The First Draft: should Obama embrace new structural reforms?
Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs are two guys who think President Barack Obama better embrace new structural reforms if he wants a growing economy that isn’t hard-wired to go bust.
Dodd, a Democrat fighting for his political life at home, proposed sweeping regulatory legislation this week that would curb the Federal Reserve’s bank oversight powers, strengthen consumer protection and keep a sharp eye out for systemic problems like housing or stock market bubbles. The 1,136-page measure reflects Obama’s policies in some ways — for example, it supports the White House call for a Consumer Financial Protection Agency — but it also charts new regulatory waters.
“What we have (now) is a hodgepodge that has grown over the last 80 years, some of it dating to the 19th century and early 20th century regulatory structures,” Dodd told MSNBC.
“These agencies basically have provided a forum for financial institutions that look for a weak charter, in a sense. They shop around and get it. So we need to eliminate or change that fundamentally.”
“I think you’re really on the right track,” Sachs told Dodd in the same broadcast.
But Sachs, who became famous for his economic work in the developing world, thinks Obama should adopt much broader structural change and says current White House policy is akin to using a morning-after drink as a hangover remedy.
“The Obama administration’s stimulus policies are not well targeted. The Republican alternatives are even worse. Both sides are missing the key fact: the U.S. economy needs structural change,” Sachs writes in an op-ed column in today’s Financial Times.
Another side of Sarah Palin: financial guru
The Financial Times, the salmon-colored authoritative newspaper that is closely read by traders and other financial types around the world, had an eye-opener for readers this morning.
It wasn’t the front-page, four-column wide headline, “Obama’s critics pounce on falling dollar as fears grow over currency.”
It wasn’t the graphic showing a red downward line over a dollar bill.
The jolt comes at the start of the second paragraph in the top story of the day on the dollar, “Sarah Palin….”
The newspaper, whose articles can move markets, quoted the former Republican vice presidential candidate and ex-Alaska governor from her Facebook post on the need for energy independence. Palin links the dependence on foreign oil and large U.S. deficits to declines in the dollar .
“We can see the effect of this in the price of gold, which hit a record high today in response to fears about the weakened dollar,” Palin wrote.
Palin’s power for using her Facebook page to affect public opinion is not to be taken lightly. Remember “death panels” which turned the healthcare debate into rabid townhall meetings this summer — that phrase emerged from Palin’s Facebook page.
This is the same person who left Wasilla millions in debt after ONE TERM as mayor. What a genius.
Oh, well, Dick Cheney says deficits don’t matter, so what’s all the fuss about anyway?
Oh, wait, its REPUBLICAN deficits that don’t matter!
