On Sep 15, 2007, at 12:02 PM, bhandari at berkeley.edu wrote:
> I have been really struck by Doug's pithy formulation of the rentier
> punishment of investment.
Always gratifying to be strikingly pithy!
> I think that we need to explore the shareholder
> revolution. Even when profits are retained, they are often not used
> for
> accumulation but paring down debt, buying back stock, and merging and
> acquiring. That is, profits have often not been used for
> accumulation as
> if
> rentiers have punishing investment and at times forcing shut downs and
> sell offs of assets.
> Any reading suggestions other than of course Doug's Wall Street
> which I
> shall revisit. I remember Doug quoting Jensen on the problem of
> disgorging
> cash.
Rakesh, did you read Bernanke's latest on the savings glut? He says the U.S. has to invest more and reindustrialize to help get the c/a back into balance. He gave the speech at a Bundesbank conference when Wall Street expected him to talk about the subprime crisis and the credit crunch. Instead, he took a long-term perspective. I think his tacit message was a little slowdown would be a good thing, so don't expect a quick bailout. The markets didn't pay much attention though.
Bernanke: <http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/ bernanke20070911a.htm>.
Doug