Friday, April 2, 2010

Hoening: The Claim that America Needs Megabanks to Compete Globally is Nothing But "A Fantasy"


Thomas Hoening - the longest-serving Federal Reserve policy maker, a voting member of the Fed's main policy-making body (the Federal Open Market Committee), and President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City - told Shahien Nasiripour that the claim that the U.S. needs megabanks to compete globally (as made by Jamie Dimon and others) is nothing but fantasy:

That is a fantasy -- I don't know how else to describe it. Our strengths will be from having a strong industrial economy. We will have financial institutions that are large enough to give us influence in the markets but not so large that they're too big to fail.

The outcome of that is that strong banks [and] strong economies bring capital to themselves, and they are by themselves competitive.

The United States became a financial center not because we had large institutions but because we had a strong industrial economy with a good working financial system across the United States -- not just highly-concentrated in one market area [i.e. Wall Street].

For background, see this and this.

2 comments:

  1. I love the idea of making money off of money....completely speculative....also gambling is illegal....but Wall Street, big Banks can do as they wish...hell create new games at the country's expense...the idea of working hard....doing a job that is beneficial to society...honest...is long gone...americans want to sit on their fat a$$'s and collect millions...gaming the system...and thinking that's the way it should be (entitlement)....free money for everyone...all I have to do is sit here and speculate

    ReplyDelete
  2. This TBTFail squabble effectively distracts us from a bigger more intractible and more fiercely defended and secreted dynamic;

    Big banks not only milk the finances of every US citizen, they milk the finances of every country and person in the world.

    This is why UK and US, have infinitely better standards of living than most all other countries. London is not greatly productive nor is wall street but together they control proportionately more of the wealth of the globe than any other place.

    They take a cut.

    As with GSachs and Greece, they are insiders. They, the TBTF's profit at each stage; currency up, currency down, loans, defaults, insurances, investments. Greeces and Icelands provide invisible "tributes".

    They, the TBTF's take a cut.

    CDS were sold to Australian Local Councils as sound investments, now nearly worthless..these are the visible "tributes".

    Youve heard that "All roads lead to Rome"?

    Well all finances are milked by TBTFs to the USAUKs benefit.
    This is what no one will dare to rein in,
    nor even speak of.
    Without that support,..(You thought housing was a collapsing bubble)... its a looooong way down.

    ReplyDelete

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