Posted By:
Bruce Dorskind
For the past two hours, we were attending a private lecture with Steve Forbes
Forbes was quite articulate with regard to why we are in such mess, whose fault
it is and what has to be done
The reasons
(1) Fed printed too much money in 2004
(2) FASB Created "mark to market" which met financial institutions and other public
firms had to adjust balance sheet monthly to reflect perceived value of assets not
the actual value they would realize--i.e. it would be like if you changed the valuation
of your collection everytime there was a price change on VCBC or in the SMR
(3) Poor oversight at the SECon (a) Naked shorting (b) Uptick rule on short stocks
(4) Democrats support, including today (Barney Frank) of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
(5) Bush's promotion of a weak dollar
Forbes put the blame on both parties, but primarily on regulators who do not understand
basic economics. He called the crisis the most unnecessary tragic event in American History
and had some suggestions
(a) Eliminate Mark to Mark
(b) Fed buy preferred stock of financial institutions
(c) reinstate the rules regard naked shorting of hedge fund and reinstate the uptick rule-
you have have a stock tick up before you can short it
He assumes that Obama will be President and either Larry Summers or Steve Ratner (Hedge Fund fame)w
will be Treasury- indicates that the biggest mistake they can make will be to raise taxes- it will kill
any chance of recovery ---i.e. Clinton tax raise in 1993- vis a vis no tax rise under JFK in 1961
Our Problem With Poor Liberals
We are sick and tired of the - "its their fault attitude"- there is nothing wrong if someone wants to work
7 days a week and earns $50 million a year- A Rod works 6 months and earns that with endorsements
and he doesn't even perform
This country is built on risk taking- Greed is good makes sense- without greed there would be no rich
people and no motivation. That, however, does not mean someone should break the law. Those who break
the law must be severely punished.
Unless one wants to win the World Series every year and unless you want to win
every client and ravage your competition you can't be fabulously successful.
How many Board Members who complain about the rich work 18 hours -7 days a week- 50 weeks a year.
People who work that hard deserve whatever success they achieve. Society owes nothing to those who are able to compete, but chose not to
Bruce Dorskind
America's Toughest Want List