

[Robert Mahnke]

Sadly, idiocy is common enough that you don't need to get to villainy
if you're scraping away with Occam's Razor.

On Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 10:30 AM, Ian Livingston
<igrlivingston at gmail.com> wrote:
> Villainy? In capitalism? Never!
>
> On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 6:05 PM, Michael Bailey
> <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hey, thanks for that further insight.  Can't help but think though
>> that there was a certain amount of villainy involved somewhere.
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 1:52 PM, Robert Mahnke <rpmahnke at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I don't think there was any "effort to destroy Born's career," let
>>> alone one led by Summers.  There was a disagreement over whether it
>>> was a good idea to regulate derivatives.  She thought yes; Alan
>>> Greenspan, Summers, Robert Rubin, Phil Gramm, and others thought no.
>>> She was right and they were wrong.  (That said, you might question
>>> whether regulation by the CFTC would have been any better than no
>>> regulation at all, because it had a pretty strong free-market
>>> orientation, at least until Obama took office.)  So this was not a
>>> moment Summers should be proud of, but whoever wrote what's below is
>>> hyperbolizing to trash him.
>>>
>>> Here's a sympathetic Washington Post profile of Born from last year
>>> that has a more complete account of what happened:
>>>
>>> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/25/AR2009052502108.html
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 4:30 AM, Michael Bailey
>>> <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/so_long_summers_20100921
>>>>
>>>> Summers helped make law when he worked for Bill Clinton. He led the
>>>> effort to destroy the career of Brooksley Born, the Clinton-appointed
>>>> head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission who had the
>>>> prescience to sound the alarm in the face of a dangerously spiraling
>>>> market in suspect mortgage packages. Her sensible suggestion in a
>>>> “concept release” for a study of the risks in those newfangled
>>>> financial gimmicks horrified Summers, who told a Senate committee:
>>>>
>>>> “In our view, the Release has cast the shadow of regulatory
>>>> uncertainty over an otherwise thriving market—raising risk for the
>>>> stability and competitiveness of American derivatives trading. We
>>>> believe it is quite important the doubts be eliminated.”
>>>>
>>>> They were eliminated when, at Summers’ instigation, Clinton signed off
>>>> on the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which summarily banned any
>>>> regulation of those derivatives under any existing law or by any
>>>> agency.
>>>>
>>>> and we all know how well that worked...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> "I have left my book,
>>>> I have left my room,
>>>> For I heard your voice
>>>> singing through the gloom" - James Joyce
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> "I have left my book,
>> I have left my room,
>> For I heard your voice
>> singing through the gloom" - James Joyce
>>
>
>
>
> --
> "liber enim librum aperit."
>