Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Zombie banks?
Posted by Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 12:17 PM
I thought Ken Lewis looked a little, well, un-human in his Financial Times interview yesterday.
Remember when economists poked fun at Ronald Reagan's voodoo economics? Well, now they are dead serious about so-called "zombie banks" - financial giants like Citigroup and Bank of America whose debts are greater than their assets, with stock worth less than zero, and they're only able to stay alive by devouring federal bailout bucks. Those banks, in turn, are terrified by talk that the government might come in and nationalize them. Well, some critics ask, why not? Given all this, I wanted to talk to a man with a clear-eyed perspective on the worldwide economic impact of this banking crisis.Robert Johnson was once the Chief Economist of the Senate Banking Committee under the chairmanship of that fiercest of budget pit-bulls, the late Wisconsin Senator William Proxmire. Johnson became a Managing Director at Soros Fund Management, and now serves on a United Nations Commission recommending reforms of the international monetary and financial system. ...
Given what we know is happening around the world, are you scared?
Johnson: Yes I am.
Moyers: What scares you the most?
Read the rest of this AlterNet.org transcript, from the Feb. 27 edition of PBS' Bill Moyers Journal, by clicking here.
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