It took the USA a long time (from the Great Depression) to establish a Middle Class. One would think the investment in a vast economic engine such as that would mean something. But, low and behold, Glass - Steagall in 1999 was repealed by a Republican majority in the USA Legislature and seven years later, the Middle Class was under attack. It hasn't recovered since.
As much as I wish it was the USA protecting and providing for the Middle Class here, I am pleased to see China is not undervaluing it's people. There is every reason to believe the Chinese Middle Class is becoming a great economic engine, too. That is what USA foreign policy is supposed to be about. It is suppose to lift up other people's so fair trade can exist in a world that values quality of life and longevity for all peoples.
It is nice to realize China is carry through with commitments to rid itself of corruption and danger to it's economy and people. We did the right thing by coming to China a long time ago. It has taken a few decades, but, it's leadership is showing it is everything we hoped it would be for the Chinese people.
February 22, 2018
China’s government (click here) seized temporary control of Anbang Insurance Group Co. and will prosecute founder Wu Xiaohui for alleged fraud, cementing the downfall of a politically connected dealmaker whose aggressive global expansion came to symbolize the financial overreach of China’s debt-laden conglomerates.
As much as I wish it was the USA protecting and providing for the Middle Class here, I am pleased to see China is not undervaluing it's people. There is every reason to believe the Chinese Middle Class is becoming a great economic engine, too. That is what USA foreign policy is supposed to be about. It is suppose to lift up other people's so fair trade can exist in a world that values quality of life and longevity for all peoples.
It is nice to realize China is carry through with commitments to rid itself of corruption and danger to it's economy and people. We did the right thing by coming to China a long time ago. It has taken a few decades, but, it's leadership is showing it is everything we hoped it would be for the Chinese people.
February 22, 2018
China’s government (click here) seized temporary control of Anbang Insurance Group Co. and will prosecute founder Wu Xiaohui for alleged fraud, cementing the downfall of a politically connected dealmaker whose aggressive global expansion came to symbolize the financial overreach of China’s debt-laden conglomerates.
The surprise move furthers President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption and de-leveraging campaigns while providing a government backstop for the high-yield investment products that Anbang sold to hordes of Chinese citizens. It suggests that after months of clamping down on acquisitive tycoons, China is increasingly focused on insulating the economy from their shaky finances.
It’s a remarkable turn for Anbang, which burst onto the global scene in 2014 with the purchase of New York’s Waldorf Astoria hotel and only a year ago was in talks to invest in a company owned by the family of Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser. With 2 trillion yuan ($315 billion) of assets, Anbang represents China’s largest-ever takeover of a privately owned company.
“This is another step in China Inc.’s great unwinding,” Brock Silvers, managing director at Kaiyuan Capital, a Shanghai-based multi-asset advisory firm, said in an email....
Now, those crazy fluctuations of the DOW wasn't about China nationalizing Angang? Was it?
That is an interesting picture of our former Secretary of the Treasury. I don't recall the moment, but, it looks interesting.
February 21, 2018
By Milton Ezrati
Though the financial crisis of 2008-09 happened a decade ago, (click here) serious questions remain, especially about how Washington handled the crisis. Answers might profitably inform policy going forward. Two points in particular stand out: the decision to rescue troubled firms and the ad hoc, almost chaotic way the authorities went about things. Washington claimed at the time that it had little choice, that the financial system was on the verge of collapse. Even so, alternatives existed that Washington seemed not even to have considered. In retrospect, the chosen policies probably exacerbated the panic that seized markets at the time.
Issues of blame go beyond the remit of this blog, but not the financial efficacy of what was done. Top question on this list is whether rescues were the most effective response. They were clearly the first choice of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who, with the blessing of President George W. Bush, pushed for a huge $700 billion relief package for the country’s largest financial institutions, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). That is big money even by Washington’s standards. At the time, the government advanced the argument that it had to save these institutions to keep the financial system functioning. Congress bought in but only on the second try. The first time, the nation’s representatives voted TARP down. Financial people, of course, embraced the idea enthusiastically....
...Nor would an alternative with bankruptcies have brought down financial markets, as some have claimed. After all, bankruptcy does not stop the functions of the firm involved. It would have put board members out of a job as well as the senior executives, the opposite of TARP. Bankruptcy might have halted some of the more aggressive behavior of these firms, which might not have been so bad. Otherwise these firms would have remained in operation. Brokers would still have executed and cleared trades. Investment banks would still have floated new issues, not has actively as the year before, of course, but then that happened anyway. Banks would have cleared checks and advanced loans, if less actively than in prior years, which was the case anyway. The system would have functioned....
Now, those crazy fluctuations of the DOW wasn't about China nationalizing Angang? Was it?
That is an interesting picture of our former Secretary of the Treasury. I don't recall the moment, but, it looks interesting.
February 21, 2018By Milton Ezrati
Though the financial crisis of 2008-09 happened a decade ago, (click here) serious questions remain, especially about how Washington handled the crisis. Answers might profitably inform policy going forward. Two points in particular stand out: the decision to rescue troubled firms and the ad hoc, almost chaotic way the authorities went about things. Washington claimed at the time that it had little choice, that the financial system was on the verge of collapse. Even so, alternatives existed that Washington seemed not even to have considered. In retrospect, the chosen policies probably exacerbated the panic that seized markets at the time.
Issues of blame go beyond the remit of this blog, but not the financial efficacy of what was done. Top question on this list is whether rescues were the most effective response. They were clearly the first choice of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who, with the blessing of President George W. Bush, pushed for a huge $700 billion relief package for the country’s largest financial institutions, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). That is big money even by Washington’s standards. At the time, the government advanced the argument that it had to save these institutions to keep the financial system functioning. Congress bought in but only on the second try. The first time, the nation’s representatives voted TARP down. Financial people, of course, embraced the idea enthusiastically....
...Nor would an alternative with bankruptcies have brought down financial markets, as some have claimed. After all, bankruptcy does not stop the functions of the firm involved. It would have put board members out of a job as well as the senior executives, the opposite of TARP. Bankruptcy might have halted some of the more aggressive behavior of these firms, which might not have been so bad. Otherwise these firms would have remained in operation. Brokers would still have executed and cleared trades. Investment banks would still have floated new issues, not has actively as the year before, of course, but then that happened anyway. Banks would have cleared checks and advanced loans, if less actively than in prior years, which was the case anyway. The system would have functioned....
