Juggling Dynamite

“President Obama has nominated former New York U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White to head up the Securities and Exchange Commission. Since stepping down from her role as a state prosecutor, White has worked for the Manhattan law firm Debevoise & Plimpton.

“Over a decade as a U.S. Attorney in New York, she helped prosecute white-collar criminals and money launderers,” the president said Thursday at an event at The White House. “In the early 1990s, she brought down John Gotti, the head of the Gambino crime syndicate. And she brought to justice the terrorists responsible for bombing the World Trade Center and the American embassies in Africa. So I’d say that’s a pretty good run. You don’t want to mess with Mary Jo.”

On the flip side, White has also defended some of the biggest names on Wall Street…”

Here is a direct video link discussing the prospects for serious prosecutions of Wall Street offenders ahead.

Marc Faber, publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom report, offers some good big picture here on the forces behind market moves over the past couple of years and the historical promise of a major bear market to follow. Here is a direct link.

Joe won’t be making many friends in Davos with this interview…My added thought would be that although austerity undoubtedly slows growth, global growth was pumped up to such unsustainable levels through credit derivatives and deficit spending, that eventually we have no choice but to lower spending in order to force the behavioral change needed to curb reckless habits and risk-taking. At some point, all financially suicidal choices must come to an end, and the pain that flows is a necessary part of the resetting process and then sustainable recovery. So long as people and corporations can get another loan, or another bail-out, no meaningful evolution happens.

Nobel Prize-winning economist and Columbia University professor Joseph Stiglitz talks about U.S. economic growth, tax policy and the European sovereign-debt crisis. Here is a direct link.