In No One We Trust
opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com
In No One We Trust
1–10 of 17 posts
Re: In No One We Trust
#2"I suspect there is only one way to really get trust back. We need to pass strong regulations, embodying norms of good behavior, and appoint bold regulators to enforce them."
Isn't this the exact opposite of trust-building behavior? Trust defined as "a firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something." So the author is arguing for more trust in our regulators and laws, because we can't trust the people we are regulating.
I don't think that you way to build trust with a person or group by creating stiff rules and penalties for cheating, you do that after they've proven they can't be trusted. I think a more convincing conclusion for the article would be something along of the lines of: we've learned our lesson that banks can't be trusted, so we need to impose heavier regulation.
Re: In No One We Trust
#3"I suspect there is only one way to really get trust back. We need to pass strong regulations, embodying norms of good behavior, and appoint bold regulators to enforce them." Isn't this the exact opposite of trust-building behavior? Trust defined as "a firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something." So the author is arguing for more trust in our regulators and laws, because we ca…
The author is trying to sell "trust the government to manage things".
Re: In No One We Trust
#4"I suspect there is only one way to really get trust back. We need to pass strong regulations, embodying norms of good behavior, and appoint bold regulators to enforce them." Isn't this the exact opposite of trust-building behavior? Trust defined as "a firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something." So the author is arguing for more trust in our regulators and laws, because we ca…
The author is trying to sell "trust the government to manage things".
That's right. For anyone who believes trust is important to make the wheels go round it should be obvious that in order for the government to be trusted by its people, it must also demonstrate that it trusts the people. Unidirectional trust never lasts long.
If you like fairytales, I can recommend "The emperor's new clothes" by H.C. Andersen.
Re: In No One We Trust
#5It seems a more appropriate title for this would be "In Government We Trust."
Apparently large powerful entities aren't to be trusted, except for when they're called "government."
Re: In No One We Trust
#6"I suspect there is only one way to really get trust back. We need to pass strong regulations, embodying norms of good behavior, and appoint bold regulators to enforce them." Isn't this the exact opposite of trust-building behavior? Trust defined as "a firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something." So the author is arguing for more trust in our regulators and laws, because we ca…
I think the idea is something like "locks keep honest people honest."
If you make clear rules and get people to follow them, and people see that everyone else is following the rules, that makes following the rules normal and rule-breaking an unusual transgression, even without a panopticon.
It's tricky to pull off, but how else would you do it?
Re: In No One We Trust
#7It seems a more appropriate title for this would be "In Government We Trust." Apparently large powerful entities aren't to be trusted, except for when they're called "government."
Neatly ignored is the large role the government had in pressuring banks to make all those bad loans.
Re: In No One We Trust
#8[deleted]
Re: In No One We Trust
#9> If any of them thought about the social implications of their activities, whether it was predatory lending, abusive credit card practices, or market manipulation, they might have taken comfort that, in accordance with Adam Smith’s dictum, their swelling bank accounts implied that they must be boosting social welfare.
Stiglitz is doing violence to Adam Smith here, an author I suspect he has not re-read in a long time.
This quote from Stiglitz would more appropriately reference J.M. Keynes rather than Adam Smith. To wit, Keynes wrote in the General Theory:
> It is better that a man should tyrannize over his bank balance than over his fellow citizens.
Smith, on the other hand, was very clear in advising the government against the conspiracies of businessmen and against viewing rising profits as a sign of national wealth:
> "His employers constitute the third order, that of those who live by profit. it is the stock that is imployed for the sake of profit, which puts into motion the greater part of the useful labor of every society. The plans and projects of the employers of stock regulate and direct all the most important operations of labor, and profit is the end proposed by all those plans and projects. But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity, and fall with the declension, of the society. On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich, and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin...
> "Their superiority over the country gentleman is, not so much in their knowledge of the public interest, as in their having a better knowledge of their own interest than he has of his. It is by this superior knowledge of their own interest that they have frequently imposed upon his generosity, and persuaded him to give up both his own interest and that of the public, from a very simple but honest conviction, that their interest, and not his, was the interest of the public. The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always in the interest of the dealers...
> "The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order or men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."
Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Chap. XI, Part III, "Rent of Land: Conclusion".
Re: In No One We Trust
#10"I suspect there is only one way to really get trust back. We need to pass strong regulations, embodying norms of good behavior, and appoint bold regulators to enforce them." Isn't this the exact opposite of trust-building behavior? Trust defined as "a firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something." So the author is arguing for more trust in our regulators and laws, because we ca…
I think the idea is something like "locks keep honest people honest." If you make clear rules and get people to follow them, and people see that everyone else is following the rules, that makes following the rules normal and rule-breaking an unusual transgression, even without a panopticon. It's tricky to pull off, but how else would you do it?
The main thing we need to do is get back to real, darwinian consequences for stupid behavior. Banks would NOT have made all those "toxic" loans, nor would they have been able to bundle them into derivative products (because nobody would have bought them), if they had been exposed to the real risks they were taking on.