dougist.com

A lot of people have lists of questions they want asked at tonight’s (or any) Presidential debate. Most center on the current economic crisis.

I’d like to add five questions that I’m not sure are in many people’s list…

John Renesch runs a thoughtful blog over at The Global Dialogue Center.

His recent post was called “Wall Street Skull and Crossbones”. I took issue with his emotional characterization of bankers as pirates.

He wrote: “Their sole purpose is to make a profit, and to do so with the least amount of capital as possible.”

John: You say that like it’s a bad thing…

I’m not sure I know how to react to the news today that the House of Representative defeated the bill giving Treasury the ability to purchase mis-priced assets from the banking system.

As the market collapsed, $1.1 trillion was destroyed in falling share values held by Americans. That is much more than the $700 billion that Treasury requested. So we no longer have the $700 billion, and we lost another $400 billion. I can’t think of a better definition of “stupid”…

Are Americans worthy of being saved?

During this financial crisis I have been wandering the halls of academia, blog space and the business world and I’m shocked by our people’s lack of comprehension about what is going on in the economy. The misperceptions about the current banking crisis, its seriousness, the implications, and potential solutions defy understanding. There are times when I just shake my head.

I have found that the groups of incomprehension fall into four camps…

As a follow on to my last post, and in the spirit of more regulation is good (the protest cry from the streets these days following Wall Street’s crisis), here are two ideas where we might be able to do more with less:

Fedealize insurance regulation, and adopt principles based accounting.

As quaint as state insurance regulation is, and as well intentioned as Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) was, its time for both to go. This is such a no brainer that it will never get done…

An angry and probably jealous nation is getting ready to make some big mistakes in financial industry regualtion.

Given that the media has been driven into a psychotic incoherent rage, first over the popularity of Sara Palin, and then by the incomprehensibility of a credit crunch that they really don’t understand but are absolutely convinced was done deliberately by people richer than they, to this there will be only one tolerable response: Criminalize more behavior.

The results will not be good…

The future wealth of a nation is built with pollution and by the looks of it, the future wealth of China will be awesome.

The scenes from today’s Olympic cycling road race in Beijing were stunning. NBC shot beautiful high definition video of the ancient city with its Asian filigree, curved cornices and dragon motifs…

There is good news in the bad news of Wall Street’s layoffs, or so Schumpeter would say.