Are you referring to the link to Seeking Alpha to read the entire article? I have done that because the graphics available through the wordpress format is limited and graphical data is displayed in the Seeking Alpha article that can not be displayed in wordpress.

John, I greatly enjoy your commentary on SA (more than many of the articles!). Last fall I had the opportunity to hear Leon Panetta speak (before he became CIA Director). Something he said during the speech really stuck with me- “When leaders continually fail to make difficult decisions- that require sacrifice and compromise- then all we end up doing is managing from one crisis to the next.” I think you are correct to view our current financial crisis and all the dominoes that lead to it (deregulation, low rates, excess leverage etc.) as symptoms of a larger problem. Analysis along these lines got me thinking about longstanding fundamental challenges such as- energy policy, entitlements, current account deficit, Military/ Industrial Complex… do these point to a failure of leadership a` la Panetta? I wonder if the failure to address these is attributable to one thing- the intersection of money (influence) and politics (leadership)? Would public financing of elections give us more “honest brokers” in Washington, more capable of “making difficult decisions- that require sacrifice and compromise” and have helped us to avoid the (far more expensive) “public financing” of the current crisis?

On Mar 16 01:40 PM John Lounsbury wrote:

> Prof. Wolff – - -
>
> I watch for your posts with anticipation. I find them filled with
> thought provoking stateements.
>
> Here are five statements I highlighted:
>
> 1. “Beyond calls for vengeance and a sudden interest in blaming banks,
> the real lessons of the last decades sit and wait to be discovered.”
>
>
> 2. “Transferring bad assets and blame has been the order of the American
> and global day. This is a serious mistake.”
>
> 3. “…this is a global, structural failure. Nationalizing now makes
> sense only to save vital firms, sectors and jobs.”
>
> 4. “Saving vital social function, jobs and political stability is
> almost always sage.”
>
> 5. “Games of toxic asset hot potato, firm to state, don’t transform
> fundamental value. This game is a recipe for drawn out crisis and
> public anger. Strategic receivership and regulatory reform are pressing
> essentials. Exchanging blind faith in markets for blind faith in
> government policy is mad and it is off.”
>
> I want to expand on statement #1, which is very fundamental. So
> many authors and commenters fail to recognize that we still have
> so much to learn about the causes of our current crisis. We (I include
> myself) are still confusing causes and symptoms of the financial
> collapse. Let me list some points of confusion:
>
> A. “Toxic” assets are a symptoms, not a causes.
> B. Mark-to-market failures are symptoms, not causes.
> C. Outrageous compensation packages for in failing concerns are
> symptoms, not causes.
> D. “Too Big to Fail” is a symptom, not a cause.
> E. Lack of regulation is a symptom, not a cause.
> F. High debt burdens (private and government) are symptoms, not
> causes.
> G. Financial system structure is a cause.
>
> Steve Waldman has a good Seeking Alpha article (March 15) discussing
> financial system structure. seekingalpha.com/artic…
>
>
> Once we can focus on causes and get them defined from several perspectives,
> we will start to define a box. Only then can we start to think outside
> the box and debate real long-term solutions instead of band-aides.
> So far everything on the table is a band-aide.
>
>
>