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Oct

6

Thank you, Josh Marshall for asking about Kashkari


It is okay to question decisions made by people who ostensibly are in positions with massive amounts of power. In fact, they are the exact people we should be questioning, every time they make decisions that will impact us. And, in fact, democracy depends upon our standing up and questioning our leaders.  That’s the demo part of democracy – people-powered government.

So thank you to Josh Marshall for saying what I said, though a bit more eloquently than I did, and more plainly (for those who refuse to recognize why this decision by Henry Paulsen might not engender confidence, why it is that the choice of Neel Kashkari needs some serious coverage):

For all I know this guy’s a friggin’ genius. But did Hank Paulson really just put a 35 year old former Goldman Sachs VP in charge of the entire bailout program?

Let me be clear, on the face of it, Neel Kashkari looks impressive. But VP isn’t even a high position at Goldman. And his background appears to be in tech investing, though he has been leading up Treasury’s response to the housing meltdown (a ambiguous recommendation in itself.)

In any case, I want to be clear. I’m not saying Kashkari is another Michael Brown. But he is going to be in charge of upwards of a trillion dollars, in a task that would challenge an economics and finance genius from any era, and one rife with ethical and conflict of interest pitfalls.

I think we need to hear a lot more about the thinking behind this appointment.

For more along these lines, check out PunditMom’s post, Is the Treasury letting the fox into the henhouse?

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 2:13 pm October 6th, 2008 in Blogging, Economy, Government, Politics 

Comments

One Response to “Thank you, Josh Marshall for asking about Kashkari”

  1. 1 Oengus on October 6th, 2008 5:12 pm

    Did you know that Bank of America used to be Bank of Italy? When the big earth quake devastated SF they where the only bank to stay open, they also created the VISA system.
    They are a good well run bank, they are actually handling this crisis and taking steps.

    The bailout for the most part is wrong and will have the same results just with a bigger debt in government and a certain people are going to make money off it.

    They are creating a sort of repository or at least that is what they should be doing. That repository should be based on geographical locations, I wonder if they figured that out yet? I doubt it, they just see the loans as paper. That’s because all of the debit is secured with real property. It should be processed regionally and with a sense of the areas the loans are concentrated in. The banks do that remotely after the default they go back and fourth and all the time the properties fall in value and incur costs. They have to be appraised and in some cases repaired or maintained…like mowing the lawn. The repository can buy off the loans at a discount and that will increase capital for the banks to offer loans to those that are still ready, willing and able to finance. But what makes us think that the repository which is imaginary has any ability to process these loans any better? They won’t they will sell them to somebodies in-law or cousin, or the banks will keep the high end homes and dump the low end. The result will be the inner city will be the representation of your $700B investment. The bank will keep the expensive homes and sell it at a loss, not to the repository not unless the repository offers more than what they know it is worth. They will dump from the bottom up and hold the high value homes and refinance them with the new found capital.

    Not that complex if the home is located in an area that has an average household income below 30K what is it worth? I know the real market values and most of the homes are not in line with what people earn.

    That is why any attempt to recover has to address all high risk loans by regions, and that crosses many institutions. But all of them have to be addressed regionally or it will not have good results.

    The panacea is in your home being valued on what it sells for and not what the average income can afford. The average value is equal to the average income in any given area. It is over valued because they allowed falsities into the equation interest only, tax abatement and then transfers of inflated equity, the later being highly correlated to the first two.

    The repository should be linked to construction and renovations, and also to building public housing in the form of low cost rentals. Holistically by region and with intentional stratifications in income based on the rules of income. That being what you can really afford and what it is really worth.

    They should be looking at county data bases, that is a repository in that it holds all the recorded real property and also the filed liens. It should be updated and metrics built into it the value should be less subjective, but what the heck do I know. I suppose some would see this as government control? It would not it would be real values real-time and if a person paid cash or if the financed its on them if they think it is worth more than it is. I also notice a heck of lot of people earning way more than they are worth.

    I think this all has to do with people not liking math, “what will I ever need algebra for” much of this linear and not that complex.

    Government has to spend less and actually charge more to fix this, that can only happen one way it is called efficiency. It does not require financial geniuses, it requires Urban Planners and project engineers. It requires big picture thinkers, that is a lot of money and it could do great things. It does need a lot of good honest people with a lot of common sense, we are not getting a clear picture of what this is intended to do are we. How can we embrace it?

    Heaven forbid you neighborhood began to look better and your costs fell at the same time. We need to deflate everything, if it is global then our goal should be the most for the money, we still think the most expensive is the best.

    I am not sure if Obama would get this? I am very sure McCain would not, I know for a fact Clinton would have. Why is it that the ones with the balls to do it, the balls to hammer it in, do not have the right ideas?

    I live on a island, what the heck where are the thinkers, where are the brilliant people.

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