Business Roundtable: Taking Stock | Newsweek Inside Business

Wall Street’s New Gilded Age
9/11/2009 12:00:00 AM
Since its birth, the United States has grappled with the problem of an over-mighty financial sector. With the exception of Alexander Hamilton, the Founders' vision was of a republic of self-reliant farmers and small-town tradesmen. The last thing they wanted was for New York to become the London of the New World—a mammon-worshiping metropolis in which financial capital and political capital were rolled into one. That was why there was such resistance to creating a central bank, and why—despite two attempts—we have no Bank of the United States to match the Bank of England. That was why populists railed against the adoption of the gold standard after the crash of 1873. That was why there was so much suspicion when the Federal Reserve System was created in 1913. That was why government regulation of Wall Street was so strict from the Depression until the 1970s.
The Capitalist Manifesto: Greed Is Good
Fareed Zakaria 6/13/2009 12:00:00 AM
A specter is haunting the world—the return of capitalism. Over the past six months, politicians, businessmen and pundits have been convinced that we are in the midst of a crisis of capitalism that will require a massive transformation and years of pain to fix. Nothing will ever be the same again. "Another ideological god has failed," the dean of financial commentators, Martin Wolf, wrote in the Financial Times. Companies will "fundamentally reset" the way they work, said the CEO of General Electric, Jeffrey Immelt. "Capitalism will be different," said Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
Good Times Breed Bad Times
Robert J. Samuelson 10/18/2008 12:00:00 AM
A dozen years ago, James Grant—one of the wisest commentators on Wall Street—wrote a book called "The Trouble With Prosperity." Grant's survey of financial history captured his crusty theory of economic predestination. If things seem splendid, they will get worse. Success inspires overconfidence and excess. If things seem dismal, they will get better. Crisis spawns opportunity and progress. Our triumphs and follies follow a rhythm that, though it can be influenced, cannot be repealed.
The Engine of Mayhem
Robert J. Samuelson 10/13/2008 12:00:00 AM
It's easy to explain the continuing financial chaos—and the failure of governments to control it —as the triumph of psychology. Fear reigns, and panic follows. Everyone dumps stocks because everyone believes that everyone else will sell. Only rapidly falling prices attract sufficient buyers. All this is true. But it ignores the real engine of mayhem: "deleveraging." That's economic shorthand for purging the financial system of too much debt.
MONEY CULTURE
Nice Bailout. Now Pay For It!
Daniel Gross 9/22/2008 12:00:00 AM
To spend is to tax, as capitalist deity Milton Friedman is said to have put it. If so, over the last several months, we've seen an orgy of tax increases, and potential increases. Time was, that prospect would have set off a revolution.
ECONOMY
Who’s Paying the Bill?
Daniel Stone 9/17/2008 12:00:00 AM
In the middle of an already turbulent year for America's financial markets, the Federal Reserve announced late Tuesday the details of an $85 billion bailout package for floundering insurance giant AIG. The fund package, which will give the government control of almost 80 percent of the company's future activities, comes after a $100 billion rescue of government-sponsored banks Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in July and a $30 billion loan package offered to Bear Stearns earlier in February before its sale to JPMorgan Chase.