Juggling Dynamite

Meredith Whitney, founder and chief executive officer of Meredith Whitney Advisory Group, talks about the outlook for financials, the U.S. economy and JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s trading loss. She also explains why post-credit bust, the add-leverage-and-stir-to-look-genius model is no more and banks will need to get back to offering traditional banking (lower profit) services. The credit genie is going back in the bottle for another 20 years or so. Here is a direct link.

Arthur Levitt, former chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, talks about JP Morgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee today. He is conflicted as he now serves as an advisor to Goldman Sachs and other “too big banks”, but he also freely admits that banks today are too big to regulate and manage and that he regrets his support when he was SEC chairman in doing away with Glass-Steagall. At least he admits that banks today got too big and complicated because they were under-regulated and given too much congressional lea-way. Interesting discussion. Here is a direct link.

Martin Feldstein, a professor of economics at Harvard University, and president emeritus of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) (the official body responsible for dating recessions) talks about the outlook for Federal Reserve policy the U.S. economy, and Europe’s debt crisis.  Here is a direct link.