31–40 of 404 posts
But what was the alternative to the bailouts? Another depression? I feel we made it across fairly well.
But the bailout should have had a lot more "never again" in it, rather than "how can we get back to the old normal of bubble finance as quickly as possible".
But what was the alternative to the bailouts? Another depression? I feel we made it across fairly well.
I haven't a clue about the whether the bailouts were important or not. What I feel like I would have liked is for the bailouts to happen AND the top 20 to 100 people from every financial institution to have gone to prison for at least 10 years. The president of Goldman Sachs, the president (or ex-President) of Lehman, etc... etc... What it seems like from the outside is they screwed the world over and completely got…
Do you believe that the CEO of any company that fails should be jailed or just banks?
There was undoubtedly plenty of hubris, greed and incompetence to go round. I also believe that some of what occurred should, in hindsight, have been illegal. But having some sort of sacrifice to appease the gods is a little outdated.
Oh, and yes, all the CEOs were replaceable. Irreplaceability is a very silly argument.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a parent, I fail to see exactly how I'm guilty of anything here. I used the banks because I had to, I listened to their advice because I can't possibly become an expert on their subjects, etc. I even voted for people who want to regulate them. I don't play on the stock exchange (pension funds do, with my money). I didn't do anything wrong. My children will pay for the mess a few made by pushing unreasonable expect…
I'm with you on decent alternatives of which I think a non-Fed based monetary system as well as the end of crony capitalism (not capitalism itself) would probably be a decent alternative. However, the biggest problem is the education of the wider public and garnering the democratic will of the people to make necessary changes. Economics, for all its show of being empirical is really just politics, and politics is rea…
You're painfully right. I 100% agree. There lies the issue. I have the philosophy right, but the opportunity and skills to fight for it, well, it's much tougher. If only one could contribute to that like on open source projects ('cos there, I contribute, I find time and energy)
But I'm not guilty :-)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I haven't a clue about the whether the bailouts were important or not. What I feel like I would have liked is for the bailouts to happen AND the top 20 to 100 people from every financial institution to have gone to prison for at least 10 years. The president of Goldman Sachs, the president (or ex-President) of Lehman, etc... etc... What it seems like from the outside is they screwed the world over and completely got…
Sending people to prison involves prosecuting people for breaking laws somehow, which isn’t easy. You can’t just send them to jail on a whim. Even if what they did was wrong, unless there was a law against it the government didn’t really have many options here. They could make up some laws after the fact to prevent future abuse, but cannot make them retroactive.
But what was the alternative to the bailouts? Another depression? I feel we made it across fairly well.
I haven't a clue about the whether the bailouts were important or not. What I feel like I would have liked is for the bailouts to happen AND the top 20 to 100 people from every financial institution to have gone to prison for at least 10 years. The president of Goldman Sachs, the president (or ex-President) of Lehman, etc... etc... What it seems like from the outside is they screwed the world over and completely got…
Being greedy is not a crime. Taking advantage of lax regulations is not a crime. Being bailed out with tax dollars for risks that paid you off privately if they won is not a crime.
But what was the alternative to the bailouts? Another depression? I feel we made it across fairly well.
I haven't a clue about the whether the bailouts were important or not. What I feel like I would have liked is for the bailouts to happen AND the top 20 to 100 people from every financial institution to have gone to prison for at least 10 years. The president of Goldman Sachs, the president (or ex-President) of Lehman, etc... etc... What it seems like from the outside is they screwed the world over and completely got…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did those people do anything wrong or were they just essentially incompetent or not adequate for the job? Bonus clawbacks after government bailout are one thing but jailing people who probably didn't do anything criminal is a dangerous precedent.
If they are incompetent and they have consciously taken the positions they hold - then they are liable. Finance isn't "revolutionary" tech - there isn't much you can do that requires high risks and actually rewards you in the long run. I would wonder what you'd say about a general who didn't know that using chemical warfare is a possible tribunal scenario. We have a similar legal case in maritime law, where captains…
I don't think you read the article because it is based on a 700 page book about how it was revolutionary tech. It was just revolutionary finance tech. There was no ABCP before, there were no CDOs before, there were no central bank swaps before, there was no wholesale funding market, there were no offshore dollar banking market, etc.
It is hard to take seriously any arguments that the bankers were incompetent when you look at the sheer number of affected institutions -- you're left defending a claim that virtually every banker and most companies (look at the impacts on, say, Russian resource companies when they could no longer roll their dollar debt in wholesale funding markets in 2008) are incompetent. And that's always going to be difficult argument to make.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sending people to prison involves prosecuting people for breaking laws somehow, which isn’t easy. You can’t just send them to jail on a whim. Even if what they did was wrong, unless there was a law against it the government didn’t really have many options here. They could make up some laws after the fact to prevent future abuse, but cannot make them retroactive.
Even if you subscribe to the idea that there weren't correct laws in place to ensure that those who should have been criminally responsible, you then have to contend with the the corollary. Which is that instead of prosecuting those responsible, legislation should have been brought forward so that this couldn't happen legally in the future. That didn't even begin to happen- and it's not difficult to see how that has…
What couldn't happen legally?
But what was the alternative to the bailouts? Another depression? I feel we made it across fairly well.
I haven't a clue about the whether the bailouts were important or not. What I feel like I would have liked is for the bailouts to happen AND the top 20 to 100 people from every financial institution to have gone to prison for at least 10 years. The president of Goldman Sachs, the president (or ex-President) of Lehman, etc... etc... What it seems like from the outside is they screwed the world over and completely got…
Editorial: In the context of such history, DJT is the least of my worries.