Like most people, I have to do a lot of reading, and frequently re-reading, of experts I trust to have the first clue about Wall Street. There is one person I trust more than anyone else, mainly because she has proven as courageous as anyone, has the stick-to-it-iveness of a bulldog, and almost always proves more insightful on this and related topics than anyone else: Elizabeth Warren. Many of the attacks against Bernie from Hillary and her allies are as much attacks against Elizabeth Warren as they are against Bernie. That is one reason Elizabeth Warren will not endorse Hillary in the primaries.
Another straight talker that I trust on these issues is Dean Baker. He has written in the past about Bernie’s financial transaction tax. If you read this post by Dean, you might not be able to tell he is supporting Bernie, even though he is. His defense of Bernie here, addressing many of the same issues, is much more straightforward. His swipe here, against Krugman, who I trusted when he was being anti-Bush, is also clearly pro-Bernie:
It looks like the race between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton is really heating up. Yesterday, Paul Krugman told readers:
“As far as I can tell, every serious progressive policy expert on either health care or financial reform who has weighed in on the primary seems to lean Hillary.”
Oh well, so much for those of us backing or leaning towards Sanders.
Speaking of Krugman, I feel he has become rather petulant of late, a word I used to use to describe President Bush when Krugman and I had that common enemy. David Dayen (who seems to be the same David Dayen that used to post at dailykos as dday!) really had the goods on Krugman and his new bff Mike Konczal in this Fiscal Times piece. Here is a sample:
Liberal reformers used to get this. In fact, Krugman and most of his backers pull from the work of Mike Konczal, who lately has led on the idea that Glass-Steagall restoration wouldn’t be a particularly effective goal. But back in 2010, when Dodd-Frank was being debated, Konczal co-wrote a chapter in a report for the Roosevelt Institute called “Creating a 21st Century Glass-Steagall.” He understood then that “the real problem of this crisis is in the overlap between investment banking and commercial banking.”
Krugman attacked Dayen, and others, under the guise of defending Konczal’s honor. The response by Yves Smith is delicious and deadly. Here is a snippet:
And here’s the priceless part in Krugman’s faux high ground post: he acts as if he’s riding in to defend Konczal when Dayen’s article was almost entirely about Krugman. And Krugman’s failure to offer a substantive response means he’s resorting to old trick of trial lawyers at the end of their rope: “When the facts are on your side, pound the facts. When the law is on your side, pound the law. When neither is on you side, pound the table.” The post is full of cheap slurs… :
In a nutshell, people I trust are on Bernie’s side in the Hillary vs Bernie against Wall Street discussion. And one I used to trust a lot has made a jackass of himself. As I have said before, the people around Hillary are a bigger problem than her emails, among other scandals, for me. That’s why I trust Bernie more than her on the Wall Street issue, among others.
