In case you missed it, here’s the wealth of nations news on planet Earth: the biggest banks in America — the crown jewels of U.S. financial power — are being bailed out by foreigners. Billion after billion is being pumped in from China and Singapore, Kuwait and Korea and Dubai.
American bankers made a killing in the subprime lending boom. Now, in the subprime bust, they’ve gone hat-in-hand, selling the family jewels to cover their assets, and maybe yours.
It’s a rescue, but make no mistake — it’s also a marker of power shifting away from the USA.
This hour, On Point: American banks, foreign bailout.
-Tom Ashbrook
Guests:
David Enrich, reporter for The Wall Street Journal.
Eswar Prasad, senior professor of trade policy at Cornell University and former head of the China Division and the Financial Studies Division at the International Monetary Fund.
James Galbraith, professor of public policy and government at the University of Texas at Austin and author of “Unbearable Cost: Bush, Greenspan and the Economics of Empire.”
Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-winning economist and University Professor at Columbia Business School, former Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President of the World Bank, former Chairman of the President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers, and author of “Making Globalization Work.” His forthcoming book is about the costs of the Iraq war.
Tags: Economy, financial crisis
