Thursday, July 29, 2010

Government ownership of corporate stock requires investigation

There are committees and commisions investigating what happened on Wall Street.

They need to be as tough as the Pecora committee and the Temporary National Economic Committee (TNEC) to investigate the predators on Wall Street. They need to avoid the mistakes of the House and Senate Iran-Contra committees and other amateurs.

Like Hans Blix or any other good diplomat, they must not take no for an answer.

They need to ask fundamental questions: why would a government buy stock in any corporation?

Justice Louis Brandeis famously wrote a book about investment banking called "Other People's Money." Why are governments taking our money and investing it in the stock market? Why does our State of Florida own 15,000,000 shares of BP stock?

Could someone "please explain it to me, like I was a six year old," As Denzel Washington's character said to the jury in the movie, "Philadelphia")?

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