We need their strength

It may be hard to digest, but if you read the tea leaves, the financial titans and intellectual powerhouses that served in both the Bush Administration and now serve in the Obama Administration may have approached the resolution of our economic issues differently but they seem have reached the same conclusion. We need Wall Street to be strong; New York needs to remain the financial capital of the world.

 

Now that the US automobile industry is in tatters, and we no longer manufacture much of anything in the US anymore, we need to lead the world in some areas for the US to remain a dominant power. If that means Wall Street bankers, traders, bond salespeople, analysts, and even risky financial inventors are overpaid, or derive their paychecks from the US taxpayer, even while working people are driven from their homes and business, then that’s what needs to happen.

I do not condone the policies, but I am starting to understand why they are in place.

Notwithstanding the inherrent plausibility behind the conspiracy theories of Goldman Sachs alumnae being so prevalent and influential in crafting government policy and directing stimulus funding to 85 Broad Street; the power of Chase’s Jamie Dimon; and the compelling writing of Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi, I can’t explain why Lehman was allowed to fail and Goldman was protected at all costs, why Wachovia and Washington Mutual were allowed to collapse while Citibank and Chase are receiving an outstretched government hand, other than to speculate that Lehman, WaMu and Wachovia were not global powerhouses, nor would they ever be, while Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase have been, currently are, and will continue to be the world’s largest and most powerful banks.  That is, quite simply, good for the business of America. 

Now, if they can use government intervention to their advantage, then so can we. 

In the past year, arguments along the lines of whether the “too big to fail” policy has led to the socialism of America have taken grasp, and there is certainly veracity in those arguments.  Discussion points, however, there are many — solutions on the other hand seem to be in short supply.

The only real way to get capitalism back into the hands of the people is to show that it still works.  Distressed asset investing, and the business of profiting from the acquisition of assets at below market prices is a clear way back to capitalism.  Taking the assets that the Goldman and Chase bankers have decimated in their quest for a bigger bonus and profiting from these assets is the antithesis of “too big to fail”.  It’s the “small enough to suceed” argument.  And in our business plan we are not putting homeowners out on the streets or engineering a financial collapse.  We are rehabilitating and repositioning weak assets, squeezing cash flow from those assets, and yes, seeking to profit from the return to full valuation of those assets.  That is capitalism, and that, more than ever is good for America and good for business — and nobody gets hurt.