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Cleaning Up Wall Street?

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What charges can be brought against the biggest rogue traders out there?  The answer, apparently, is just about anything the SEC can get to stick.  After being humiliated in the US Senate and severely beaten to the punch by an aggressive NY District Attorney, they’re ready for action.  But they can be forgiven if the actual charge is a bit less than impressive – it comes with a lifetime ban on trading, if not a jail sentence.

It’s a start.  It comes about 5 years too late and may be a bit short of a landmark conviction, but it appears that a cadre of prosecutors and regulators are getting serious about doing their jobs.  Is it in time to save Wall Street?

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Summertime Party! (For Now)

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The US government ran a surplus in June!  Stocks are at all-time highs!  The party is starting in a big way in the normally lazy daze of summer.  Are you ready to join it?

Not so fast.  Barataria has been a source for positive economic news for at least a year now, but it’s always been tempered with caution.  Things are turning around, yes, but the headlines hide the work that still needs to be done to make this into something much bigger.   It’s up to all of us, really, to find a way to make it happen.

But we do have a party, at least as long as Ben Bernanke is buying.  He’s a fun guy, really.

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The Rhyme of Texas History

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Senator Wendy Davis knew exactly what she was getting into.  Her stand was to be a 13 hour test of endurance, constantly speaking without any food or water.  Since she couldn’t even sit, a back brace reinforced her spine.  Her feet that would carry the load were shorn with pink running shoes, the uniform of a marathoner.  She girded herself for the physical strain of a filibuster, the only way to stop SB5, a series of restrictions on abortion that would close 37 of the 42 clinics in the state if passed.  The rights of all women of Texas were on the line, and Senator Davis would not yield.

On a warm day 177 years earlier Jim Bowie heard the army of General Santa Anna was approaching San Antonio.  Though he was ailing, he readied for the fight.  He and 188 other men made their last stand for freedom in the mission known as the Alamo.   After a 13 day siege, Santa Anna’s troops stormed in and slaughtered them all.  But the process wasted 3 weeks, giving Sam Houston time to organize – and the news of the slaughter confirmed it was now a death match.  They would either win their freedom or die trying.  The Texans rallied and eventually won their independence.

Senator Wendy Davis’ fight is not over, and with a new special session it is likely to end in defeat.  But like the Alamo, sometimes a battle lost is a war won.

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Reasonable Expectation of Privacy?

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The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
– The Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution

The documents were carefully selected for their ability to illustrate the problem without being sensational or personal.  The exit strategy led to Hong Kong, with a long tradition of free speech but under the control of the US’ one serious non-friend, China.  The leak was given to the Guardian, a non-US publication with a history of defending speech and privacy.  All of this is the work of a methodical mind turning himself over completely to what he believes is simply the right thing to do.

Edward Snowden is a hero, and a very smart one at that.  A petition has already started for a Presidential pardon, and I hope you will sign it.

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This Time Really is Different

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The year was 1930.  The greatest depression in US history closed around the nation like a dark shadow.  Congress was desperate to do something that put the nation to work again.  What could do it?  Rep. Willis Hawley (R-OR) and Sen. Reed Smoot (R-UT) had a plan – close down imports and make Americans buy products made in America.  Their plan, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, raised import taxes on over 20,000 items to about the highest level they had ever been.  Nations around the world responded with their own tariffs, starting with Canada, slashing all trade in and out of the US in half.  Nearly everyone agrees that this made the Great Depression much worse everywhere.

Flash forward to 2013.  Japan returns the Liberal Democratic Party to power on the promise to put the nation to work again.  Their plan?  Not to shut down trade, but to increase it – goosing exports by lowering the value of their currency and making their stuff cheaper.

The situations and the plans are very similar, but the underlying assumption is completely different.  The world has passed from Nationalism to Globalism as the basic driving force.  And that difference is worth thinking through.

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