An Interesting Proposal
Robert Peston, BBC business editor, weighs in on How to solve the crisis.
I like the way he thinks, probably because we think a lot alike. For example, he wrote:
Probably only governments, through the deployment of taxpayers’ money, can solve a financial crisis that was created in large part by the foolish financial risks taken by bankers and financiers whose common sense was wiped out by greed.
And I wrote: “Greed subordinates common sense, and consequences are for “little people”.”
The short version of his main proposal is to do what Warren Buffett did and exchange public funds for preferred stock, the same thing I’ve been saying for a week, but he has a very interesting secondary proposal on retirement funds.
While most people in the UK have pension coverage through their jobs, many lower paid workers don’t, and don’t have the resources to do much for themselves. Peston wants to create a retirement system for those workers and use a government loan to get in on the investment opportunities that are currently available. It is an interesting proposal.
2 comments
Hmmm. Interesting indeed! 🙂
I was just reading Thomas L. Friedman’s colum (by accident actually!) LOL I don’t usually… but it was interesting, for a change lately. LOL
Thomas L. Friedman: Swedish spoken here
Seems that more and more are *getting it*. Probably too late IMHO.
Well, the basic point is correct, but Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac don’t do subprime. Their problems were in accurately reporting what they did have, although they really wanted to get into the messy bits.