NBR's Darren Gersh isn't one to toot his own horn (too much), so I thought I'd write this entry. During Monday's Congressional debate about the bailout plan (which we all know eventually failed to get enough votes in the House of Representatives), Senator Lamar Alexander (R - Tennessee) read part of a Darren Gersh report on the floor of the U.S. Senate. You can watch the clip below.
We're not sure how the mention affected the vote, but we are glad to know our political leaders are watching Nightly Business Report.
By the way, the transcript of the Gersh report mentioned by Senator Alexander is on our website.
Comments
Re Credit Crunch:
Last night there was a section on the radio show about how small businesses were struggling because of the lack of credit. IE Car dealer who could not buy more cars for his dealership because of the credit crunch and another business owner with a cosmetics company in a similar situation. Did they ever hear of 'self financing?' Buy something for $ 100. sell it for $ 200. and use the $ 200 to buy two to sell. When we were growing our business , we had no ability to borrow money so we lived lean and used the 'profits' from our sales, reinvesting in our business, to grow. While it took a long time, the business stayed debt free and grew in a healthy way. Business owners who think they can live on next years profits are mortgaging their future. What happened to the idea of "living within your means?"
Re Credi Crunch:
Last night there was a section on the radio show about how small businesses were struggling because of the lack of credit. IE Car dealer who could not buy more cars for his dealership because of the credit crunch and another business owner with a cosmetics company in a similar situation. Did they ever hear of 'self financing?' Buy something for $ 100. sell it for $ 200. and use the $ 200 to buy two to sell. When we were growing our business , we had no ability to borrow money so we lived lean and used the 'profits' from our sales, reinvesting in our business, to grow. While it took a long time, the business stayed debt free and grew in a healthy way. Business owners who think they can live on next years profits are mortgaging their future. What happened to the idea of "living within your means?"
The sheer greed of Wall Street is coming home to roost and as usual it is the little guy that cops it in the neck.
As an Australian observing from afar, it appears the excesses of the Greenspan era, coupled with a failure of the regulators [SEC] to rein in Wall St [who utilised cheap money for their own greedy aims at the expense of Main St], the removal of the uptick rule for both naked and scrip covered short selling July 2007, created an environment where collusive forces could totally destabilise the financial sector of the market. What in the past took 6 months to occur we saw full filled within days while the SEC blithely looked on and did nothing.
When the history of this era is written I believe blame will be attributed to the USA Federal Reserve, USA Treasury, the SEC and the sheer greed of Wall St. Personally I think ALL of them should be allowed to fail.
The thing that alarms me is that these perpetrators are considered to be part of the solution. Talk about blind faith.