Share the View: Bash the Fed

Share The View

THE LATEST OPINIONS FROM BLOOMBERG VIEW

MARCH 13, 2015 bloombergview.com

WALL STREET Matt Levine: "The main point of the securities laws is to prevent companies from raising money from the unsuspecting public without registration and disclosure, so the SEC takes sort of a dim view of inventive efforts to do that." Read more... INVESTING Barry Ritholtz: "I have been highly critical of both Wall Street and the bailout of banks during the crisis. However, it's important to distinguish how Wall Street's rank-and-file employees are compensated from what senior management 'got away with.'" Read more... FEDERAL RESERVE Ramesh Ponnuru: "'Bash' is a useful word for journalists looking to stack the deck. We criticize; the people we disagree with 'bash.' The bashing may take the form of criticism, but the choice of words has primed readers to regard the criticism as stupid and vulgar. ... Whether or not it's in style, severe criticism of the Fed is warranted, and so is a reduction in its power."Read more... BILLIONAIRES Justin Fox: Oracle's Larry Ellison gets paid a lot. "The question of whether it's really appropriate to shovel so much money and shares at Ellison and other top executives probably can't be answered purely with reference to measures of corporate performance." Read more... HILLARY CLINTON Stephen Mihm: "What is the proper relationship between the agents of government and the records they produce? And what obligation do they have to retain records for posterity?" Read more... MIDDLE EAST Stephen L. Carter: A letter from 47 Republican lawmakers to Iran's leaders over a potential nuclear deal with the U.S. "was a silly stunt. ... That the senators who signed the letter may choose to display their unhappiness in ways that are combative, partisan and even self-indulgent doesn't mean they don't have a case." Read more... RUSSIA Leonid Bershidsky: "Russian President Vladimir Putin has disappeared. Well, not literally, but he hasn't been seen in public for a full week and reports about his schedule on the presidential website seem suspect. ... It offers evidence enough that Russia has become an outright dictatorship. No other kind of state would be so opaque, nor its citizens so preoccupied with their ruler." Read more... ENTERTAINMENT Noah Feldman: "If the devolution from Marvin Gaye to Robin Thicke doesn't stand for the decline of Western civilization, nothing does. The Los Angeles jury that found Thicke's 'Blurred Lines' unintentionally plagiarized Gaye's 'Got to Give It Up' apparently agreed. Choosing the dead genius over the living epigone was artistically correct -- but it set a terrible legal precedent." Read more... POLITICS Jeanne Cummings: "Campaign finance reformers have been on a steady losing streak in the courts and Congress. But they may finally have found a champion who can elevate their cause: Pope Francis." Read more... 2016 ELECTIONS Jonathan Bernstein: "What will Republicans do about tax cuts if they win the White House and retain Senate and House majorities? Think of a big number. Then a bigger one. And keep going." Read more... TECH Katie Benner: "When it comes to preserving the tech boy's club, blame-the-victim procedures are much more insidious than the so-called pipeline problem, in which women aren't interested in studying math and science."Read more... ASIA William Pesek: The Bank of Korea has no shortage of diplomatic ways to explain this week's surprise rate cut, "including weak domestic demand, sluggish business investment and anemic exports. But it's worth being clear what this move was really about: Japan." Read more... FOOD Megan McArdle: "KitchenAid is getting into the market for the best appliance you've never heard of. Longtime readers, of course, have heard me talk about this appliance before: the Thermomix." Read more... INDIA Chandrahas Choudhury: "This week, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has found his forbearance and strategic capabilities exercised to their fullest by a domestic crisis (to some citizens, a foreign-policy one) partly of his own making. An ambitious political experiment engineered by Modi and his Hindu nationalist party in the border state of Jammu and Kashmir -- the only Muslim-majority state in India -- threatens to implode within just a few days of its inauguration." Read more...