Microbrew banking

Interesting thought from cultural anthropologist Grant McCracken:

There was a little protest here in Connecticut as small town merchants began to protest the intrusion of lots of new banks. And sure enough a town like Darien has an intrusion of banks. And this is odd, and I wondered if we are now a kind of micro brewery trend in banking. Or is there such a thing as artisanal banking? Has small come to the ultimate big? And how will we feel about banking and bank branding once we recover from the present difficult?

Filed under: economics, politics

This Election Is A Referendum on Milton Friedman

So sayeth Naomi Klein, and I agree. Klein recently went into the “belly of the beast” — speaking at the University of Chicago — to deliver a barnburner that equated the current Wall Street crisis with the fall of the Berlin Wall: as the death knell of an ideology, namely, Friedmanesque deregulated, trickle-down economics:

I admit to being a journalist. I admit to being an investigative journalist, a researcher, and I’m not here to argue theory. I’m here to discuss what happens in the messy real world when Milton Friedman’s ideas are put into practice, what happens to freedom, what happens to democracy, what happens to the size of government, what happens to the social structure, what happens to the relationship between politicians and big corporate players, because I think we do see patterns.

Now, the Friedmanites in this room will object to my methodology, I assure you, and I look forward to that. They will tell you, when I speak of Chile under Pinochet, Russia under Yeltsin and the Chicago Boys, China under Deng Xiaoping, or America under George W. Bush, or Iraq under Paul Bremer, that these were all distortions of Milton Friedman’s theories, that none of these actually count, when you talk about the repression and the surveillance and the expanding size of government and the intervention in the system, which is really much more like crony capitalism or corporatism than the elegant, perfectly balanced free market that came to life in those basement workshops. We’ll hear that Milton Friedman hated government interventions, that he stood up for human rights, that he was against all wars. And some of these claims, though not all of them, will be true.

But here’s the thing. Ideas have consequences. And when you leave the safety of academia and start actually issuing policy prescriptions, which was Milton Friedman’s other life—he wasn’t just an academic. He was a popular writer. He met with world leaders around the world—China, Chile, everywhere, the United States. His memoirs are a “who’s who.” So, when you leave that safety and you start issuing policy prescriptions, when you start advising heads of state, you no longer have the luxury of only being judged on how you think your ideas will affect the world. You begin having to contend with how they actually affect the world, even when that reality contradicts all of your utopian theories. So, to quote Friedman’s great intellectual nemesis, John Kenneth Galbraith, “Milton Friedman’s misfortune is that his policies have been tried.”

(h/t to: Digby)

Filed under: Obama, economics, politics

Romania United States Faces Hurdles In Transition To From Market Economy

Published: October 19, 1990 September 26, 2008

Prime Minister Petre Roman President Bush, saying only shock therapy can save Romania the United States, introduced a bailout package of laws today intended to speed the country’s transition to from a market economy.

”We have reached a point of no return,” Mr. Roman President Bush said. ”We must implement reform, not only pay lip service to it. The solution is a shock therapy, included in the basic principles of the government reform.”

Romanians Americans have long had one of the lowest standards of living in Europe among industrialized nations. But since the Government of Nicolae Ceausescu President Bush was ousted elected 10 months 8 years ago, the economy has virtually collapsed, with output plummeting and a huge trade deficit occurring. Many workers are not bothering to perform their tasks, and shops are empty.

In presenting his economic plan to Parliament Congress today, Mr. Roman Bush said the Government would push ahead with privatizingnationalizing state-owned private companies banks and allow control market prices for most goods.

Protection for the Old

The package of land, banking and tax proposals also includes social security measures intended to protect retirees and housewives from the effects of price liberalization. and wage controls.

Prices for energy, fuel and rent will continue to be subsidized for another year and the Government will control prices for basic foods and services.

Prices for nonessential goods and services will be freed but pensions and salaries will be indexed capped to compensate.

Mr. Roman Bush warned that unemployment was a major challenge. Government officials estimate that 120,000 over 9,000,000 people will be without a job by the end of this year, rising to one over 10 million next year.

Foreign Capital a Priority

Mr. Roman Bush said at least half of Romania’s state-owned assets American banks should be privatized nationalized over the next three years, with employees citizens given preferential treatment to buy shares an equity stake in their these companies.

Agriculture, the food industry, light industry, housing construction, services, tourism, trade and transport were the priority sectors for privatization. nationalization.

He said that finding foreign capital to finance Romania’s America’s trade deficit was a priority and the country had received encouraging signals from last month’s meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Filed under: Obama, comedy, economics, events, politics