J. P. Morgan Becomes the Whipping Boy of Washington
“You can’t pick cherries with your back to the tree.” — J. P. Morgan
I’ve always been a big fan of J. P. Morgan, the country’s largest investment bank, since it was established by the grand old man.
Dr. Mark Skousen Visits the Morgan Library.
When visitors come to New York, I often take them down to 23 Wall Street and point out the vantage point J. P. Morgan (1837-1913) enjoyed as king of Wall Street finance back in the late 19th and early 20th century. And I then take them to the Morgan Library in midtown. Morgan was attacked as a robber baron, but he saved the Treasury twice in the 1890s when they were running out of gold, financed the first billion-dollar company (US Steel), and kept the United States from suffering another depression by solving the Panic of 1907. The Federal Reserve was created in 1913 because J. P. Morgan died in March, 1913, and without a private central banker, there was nobody around to work his magic. (His son, Jack, was no match for his father.)
Now 100 years later, J. P. Morgan may be in his grave but he’s still coming under attack. The New York Times’ reporters have been doing exposes on J. P. Morgan brokers, and now the Obama administration is going after them. Even though the federal government requested that J. P. Morgan bail out Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual, the U.S. Justice Department went after the investment bank and hit it with a $13 billion settlement for bad mortgage loans during the financial crisis of 2008.
As the Wall Street Journal concluded, “The only thing clear from this settlement is there will be no willing buyers [of bad assets] during the next crisis.”
The saddest consequence is that $13 billion now is being transferred from the productive private sector to the unproductive public sector.
You Blew It! ObamaCare: Success or Failure?
“If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.”
— President Barack Obama
Clearly, President Obama gets the dubious “You Blew It” award this week for promising more than the government could deliver when it comes to healthcare. The Affordable Health Care Act is rapidly becoming “unaffordable.”
At the New Orleans conference last week, Wayne Allyn Root, “the capitalist evangelist,” stole the show by announcing that ObamaCare is a “fantastic success” because it is “a brilliant, cynical and purposeful attempt to damage the U.S. economy, kill jobs and bring down capitalism.”
I’m not as cynical. Obama clearly wants ObamaCare to succeed as his signature legislation. The problem is that (a) young people still aren’t signing up for medical insurance, (b) millions are losing their current plans and (c) insurance costs are rising.
The silver lining is that perhaps Americans will realize that they can no longer depend on the medical profession or the hospitals to give them first class medical treatment and they will work harder to live healthier lives.
Every July at FreedomFest, John Mackey (co-CEO, Whole Foods Market) and other health-care experts hold sessions to standing-room-only crowds about living well by eating well and exercising. Mackey will be returning next year to give a talk on “The Whole Foods Diet: How to Live to be 100 Without Getting Cancer, Heart Disease, Diabetes, and Stroke.” Don’t miss it. For more information, go to www.freedomfest.com. Dates are July 9-12, 2014, at Planet Hollywood, Las Vegas.
In case you missed it, I encourage you to read my e-letter column about the outlook for gold gleaned from experts at the New Orleans Conference that appeared last week in Eagle Daily Investor. I also invite you to comment about my column in the space provided below my Eagle Daily Investor commentary.
Finally, my colleagues at Eagle have been working hard on re-designing the www.EagleDailyInvestor.com site. Go check out the new site now and come back every day for exclusive stories, market commentary and analysis you won’t find anywhere else!
Yours for peace, prosperity and liberty, AEIOU,
Mark Skousen
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Upcoming Appearance
O Michael Steele agreed to join us at our Global Financial Summit. The former chairman of the Republican Party will reveal the mistakes of the GOP in the past year and give us his outlook in 2014. The summit is scheduled for February 5-8, 2014, Nassau, the Bahamas. Join us at the five-star Atlantis Resort (only $199 a night, plus tax) for a three-day in-depth financial seminar with James Grant (editor of the prestigious Grant Interest Rate Observer) on “Will Janet Yellen make a difference?”, Peter Schiff on his new book “The Real Crash,” Steve Moore (Wall Street Journal) on “Privatization: The Next Big Thing in Washington,” Johan Norberg (Swedish author of “In Defense of Global Capitalism”) on “Europe on the Mend?”, Richard Rahn and Chris Edwards of Cato Institute on “Downsizing Government: Why Gridlock Works” and Martin Truax (Raymond James). We are also holding the first Austrian Investment Seminar at the Global Summit, with Mark Spitznagel (Universa hedge fund manager and author of “The Dao of Capital”), money manager extraordinaire Adrian Day, international finance expert and professor Joel Stern, Global Guru Nicholas Vardy and many others. Each attendee will receive a complimentary copy of my new book “A Viennese Waltz Down Wall Street.” Note: We are offering a special early-bird discount of $100 off registration — hurry, it ends Nov. 30. Call Tami at 1-866/266-5101, or go to www.freedomfest.com/gfs for more information.
