After the last couple of years the answer really should be obvious but I suppose it's not to everyone - especially to people whose wealth depends on it. Still, an interesting debate to watch.
Does financial innovation improve global growth? A debate
Sat, 2010-01-30 07:09
#1
Does financial innovation improve global growth? A debate
Sat, 2010-01-30 07:09
#2
Oops, the embedding didn't work - the video can be found here: http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2010/01/debate_on_finan.html
Sat, 2010-01-30 09:33
#3
[url=http://www.michael-hudson.com/interviews/080909WorseningUSdebtcrisis.htm... Hudson[/url] said that financial innovation...
means the creation of special rent-extracting privilege. The privilege was being able to get the proverbial "free ride" (that is, economic rent) by borrowing at low-interest government rates to buy and repackage mortgages to sell at a high-interest markup. Their "innovation" lies in the ambiguity that enabled them to pose as public-sector borrowers when they wanted to borrow at low rates, and private-sector arbitrageurs when they wanted to get a rake-off from higher margins.