Modern-Day American Hero: William K. Black

There are many exemplary American’s doing everything they can to expose the reality of our current financial crisis. Here, I would like to highlight William K. Black.

You must watch William Black’s recent appearance on Bill Moyers Journal:

William K. Black appearing on Bill Moyers Journal

Moyer: Why are they firing the president of GM and not firing the head of the all these banks that are involved?

Black: There are two reasons: 1.) they are much closer to the bankers. These are people from the banking industry and they have a lot more sympathy. In fact, they’re outright hostile to auto workers as you can see. They want to bash all of their contracts, but when they get to banking they say, “Oh! Contracts! Sacred!” But the other element of your question is, we don’t want to change the bankers because, if we do, if we put honest people in who didn’t cause the problem, their first job would be to find the scope of the problem. And that would destroy the cover up, and the cover up is…

Moyer: Cover up? That’s a serious charge. Who’s covering up?

Black: Geithner is covering up, just like Paulson did before him. Geithner is publicly saying that it is going to take two trillion, a trillion is a thousand billion, two trillion taxpayer dollars to deal with this problem. But they’re allowing all the banks to report that they are not only solvent, but fully capitalized. Both statements can’t be true. It can’t be that they need two trillion because they have massive losses and that they’re fine. These are all people who have failed. Paulson failed. Geithner failed. They were all promoted because they failed. Not because they may have succeeded.

Moyer: What do you mean?

Black: Well, Geithner was one of our nation’s top regulators during the entire subprime scandal that I just described. He took absolutely no effective action. He gave no warning. He did nothing in response to the FBI warning that there was an epidemic of fraud. All this pig-in-the-poke stuff happened under him. So in his phrase about legacy assets, well he was a failed legacy regulator.

[snip]

Moyer: To hear you say this is unusual because you supported Barrack Obama during the campaign last year, but you’re seeming disillusioned now.

Black: Well, certainly, in the financial sphere I am. I think first the policies are substantively bad, second I think they completely lack integrity, third they violate the rule of law. This is being done, just like Secretary Paulson did it, in violation of the law. We adopted a law after the savings and loan crisis called the “Prompt Corrective Action Law” and it requires them to close these institutions and they are refusing to obey the law.

Moyer: In other words, they could have closed these banks without nationalizing them?

Black: Well, you do a receivership. Nobody… Ronald Reagan did receiverships and nobody called it nationalization.

Moyer: And that’s the law?

Black: That’s the law.

Moyer: So Paulson could have done this? Geither could do this?

Black: Not could. Was mandated.

Moyer: By the law?

Black: By the law.

Moyer: This law you’re talking about?

Black: Yes.

Moyer: What’s the reason they give for not doing it?

Black: They ignore it. And nobody calls them on it.

Moyer: Well, well, where’s congress? Where’s the press?

[snip]

Moyer: Are you saying that Timothy Geithner, the Secretary of the Treasury, and others in the administration with the banks are engaged in a cover up to keep us from knowing what went wrong?

Black: Absolutely.

Moyer: You are?

Black: Absolutely. Because they are scared to death. Alright. They are scared to death of a collapse. They are afraid that if they admit the truth that many of the large banks are insolvent, they think that Americans are a bunch of cowards and that we’ll run screaming to the exits and we won’t rely on deposit insurance. And by the way, you can rely on deposit insurance. And it’s foolishness. Alright. Now, it may be worse than that. You may impute more cynical motives, but I think they are sincerely just panicked about we just can’t let big banks fail. That’s wrong.

[snip]

Moyer: So how did they get away with it?

Black: I don’t know whether we’ve lost our capability of outrage or whether the cover up has been so successful that people just don’t have the facts to react to it.

[snip]

Black: Now, going forward. Get rid of the people that have caused the problems. That’s a pretty straightforward thing as well. Why would we keep CEOs and CFOs and other senior officers that have caused the problems? That’s facially nuts. That’s our current system. So stop that. The current system. We’re hiding the losses instead of trying to find out the real losses. Stop that because you need good information to make good decisions. Alright. Follow what works instead of what’s failed. Start appointing people who have records of success instead of records of failure. That would be another nice place to start. There are lots of things we can do. Even today. As late as it is. Even though they’ve had a terrible start to the administration, they could change and they could change within weeks. And by the way, the folks who are the better regulators, they’ve paid their taxes so you can get them through the vetting process quicker.

The entire interview is fantastic and potentially historic. Please go have a look.

If I could add anything to what Black had to say, I would strongly encourage everyone, including Black, to look beyond mortgages. As dire as Black makes the situation appear, this situation we find ourselves in is much worse than even that because the problems are not confined to mortgages. Every single form of debt imaginable experienced the same lax underwriting standards that were seen in mortgages, e.g. credit cards, auto loans, student loans, residential mortgages, commercial mortgages, corporate bonds and even government bonds experienced the same wreckless behavior. All forms of debt were bundled into pools and resold to pension funds, mutual funds, hedge funds, and university endowments after receiving the AAA stamp from the ratings agencies. The problem is beyond the scope of the adminstration to handles with any policy other than massive simultaneous, even globally coordinated, receivership of all major banks.

Letter to Obama: Our Voices Will Be Heard

Dear Mr President,

It is almost unfair to criticize you given the extraordinary circumstances surrounding this country when you took the oath of office. Time was a precious commodity and you were forced to make urgent decisions. To be clear, I cannot think of anyone else I would rather have at the helm now than you. Choosing generals was job number one and, for the most part, you did a fantastic job.

However, we clearly find ourselves in a severe financial crisis that, due to improper handling and an initial failure to recognize the scope of the problem, has mutated into a full blown economic crisis. Continued failure to right the ship is increasing the chances of a total global economic and social breakdown. In 2007, Bernanke and Paulson’s assurances that the subprime mortgage crisis would be contained only served to illustrate their complete lack of understanding of the circumstances. The crisis was no more about subprime mortgages than an influenza outbreak is about runny noses.

People smarter than me will tell you that a large contributor to economic growth over the last 10 years (some would say 20) was fueled by increasing levels of debt. Debt came to pervade every aspect of developed economies from consumers, to corporations and financial institutions, all the way up to local and federal governments. This debt came in the form of credit cards, auto loans, school loans, residential mortgages, commercial real estate loans, corporate bonds, municipal bonds as well as Treasury bills, notes, and bonds.

Scholars will debate the true causes for decades, but let me offer this as a plausible explanation. Pension funds, endowments, and trusts have financial obligations that are met by targeting a given level of return on investments made over a period of time. When the Federal Reserve, in conjunction with global counterparts, brought interests rates below 4% in 2001, these pension funds, endowments, and trusts found it increasingly difficult to meet their obligations. This forced them to move away from traditional safe investments such as Treasury bonds and into other investments that appeared safe, yet paid higher rates of return. In fact, many investors were restricted to securities that were christened the coveted AAA rating from ratings agencies such as Moodys, S&P, and Fitch.

Cashflow Waterfall from Pool of Interest Payments

The investment instrument that many of these funds turned to was something called a collateralized debt obligation (CDO). There are many fantastic explanations of CDOs around the web, e.g. see This American Life for mortgage CDOs. Think of a CDO as a bunch of debt sources (some listed above) whose interest payments are pooled together into a cashflow waterfall. The advantage of having a pool is that it is less susceptible to borrowers not making payments. For example, if you gave one person a loan and you depended on them making their interest payments so that you could pay your own bills, you’d be in trouble if they stopped paying. But if you were receiving interest payments from 1,000 loans, the impact of single borrower stopping payments is less severe.

Champagne Tower: Cashflow Distribution to Investors

A CDO goes one step further. A CDO takes this waterfall and redistributes the cashflows in a way very much reminiscent of the champagne tower. As long as some borrowers continue to make interest payments, the top champagne glass is likely to always be full. Ratings agencies then published models that attempted to assess the risk that the top glass may run dry in order to facilitate the design of these pools. The goal was to achieve a AAA rating on that top champagne glass so that the banks could sell them (the cashflows, not the loans) to pension funds, endowments, and trusts that were starving for safe investments that paid more than traditional safe investments rendered unattractive by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department.

This was a boon for the ratings agencies because they charge fees to rate securities. If a bank owned a bunch of loans and wanted to get them off their balance sheets to free up capital, they’d structure them into a CDO, plug a few parameters into the ratings model, and essentially pay the ratings agency to christen the top champagne glass AAA. In some cases, the loans in the pool were so risky that even the top champagne glass was not sound enough to warrant a AAA rating. In such cases, the insurance companies were happy to step in, and for a fee, would guarantee that the top glass always remained full.

Now, Mr President, I understand that you are already familiar with CDOs. Nevertheless, I hope this short description was helpful because it sets the stage for what I need to say next. Statements by Bernanke, Paulson, and now Geithner have focused on the mortgage market because that was the first symptom to appear. If the problems were confined to mortgages, Geithner’s plan might have a chance to succeed. Unfortunately, the scope of the problem is more accurately described as a global epidemic infecting all forms of debt. Banks have been pooling together every form of debt imaginable and constructing CDOs from the interest payments. There are CDOs of auto loans. There are CDOs of school loans. There are CDOs of residential mortgages. There are CDOs of commercial real estate loans. There are CDOs of corporates bonds. There are CDOs of municipal bonds. There are even CDOs of other CDOs.

I’m sorry Mr President, but you do not have enough money to back stop all of these legacy assets. Drastic measures are needed and they are needed now. As incomprehensible as it may sound, I believe that you should consider using your Executive power to declare a national emergency. Seize the investment banks and give a blanket guarantee on existing bank deposits to avoid bank runs, while setting rates on new deposits close to zero to avoid draining foreign capital from other struggling countries. Halt the issuance of new CDOs. Impose a temporary 90% tax on all income in excess of $1,000,000.00 to temporarily reduce the need to raise funds from foreign central banks who are dealing with their own problems. Transfer all outstanding credit derivatives to an exchange and enforce punitive taxation on over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives transactions to encourage the swift migration to transparent exchanges, while offering substantive tax incentives for financial institutions who can demonstrate they have completely migrated and no longer participate in the opaque OTC derivatives market.

Your advisors will surely tell you that the OTC market should not be demonized and serves an important role in the market place. I say they are wrong and you should be looking for ideas outside of the establishment. I would be glad to argue my case for any of these proposals on a point by point basis. I would not suggest such radical measures if anyone other than you were in office. Your knowledge and personal conviction in the sanctity of the United States Constitution places you in a unique position to be able to make it work without destroying the foundations of this country.

Many people in the United States are not happy. Some are outraged. Some are confused. Personally, I am outraged by what is going on at the Federal Reserve, The Treasury Department, and on Wall Street and am determined to educate anyone who will listen to me. I hope that includes you. However, the general outrage has not reached critical mass yet. It is not too late to correct course. I am writing these letters because I am still audacious enough to have Hope in your ability to steer this country back to prosperity for all Americans, not just Wall Street cronies living in their echo chambers.

Despite progress you may be making on other fronts, you will ultimately be judged by how well you manage the economic crisis. You’ve chosen your generals and have placed your trust in them. It is time you consider that perhaps you have made a mistake. Geithner and Bernanke are not up to the problems that face them. It is not too late to change course. Listen to Krugman. Listen to Volcker. Listen to Roubini. They are capable and willing to help, but so far you have turned a def ear to them.

The last time public outrage began to overflow was in the 1960’s and 1970’s during the Vietnam War. At that time, many people found their voice in music. I want to leave you by pointing to an example of what makes this country great. Jonathan Mann is an amazingly talented writer and musician who, like me and millions others, have the audacity to continue to have Hope. But, as I said in an earlier letter, the only thing more audacious than the audacity of Hope would be the audacity of squandering that Hope. In this song, Jonathan powerfully communicates the internal struggle many of us feel as we hang on to our remaining strands of Hope:

Dear Jack DeSantis and your $1,000,000.00 bonus

Dear Mr Jake DeSantis,

I am writing in response to your recent Op-Ed published in the New York Times that was thinly veiled as a resignation letter.

I am proud of everything I have done for the commodity and equity divisions of A.I.G.-F.P.

What did you do? It must have been a pretty awesome year to receive a seven figure bonus. You are aware that most CEOs outside of the hyperinflated finance industry make less than that, right?

In response to this, I will now leave the company and donate my entire post-tax retention payment to those suffering from the global economic downturn. My intent is to keep none of the money myself.

Did you ever consider that perhaps you could afford to forgo your bonus this year because you received ridiculous unwarranted bonuses every year for the past 11 years? That is quite noble of you to make such a grim sacrifice.

I take this action after 11 years of dedicated, honorable service to A.I.G.

Wait. You worked in finance, right? Honorable service? I’m sure the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan appreciate that. What makes you think you are entitled to describe yourself as honorable? Who are you trying to kid?

I can no longer effectively perform my duties in this dysfunctional environment

Yeah, when things get tough and the money machine stops pumping, it’s time to head for exit. It’s the only honorable thing to do.

Like you, I was asked to work for an annual salary of $1, and I agreed out of a sense of duty to the company and to the public officials who have come to its aid.

I think you might have done well for yourself by reading your letter out loud one time before publishing it. Do you see how ridiculous this is? “Honorable service” ? “Duty”? Come on, man. You got rich milking pension funds and university endowments. Don’t try coming off as a hero. You are no hero.

Having now been let down by both, I can no longer justify spending 10, 12, 14 hours a day away from my family for the benefit of those who have let me down.

Does that include the commute time to your mansion in Greenwich? How many days, really, in the past 11 years were you in the office more than 12 hours? The markets open at 9:30am and close at 4:oopm.  That is 6.5 hours, what were you doing the rest of the time? Just so you know, drinks after the closing bell doesn’t count as “work”.

The profitability of the businesses with which I was associated clearly supported my compensation.

Really? What special skills did you bring to the table? What did you do that someone else could not have done? Were you personally responsible for bringing in all that money? Should the guy on the assembly line make seven figure bonuses too because of the business he is associated with?

I never received any pay resulting from the credit default swaps that are now losing so much money. I did, however, like many others here, lose a significant portion of my life savings in the form of deferred compensation invested in the capital of A.I.G.-F.P. because of those losses. In this way I have personally suffered from this controversial activity — directly as well as indirectly with the rest of the taxpayers.

Are you seriously asking us to feel sympathy for you? What is your net worth now? How many tens of millions? Do you think you honestly deserve to make 20 times what your parents made? Were you really adding that much more value to the economy than a couple of teachers? Wake up. You were a truck driver driving a truck loaded with gold and got paid based on the value of the cargo. Anyone could have done what you did.

I know that because of hard work I have benefited more than most during the economic boom and have saved enough that my family is unlikely to suffer devastating losses during the current bust.

It is this sense of entitlement coming from you and others like you that contributes to the brewing outrage felt by Americans. Keep it up.

Mr. Liddy, I wish you success in your commitment to return the money extended by the American government, and luck with the continued unwinding of the company’s diverse businesses — especially those remaining credit default swaps. I’ll continue over the short term to help make sure no balls are dropped, but after what’s happened this past week I can’t remain much longer — there is too much bad blood. I’m not sure how you will greet my resignation, but at least Attorney General Blumenthal should be relieved that I’ll leave under my own power and will not need to be “shoved out the door.”

Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Geithner’s Plan: Initial Thoughts

Here are my initial thoughts while they are still fresh. From the Wall Street Journal:

No crisis like this has a simple or single cause, but as a nation we borrowed too much and let our financial system take on irresponsible levels of risk. Those decisions have caused enormous suffering, and much of the damage has fallen on ordinary Americans and small-business owners who were careful and responsible. This is fundamentally unfair, and Americans are justifiably angry and frustrated.

So far so good. But why did we borrow too much? Because we could. Why could we? Because the Fed held rates too low on the short end and oil exporting countries and Asian savers (supposedly) kept longer maturity rates anchored. When he says “we borrowed to much”, he must be referring to his predecessors at the Treasury as well as the Fed.

The depth of public anger and the gravity of this crisis require that every policy we take be held to the most serious test: whether it gets our financial system back to the business of providing credit to working families and viable businesses, and helps prevent future crises.

Hold on one second. Working families and viable businesses do have access to credit. Just not at ridiculously unreasonably low yields that do not incorporate risk premia. Anyone who can put 20% down payment on a house should have no problem getting a mortgage even today. Businesses that need a loan may need to pay higher rates that are dependent on what the lender perceives the risk to be. That is how it should be. What he seems to be saying is that we want to give away free credit as if risk premia is a thing of the past. That is precisely what Greenspan and Bernanke have done for the past 20 years and is a primary reason why we are in the situation we are in. I’m worried. I hope it gets better from here.

We launched a broad program to stabilize the housing market by encouraging lower mortgage rates and making it easier for millions to refinance and avoid foreclosure.

My gut is beginning to twist. You have got it wrong Mr Geithner. You are not “stabilizing the housing market”, you are using taxpayer money to keep house prices artificially inflated and out of reach of responsible people who chose not to purchase because it was obvious to them house prices were ridiculously high. Now those same people are subsidizing your flawed ideas. Someone please save us from you and your cronies.

By providing confidence that banks will have a sufficient level of capital even if the outlook is worse than expected, more credit will be available to the economy at lower interest rates today — making it less likely that the more negative economy they fear will take place.

Why are lower interest rates the objective? Interest rates can be decomposed roughly into a primary “risk free” rate, a “credit risk” premium, and “inflation” premium. By keeping rates low, which of these are you ignoring? You are already manipulating the “risk free” component through quantitative easing and now you are trying to manipulate the “credit risk” component. That credit risk component is critical for the healthy functioning of the credit markets. Without it, you are just going to create another bubble. You are not even thinking about inflation risk. Sorry if I seem to be losing my patience, but I am.

Just this month, we saw a 30% increase in refinancing of mortgages, which means millions of Americans are taking advantage of the lower rates.

And you are also seeing another spike in borrowers who fail to even make their first mortgage payments. Refinancing mortgages at low rates completely ignores credit and inflation risk (you will learn about that soon enough). Mortgage rates should not be artificially lowered. If anything, you should reduce the principal and face the reality that home prices are unsustainably inflated. Oh wait. You cannot do that because principal reductions would impact the senior tranches of those CDOs your friends on Wall Street own so much of. What was I thinking?

This is good for homeowners, and it’s good for the economy.

That may or may not be, I think not, but those that will benefit with absolute certainty are the big banks and hedge funds. Nice try.

The new joint lending program with the Federal Reserve led to almost $9 billion of new securitizations last week, more than in the last four months combined.

Please someone help us. President Obama. Please. Help us. The last thing the Federal Reserve should be doing is encouraging more securitizations. Securitizations are a massive sink hole of economic health. It enriches the middle man and has the potential to lead to irresponsible lending and credit bubbles. Imagine that. Please consider going back to the good old days of responsible banking, where loans stay with the lender. If you ask one of your advisers whether securitizations are detrimental, they are likely going to say “No. Of course not.” Once they say “No” ask them, “Did you foresee this crisis?” If they say “Yes” and can verify it, then perhaps you should listen to them. Otherwise, take it from me. Securitization is not something the Fed should be encouraging right now.

However, the financial system as a whole is still working against recovery.

Maybe I’m just upset now and automatically disagreeing with everything you say, but I even disagree with this statement. What if it is you that are working against recovery? What if the markets are trying to find a sustainable equilibrium? What if markets are actually correcting themselves and prices should be lower? When you artificially try to keep rates unsustainably low and consequently try to keep prices artificially high, maybe it is you that is working against recovery. Think about that.

Market prices for many assets held by financial institutions — so-called legacy assets — are either uncertain or depressed.

No. No. No. If you want a market price, there is a certain way to get it. Try to sell it. The price you get is the market price. What does it even mean for a market price to be depressed? Based on what? If anyone is depressed, it is me after reading this. President Obama. I beg you. Help us. Get rid of these people.

With these pressures at work on bank balance sheets, credit remains a scarce commodity, and credit that is available carries a high cost for borrowers.

I would say the credit that is available carries an appropriately high cost due to the risk involved with lending in this environment. That is as it should be and trying to change that is unnatural.

The funds established under this program will have three essential design features. First, they will use government resources in the form of capital from the Treasury, and financing from the FDIC and Federal Reserve, to mobilize capital from private investors.

Who do you think you are trying to fool? My goodness! The FDIC is begging for money. Where are they going to get it from? You of course. The Federal Reserve is quickly turning into a sovereign wealth fund. The money is coming from you. And you are us, remember? The capital is coming from taxpayers who had nothing to do with this mess. I’m sure they will be happy to learn about that. Believe me, I will do what I can to inform them.

These funds will be open to investors of all types, such as pension funds, so that a broad range of Americans can participate.

That is wonderful. You are going to raid pension funds now. If you are a retiring baby boomer, all I can say is too bad for you. Sorry mom! I hope pension funds learned their lesson to stay away from structured products. If you do not understand something, do not invest in it. Pension funds, for your own sake and for those who depend on you, please do not participate in this monster.

Third, private-sector purchasers will establish the value of the loans and securities purchased under the program, which will protect the government from overpaying for these assets.

Curioser and curioser. What rabbit hole are you living in? How can you say that with a straight face? Of course the government is going to end up overpaying for these assets. Hopeless.

The new Public-Private Investment Program will initially provide financing for $500 billion with the potential to expand up to $1 trillion over time, which is a substantial share of real-estate related assets originated before the recession that are now clogging our financial system. Over time, by providing a market for these assets that does not now exist, this program will help improve asset values, increase lending capacity by banks, and reduce uncertainty about the scale of losses on bank balance sheets.

By creating a market that does not exist now, you are playing Market God and unnaturally selecting those who will survive and those who do not. Maybe there is a good reason the market does not exist now. Maybe the market should not exist. The market sets asset values, not you. Let the market continue to dictate prices. If the markets says the asset values are lower than you think they should be, so be it. Who do you think you are?

The ability to sell assets to this fund will make it easier for banks to raise private capital, which will accelerate their ability to replace the capital investments provided by the Treasury.

It will also allow banks to throw hail Mary passes with taxpayer dollars.

The Public-Private Investment Program is better for the taxpayer than having the government alone directly purchase the assets from banks that are still operating and assume a larger share of the losses.

Are those the only two options? Whatever happened to Pre-Privatization or Receivership or whatever you want to call it? This entire farce is insulting.

Simply hoping for banks to work these assets off over time risks prolonging the crisis in a repeat of the Japanese experience.

Has anyone actually proposed “hoping banks … work these assets off over time”? I would have some nice words for such a person. Don’t you see that your proposal will have the same result as the Japanese experience? You are artificially propping up insolvent institutions with special funds. The outcome will be the same. Let them perish and level the playing field so that healthier species can replace them.

Moving forward, we as a nation must work together to strike the right balance between our need to promote the public trust and using taxpayer money prudently to strengthen the financial system, while also ensuring the trust of those market participants who we need to do their part to get credit flowing to working families and businesses — large and small — across this nation.

I believe he is sincere here. I believe that Tim Geithner may not actually be sinister, but hell is full of people with good intentions. This proposal is a colossal mistake and should be rejected. If President Obama will not see it, then I hope the fury taking root across this country will force Congress to do something to stop this debacle.

We have already seen that where our government has provided support and financing, credit is more available at lower costs.

What makes you think this should be the motivation? Credit at unsustainably low costs was the cause of this mess. I fail to see how it will get us out of it.

Our nation deserves better choices than, on one hand, accepting the catastrophic damage caused by a failure like Lehman Brothers

Do you really believe this? I mean, really? I suppose you do, which is scary. Scary!  There was no catastrophic damage caused by Lehman Brother’s failure. If anything good has happened to date, it is that Lehman and Bear Stearns failed. The damage was there already done. The disease (of excess credit) was already coursing through the veins of the entire financial system. The death of one organ did not cause the damage. The death of one organ was a symptom of the disease. Purging these decaying organs was necessary to prevent gangrene from setting in. What you are suggesting is analogous to an embalming. Konnichiwa zombi ginkou!

In conclusion…

I am extremely disappointed.

The common theme and the common error throughout Geithner’s proposal is that credit is too expensive, rates are too high, and asset values are too depressed. The reality is that asset values are what they are. If no one wants an asset, its price goes down until it becomes attractive enough to reconsider. Throwing billions of dollars at unattractive assets with the purpose of artificially inflating their price is completely irresponsible and wasteful on a grand scale.

America, you need to care about this. You are surely facing your own problems like we all are and I understand the last thing you want to think about is some yahoos in Washington D.C., but these guys are hurting you. They are hurting your children and more than likely they are hurting your grandchildren. Both born and unborn. Take notice and if you are as upset about this as I am, then do something. Let your representatives know how unhappy you are. At this point, I think they are the only ones who can put a road block down before this train leaves the station.

Modern-Day American Hero: Yves Smith

How can you recognize a hero when you see one? Do they glow from within on the battlefield? Do rays of sunlight shine on them from every angle as they stand on the hilltop? Sometimes heros are not obviously recognized as heros until after the smoke has settled and the history books are being written. When the history books are written about this chapter in American history, many of the heros will turn out to be bloggers. The late Tanta of Calculated Risk was surely a hero. At this moment in time, the person for whom the clouds have parted and the sun is shining would be Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism.

Her sharp, crisp, no-nonsense analysis is inspiring. President Obama would do well by paying close attention to what she has to say, but sadly, the chance of that happening is not looking very good. Despite operating a White House Blog and being more in touch with technology than any prior president, his comments recently in The New York Times display a somewhat surprising closed mindedness:

Part of the reason we don’t spend a lot of time looking at blogs is because if you haven’t looked at it very carefully, then you may be under the impression that somehow there’s a clean answer one way or another — well, you just nationalize all the banks, or you just leave them alone and they’ll be fine.

I beg to differ. Bloggers such as Yves Smith, (Tanta), Barry Ritholz, Brad Setser, among others spend(spent) a lot of time thinking about the issues that we face today. To ignore them is to ignore some of the finest, not to mention crucial, analysis available.

Lately Yves Smith has been on fire. I hope that Timothy Geithner reads Naked Capitalism

• Investor on Private Public Partnership: “One would have to be a criminal to participate in this”

• Private Public Partnership Details Emerging

Not only is Yves spot on, she also does a fine job with guest posts. Here are some recent gems:

• Guest Post: Some More Thoughts On FDIC And The “Systemic Risk Exception” Clause

• Guest Post: Mother of All Stealth Scams?

We need more heros like Yves. I learned long ago that I am no hero, but I will do the best I can to highlight those that should be recognized sooner rather than later for what they are: modern-day American heros.

Let’s roll.

Letter to Obama: The Audacity of Hope Squandered

Every article here can be thought of as a letter directed to President Obama, but occasionally I will make the address explicit.

Dear Mr President,

The entire election process including the inauguration was a powerful experience for many people including myself. Clearly we all know that no one person holds all the answers to all the challenges that face us. The one thing that you offered that your rivals didn’t was Hope (with a capital “H”). The Audacity of Hope was a powerful message that resonated with millions not only within the US, but around the globe. We, the American people, need Hope now more than any time in most of our lifetimes.

I must tell you now because I care so deeply about this great country of ours that you are on the verge of squandering that Hope. If the Hope you brought into office with you is extinguished, I’m afraid that the next few years could become very bleak leading to even bleaker decades that could see our place in the world stage diminished substantially. The threat is real as you know better than anyone could.

You have only been in office for a short time. You’ve done a lot right, but you have also done a lot wrong. One very serious thing you’ve done wrong is to appoint Timothy Geithner to the Treasury. There are many exceptional candidates with the qualifications required to be Treasury Secretary. The actual qualifications of any nominee are, for the most part, irrelevant compared to the Confidence (with a capital “C”) they can inspire. Sadly, you must see it as plainly as day that Timothy Geithner does not inspire any Confidence. Confidence is a close cousin of Hope and as the former fades, that latter will soon follow.

You boldly admitted to screwing up (your words) with Tom Daschle, so why is it that you are not willing to admit that your appointment of Geithner was a mistake? A good argument could be made that Daschle was not a mistake and if you had withdrawn support for Geithner, it would have made it easier (or at least possible) to confirm Daschle.

It is not too late to have Geithner voluntarily resign. This country needs Hope and Confidence more than anything and we will not get that as long as Geithner remains at the Treasury.

At this moment in history, two institutions are at the center of the maelstrom: The Treasury and the Fed. Unfortunately, both of these institutions are failing us. When the history books are written, it will be hard to judge which of the two Fed chairman, Greenspan or Bernanke, did the most damage to our country. My suspicion is that when the anvil comes down, Bernanke will be found to be the guiltier of the two. Greenspan at least had some success early in his term. Bernanke has been a failure since day one and has only perpetuated the errors of his predecessor. His philosophy was challenged early by many admirable economists including the revered Anna Schwartz. If you want to know who should be Fed chairman, ask Anna Schwartz. She is the wisest person on the planet right now and we should value anything that she is willing to offer while we still have her with us.

You gave us the audacity to Hope. The only thing more audacious than Hope would be the audacity of Hope squandered. Please right this ship before it is too late.

My warmest regards and best wishes.