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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (10801)	7/7/2009 12:27:31 PM
From: Hawkmoon	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 86355

men - the issue is that wealth must be created before it can be shared. Destroying wealth helps no one. Especially when it results in the wealth of the masses being transferred to the few, as I believe we've seen during the past 10 years. Unfortunately, many of those newly wealthy folks were financial manipulators (Hedge Funds.. etc) who really didn't create any productivity. They created speculative bubbles via their various machinations, fraudulent models and financial products, and then proceeded to profit from their utter destruction. We have some serious problems with the Credit Default Swap markets which have literally created a shadow insurance system to backstop the shadow banking system. Both have been unregulated and there is little transparency regarding counter-parties ability to pay off obligations. That was the entire reason the insurance industry had to be regulated in the first place, yet here we are again. And then combine it with a monopolistic credit ratings One of my pet peeves is that Hedge funds have to report their long positions, but they don't have to report their short positions. This has got to stop. Big institutional players simply must report all of their positions in order to properly attain price discovery and transparency. This limits the amount of manipulation they can achieve without subjecting themselves to "counter-manipulations" from those seeking to squeeze them. Additionaly, we need an SEC that actually does it's job. Bernie Madoff is a glaring indictment that they have been asleep at the switch. Add to this their seeming indifference to Naked Short Selling on a massive scale, and inability to regulate the Ratings Agencies, and we have the makings of a horrendous loss of confidence in the financial system as a whole. Finally, we need to re-capitalize and re-invigorate the financial surety sector. Without a strong insurance system that can assist in hedging against business risk, capital will be unwilling to invest. Capital sitting in the bank drawing 2-3% interest (the average CD rates out there for long-term money) is indicative of this lack of appetite for risk and deflationary pressures. We all know there were financial excesses, with a lot of people taking out loans they could never reasonably be expected to repay. But there are also a huge number of people who require access to credit, who can't get it. Banks have become risk adverse and that's calls into the question what their value is to society if they are unwilling/unable to properly assess business risk and provide private capital. The only recourse the have is to invest in government treasuries for yield and we know that politicians seldom know how to properly allocate capital or assess business risk. Hawk

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (10801)	7/7/2009 1:40:05 PM
From: RetiredNow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86355

I'd say it's the exact opposite. Under the GOP and Bush, they did a lot of wealth harvesting, but no planting for future wealth creation: * they harvested the wealth from future generations by borrowing money to give massive tax cuts, which mostly benefited the wealthy * engaged in warfare that borrowed more money from future generations and produced no wealth for either the current or future generations * they engaged in lax regulation that allowed a massive financial bubble to form, enriching plenty of wealthy CEOs on Wall Street and impoverishing many middle and lower class Americans. The GOP didn't do one thing to plant the seed for future prosperity. The Obama administration on the other hand has been busy cleaning up the Bush mess, while also helping to create a new renewable energy industry that will create more wealth than the Internet did. He's doing this despite massive opposition from oil and coal companies, the GOP, and from some Dems. Hopefully, he overcomes those negative forces for the future prosperity of this country.