Felix on Finance
I am currently reading The Last Tycoons, an excellent book about the rise of Lazard Frères. Felix Rohatyn is a prominent character in the book: he was one of Lazard's best known bankers in the 70s and 80s, perhaps one of the best known investment bankers in the world. One quote from Felix particularly struck me:
Isn't that an interesting thing for one of the most talented M&A bankers of all time to say?
Update. Naked Capitalism refers back to an earlier post re-examining the benefits of free trade from a developmental perspective, which in turn reminded me of my own riff on the topic. It would be nice after the crisis is over to look at some of these free market failures in detail. My suspicion is still that the lack of alignment of interests between mortgagees, mortgage originators, and securitisation buyers was one of the major, perhaps the major cause.
I believe in the free market, but I do not believe in laissez-faire. I do not believe that, at the end of the 20th century, in complicated advanced industrial societies, an absolute free market system exists or is desirable. If it does not exist, I do not think we should pretend we can cure the problems we have with simply free-market solutions.
Isn't that an interesting thing for one of the most talented M&A bankers of all time to say?
Update. Naked Capitalism refers back to an earlier post re-examining the benefits of free trade from a developmental perspective, which in turn reminded me of my own riff on the topic. It would be nice after the crisis is over to look at some of these free market failures in detail. My suspicion is still that the lack of alignment of interests between mortgagees, mortgage originators, and securitisation buyers was one of the major, perhaps the major cause.
Labels: Economic Theory, Markets
posted by David Murphy at 13:03
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