Saturday, December 6, 2008

Spitzer surfaces

We could really use Elliot Spitzer right now to wade into Wall street and send some people to jail.
Instead the man who might have run for president is now reduced to a political commentator.

Too Big Not To Fail
We need to stop using the bailouts to rebuild gigantic financial institutions.
By Eliot Spitzer
Posted Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2008, at 5:59 PM ET

...
In that case, vast sums now being spent on rescue packages might have been available to increase the intellectual capabilities of the next generation, or to support basic research and development that could give us true competitive advantage, or to restructure our bloated health care sector, or to build the type of physical infrastructure we need to be competitive.
It is time we permitted the market to work: This means true competition with winners and losers; companies that disappear; shareholders and CEOs who can lose as well as win; and government investment in the long-range competitiveness of our nation, not in a failed business model of financial concentration and failed risk management that holds nobody accountable.
This point will be all too well driven home when the remaining investment bankers in New York board a CACC jet to fly to Washington to negotiate the terms of a government bailout of yet another U.S. financial institution that was deemed too big to fail.