Never would have thought I'd see the day!
http://patdollard.com/2009/02/putin-war ... socialism/
Some more of his speech- very spooky. He was channeling my own thoughts! Especially the paragraph I've highlighted. Watching that CNBC special House of Cards, every time I heard one of those financial engineers they interviewed talk about "ramping up production" of MBSs, and CDOs, I wanted to scream. These guys talking about these complex derivatives as if they were true value-adding goods like refrigerators or cars was almost too much for me to take!Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin has said the US should take a lesson from the pages of Russian history and not exercise "excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence".
"In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute," Putin said during a speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated."
Sounding more like Barry Goldwater than the former head of the KGB, Putin said, "Nor should we turn a blind eye to the fact that the spirit of free enterprise, including the principle of personal responsibility of businesspeople, investors, and shareholders for their decisions, is being eroded in the last few months. There is no reason to believe that we can achieve better results by shifting responsibility onto the state."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123317069332125243.htmlLadies and gentlemen, unfortunately, we have so far failed to comprehend the true scale of the ongoing crisis. But one thing is obvious: the extent of the recession and its scale will largely depend on specific high-precision measures, due to be charted by governments and business communities and on our coordinated and professional efforts.
In our opinion, we must first atone for the past and open our cards, so to speak.
This means we must assess the real situation and write off all hopeless debts and "bad" assets.
True, this will be an extremely painful and unpleasant process. Far from everyone can accept such measures, fearing for their capitalisation, bonuses or reputation. However, we would "conserve" and prolong the crisis, unless we clean up our balance sheets. I believe financial authorities must work out the required mechanism for writing off debts that corresponds to today's needs.
Second. Apart from cleaning up our balance sheets, it is high time we got rid of virtual money, exaggerated reports and dubious ratings. We must not harbour any illusions while assessing the state of the global economy and the real corporate standing, even if such assessments are made by major auditors and analysts.
In effect, our proposal implies that the audit, accounting and ratings system reform must be based on a reversion to the fundamental asset value concept. In other words, assessments of each individual business must be based on its ability to generate added value, rather than on subjective concepts. In our opinion, the economy of the future must become an economy of real values. How to achieve this is not so clear-cut. Let us think about it together.
This is exactly true. We HAVE to write down those debts- whether or not it seems like we're rewarding bad behavior, it has to be done.
AND we have to move our financial system away from being a parasite back to what it was intended to be. Our ways of measuring and rewarding economic activities are badly flawed. I don't know what the answers are, but it's something that HAS to be done.
It's just too bad that everything that's being done so far seems directed solely at preserving/resurrecting the system that was.
The more I think on this, the angrier I get. Some people estimate $20 trillion in wealth has evaporated due to this crisis.
$20 trillion! 1.5 times the US GDP! Half of the world's GDP!
Think of what good could have been done- what LEGITIMATE economic activity could have been financed- with that amount of wealth!
