11 Comments

One corollary development of the growth of debt finance is that bankruptcy has gone from being a personal and commercial disgrace to a normal refinancing option. The financial sector has managed to tighten the rules for individuals, but corporations enter and leave bankruptcy with not much more controversy than if they change their names. As with so much of the modern world, Trump exemplifies this trend, and his moral character is consistent with it.

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that's an important point, I'll try to get back to it on Friday (I have travelled without my laptop charger cable, so not in a position to make promises!)

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I'm not sure that this is correct. Modern finance has enabled DIP financing and asset sales, true. But a classical-style US reorganization was always available, or at least has been so since the 1978 Bankruptcy Code.

I think what has changed is our moral system. As Uncle Miltie says: if it is "legal" and makes money for somebody, it must be good. In the old moral system, profit was Mammon's way of saying that a business was well-run. Under Uncle Miltie's moral system, profit is the sole goal of business activities.

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Contemporaneous, then

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Ceci n'est pas une banque?

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indeed, although the reference was to Baudrillard's claim that there was no such thing as the Iraq war because it was purely a media performance. which like so many statements of postmodern philosophy, invites the responses "yes I kind of see what you mean" and "don't be stupid" in almost exactly equal quantity

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Well, I think I was getting at the rise of the shadow banking sector, which was what? Pre-GFC?

Anyway, I hesitate to ask, but as I can't be having with all this new-fangled tech, being the very work of Satan and all that, but The Paperback Edition? That additional 12 month wait is really quite tedious.

I'll stop whining now.

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I've got some issues with Amazon. Is the book available for pre-order anywhere else?

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let me check and get back to you. the process of settling the US publication rights is ongoing, which makes it quite hard to say anything about ebooks in particular

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Thanks, Don't want to put anyone in trouble! I may just have to wait for the official release then - can't wait.

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Depends on what you mean by the "deepening of financial markets." A whole lot of "financial products" represent some form of legal arbitrage: taxes, insolvency, whatever. And other products are ripoffs of moneyed rubes: doctors, dentists, Icelandic banks. It's not all consenting adults operating under familiar rules. And the creditors and taxman are not the only folk at risk--the arbitrageurs tend to be highly leveraged maturity transformers, who can bring a whole lotta others down with them.

Good old-fashioned bank or bond debt? Yeah, I'm all for them.

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