Bankster Apologist Phil Swagel Speaks

A couple of years back, I publicly asked Swagel if he knew what money supply growth was during the summer of 2008. He didn't. Three month annualized money growth (M2) not seasonally adjusted had declined from double-digit levels earlier in the year, to near zero. It was this dramatic swing that, in my view, caused the financial crisis. A crisis I warned was coming that summer, see here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. 

It was curious he didn't know since he was at the time assistant secretary for economic policy at the Treasury Department. This means that he was Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's chief economic adviser. Yet, he was clueless about money supply growth.

Since then, I have generally viewed him as an apologist for banksters, rather than a serious economists. It looks he is continuing his old tricks.

He is out with a column in Business Week, arguing against the break-up of big banks.

He argues that:

These calls [for a break up], however, ignore the unintended consequences of making our global banks too small to succeed: Much of the business will migrate to non-U.S. banks and the less-regulated shadow banking sector. 

He goes on to give even more technical arguments as to why big banks are important, typical bankster apologist stuff. What he fails to do, however, is call for what a serious economist would call for. That is, an end to government propping up of the banking sector via the Federal Reserve and the FDIC, and allowing the size of banks to be determined by free markets.

Swagel appears to be a sharp guy, who fails to think outside the government box, his solutions always are within the government box, which apparently causes him to not even recognize that there are options and activities going on outside the box. Bottom line, he is a perfect example of a government technocrat that is used by the power players to find justification to distort the free market system and rape the economy.