[lbo-talk] Query, was the bondholder class

[Carrol Cox]

A query. State Farm has attacked the low interest rate policy of the Fed 
on the grounds that it would force Life Insurance companies into riskier 
investment in order to get the return they need to make good their 
obligations to policy holders. Could you comment on this.

Carrol

On 10/15/2011 12:59 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> On Oct 15, 2011, at 1:46 PM, lbo-talk-owner at lbo-talk.org wrote:
>
>> From: Thomas Volscho<Thomas.Volscho at csi.cuny.edu>
>> Date: October 15, 2011 1:46:32 PM EDT
>> To: "lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org"<lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
>> Subject: RE: [lbo-talk] Occupation Reading Group Recommendations
>>
>>
>> E. Ray Canterbery's (2000) Wall Street Capitalism: A Theory of the Bondholding Class is a good start.  He is a Keynesian, but humorous (he is critical of finance capital).  There is a shorter summary (see attached).  He has a new book but I have not read it.
>
> Maybe it's because this is kind of old, but I'm not sure I'd want to call it the bondholder class. It's a financial class - but that financial class also includes the CEO class, meaning it's essentially the capitalist class. And why favor bonds over all that other stuff?
>
> When I interviewed Brad DeLong a while back, he made the point that the classic rentier of old, with most of his money in low-coupon bonds, doesn't exist anymore. Portfolios are more diversified and often hedged. So, Brad says, there's not the material interest in austerity that there used to be. Which makes opposition to stimulus in Washington hard to understand, he said.
>
> Doug
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