Hedge fund fallout & Other Merry Weather

James Farmelant farmelantj at juno.com
Thu Oct 1 10:06:28 PDT 1998


A short while ago I was watching some of Al Greenspan's testimony before the House Banking Committee concerning hedge funds. Greenspan was arguing that hedge funds should be regulated by the free market rather than by the government but as Barney Frank pointed out this argument was inconsistent with his defense of the government's facilitation of the bailout of LCTM. Apparently, for this one-time disciple of Ayn Rand government intervention is fine when it benefits wealthy investors.

Jim Farmelant

On Wed, 30 Sep 1998 07:49:33 -0700 James Devine <jdevine at popmail.lmu.edu> writes:
>At 04:23 PM 9/29/98 -0400, Carl Remick wrote:
>on the LTCM bailout: > ... When the NY Times, for God's sake, starts
>talking about
>>the dangers of creeping "crony capitalism" in the nation, there's a
>>definite shift in the wind zeitgeistwise. I think Will Sutton in
>that
>>Observer piece that was posted here nailed the implications of the
>LTCM
>>bailout exactly: "Last week, free market economic theory died."
>>There's a big difference between the run-of-the-mill hypocrisy that
>>normally oils our economic workings and the *naked* hypocrisy seen in
>>the Fed's orchestration of the LTCM bailout while we urge the rest of
>>the world to heed market strictures. PR-wise, this is much worse
>than,
>>say, the RTC bailout -- with thrifts, at least, you could *claim* to
>be
>>protecting grass-roots financial interests to some extent; it's hard
>to
>>make the "jes' lookin' out for the folks" argument with the LTCM
>crowd.
>
>it's interesting to note that Matt Miller -- a professional
>middle-of-the-roader, who works for US News & World Report and plays
>the
>"center" on an amusing public radio show called "left, right, and
>center"
>(with Bob Scheer and Ariana Huffington on left and right,
>respectively) --
>was a bit peeved by this bailout in today's LA TIMES. No one, he said
>in
>his op-ed piece, ever held an emergency meeting of this sort to bail
>out
>the children stuck in poverty....
>
>Jim Devine jdevine at popmail.lmu.edu &
>http://clawww.lmu.edu/Departments/ECON/jdevine.html
>
>

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