a Brush with reality

Today’s post is about an article written by Michael Brush writing for MSN Money. The title of his article is: “5 ways to fix Wall Street.” The story can be found at:
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/CompanyFocus/5-ways-to-fix-wall-street.aspx?page=1

The lead in to the article says, “Billions of our dollars are flowing in to save the financial system, but investor confidence won’t return until trust is restored. Here’s the work that is needed for real reform.”

Brush is described as: “Michael Brush is an award-winning New York financial writer who has covered business and investing for The New York Times, Money magazine and the Economist Group. Michael studied at Columbia Business School in the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship program. He is the author of “Lessons from the Front Line,” a book offering insights on investing and the markets based on the experiences of professional money managers.”

Brush’s 5 points are as follows:

• Start the ‘perp walks’ – in other words, incarcerate the folks who led us to this place of woe, misery, darkness, purgatory, , etc., etc.
• Rein in executive pay – in other words, economic incentives help to change behavior. Hmm, sounds interesting, where have we heard that before? That’s right, on this very blog about a month ago – it was one of my very first postings.
• Get a stronger accounting watchdog – in other words, the institutions that led us here need to be changed or reformed, too before we emerge on the other side better off than we are now. That sounds…umm…familiar, too. Hazah!
• Make dramatic regulation reforms – hmm, again. You guessed it…mentioned in an earlier post. The laws and ways of doing things have to change before a recovery can begin.
• Regulate credit default swaps. This is not something that I have mentioned specifically, however, I agree that they need to be regulated. My hunch is that Mr. Brush’s editor asked him to come up with 5 things that need to change and he threw this one on the end. It is the only suggestion that is not focused on overarching change, but instead is very specific. And it easily falls under the general heading of: “Regulatory change is needed.”

So I have posted these up here not to congratulate myself that someone in the financial press agrees with me (ugh!). No I put these up here because I want to ask those of you who are reading the blog to pass on the link to this little corner of the Web to folks you know. After all, time is money and I have been writing about these things far in advance of other, more recognized authors. This is satisfying, but not particularly useful if the word doesn’t get out. So count yourself as infected. Now it’s time to spread the virus.

Michael Brush’s bio says that he wrote a book that was an amalgamation of the investment wisdom of professional money managers. Well here I am for you, a successful money manager in the digital flesh, and for now you got me cheaply – just a click away.

Thanks as always for reading!

Jason