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New Rules – New Game?

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Tuesday is scheduled to be the day that everything changes. Not everything, really, but it’s the day that the “Volcker Rule” will finally go into effect. “Leave the capital markets to their own devices without any expectation of government protection and keep the existing safety net for the commercial banking system,” Volcker said in 2009. In practice, this means that commercial banking, with deposits backed by the FDIC, have to be separated from stock trading and similar activities.

It’s not the Glass-Steagall Act, which required completely separate kinds of banks operating as different companies to perform the different kinds of investing. But it’s not bad. And if it sounds simple in principle the regulation authorized by Dodd-Frank takes 800 pages. Four years from its proposal and 3 years from its passage, it’s ready to roll out. How will it go?

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A Good Week!

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The economic news this week has been amazing – at least five pieces of news that show that 2013 is shaping up to be the year that sets the foundation for a strong restructuring, as predicted here last January. It’s hard to run it all down without getting a little breathless, so … hold on to something …

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The Economy of People

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The economic teachings of Pope Francis are a hot topic. People feel a need to weigh in on what he said whether they understand it or not. But it’s the simple fact that so many don’t understand where this comes from that is probably the most important point in the public debate.

To sum it up: Money should work for people, and not the other way around. That shouldn’t be controversial, but having forgotten this way of looking at things is may be at the heart of economic and social cycles. The simple answer is that it’s time we remembered. More to the point, that philosophy is at the heart of American tradition going back to our earliest days.

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Black Friday Psychology

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Black Friday. It’s worth $59B in sales this year, if you believe the projections. More importantly, it’s a financial and cultural reference point, the day when the Holiday Shopping Season officially starts.

But Black Friday is really a state of mind.

The psychology of the day is what matters most, as the excitement and crowds fueled by a small number of loss leaders gets people to spend far more than they otherwise should on other not-so-great deals in the stores. That’s how shoppers are manipulated by a system that sees them as nothing more than pawns to be used up on a game where the take on one day is really just a way of keeping score.

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One Week to Go

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One week from now, the holiday shopping season fires up in a big way. Predictions for how good or bad it will be have been all over the place, ranging from a net drop in spending according to Morgan Stanley to a record-bursting rise if you believe accounting firm Deloitte. It’s been impossible to figure which was more likely, although Barataria staked a claim to the stronger end before anyone else. We’re starting to get some data in and it looks like the optimists were right. This might be a good year after all.

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