Of Bailouts, Bonuses, and Generational Responsibility from The Daily Bail - 0 views
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When one transfers the learned behavior of selfishness to the world of economics, it is east to see how we got to the world of adjustable rate mortgages, thirty-to-one leverage, credit default swaps, and thirty year hedge fund workers acting as is million dollar paychecks was an otherwise normal entitlement. If it felt good, it was therefore right – and by all means, don’t rock the boat. And what we are witnessing today in Washington and Wall Street in response to our economic crisis is nothing but a conscious and willing decision to pass off to the next generation the cost of our mistakes.
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the fundamental principles of capitalism – namely that bad actors need to fail.
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First and most foremost, the Congress needs to institute a modernized version of Glass-Stegall and separate commercial banking from investment banking activities. What we have seen in the abolishment Glass-Stegall (please thank Mr. Rubin formerly of Goldman Sachs) is the creation of federally subsidize casinos masquerading as publicly traded financial institutions. They kept profits from over-leveraged bets and were kind enough to pass their losses onto the taxpayers. Second, Congress needs to repeal legislation (Gramm-Leach) that allowed financial institutions not only to leverage in ways previously not permitted, but which also granted banks and financial situations exemption from federal gambling laws. Third, and this is where moral outrage hits home to those on Wall Street, we cannot live in a country in which any company is allowed to manipulate the levers of government in such a way as to make itself obscenely rich at the expense of the public.
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Wow! This is the best response to the financial collapse i have read to date. Exceptional in clarity, but written with a tone of mixed sorrow and shame. Mr. Gallow places the blame exactly where it should be placed. It's a generational thing with one exception Mr. Gallow overlooks - the Obama margin of victory was very much due to the massive turnout and votes of post baby boomer generations. We boomers may have created and caused the financial collapse and destruction of America, but they were dumb enough to put the decline of capitalism and ordered liberty on marxist steroids. excerpt: .... this is the first time that I have been so angered by incompetence and greed in government and Wall Street to express publicly my own thoughts. In simple terms, what has dawned on me is that my generation, the "Baby Boomers" between the ages of 45 and 65, has emerged not as not the most significant or talented generation in our history (as we thought we were), but rather as the most self-absorbed and reckless. Because ours will be the first generation in the history of this country to leave to its successors a nation in worse shape than that which it inherited; put differently, we will be the first generation in this nation to have taken from our parents and stolen from our children. .. it is hard to avoid the reality that my generation, the baby boomers who are now approaching retirement, have caused the greatest collapse of the world economy since the 1930s, and in the process damaged this country in ways we are now only beginning to understand. ... Looking back more eighteen months after the first signs of distress in our economy appeared, it seems that leaders in Congress and Wall Street have erred in a manner never before witnessed in this nation. In the process, they have conspired through their collective arrogance, greed, and ignorance to damage the economy of the country (if not the world), make many themselves rich beyond the imaginations of mo