Thoughts and Observations

The pressure to win, to recruit the best players at any cost, and to generate more income every year guarantees that the increase in scandals in college sports will continue.

Cracks are beginning to appear in the gridlock ice.

I believe that banks that are too big to fail and demonstrably too big to manage are too big to exist. The soon-to-be-introduced Senate bill co-sponsored by Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and David Vitter (R-LA) doesn’t explicitly break up TBTF banks, but it is a major step in the right direction.

The Obama administration has a big opportunity to get on the right side of history and finally do something about the size, complexity and riskiness of our very largest banks.

What a difference an election makes.

The longer we wait, the bigger the TBTF problem becomes.

I read recently that one academic “conflict resolution” expert had a sure cure for partisan gridlock in Washington. It was all a lack of civility, he said, that could be cured by a few get-togethers over poker and cigars at the White House.

If it were only so.

Thought the news about the big banks’ mismanagement of the housing/mortgage crisis couldn’t get worse? Two new reports are out. You were wrong.

Fortunately for the country, Republicans and Democrats in Congress voted for tax increases as part of the “fiscal cliff” agreement. I believe that most of us realize, as Oliver Wendell Holmes said, that “taxes are the price we pay for civilization.”

One hundred years ago today, Delaware became the 36th state to ratify the 16th Amendment to the United States Constitution, and the federal income tax was made legal.

We all know people who would probably say that Feb. 3, 1913, was a dark day for America. In fact, there are some in Congress who have called for the repeal of the 16th Amendment. They do not like taxes of any kind, and the federal income tax least of all. Others do not go so far as to call for repeal, but the overwhelming majority of the Republican members of Congress have signed a pledge that they will not vote for a tax increase.

In our private-enterprise system, neither the government nor corporations ultimately pick winners or losers. The market always does that. But it is essential that we continue to support both public and private-sector efforts to develop the new technologies that will ensure future economic growth.

If he wants to retire the trophy for senators who got off to a terrible start, Ted Cruz is already 90 percent there. I’ll take the gift for my party, but it’s a sad spectacle for the Senate and the country.

Perhaps the key reason is that those most responsible for indicting and prosecuting Wall Street executives seem to believe that, just as there are banks that are too big to fail, there are people who are too big to jail.

When all is said and done, with weak parties, I come down on the side of a long election process that gives democracy its best chance to work.

What will be the major issues brought up in Barack Obama’s second inaugural address this Tuesday? Here are my best guesses.

CEO paychecks didn’t get smaller under the first Obama administration.

Our collective grief about the Newtown killings.

“Why can’t those idiots in Washington get their act together and solve a problem like the fiscal cliff, when everyone knows what a realistic solution looks like?” That’s pretty much the question I get asked these days when I run into people at the coffee shop.

Mary Shapiro leaves the agency better than she found it. But she also leaves it still failing to fully achieve its goal of protecting investors and ensuring fair and efficient markets.

After years of heated and often inaccurate debate, this is a good time to take a deep breath and review some actual facts about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010.

The temptation to use an ax is going to be nearly irresistible as the people around the table discuss the budgetary cuts that will be necessary in the fiscal cliff negotiations.

It was a long campaign, but I don’t recall any discussion of global climate change until the very end, when Superstorm Sandy jump-started a long-overdue conversation. It is time, way past time, for us to stop pretending there isn’t enough evidence to take action.

It is time to come together and forge bipartisan solutions to our most urgent problems.

Tell your member of Congress that you support putting the election behind us and finding a way to compromise to solve our very real problems.

The words of President John Kennedy are as true today as they were 50 years ago: “The success of this government, and thus the success of our nation, depends in the last analysis upon the quality of our career services.” Maintaining that quality will be one of the major challenges facing whomever is sworn in as president next January.

Self-policing alone simply doesn’t work. Not in the financial industry, where a lack of meaningful regulation helped cause the 2008-2009 meltdown. And certainly not in industries like food and drugs, where human error or pressure to maximize profits in complicated production and distribution systems can cause serious illness or death.

Finally, the SEC has begun to take some action. Last month the agency announced a historic first fine of the New York Stock Exchange, on charges that it was unfairly giving advance market information to some of its premium paying customers.

Don’t cut Amtrak. It is exactly the kind of infrastructure spending we need to improve our global competitiveness.

We must acknowledge that our national security depends not only on our troops and our weapons, but also on our ideas and how effectively we transmit them.

We have balanced budgets before without doing it on the backs of the poor. In the name of common decency, we can and must do it again.

When a political party tries to reach its objectives by refusing to compromise on just about anything, frustration and gridlock are the inevitable results. It is easy to see how people might begin to question the system that makes such tactics possible, and even the Constitution itself.

Follow developments and arguments in this campaign carefully, in print media, and on the Internet. But beware of nonsense masquerading as ‘facts’.

Whomever we elect our next President is going to face an incredible array of challenges. But next year’s newly inaugurated president with the toughest job in the world won’t be Obama or Romney. That dubious distinction goes to Xi Jinping, the expected choice to be China’s new leader when the Communist party congress meets in November.

The markets don’t belong only to hedge funds; they should and must belong as well to individual investors.

A lot of the provisions in Dodd-Frank were hotly debated two years ago, but there was nearly unanimous agreement in Congress that we had to make sure taxpayers would never again have to bail out a bank.

The New England Journal of Medicine, said in 2010, “It is hard to ignore that in 2006, the United States was No.1 in terms of health care spending per capita but ranked 39th for infant mortality, 43rd for adult female mortality, 42nd for adult male mortality, and 36th for life expectancy … Why do we spend so much to get so little?”

Doing something to address the facts in that paragraph is what the ACA is all about.

There is a disturbing disconnect between some of our rich and powerful and the rest of the population – they just don’t think the rules apply to them.

he Facebook initial public offering fiasco is just the latest in a string of events that have seriously damaged the credibility of U.S. equity markets.

The exodus of retail customers from our stock markets is the most obvious and dangerous indication of this loss of credibility.

As partisan a conservative Republican as he was on most domestic issues, Senator Lugar deeply believed in the approach to foreign policy articulated in the early 1940s by Michigan’s Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg: “To me, ‘bipartisan foreign policy’ means a mutual effort, under our indispensable, two-party system, to unite our official voice at the water’s edge so that America speaks with one voice to those who would divide and conquer us and the free world.”

Changes in the corporate tax rate will affect all of us. They will determine tax revenues available to help bring the budget deficit under control; encourage innovations, research and development; create jobs in the United States; and improve our competitiveness overseas. There is no question that our major corporations will have their say in the process. I hope that a lot of other voices from across America are heard as well.

Most working people understand that they are held accountable if they don’t do their jobs well. They don’t get raises. If they continue to perform badly, they get fired.That’s true of elected officials too. Our president and members of Congress will be held accountable by voters this November.

So how have so many corporate executives been able to avoid being held accountable?

To maintain fairness and international competitiveness, accountability and democracy must be reinstated in the boardroom.

I’m afraid we will have to live through this election year with super PACs as they now exist. Let’s just hope that after November, both parties will agree to end this threat to our system.

We must insist on more transparency and a return to markets that are fair to all investors. The tremors keep happening. We can’t afford to wait until after the next catastrophic eruption.

One of the more dangerous consequences of the financial crisis is how governments at all levels are, in effect, cutting off their noses to spite their faces. In the rush to balance their budgets, some are indiscriminately firing, freezing and cutting pay, and cutting pensions — too often impacting the people who actually make government work.

This week the Delaware STEM Council will release its first report on how effectively science, technology, engineering and math are being taught in our schools.

There is now a realistic chance that economic sanctions are having the desired effect and Iran may finally allow inspections to determine if they are developing nuclear weapons.

By any objective standard, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act has failed to address the three major causes of the financial crisis.

It is hard to take the knee-jerk anti-regulation crowd, which now seems to include Governor Romney, seriously. It was, after all, the lack of regulation and oversight on Wall Street that led to the meltdown of 2008 and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Our Defense Department budget is close to half a trillion dollars annually; the State Department budget is $36 billion. Gates thinks that is out of whack and so do I.

When I was in the Senate back in 2009-2010 there were disagreements about virtually every element of Wall Street reform. But everyone, Republican or Democrat, agreed that the American taxpayer should never again have to bail out a bank because it was “too big to fail”— so large and so intricately a part of our financial system that if it wasn’t bailed out it could cause another economic meltdown.

When I was in the Senate, there were disagreements about virtually every element of Wall Street reform. But everyone, Republican or Democrat, agreed that the American taxpayer should never again have to bail out a bank because it was “too big to fail” — so large and so intricately a part of our financial system that if it wasn’t bailed out, it could cause another economic meltdown.

It is hard to see how the world will muddle through the Greek debt crisis. “New Bailout is a Reprieve for Greece, but Doubts Persist,” was the February 21 headline in the New York Times. Count me among the doubters.

Do we really want to live in a country where we cut back on regulations to prevent dangerous products from being distributed?

American corporations are finally loosening their purse strings and investing again. New manufacturing jobs will probably continue to be created; factory employees in January put in their longest work weeks in fourteen years and overtime jumped to its highest level since March 2007. In Pennsylvania the Bureau of Labor statistics reported that manufacturing job growth was the highest since 1990.

We need to build a corps of civilian experts who can provide the non-military help needed in counterinsurgencies — experts in governance, development, education and all the other areas that are needed to ensure success. And, we need to fight the media wars with more funding to take on the government media giants from Al Jazeera to China International radio and TV.

There is no question that piracy and counterfeiting on the Internet cost American businesses billions of dollars. Thousands of jobs are lost. We must protect intellectual property because stealing a book, a movie or a song without fair payment to its creator is exactly the same as shoplifting or robbing a bank.

A new bill appears to balance commercial needs with better protections of freedom of speech better than previous efforts.

By now all sides of the political spectrum ought to acknowledge that it is a lot easier to send the world’s most powerful military into a country than it is to get it out. We also ought to know by now that promoting democracy in other countries means that when democratic elections take place we don’t control the results.

There is nothing new about the importance of money in a political campaign. But when you look at the recent primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire, and what has been happening this past week in South Carolina, you see that money is no longer just important. It could well be the determining factor in future elections.

Though social media may prove to be a mixed blessing, recent successful campaigns prove that there are good reasons to be hopeful about it as an effective new tool for the consumer.

Virtually every reputable organization of scientists in the world has reached the same basic conclusion. Climate change is real and poses a threat to every living thing on the earth.

“Mutually pledge.” Ben Franklin summed it up best in those perilous days when, after signing the Declaration, he wrote, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we will all hang separately.”

There is no “good” way to save a bank that is “too big to fail.” The U.S. way was probably the worst. The way the U.K. handled it produced better results.

We have become accustomed to seeing photos of protesters with economic grievances throughout Europe and recently here at home with the Occupy Wall Street movement. Now, for the first time, similar protests are taking place in China.

The new innovative industries drawn to Delaware by our STEM-educated workforce are the very best thing we can do in the long term to create jobs for all Delawareans.

Our troops have made great progress in destroying the capability of the Taliban and essentially eliminating al-Qaida from Afghanistan. They have done their job. It is time to bring them home.

We send people to jail for stealing $100. What about people who steal $100 million? Judge Rakoff and a few State Attorney Generals are asking the right questions.

Much of the recent media coverage and Internet chatter about financial industry reform has focused on the Occupy Wall Street movement. If we ever end up with the kind of reforms needed, that movement would certainly deserve some of the credit.

If we look back on the Fall of 2011 a few years from now, however, I suspect we may trace the beginnings of real reform from two events that occurred last week with little fanfare.

The debate about President Obama’s jobs plan is really just an extension of the long-standing disagreement in the country over the role of government in jump-starting the economy.

Why are so many so angry with Wall Street? Let me count the whys.

The weakness of the Volcker Rule in practice

Don’t believe everything you read! The internet and email can give long lives to false ‘statistics’

The corrupting influence of conflict of interest, both in and out of government, is a major threat to our democracy. When the people making the most important decisions in our society have a personal, financial stake in the outcome, or when the people providing supposedly objective information to the public are in effect paid for their point of view, democracy falls apart.

A flood of new clients for charities is coming at a time when charitable funding is tighter than ever.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt is generally regarded as a great leader. But it was Roosevelt who said, when asked to implement a new policy, “I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it.”

He knew effective leadership depends on a motivated followership.

I am not opposed to debating a balanced-budget amendment if there were any chance that it could pass. It is clear, however, after over 30 years of trying, that it will never become part of the Constitution, and based on recent history, it is not needed.

We haven’t been “just lucky.” Luck always plays some part in our lives, but those who attribute the absence of terror attacks within the United States since 9/11 to luck are wrong. They are ignoring the tireless and often heroic work done by hundreds of thousands on the front lines in the often secret and never-ending struggle against terrorism.

I have opinions and so do you. But let’s honor Sen. Patrick Moynihan’s famous line: “You are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.” Let’s see if we can distinguish between the two for just a minute.

Our historically free, fair and credible markets are in danger. Investors from all over the world once came here to invest because they believed in our markets’ transparency and fairness. We are losing some of those investors, as well as individual investors here at home, at an alarming rate.

Ever since the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act passed last year, there has been a running debate about the Resolution Authority in the bill. Would it actually prevent another taxpayer bailout of a bank or banks to avoid a financial meltdown? I believe there is a real possibility that the present mortgage mess could trigger such a test.

This announcement, believe it or not, may have been a positive development and a sign that rating agencies may finally be acknowledging the mistakes they made that helped cause the financial meltdown.

The great debt limit crisis of 2011 is over. We will be living with its repercussions for years to come.

In a system where compromise has been part of the political fabric since the Constitutional Convention of 1787, a legislature filled with partisans who have made binding, no-compromise pledges is a serious threat to our survival.

The entire system in place to bundle and sell mortgages through “securitized” mortgages might be fatally flawed.

As we mark the first anniversary this week of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, what was already a weak bill is suffering a slow death by a thousand cuts.

The megabanks that owe their survival to the Troubled Asset Relief Program and extraordinary Federal Reserve measures are fighting any new regulation as if there had never been a financial crisis.

To say that the year-old Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is under attack in Washington is like describing Little Big Horn as an engagement between the cavalry and the Indians. What we are watching looks more and more like a one-sided policy massacre by hordes of financial industry lobbyists and their enablers in Congress. It should be noted that Wall Street is winning the public relations and lobbying fight, but that markets are for real. When they fall like they did in 2008, they send an unmistakable message. No amount of lobbying money can change that. If we do not heed that message and institute real change, the next meltdown will be even worse.

Ever since the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act passed last year, there has been a running debate about the Resolution Authority in the bill. Would it actually prevent another taxpayer bailout of a bank or banks to avoid a financial meltdown? I believe there is a real possibility that the present mortgage mess could trigger such a test.

That democracy has prevailed and taken root in Eastern Europe is in no small measure due to NATO’s influence. However, what we see today is an alliance in disarray.

I am a college sports fan, always have been, always will be. I love watching the games, but I haven’t liked watching what has been happening to the role of sports in our educational system.

It is way past time for all of us to get serious about the upcoming vote in Congress to raise the debt limit and avoid an unprecedented default on the sovereign debt of the United States.
Not just members of Congress. Sure, some of them are grandstanding with take-no-prisoner stands. But they are also often reflecting the will of their constituents. Isn’t that what Congress is supposed to do?

It is way past time for all of us to get serious about the upcoming vote in Congress to raise the debt limit and avoid an unprecedented default on the sovereign debt of the United States.

Almost everyone I talk to privately in the financial industry says there are six mega-banks that should be broken up or subjected to greater regulatory constraints — and that doing so wouldn’t hurt the economy one bit. When I suggest they speak out publicly, they say, “I just can’t break ranks with the rest of the industry.” It’s the Wall Street version of “No Snitch” tee shirts worn by inner city gang members, creating a self-enforcing culture of non-cooperation with law enforcement.

Anyone who is knowledgeable about the situation in Afghanistan and present budget constraints knows that the president has an extremely difficult decision to make.

The truth is the meltdown was not the result of a natural disaster or the normal business cycle. It was the result of a series of bad business decisions, government inaction, and poor judgment by a lot of consumers.

Don’t get me wrong. America faces an extraordinary range of problems today, perhaps the largest being how to deal with the monumental federal debt. But the difficulty in finding solutions to these problems is attributable to major policy differences in the public at large and not to imperfections in our federal legislative system.

We must pass the debt limit and move on quickly to begin the hard work of reducing the towering U.S. debt.

To do that, everyone involved should make a commitment to “fact-based” decision-making and take a hard look at the history of our national debt and how we reversed its growth in the recent past.

We haven’t had a repeat of last year’s “flash crash,” but algorithmic trading has caused mini-flash crashes since, and surveys suggest that most investors and analysts believe it’s only a matter of time before the Big One.

Anyone who visits China may be surprised by its economic growth, but it has many serious hurdles to overcome.

Wall Street bankers, with help from key Republicans in the House and Senate, have begun a major campaign across the country to kill the regulations currently being developed to enforce Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform.

The policy of “self-regulation” on Wall Street and elsewhere, which the country implemented during the last 20 years, resulted in the worst financial meltdown in 80 years, almost destroying the U.S. and world financial systems.

As the global economy turns increasingly competitive, countries and businesses are investing heavily in high-tech industries such as clean energy, biotechnology and national security.