Subject: Share the View -- on Caring Capitalists and Libertarians in Limbo
From: "Bloomberg View -- Tobin Harshaw" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2012 05:07:40 -0500

_Share the View_
   _Bloomberg View _

A Quick Look at Bloomberg News's Opinion Section for March 8,  2012

   "The economic power that some in the financial community attain bothers many
   people deeply," writes Robert Shiller. "It offends our ideal of a society
   that aspires to respect, appreciate and support everyone. The pursuit of
   power that often drives financial capitalism seems contrary to the concept
   that finance should be about the stewardship of society’s assets. Yet
   successful societies develop elites partly because they need leaders with
   the power to get things done. We have to make it possible for a relatively
   small number of people to use their personal judgment to direct our major
   activities. A system of financial capitalism will eventually imbue those in
   possession of such faculties with wealth and power." Read the fourth and
   final op-ed installment of Shiller's search for ways to "humanize finance"
   at the[2] link.
     Links:
       2. http://bloom.bg/wZgwRk

   Meanwhile, the Koch brothers are trying to dehumanize libertarianism -- by
   trying take over the Cato Institute -- says columnist Ezra Klein. "The Koch
   brothers have long supported Cato, which they helped found in Washington in
   1977," Klein explains. "Recently, however, they have come to consider their
   creation politically unreliable ... I am not exactly a libertarian. I’m a
   technocrat. I believe in the government’s ability, and occasionally its
   responsibility, to help solve problems that the market can’t or won’t
   resolve on its own. I find much of Cato’s hard-line libertarianism -- to the
   point of purging Will Wilkinson and Brink Lindsey, libertarians who explored
   making common cause with liberals on select issues -- naive, callous and
   occasionally absurd. And yet, it’s among a handful of think tanks whose work
   I regularly read and trust." [3]Link.
     Links:
       3. http://bloom.bg/ysbt5w

   "U.S. exports have been a rare bright spot in an otherwise sluggish economy,
   increasing by about 20 percent over the last two years and driving about
   half of all economic growth," note the View editors. "It’s curious, then,
   that some U.S. companies, conservative groups and lawmakers are arguing
   against reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank of the United States, whose
   sole purpose is to help strengthen the economy and create jobs by supporting
   the nation’s exports." Well, has the bank helped? In many ways: "Its role
   seems small: Out of $2 trillion in U.S. exports last year, it provided $32
   billion in loans, loan guarantees and other support for about $41 billion
   worth of sales. But it helps enable deals that might not happen otherwise,
   including the purchase of General Electric Co. locomotives in Pakistan and
   decorative wall coverings made by Wallquest Inc., a small, family-owned
   Pennsylvania company looking to expand overseas." [4]Link.
     Links:
       4. http://bloom.bg/ydIsHo

   And, with news of another economic bright spot, comes View columnist
   Caroline Baum: "Those arguing that recent job gains -- an average monthly
   increase of 185,000 in private payrolls in the past year -- are statistical
   anomalies have an increasingly wobbly leg to stand on. Start with the plunge
   in weekly jobless claims, a tally of real people lining up at real state
   unemployment offices to file real claims. The Labor Department publishes
   both unadjusted and seasonally adjusted numbers. Take your pick. Both
   measures are near a four-year low, reflecting the improvement in the labor
   market. Then there’s the small matter of income earned from employment. When
   the Bureau of Economic Analysis took a second look at fourth-quarter gross
   domestic product last week, it found an additional $82.4 billion of wage and
   salary disbursements in the third quarter for a total increase of $107.2
   billion. Wages and salaries are compensation for work performed, not phantom
   jobs."[5] Link.
     Links:
       5. http://bloom.bg/yqwVMx

   Also, the View editors have thoughts on credit-default swaps; op-ed
   contributor Charles Millard exposes pension-fund shenanigans; and Business
   Class blog contributor Lubos Pastor sees a bright future for actively
   managed funds.

   To see if you share the View, go to [6]www.bloomberg.com/view.
   And check out our editors' blog, [7]The Ticker.
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     Links:
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       7. http://www.bloomberg.com/view/the-ticker

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