Quote:
|
Originally Posted by GoldenRivet
Who cares what Bush is thinking... CONGRESS wields the power. in the end, all bush has to do is sign the dotted line and accept public praise or ridicule depending on the public perception.
Congress is the one who should be thinking. 
I say... put some of these big lending company CEOs in prison. let them do a little "thinking".
i can trace this whole mess to loaning TONS of money to people who were not qualified for loans.
Remember these slogans from the recent years?
"No money down! No interest for 24 months!!!"
"Zero Interest! zero downpayment! No Social Security Number Required!!!"
"No Social Security Number! Se Habla Espanol!!"
give me a break...
loaning out tons of money to unqualified borrowers gets you into this mess.
NO BAIL OUT PACKAGE.... HOLD BIG BUSINESS CEOS AND LENDERS ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS!!!! |
This practice came into play because greed and the inability of the human mind to form mental visual representations of high numbers led to falure of banker's sense of responsibilities. And this human nature exactly is the casue why as a safeguard against such human failures certain rules that make avoidance of such pratcice mandatory, are needed. This is the minimum of regulation, that is needed. nobody talks of 5-years-plans and the bstate governing the economy (although he does with plenty of subsidies, custom taxes, lobbyistic clinch between politics and economics, laws talired for certain businesses' desires - the market is far less unregulated as many propagators of the ultra-liberal market-philosophy are ready to admit. The enthusiasm for globalization also has stopped to shoot fireworks every Friday, it seems, and so more calls for protectionistic measures are to be heared on both sides of the Atlantic.
Egoism is part of human nature, and it becomes the more tempting the less obvious the dmage is, and when the mind behind it is iunable to realise what one hundred thisuand means, then I can tell you as a psychologist that this mind also is unable to imagine what one hundred billion means. and if that difference is not to be seen, and the irelevance of it is taken for granted, then do not be surprised if nobody thinks bad about taking the money with both hands without having a bad consacience, and always wanting more. eno9ugh ex.-bankers have admitted in interviews and newspaper essay that they were acting like being in a drugged state, that it was like an ego trip to handle those numbers - and not being aware of what they mean.
the market does not regulate all things all by itself. If their are no rules of civilisation, it brings out the worst in man: egoism, selfishness, greedl, brutality, and it leads to from healhty competiton to lethal rivalry, and finaly monopoly. Once monopoles are established, the monopolist has the community by its balls. like you need traffic rules to regulkate traffic, and need them the more the more dense traffic has become, you need rules of reuglation for economic business and financial traffic as well - and an auhtority monitoring commitment to these rules, and sanctionising those who violate them, like traffic cops.
that poses a new problem - who should do that? In Germany, we have had banks that came into trouble, and having been run by a board od directors that all were no bankers, but politicians. but only few politicians are finacial experts, most vpoicing their opinions on the issue are not. Non-political experts need to win experience and knowledge, but at the same time they should not be friends with the banking systems, and should have no close ties to it, so that they can keep their independence.
And bam-. there you are again with the same old problem that democracy as well as feudal sytems are suffering from: beiong elected does not mean you are competent, being memkeber of the noble class does not mean you are competent or feel responsible.
I have no solution, but i would say the ones we tried did not work too well - on both sides of the atlantic, but for different reasons.
Maybe our civilisation simply has come too far already. Who says that it always refines and moves on and improves and becomes more developed, is that a natural law, a general trend that cannot be escaped? Certainly not.