Juggling Dynamite

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a professor at New York University and author of “The Black Swan” and “Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder,” talks about risks created by government debt and Federal Reserve monetary policy.Here is a direct video link.

Just to clarify, Taleb notes that unlike personal or government debt, corporate debt is not an issue because it turns into equity. What he means there is that in the normal capitalist model of a corporation, if the company becomes insolvent the bond holders take their losses and in some cases end up holding equity in a restructured company. But at the end of the day investors and lenders are left to bear their own losses where they make bad bets.
Unfortunately however, over the past several years this model has been hijacked and contorted into a trend toward corporate welfare where some companies like big auto and big finance have not been allowed to fail and restructure but have been repeatedly bailed out by public funds in order to save them from the healthy creative destruction process. In these cases then, high corporate debt is a huge risk because it has been thrown on to the public purse.

Kenai Capital Management’s Tres Knippa explains why Janet Yellen is a nightmare as Fed Chair. Well said. Here is a direct video link.

Frontline exposed the predatory practices of for-profit-schools that are designed to take advantage of those most needing help while gorging on the public purse.Here is a direct video link.

Although the Frontline report sparked some outrage, over the past 2 years, no policy changes have yet been able to pass in Congress so far. This week Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) in the Senate, and Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) in the House of Representatives advanced yet again a bill aimed at hobbling schools that have taken advantage of veterans by encouraging them to sign up for costly programs that don’t provide them with the education or skills they need. See: Bill tries, again, to curb for-profit colleges’ share of GI cash

It’s not clear if the bill will pass as it faces heavy opposition from the for-profit college lobby The Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities who assert that limiting for-profit schools’ access to GI dollars could force some of the schools to focus on wealthier students.

In effect they are saying if you don’t allow us to continue ripping off the taxpayers and preying on the poor and ignorant, we will stop trying to work with them. Reminds me of similar comments from the banks when anyone proposes holding them to higher standards and ethics. I say so be it, weak, predatory business models should fail. This is fraud. It should be prosecuted not funded by the government. It is time for those in the know to speak up and take a stand for what is right.