What? You've got this completely backwards. The Austrian school should be closed at this point. Their whole deal is that there should be no regulation or as little regulation as possible. Greenspan just proved how well this works. This is what happens where there is almost no regulation: http://docs.google.com/present/view?ski ... _0cdjsr4fn
Banker, quit did fuck all for a while, back to school for my PhD in Econ, taught for a bit, now freelance advisor. I have been drinking so rather not post my response as it won't give your post the respect it deserves. Let me sober up and will post my response in the morning.
So based purely off your above comment Chicago should also step aside? My comments was in relation to their business cycle, I was not for a second proclaiming to be an Austrian, simply stating their position is probably stronger now the pre 07. As I said before I have been drinking so I really want to go on with my position to be nit-picked for small errors that I will make, so give me 12hrs and I will post my full response.
Wait, that wasn't a joke? Even a non-professional should know that is a recipe for bank runs and an economic meltdown. It's common sense.
Blaming everything on the bankers is overly simplistic. People fail to realize that the government played a big part in creating the mess we have now. Back in the 70's,80's and 90's, certain politicians decided that it was imperative that all Americans own homes. To make that a reality, they passed a wide variety of legislation that greatly expanded the role of Fannie, Freddie, Ginnie and HUD, while simultaneously compelling banks to relax lending standards in the name of equality and fairness. People also seem to be ignorant of the fact that Fannie and Freddie were the 2 elephants in the room when it came to the United States mortgage market. Because both of them had an implicit guarantee from the Feds, they experienced a significantly lower cost of capital than their private sector competitors. You can make an argument that the GSEs basically forced firms like Countrywide and Indie Mac to go after the sub-prime sector because that was the only place they could turn a profit. You can make a case for regulation, but it is important to recognize that regulation usually becomes nothing more than a tool that politicians use to win elections
Glass-Steigal probably won't come back but I wish it would in some ways. Separating finance banks from mortgagee was safe for a long time but ultimately it put US banks at a disadvantage internationally. Then Citi basically told Congress to go fuck itself and merged finance and mortgage banks anyway. I don't trust banks but I don't think they are evil. I think there is a simple agency problem going on. Investment bankers don't see the human effect of their decisions. Say your family gave you a decent sum of money for whatever purchase, a car or whatever, you'd be inclined (assuming you respect your family) to not go try and strike it rich in Vegas. Whereas the investment banker doesn't have that hang-up. Regulation is an interesting mess. Theres something like 4 or 5 regulating bodies all with overlapping and disjoint authority. As well there's the problem that the people in the regulating agencies sometimes would like to move into the private sector later so there's an incentive not to make too much noise. Hopefully those problems can be solved so that an effective regulating strategy can be produced. But then there's another problem, and that is regulating is a cat-and-mouse game with the banks being the smarter, swifter mouse. It seems they may always be a step ahead of the regulators and finding new, risky ways to make money.
I'm a fiscal conservative, but I hate it when people say this. Encouraging home ownership amongst the lower middle class and poor had nothing to do with this crisis. Setting our rates at rock-bottom to counter the recession of 2000-2003 and keeping them there for too long, combined with the dismantling of our financial regulations at the behest of bank lobbyists caused our current mess. You had too many big pools of money managed by people who were all doing the same things. That and the removal of many of our leverage and risk-taking curbs created a recipe for instability. Yes, I know that's simplistic, but anything short of a thousand page tome is simplistic. Really, what we need is a department of regulators that are paid like I-bankers. Until that happens the banks will attract better talent on the whole.
I agree for the most part. But it's pretty hard to deny the link between the gov and subprime. The mortgage market is as price sensitive as any other. Regardless of where the federal funds rate is at, the GSEs always had a major price advantage because of the lack of a risk premium. Mozilo and company were scum, but that doesn't change basic economics.
http://www.fool.com is a good site about investing that is very beginner-friendly. The forums and blogs have a lot of good content, and there are some tutorial-type articles but you may have to dig a little bit to find them. A good site for investing advice/stock picks and discussion about the markets. And yeah, for specific terms investopedia is the place to go.
In relation to their idea's on the business cycle, yes, I agree that their position is stronger and holds merit. However, the usual people spouting off how great the Austrian is, are usually spewing off nonsense about non regulation. I figured you were going in that direction. I didn't even think of the business cycle angle.
Does anybody think the Euro will become stronger than the Pound in the next year? Relative to the dollar, the Euro is almost 1 to 1 with the Pound. Also, is quantitative easing supposed to end soon? I think when it does, it will have the biggest effect on the Treasury market, then the Equity market. I thought it was going to end this month so I've been short the S&P for the past couple weeks.
Weak pound is the medicine England needs to take. Combination of massive debt levels, quantitive easing, low interest rates and an appalling current account defecit has created a perfect storm for a weak pound. My prediction is March/April next year when we see a first hike in interest rates we will see the pound start to gain again. By February when all the banks have announced sizeable profits and bonuses dashed out things should start picking up. I think there is a case for the Euro becoming stronger but do not personally agree. Those who push this site the above as reason but then forget to add that much of Euroland is also in the shit, the arse has fallen out of Spanish property, Greece is a mess, Germany is still not out of the water above all I think the most sighted reason of Europhile's (size of the Eurozone= stability) is also it's biggest weakness. Monetary policy is not one size fits all, we are dealing with a variety of countries who have entered into this crisis in different ways. I think mid next year we will start to see a gap between the winners and losers in the Eurozone we will see the ECB struggle to find one size fits all policy and this will see a weakened Euro.
Treasury purchases stop next week. Combined with $180b or so of Treasuries to be auctioned, I can't see next week being a lot of fun.
Ay, the caricature painted of Austrian Economics is indeed a retarded set of views but actual Austrian Economists have created a very compelling narrative of what happened this past year and a half. I strongly recommend Arnold Kling's writing on econlog http://econlog.econlib.org/. His Recalculation narrative is brilliant. Also, regarding the Chicago school: the school is pro-market. Pro-business does not equal pro-market. Most of the work I've read coming from Chicago trained economists is very much against propping up "too big to fail" institutions with a government feeding tube. Honestly, can anything get more anti-market than government supported business? Looking to the future, I'm still not sure whether this "recovery" will survive the commercial real estate crisis. Since the toxic assets for commercial real estate are largely focused in small banks (which is why so many of them have been failing recently) a lot of economists don't think this will stop the recovery. While I agree that we wont be facing any doomsday scenarios like we did before, logically, should a whole shitload of small banks equal a "too big to fail" bank? So the questions is, how well do you think we will survive the commercial real estate issue? Personally, I greatly pains me to see all these small banks failing as this will make the giants even more prominent and give them even more market share and more power.
Finance: Where to start? As someone who may want to get into finance (maybe I-Banking or Financial Analysis) in the future, I have a question: Where to start? I'm a sophomore at university right now, and I'm taking a Financial Accounting to learn the basics. We do have other classes such as Corporate Restructuring, Corp. Finance, Managerial Finance, Financial Statement Analysis, etc. that I will definitely be taking. I can run through them all if you guys want, but most of you guys have probably done these courses before. Here is my focus: But if I wanted to do some serious learning outside of the classroom, where would you guys recommend starting? I've tried reading a Corp. Finance book to learn about the Time Value of money and the Discounted Cash Flows model, but I really feel that if I dive into that I'm missing the bigger picture. I've also started reading Graham's Intelligent Investor, but it's been a slow read so far, and I definitely feel as though I'm missing things on the way through. Since many say that the book is the cornerstone of Value Investing I thought that starting here would be good. What do you guys think? Also, if anyone wants to tell me what I'd be in for by taking the finance route for a job, I'd love to hear that...the summer has definitely placed doubts in my head about the job, especially the security of the job. Thanks for you help, and I'm open for any PM's you guys may have.
Re: Finance: Where to start? Go to job fairs at your school and get an internship. All else falls second.
Re: Finance: Where to start? Seconded. Don't waste your time reading any extraneous shit not called "The Wall Street Journal". Do well in your classes, keep up on the markets, and go to interviews prepared. If you don't get an internship junior summer at an I-Bank, it's next to impossible to get a full-time position. Getting a job at a legit I-Bank also depends on your school's rep, so hopefully you're at a good one. Also, make sure that you're actually committed to working 100 hour weeks before you decide the field is for you.
I don't mean to be discouraging, but at this point in your sophomore year you are already behind the curve in terms of preparing for a career in investment banking. Good news is, you can fix that if you are really serious. As the previous two posters stated, internships and work experience are far more important than any extra classes you may take. Not to say that you shouldn't be educating yourself outside of class, as you will need all the knowledge you can get. However, having been involved in recruiting before, I can tell you that actual experience looks far more impressive. The 2nd thing to keep in mind is that there are a million other people who are competing with you for a very limited number of slots. You have to do everything possible to differentiate yourself from your competitors. Best way I can explain it is: for every average person who applies, there are people out there who are working on dual degrees in math and economics at Harvard, with 4.0 GPAs and internships with major banks and/or other prominent firms already under their belts. They speak 6 languages and can do complex math in their heads faster than you can blink. On top of that, they are incredibly gifted sales people who can sell milk to dairy farmers. If you want the internship/job, you need to do everything in your power to be that guy. I wish I was joking. Specific suggestions: 1) go to career fairs and talk to every recruiter and company rep there. Don't just ask boring questions, be interesting and engaging. You need to be memorable, so that when you follow up with them they remember who you are and want to help you. 2) Start mining all of your school's alumni connections to find alumni who already work in the industry. Get their contact info and start networking. BE VERY PERSISTENT. Don't take no for an answer. 3) It's better to do really well in the classes you do take, rather than take a bunch of hard classes and do poorly. Your resume won't even get the time of day unless you have a 3.5 4) When you apply, follow up on your apps. Don't just submit to the online drop box and wait. 5) If you don't already go to a top 50 school, consider transferring to the best school you can get into. If you haven't figured it out already, most of the major banks only recruit at certain schools. It is extremely hard to get noticed at non-target schools. The year I graduated, out of a finance class of 250-300 students, there were only 5 of us who got hired on at bulge-bracket firms. Everybody else either didn't make it or ended up working at the financial services equivalent of McDonald's. Hope this helps