Who's To Blame?
I don't have a lot of time this morning, and I'm getting pretty sick of all attempts to complexify this question, so I'll lay it out for you right here.
Who's to blame for this incredible mess? It's really clear.
No, it's not Wall Street. Wall Street is there to work within whatever rules there are to make people who invest in stocks and other instruments (and pay their broker fees) as much money as possible, with billions left over for Itself.
No, it's not Greedy People. Captialism is all about rewarding the greedy. If Greedy were a crime, they'd have to set aside Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas to hold all the felons.
No, it's not the Banks who pressured the Feds to change the rules, jobbed the system and did whatever they could to build double-digit growth into a machine set up to operate in the low single digits. They were playing by the rules they were allowed to set up for themselves, and, more importantly, by the demented rules of the Street.
And no, it's not the fat cats who profited, or the weasels who sold the same bridge over and over again, or even the realtors who squeezed every last bit of juice out of the blood orange that was offered to them. These are all shallow, self-interested, slightly sleazy, ambitious, avaricious, mendacious forces that are DESIGNED to do what they did: Get away with whatever they could. Make the most money. Figure out rationalizations to make it all sound good. So you can't blame the intellectual courtesans in academia, the press or the research departments of now defunct institutions who helped them do that either, no matter how tempting it is to do so.
It's the guys who were supposed to watch this sorry bunch and prevent them from taking over the funny farm. They're the ones to blame. How simple do I have to make it?
Guy #1's job is to eat as many pies as he can before he dies. Guy #2 is hired to make sure that everybody gets his or her fair share and plays by the apple-pie rules. If Guy #1 and his pals get all the pies, he's just doing his job. It's Guy #2 who isn't.
So I'm looking at Guy #2, who changed all the rules when Guy #1 asked him to. Who didn't enforce the few, tattered rules that remained. Who, over the course of the last couple of decades, never learned the most simple two-letter word in the English language, one that translates pretty well into virtually any global tongue. That word is NO. Who, in a very real sense, simply went missing. Who got gone.
The system is built to reward the fast, the greedy, the sharp, the amoral. In a totally free market, it is they, unencumbered by restraint, who do what's necessary to reach their objectives. That's why we have laws and regulations and people to manage them -- not to destroy freedom, but to make it possible in a world that is not set up to truly establish it.
I blame Guy #2. Isn't it time we took him out behind the barn?
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The real culprit is this country's right for an "individual pursuit of happiness". In this culture "happiness" means MONEY....nothing more or less.
It is the insatiable pursuit of status and wealth by everyone that has created this tragedy. Unfortunately, the poorest and weakest will be hurt the most.
Just look at the past attempts to restore "the economy".....remember the STIMULOUS PLAN??? Oh yeah, that worked....and since throwing a few hundred dollars at the working poor didn't pan out, let's throws trillions at the already super wealthy......YEAH THATS A SOUND FINANCIAL PLAN.
THIS WILL BE A DEPRESSION...
It means "stuff" for the people who can never accumulate enough money--- those with money make sure that "the people" are brainwashed into wanting as much stuff, as much "new and improved" stuff as they can get and if they can't they are to feel deprived and struggle to get more.
a complete rethinking of our economic system is what is called for.
Ferankly, I think there should be a cap on how much wealth people are allowed to hoard. OR pass on.
after reaching a certain point the money needs to be put back into circulation to do good for the country and those who have little in the world.
call me what you will.
I agree.
Do you mean we can't really have our big honkin BBQ's, hummers, 5000 square foot houses, private schools, french manicures, sea weed facials, tupperware parties, trip to disneyland, facelifts, barriatric surgeries, 52 inch flat screen TV's, xboxes, doggie outfits, house renos, shrinks, hot tubs, fashion magazines and house maids? Darn. Who knew? You knew? Why didn't you tell us.
I absolutely agree. We really do get the government we deserve (although I'm having more and more trouble saying "the" government, as if it were something other than ourselves). Somehow I have managed to stuff into my unconsciousness the fact that my money is being used to terrorize, displace and kill innocent people. Some part of me is saying "that's just the way it is." How did I get here?
You are not alone. How did we all get here? And more importantly, how do we get out of here?
Government was clearly asleep at the switch, but the story is more complex than that. The politicians are more afraid of angering the greedheads than the voters since with enough moola they can bamboozle all but the most enraged electorate into voting for their reelection. The solution to that problem is for the electorate to stop allowing media campaigns to pull the wool over their eyes or devise a system that makes it harder for folks to mount these expensive and successful voter confusion campaigns. The problem with the latter is that it's hard to come up with laws which block both informative and misleding media campaigns.
The real solution is two-fold. 1) Voters must take more responsibility and care in choosing their representatives and monitoring their performance; there shouldn't be any voters this close to the electio who don't have a good idea who the candidates are and what to expect of them if elected; 2) we need a better scheme to allow voters to inform themselves about the candidates; the debates were supposed to be a step in that direction but have been games and effectively made into beauty contests; the media could have served this role but has abandoned it all in their worthless quest for "balance" and entertainment-value.
This is about as clear as it gets. Guy #2 is always a direct result of whoever gets voted into office, something voters should think about in the upcoming election.
Yup, I agree and for me Guy #2 is Congress. Both parties!
Oh, I see, Stanley. So murder isn't the murderer's fault--it's the fault of the police for not enforcing the laws and stopping the murderer before he murders. Did I get that right? That's a pretty cool system you're espousing there: Anything goes, and if something bad happens, don't blame the guilty parties, because--well, because anything goes! I love it!
vooter,
You didn't read the article, did you?
The problem is not that the laws weren't enforced. The problem is that the murderers got their buddies in congress to change the laws and make murder legal!!!
skando, he did read the article. bing states clearly that the perpetrators have no moral culpability, only the regulators.
so that clearly makes them both absolute crooks benefiting from the same crime, they should BOTH be held accountable for the crime of financial terrorism, and their ill begotten gains from raping main street should be brought back from their offshore accounts rather than using MORE tax payer dollars to add to their offshore bank accounts! The banks are currently Sitting on the bail out dollars that have already been distributed rather than injecting it into the system as loans for main street. To get the tax payer $ there MUST be a requirement to inject it back into the system otherwise we will just have the rich further engorging their personal accounts and going on AIG junkets!
Stanley BING! is nothing more than a bought and paid for apologist who wants #1 to continue stuffing their faces with no sense of the common good or what's good for the country that baked their pies in the first place. without the country no pies Stanley! How unbelievably stupid can you be? Or are you just waiting to buy up assets with your offshore $$ in the recession fire sale? He has not concept of morality or patriotism just crawl on top of those below you in a never ending scramble to see who has the most and biggest yachts and trophy wives. These are the same people who fund the Repug hate machine leveraging non-thinking voters to vote against their own self interest.
You say "Guy #1's job is to eat as many pies as he can before he dies." But Wall Street is like a virus with a single host. Run amok, the Wall street types have nearly killed the very system and resources upon which they depend for their own survival, ... let alone the opportunity to prosper.
Yes, the regulators must oversee that, and the oversight must be by experts who are objective and dispassionate toward the firms they oversee. Paulson left Lehman Brothers to be drawn and quartered, and singlehandedly saved Goldman Sachs, his old haunt. Fair and equitable? Hardly!
In short, Wall Street can not contain its greed and gluttony as parasites on the rest of us and our capital, ... and the regulators have all been selected from the ranks of those they oversee.
The blame is shared between them both, for in truth they are all the same people.
Will Street can and will go to h-e-l-l.
Reagan's Legacy! "Government is the problem". "We need less regulations and red tape". "The 'Invisible Hand' will correct any problems." "The only need for the Federal government is for national defense".
The blame in the end falls on all those who elected people like Reagan and the Bushes and spouted their anti-regulation, anti "big government" nonsense.
If government is of the people, for the people and by the people then when you say that government is the problem, aren't you saying that the people are the problem? How did the people come to agree with that?
Exactly.
Big government, good government and higher taxes have produced in Europe:
1. Better healthcare system
2. Better educational system
3. Mass transit so you don't have to own a car
4. Shorter work week, six weeks vacation
5. No structural government debt
6. No negative balance of trade problem
In short, big government - when done right - produces a better quality of life.
Socialism - the way forward.
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