Molly Ivins: The Suicide of Capitalism

Jul 17, 2006
By Molly Ivins

AUSTIN, Texas—In case you haven’t got anything else to worry about—like war in the Middle East, nuclear showdowns, global warming or Apocalypse Now—how about the suicide of capitalism?

Late last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals struck down a new rule by the Securities and Exchange Commission requiring mandatory registration with the SEC for most hedge funds. This may not strike you as the end of the world, but that’s because you’ve either forgotten what a hedge fund is or how much trouble the funds can get us into.

These investment pools for rich folks are now a $1.2-trillion industry (known to insiders, I am pleased to report, as “the hedge fund community”). Hedge funds are now beginning to be used by average investors and pension investors. Back in 1998, there was this little-bitty old hedge fund called Long Term Capital Management. Because hedge funds make high-risk bets, Long Term Capital got itself in so much trouble its collapse actually threatened to wreck world markets, and regulators had to step in to negotiate a $3.6-billion bailout. A similar fiasco at this point probably would break world markets.

The Securities and Exchange Commission under William Donaldson (appointed after the Enron mess) had tried to regulate hedge funds. But Christopher Cox, current SEC chairman and no friend of regulation, said he would consult other members of the administration about whether to appeal the ruling, which “came on the same day as disclosures,” reports The Washington Post, that the feds “are investigating Pequot Capital Management, Inc., a $7 billion hedge fund, for possible insider trading.” Nice timing, judges.

This is the third time in less than a year the appeals court has blocked the SEC from acting beyond its authority. According to The Washington Post, “Former SEC member Harvey J. Goldschmid, who voted to approve the plan, yesterday urged regulators to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, members of Congress or both. In the Pequot case, a former SEC lawyer who worked on the Pequot investigation before being fired by the agency has written a letter to key members of the Senate banking and finance committees alleging that the SEC dropped the probe because of political pressure.” The lawyer said he was prevented by political pressure from interviewing a top Wall Street executive. Sources said the executive was John J. Mack, once chairman of Pequot and now chief executive of Morgan Stanley—and a major fundraiser for President Bush’s campaigns. I’d say the guy’s wired.

So what we have here is yet another case of ideological decision-making (“all government regulation is bad”) being applied despite the most obvious promptings of common sense. Come to think of it, that’s exactly the pattern this administration has followed with war in the Middle East, nuclear showdowns, global warming and Apocalypse Now.

Well, if the administration won’t do something, how about Congress? Reps. Barney Frank, Michael Capuano and Paul Kanjorski are co-sponsoring a bill to reverse the court decision—and to gather more information about how hedge funds affect the economy. This would seem a peppy response, except Congress seems quite determined to do nothing at all these days, having already beaten the record of the “do-nothing Congress” of the Truman era. As near as can be figured out, the Republican “game plan” is to do absolutely nothing between now and November. This doesn’t improve anyone’s opinion of the Republican Congress, but has the happy effect of dragging the Democrats down with them.

Vintage Molly Ivins (Oct. 1999)

We certainly miss you, Molly Ivins. Yet, you still speak to us from the grave. Below is a column written by Ms. Ivins back in October 26, 1999. She was one of the good guys in this financial debacle. Read her words and weep for our nation that elected Bush and his merry band of Wall Street, banker, finance and insurance pirates. They've looted our nation's treasury right before our very eyes.

Don't believe the hype from all of the goofball journalists and pundits as well as the blindsided politicians that now clearly see the implosion of our financial/economic/banking system as it melts away. There were clear lucid voices that were like the Prophet Jeremiah crying in the wilderness for some sanity. But, in a positively Orwellian world, the free market capitalists killed capitalism with their unquenchable greed.

By Molly Ivins: AUSTIN, Texas — I feel vaguely like Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady," announcing with gleefully inhumane relish: "She'll regret it, she'll regret it! Ha!"

"I can see her now, Mrs. Freddy Eynsford-Hill, in a wretched little flat above the store!

"I can see her now, not a penny in the till, and the bill collectors knocking at the door!"

Which is to say, the new banking bill is a thoroughly lousy idea, and the party most likely to regret it is us.

The 1999 Gramm-Leach Act is about to replace the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, with the result that bankers, brokers and insurance companies can all get into one another's business. It's a done deal except for the final vote on the conference-committee agreement. The inevitable result will be a wave of mergers creating gigantic financial entities.

In a stupefying moment of pomposity, a New York Times editorial solemnly concluded: "The principle of freer competition is the economic engine of this era. But the other imperative is to demand openness, financial prudence and safeguards so that the vast new concentrations of wealth and power do not create new abuses." When was the last time you saw a vast concentration of wealth and power that DIDN'T create abuses?

Or as Sen. Richard Bryan of Nevada so neatly put it, "Industry has gotten a gold mine while the American public has gotten the shaft."

Just to remind you one more time of how corrupt our political system is (and members of the Senate had a cow when Sen. John McCain used the word "corrupt" to describe the campaign-financing system a few weeks ago), the financial industry has poured more than $30 million in soft money, PAC and individual contributions to politicians in 1999, 60 percent to the Republicans. That's just over one-third of the amount spent during the entire 1997-98 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

And this certainly qualifies as responsive politics. So much money has gone into getting this bill passed during the last 10 years that there is no hope of stopping it.

The only thing that held it up this long was Sen. Phil Gramm's stubborn insistence on making it worse. He wanted to use the occasion to gut the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, which forces banks to make loans in the same area where they take in deposits — in other words, to quit red-lining their own customers. Most of CRA was saved by the White House.

But the bad news is:

— Privacy: What's in the bill doesn't protect your financial privacy worth a rat's heinie. In theory, the new law says that banks have to disclose their privacy policies. That doesn't mean they always have to protect your privacy, or give you an opt-out before selling your information to every telemarketer on earth.

Ever use a check at a liquor store? Do you smoke? Ever put something from Victoria's Secret on your credit card? Take any meds? Ever see a shrink? (Actually, that's increasingly less likely under our dandy system of corporate HMO health care.) The health information you provided to your life insurer will be passed along to your banker when you go to get a mortgage and will help determine the interest rate you get charged, as will your lifestyle info.

— Natural disaster: In theory, banks that merge with insurance companies are obliged to put themselves at only limited risk if some catastrophic event threatens their insurance subsidiary.

What's the only business in the world that takes global warming seriously? Insurance.


We just watched a third of North Carolina go under water. All the global warming experts think that increased hurricanes are one consequence of the phenomenon: One Mitch slams straight into Miami or Savannah, and the entire industry will stagger. Think it won't affect the banks that own it?

— Unnatural disaster: Don't get me started on the evidence for my theory that bankers are among the stupidest people on God's green earth. These are the geniuses who loaned all that money to Latin America in the '80s and then had to write it off. This is the system that almost collapsed last year because one hedge fund spiraled out of control — and had to be bailed out by the Fed. These are the clever fellows who didn't notice their banks were being used to launder Russian mafia money.

"Too Big to Fail" will be the new order of the day. And guess who gets left holding the bag when they're too big to fail? One of these monsters goes down, and it will cost as much as the whole S&L debacle.

Alan Greenspan, not heretofore associated with the populist left, told bankers in a speech two weeks ago that the bill will create a class of super-institutions Too Big to Fail. In his usual impenetrable linguistic style, he allowed as how some new form of supervision will have to be created, but the regulators are well behind the financial system.

— Consumers: Phil Gramm promises us that increased competition will bring about a wonderful world of dandy new services at lower prices. Not a single soul thinks this bill will do anything but cause a tidal wave of mergers and acquisitions, leaving us with fewer options than ever. We'll get fewer and more powerful institutions with the ability to overcharge for products because of their market share.

Ed Mierzwinkski of Public Interest Research says the only customers whom banks care about are other banks' customers. The only offers you get for those 3 percent APR credit cards come from other banks. Once you sign up, the banks suddenly announce that the offer is time-limited.

— Most obscure horrible provision in bill: Rep. Thomas Bliley of Virginia stuck in a $95 billion give-away for insurance. The trend in that industry is "de-mutualization," a mutual being a entity where the rate-payers own the company. If the company "de-mutualizes" by going to a stockholder-owned mutual holding company, without compensation to the policy-holder owners, the increased value of the company goes not to the former owners but to execs with big stock options and new shareholders. The former owners lose equity of an average $1,700 each, according to the Center for Insurance Research in Cambridge, Mass.

Twenty-seven states have either rejected or have not enacted mutual holding company conversion laws. Hiya, sucker.

Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram