ChannelWeb Hot Topics

Weathering The Financial Storm

Economic turmoils come and go. This one, though, may be here for awhile. Some perspectives:

How did we get here? At Forbes, Barry Ritholtz puts the blame on Alan Greenspan and a culture of over de-regulation:

"Too many people forgot that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Reasonable capital requirements? Who needs 'em! Leverage limitations? Forget it! Enforcement of lending standards? Not here in America! And all these misguided attempts at allowing the markets to police themselves have come home to roost. The clean-up for this is going to be expensive. We still have no idea how many trillions--yes, that's trillions with a "T"--this is going to cost."

While Larry Kudlow credits Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson for restoring some sanity:

"Last March, acting in conjunction with Fed head Ben Bernanke, Paulson safeguarded the banking system and the whole global financial structure by backstopping a JPMorgan-Chase deal to acquire the ailing Bear Stearns with $29 billion of loan guarantees. The action succeeded in stabilizing markets, but it put U.S. taxpayers on the hook big-time.

Then last week Paulson stepped into the breach again by backstopping mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It was a necessary action. It stopped a global money meltdown. But it raised the stakes for taxpayers once more.

So this time around, as the Lehman stock headed for zero, Paulson said enough is enough."

Closer to home, Dell sees global IT demand "softening", while HP plans a massive layoff. But at bMighty, Fred Paul is looking at the glass as slightly full:

"Historically, smaller companies are the first to take advantage when the economy begins to recover, and that's likely to be the case again. But trying to time the recovery and jump in at the last minute is a fool's game. If you want to be there for the upswing, you have to weather the troubles."

Posted by Joe Caponi at 11:26 AM, September 16, 2008

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