Crisis contracts: How to make the bankers pay

Banks continue to pay our politicians well to make sure they continue doling out special favors to the large banks. It is up to you, and your neighbors whether you hold politicians accountable for the actions they took to create the climate for the credit crisis and the huge favors granted (with your money) by politicians to those investment bankers. The bankers count on their money buying the politicians.

Karl Whelan, 9 June 2011In a recent Vox column, Hans Werner Sinn of the prestigious Institute for Economic Research claims that the German Bundesbank is effectively propping up banks across the Eurozone’s periphery. He adds that doing this risks a major crisis. Here, Karl Whelan of University College Dublin argues that Professor Sinn’s analysis is incorrect and that his policy prescriptions are extremely unhelpful and even dangerous. Full Article: Why Hans Werner Sinn is missing the target

There have been two arguments for limiting bankers' pay. One is that it's a way to punish executives at corporations that took a taxpayer bailout. The other is that it's a way to reduce the incentives for taking risks and is thus key to the new regulatory structure. I don't buy the latter argument. It misunderstands, I think, the nature of a banker's risk.

Hans-Werner Sinn, 18 November 2011The first major crisis in the era of independent central banks is severely testing that independence – nowhere more so than the Eurozone. This column argues that the ECB is monetising the sovereign debt – a view widely held in Germany. It argues that the ECB is the Eurozone’s economic government with the power to enforce comprehensive rescue measures, up to and including a fiscal transfer union.Full Article: ECB crisis actions: The printing press perspective

Bill George, a director of Goldman Sachs, defending the bank’s compensation practices, said this: “The shareholder value is made up in people and you need the people there to do the job. If you don’t pay them for their performance, you’ll lose them. It’s much like professional athletes and movie stars.”