Juggling Dynamite

No sweeter words have been spoken in the last 13 years than this lucid conversation with Thomas Hoenig, director of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, talking about his proposal to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act and regulation of the financial industry. Hoenig, speaking with Kathleen Hays and Vonnie Quinn on Bloomberg Radio, also discusses JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon’s seat on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Here is a direct link.

I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes:
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”
— from Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds, Charles McKay’s 1841 classic work on mass hysteria and national crazes.

“Keynes thought that the richer people were the less they’d have to work, why did he get it wrong? He underestimated people’s insatiability, the richer they are the more they seem to want,” Robert Skidelsky, Emeritus professor of political economy at the University of Warwick. Here is a direct link.

“There’s no transactions, M&A doesn’t need to happen at this point the banks aren’t lending anyway, companies don’t trust the banks anymore as they don’t believe they have credit line and this is what deleveraging looks like,” Peter Toogood, director of investment, Old Broad Street Research: “this is what everyone chose, don’t be surprised that this is the result”.

I agree with the meat of this assessment, although I doubt that stocks have yet fully discounted the new, lower growth environment. Once that happens however, I think cash will have good reasons to move back into income paying equities.Here is the direct link.