Ward on Words

Niall Ferguson has a post in the Daily Beast in which he lambasts the Occupy Wall Streeters for blaming "big business" for our ills, rather than the real culprits, which (in his mind) are the Baby Boomers. For Ferguson, a Harvard professor, it's easier to point a finger at a generation, rather than at the highly compensated Ivy League grads on Wall Street, whose fiscally unsound business practices dragged our economy into a sewer. Here's Ferguson, on the protestors: "Yet if I were a young American today, occupying Wall St. would not be my objective. Just reflect for a minute on the unbridled economic mayhem that would ensue if the protesters actually succeeded. The headline “Goldman Sachs Under Control of Hip Teenage Revolutionaries” would be the last straw for an already fragile economic recovery." Ferguson feels the protesters need to shift attention away from Wall Street and focus on Boomers - the source of our ills today is the Boomers' pr...

Bank of America has posted its third consecutive quarterly loss. Apparently, the double whammy of paying back TARP and defaults on consumer loans has packed quite a punch to the firm's bottom line. From Bloomberg : "'Economic conditions remain fragile and we expect high unemployment levels to continue, creating an ongoing drag on consumer spending and growth,' [Bank CEO Brian] Moynihan said in a statement. 'We are encouraged by signs the economy is improving, as we have seen in the stabilization of our credit costs, particularly in the consumer business.'" Specks of sun are breaking through, perhaps, but clouds of high unemployment and sluggish consumer spending remain heavy and dark everywhere you look. Given the gloom surrounding the current economic outlook for consumers outside of Wall Street, why would BoA consider taking the hit now to repay TARP? Wasn't TARP designed to help struggling, massive banks recapitalize? More from Bloomberg: ...

Dana Milbank's story in today's Washington Post is like a sprig of forsythia - a bright bloom amidst a bleak wintery backdrop of doubt and debt. Milbank starts the story with a rhetorical statement: "Maybe Barack Obama is really The One." And apparently the president ranks among those considered to have god-like qualities because of all the good news we're hearing today: "The economy? Recovering. The markets? Rallying. Swine flu? Abating. Drought? Ending." Such a difference 105 days makes! Just a few months ago, under Bush, the economy was so catastrophically battered that the government had to spend trillions to prop it up. And now, recovery blooms brightly this spring. But is it true? Or have we become caught up in a bubble of irrational exuberance once again? Matthew Richardson and Nouriel Roubini are not nearly as giddy today as Milbank. In fact, they're kind of like a frost waiting to kill the lovely yellow blooms spring...