If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
Profit will out, whether in Wall Street boardrooms or in the ashes of a south Asian sweatshop. All of which makes for ever wealthier plutocrats, consumers kept content with cheap goods, and if we do nothing about it, lousy citizens.
If you lose 50 percent of your nest egg and then earn back 20 percent annually, you'll still be down almost 15 percent because it takes twice as long to crawl back to even when you lose that much money.
As a society we are the more than willing victims who love the adrenalin rush that comes with watching the Dow rise, or our home assessments go up, or our portfolios expand but then turn around and blame our predators when we get caught.
Sure, he didn't steal their money, but the stories of accusers suggest Armstrong created obstacles that made them spend it to defend themselves or prevent future earnings by thwarting their success.
Incredibly, even while we're still clawing our way out of the hole that Wall Street's greed put us in, there are some in Congress who are trying to rig the system in the financial industry's favor.
Just recently, Washington announced the creation of a "dream team" of financial regulators, called the Systemic Risk Council. Great idea, but here's a question: Why was the current chairwoman of the SEC, Mary Schapiro, not included?
Transparency? Accountability? Responsibility? That's for little people. Consequences? Forget it: If you're rich, there are none. We live in Leona Helmsley's world now, and it's not a good place to be.
To the canon of films about the financial collapse of 2008, add Marc Simon's Unraveled, a portrait of one man's hubris, insecurity and appetite for glory, writ large.
How many of those who voted for it knew what was in it? And how many of those who read it connected its provisions to the lessons of the last decade? The answer must be very few.
An improbable Super Bowl victory, a resurgent basketball team, a brewing quarterback war between a playboy and an evangelist. I haven't been this excited to be a New York sports fan since 1986 (or is that 1973? Or 1969?).
What I'm looking for in exchange for my $20 million investment will cost the cash-strapped Mets nothing: the acknowledgement that fans of the team actually matter.
The reasons that there aren't any trophy heads after the financial crisis are plentiful: there are legal obstacles, practical obstacles, a lack of personnel, and general fuzziness about how economic crimes are defined.
I worry about the years, and questions, yet to come. Audrey doesn't remember her grandfather; Nick never knew him. I will tell them what he did to so many innocent people, and how he drove their father to his death.
Chasing Madoff is a searing indictment of the fast-and-loose free-market attitude that nearly sank the world economy. I can't imagine how painful it would be to watch it, were I someone who had lost a fortune to Madoff's malfeasance.
According to Wikipedia, the current definition of a social network is "... a social structure made up of individuals (or organizations) called 'nodes'...
The problem today is not the tyranny of government, but rather the concentration of money, and hence power, in Wall Street and in the largest corporations. And it is clear that enough money can buy political power.
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