Obama's Clinton Problem: Deregulation made the prosperity of the 1990s possible.(reason.com)
reason.com
Obama's Clinton Problem: Deregulation made the prosperity of the 1990s possible.
http://www.reason.com/news/show/130222.html
21 comments
I think an honest appraisal would say that Clinton-GOP governance gave us both the prosperity of the 90s and today's crisis.
My thoughts exactly. It's not easy to look at prosperity, before a storm, and identify it's contribution to the storm. But the correlation is interesting enough to make blanket statements regarding prosperity and deregulation subject to no conclusion.
My thoughts exactly. It's not easy to look at prosperity, before a storm, and identify it's contribution to the storm. But the correlation is interesting enough to make blanket statements regarding prosperity and deregulation subject to no conclusion.
(An exception is Sarbanes-Oxley, which has been much criticized, but I have not heard anyone blame it for the current financial crisis.)
You've never heard anyone point out that Sarbox raised the cost of being a public company, which increased the number of LBOs, which leveraged the economy and fed the CDO market, which led to the collapse?
You've never heard anyone point out that Sarbox raised the cost of being a public company, which increased the number of LBOs, which leveraged the economy and fed the CDO market, which led to the collapse?
Regulation is not a binary choice between all and none. Removing the Glass-Steagall Act is a large part of why the government felt the need to dump 700billion in the financial markets. We could let Leamon Brothers fail because they where not tightly coupled with the rest of the market, but AIG was tided up in so many market's they felt they had to save it. Which IMO demonstrates why you need more regulation on large companies than small. When a 50 person company fail's not much happens but when a 50,000 person institution fails the ripples spread throughout the market.
I think Sarbanes-Oxley was over regulation, but letting a 50+ billion$ company get leveraged 30x is stupid.
I think Sarbanes-Oxley was over regulation, but letting a 50+ billion$ company get leveraged 30x is stupid.
Sarbanes Oxley has been a disaster. I used to work in audit for Deloitte; I still have nightmares.
I would never ever take one of my companies public (if we're lucky enough to get that far :-D).
I would never ever take one of my companies public (if we're lucky enough to get that far :-D).
Agreed.
It's interesting that SarBox has so many advocates. After all, it sounds good on paper -- kind of like killing flies with nuclear radiation. Definitely shows that the government means business.
In my opinion, it seems that when a crisis occurs, we have a tendency to over-react (SarBox, TSA, etc) Politicians would rather be remembered for "doing something" even if later on it turns out to be a huge CF.
It's interesting that SarBox has so many advocates. After all, it sounds good on paper -- kind of like killing flies with nuclear radiation. Definitely shows that the government means business.
In my opinion, it seems that when a crisis occurs, we have a tendency to over-react (SarBox, TSA, etc) Politicians would rather be remembered for "doing something" even if later on it turns out to be a huge CF.
In a way it sort of reminds me of the sex offender laws - what politic could vote against it? The headline media would destroy him: "Senator X Supports Sex Offender".
The media has long relegated it's role of being an educator. Hopefully, this mess is big enough to make editors and journalists wake up and realize that their 401k's are getting screwed too.
"Removing the Glass-Steagall Act is a large part of why the government felt the need to dump 700billion in the financial markets."
Really? Where's your evidence? I'm not saying you're wrong, but that's a pretty big leap.
Really? Where's your evidence? I'm not saying you're wrong, but that's a pretty big leap.
Glass-Steagall Act had little to do with the cause of the collapse but if you trace the companies that received money some of them merged and become larger in ways that Glass-Steagall would have prevented. Nobody really cared if subsection of these organizations failed but the companies where structured in such a way that the CDS market and bad mortgage debt infected otherwise sound institutions.
PS: For a slightly different take: http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/would-glass-steagall-s...{3AA33D85-AD38-41B4-B300-033235B5734A}
Edit: that link is not working goto http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/10/would-glass-ste... then click on Go to Article from MarketWatch » at the bottom.
PS: For a slightly different take: http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/would-glass-steagall-s...{3AA33D85-AD38-41B4-B300-033235B5734A}
Edit: that link is not working goto http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/10/would-glass-ste... then click on Go to Article from MarketWatch » at the bottom.
Sorry, but an article which gives no credit to the widespread adoption of personal computers and the internet cannot possibly be correct when talking about what made the 1990s prosperous.
Slightly unrelated, but the draconian regulations enforced on the logistics industry has crippled many small players. Its amazing what they put companies through to strengthen "National Security." My father, who owned and operated a same day, small package delivery company, says concerning DHS's regulatory requirements, "They're terrorizing us."
Both Obama and McCain talked about improving/increasing regulation because that's what they thought the public wanted to hear. Obama was able to do it more credibly, which helped his campaign. He was always quite unspecific, though, leaving his administration the option of e.g. improving enforcement or oversight rather than just writing a bunch of new rules. Obama never really promised to be a liberal, but both people who wanted to love him and people who wanted to fear him for that were able to hear what they wanted.
The lesson here is how important it is that politicians ignore their campaign promises. In Alan Greenspan's book "The Age of Turbulence", Greenspan expresses surprise that the Bush administration wanted to follow through on the tax cuts and rebates they promised when the government was running a surplus even after that surplus was projected to vanish. Other presidents, he recalled, were always willing to throw out campaign promises that no longer suited the circumstances.
This is where Obama's vagueness, stern rhetoric, and large margin of victory are reassuring. We probably won't give him too hard a time if he doesn't add a bunch of regulations, or if he decides to change his tax plan a bit. Hopefully this will help the experts do their job.
The lesson here is how important it is that politicians ignore their campaign promises. In Alan Greenspan's book "The Age of Turbulence", Greenspan expresses surprise that the Bush administration wanted to follow through on the tax cuts and rebates they promised when the government was running a surplus even after that surplus was projected to vanish. Other presidents, he recalled, were always willing to throw out campaign promises that no longer suited the circumstances.
This is where Obama's vagueness, stern rhetoric, and large margin of victory are reassuring. We probably won't give him too hard a time if he doesn't add a bunch of regulations, or if he decides to change his tax plan a bit. Hopefully this will help the experts do their job.
Con games are very prosperous, except to those who are being conned. Like any other pyramid scheme, Wall Street relies on an endless supply of new suckers to feed it from the bottom. The deregulation of the 90's opened the flood gates to suckerdom (retail investors and 401k) and the new suckers came pouring in. In the meantime Wall Street invented new carnival games such as mortgage backed securities and derivatives to pull in large foreign investors. But like any pyramid scheme, as soon as the promised return on investment fails to materialize, the suckers wise up and walk away, the bottom falls out. The government then shuts down the carnival, but investors forget these painful lessons after about 20 years or so after which the market is ripe for another boom, and then the carnival comes back to town.
If you read Reason enough, you'll know that they take this position -- that market liberalization makes the world better -- on pretty much every issue.
Which has no bearing on the validity of this particular piece, right? It's just a blanket statement about the source. You would take this particular piece and argue it on its merits, right? Not imply that because the publication has one pattern or another, the reasoning (ugh) is somehow tainted.
I just want to make sure that you are simply making an observation, and not trying to impeach the article by casting aspersions on the source.
I just want to make sure that you are simply making an observation, and not trying to impeach the article by casting aspersions on the source.
Pointing out a pattern of dogmatic reasoning unmoved by evidence to the contrary is hardly an ad hominem. It is a way of warning that this article adds no information, if you are already acquainted with the dogma. Also, if you believe that you have a convincing argument against the dogma, it will probably apply to this article.
In a similar fashion, if I tell you that an article recounts the same old many-worlds hypothesis, and you are acquainted with the many-worlds hypothesis, you may skip the article.
In a similar fashion, if I tell you that an article recounts the same old many-worlds hypothesis, and you are acquainted with the many-worlds hypothesis, you may skip the article.
In a similar fashion, if I tell you that an article recounts the same old many-worlds hypothesis, and you are acquainted with the many-worlds hypothesis, you may skip the article.
How about the case in which I am mistaken, and have never been exposed to a many-worlds argument that was well reasoned and persuasive?
I don't know if I would want to listen to an argument that claimed, for instance, that spirits lived in rocks. But if I were part of a community which found such an article interesting, I would find it more useful in terms of understanding both the posters and the cultural nature of the submission to take the argument on face value and submit a few kindly-worded criticisms. After all, maybe the other guy has never heard a clear, reasoned, and persuasive argument either, right?
How about the case in which I am mistaken, and have never been exposed to a many-worlds argument that was well reasoned and persuasive?
I don't know if I would want to listen to an argument that claimed, for instance, that spirits lived in rocks. But if I were part of a community which found such an article interesting, I would find it more useful in terms of understanding both the posters and the cultural nature of the submission to take the argument on face value and submit a few kindly-worded criticisms. After all, maybe the other guy has never heard a clear, reasoned, and persuasive argument either, right?
I think we are talking about two different kinds of arguments. I think the Reason article is more expository than polemical, which is a major part of my problem with it.
Suppose I tell you instead at the top of my article that the following starts from the premise that rocks are alive. Then I proceed to argue that you should destroy your computer and throw it into the ocean to preserve the rights of the minerals therein. The logic is sound and it's written in a witty, convincing style.
Sure, that's only one article, and it sounds pretty novel. Now imagine there is a Rocks First! organization that puts out pamphlets, magazines, books, and press releases on rock rights and the mineral personhood amendment, and reinterprets recent history in terms of the silent rock genocides that humans have perpetrated against their inert brethren. You can be pretty sure of the position before you read the material; it is derived from their fundamental beliefs.
In such a case, an argument at the core of the fundamental beliefs might sway an organi-centrist to become rock-conscious, but not peripheral stuff about a recent amendment defining marriage as between a human and a human.
The Reason article, I think, is just what you would expect someone to say who believed dogmatically in the power of the free market. It doesn't take opposing viewpoints into account on market deregulation, nor does it attempt to address the core issues that convince them this is the proper interpretation of the Clinton years. It leaves a lot of important questions unmentioned and unanswered.
Suppose I tell you instead at the top of my article that the following starts from the premise that rocks are alive. Then I proceed to argue that you should destroy your computer and throw it into the ocean to preserve the rights of the minerals therein. The logic is sound and it's written in a witty, convincing style.
Sure, that's only one article, and it sounds pretty novel. Now imagine there is a Rocks First! organization that puts out pamphlets, magazines, books, and press releases on rock rights and the mineral personhood amendment, and reinterprets recent history in terms of the silent rock genocides that humans have perpetrated against their inert brethren. You can be pretty sure of the position before you read the material; it is derived from their fundamental beliefs.
In such a case, an argument at the core of the fundamental beliefs might sway an organi-centrist to become rock-conscious, but not peripheral stuff about a recent amendment defining marriage as between a human and a human.
The Reason article, I think, is just what you would expect someone to say who believed dogmatically in the power of the free market. It doesn't take opposing viewpoints into account on market deregulation, nor does it attempt to address the core issues that convince them this is the proper interpretation of the Clinton years. It leaves a lot of important questions unmentioned and unanswered.
a pattern of dogmatic reasoning unmoved by evidence to the contrary
Which was not the claim that was made, right?
Which was not the claim that was made, right?
I don't know enough to make an informed opinion about what works, but intellectually, the model I would like is a completely deregulated field for very small companies, and as the companies grow, they get more and more regulated to control their influence.
I think an honest appraisal would say that Clinton-GOP governance gave us both the prosperity of the 90s and today's crisis. Or that Clinton-GOP governance was largely irrelevant to both.
I honestly don't know enough to demonstrate this empirically, but am suspicious of attempts to assign all credit for good things to policies you like but none of the blame for bad things. As the article says, the Clinton-GOP 90s policies are pretty much still the same policies we have in place to day. (An exception is Sarbanes-Oxley, which has been much criticized, but I have not heard anyone blame it for the current financial crisis.)
As for our President Elect, I think his relationship with the Clintons is a very complex one. At times he was hyperbolic in his praise. But earlier he more or less got Bill to throw a temper tantrum by suggesting that Reagan was a more transformational President than he had been. At other times he made the implication that alternating Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton would leave us pretty much in the same place we have been. After Obama secured the nomination and all the Democrats closed ranks is when Obama got all gushy about the Clintons and hyperbolic in his praise.
So I would not put too much stock in remarks about the Clintons to determine Obama's true leanings on specific policy issues.