Banker Bashing Shields The Real Terrorists
A doosie from Bloomberg, our Nattering RANT follows:
Banker bashing is a great sport. It satisfies the populist need for an identifiable villain in the financial crisis.
It provides an outlet for our collective anger.
It absolves us from thinking about just how we -- the credit-card-loving, mortgage-craving, debt-addicted consumers of America -- helped foment the meltdown.
The problem is this game of pin-the-blame-on-the-banker gives cover to those who deserve a far greater share of the blame for this crisis
-- the people whose job it was and is to set the rules of the game and keep things from getting out of hand.
That would be the government, the Congress and the Federal Reserve, especially former Chairman Alan Greenspan.
Regulators stopped regulating because they became captives of those they were supposed to oversee.
Congress stopped crafting laws that would provide sound rules of the road for markets because...
embers didn’t understand finance and blindly followed supposed experts espousing laissez-faire dogma.
The Fed failed to act as the designated party pooper and punch-bowl remover, worrying instead that if it acted too harshly it could stifle innovation.
In other words, these folks abdicated their responsibility. And that is even worse than bankers behaving badly.
Consider the SEC. When it wasn’t busy missing frauds, the investors’ watchdog was giving the green light
for investment banks to borrow suicidal amounts of money to wager on exotic instruments.
Banking regulators, meanwhile, stood mute as banks sold more and more loans as quickly as possible to investors around the world.
At the same time, banking regulators cast themselves as partners to banks, rather than the stern disciplinarians we need.
The guiding principle for these agencies was “prudential supervision,” an artful phrase that means there are no cops on the beat.
Then there is Congress. Legislators didn’t just pass on the chance to regulate derivatives that have contributed to the meltdown;
they went out of their way to bar the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from exercising oversight in this area.
They also made themselves willing champions of anything Wall Street wanted, just so long as the campaign contributions kept flowing.
Then there was the Fed under Greenspan. He set the tone for the debacle now engulfing us,
pushing a view that the best form of regulation was essentially no regulation.
The markets would take care of themselves, according to the Greenspan doctrine, and risk could be dispersed among investors.
After all, errant behavior would tarnish an individual’s and institution’s reputation,
limiting their ability to do business over the long term. This would deter taking on undue short-term risk to make a quick buck.
It’s tough to believe anyone living in the real world actually believed that. Yet here is what Fed Vice Chairman Donald Kohnsaid on the topic as recently as 2005.
“Most asset managers are employees of institutions --mutual fund families, bank holding companies -- that are in the market for the long haul,”
“It is not in their interest to reach for short-run gains at the expense of longer-term risk,
to disguise the degree of risk they are taking for their customers, or otherwise to endanger their reputations.”
This kind of thinking was center stage in bringing us to the sorry point we’re at today.
The Nattering One muses... I keep hearing alot of belly aching from my Republican friends about how Obama is going to spend all our money...
Funny thing, its your idiotic dogma that got us to this sorry point in the first place.
This poor Democrat is just having to clean up your post party mess and pick up the pieces...
And let's not forget the drunken orgy of all those free spending, living beyond their means, greedy flippers, commodities and stock speculating...
loan, escrow, title and real estate agents; that stood by cheering, while they profited handsomely.
Again for those who are clueless; ignorant; in denial; deaf; dumb and blind...
AKA mostly Republican's; the religous right and hook in slackjawed mouth media Democrat's...
We Natter in a most Yoda-like manner... just starting our journey to the darkside are we.
And yawl can now thank your outdated ideology; dogma; 6 yrs of congressional control; 8 yrs of your main man the retard in cheif Shrub Jr....
and mostly yourselves for putting us all into a soon to be third world shit hole country.
You want to pay for the bailouts? Why don't we just TAX that political organization masquerading as a place of worship? Aka THE CHURCH. 10% should be just fine...
Now shutup and get out of my sight and way; before you get the tar n feathering you so richly deserve from the rest of us...
who are intelligent enough NOT to hold your false gods; and hypocritical worthless lip service "values" so dear.
Just leave, stain. Please. And let the rest of us attempt to pick up the pieces of our shattered dream.
Banker bashing is a great sport. It satisfies the populist need for an identifiable villain in the financial crisis.
It provides an outlet for our collective anger.
It absolves us from thinking about just how we -- the credit-card-loving, mortgage-craving, debt-addicted consumers of America -- helped foment the meltdown.
The problem is this game of pin-the-blame-on-the-banker gives cover to those who deserve a far greater share of the blame for this crisis
-- the people whose job it was and is to set the rules of the game and keep things from getting out of hand.
That would be the government, the Congress and the Federal Reserve, especially former Chairman Alan Greenspan.
Regulators stopped regulating because they became captives of those they were supposed to oversee.
Congress stopped crafting laws that would provide sound rules of the road for markets because...
embers didn’t understand finance and blindly followed supposed experts espousing laissez-faire dogma.
The Fed failed to act as the designated party pooper and punch-bowl remover, worrying instead that if it acted too harshly it could stifle innovation.
In other words, these folks abdicated their responsibility. And that is even worse than bankers behaving badly.
Consider the SEC. When it wasn’t busy missing frauds, the investors’ watchdog was giving the green light
for investment banks to borrow suicidal amounts of money to wager on exotic instruments.
Banking regulators, meanwhile, stood mute as banks sold more and more loans as quickly as possible to investors around the world.
At the same time, banking regulators cast themselves as partners to banks, rather than the stern disciplinarians we need.
The guiding principle for these agencies was “prudential supervision,” an artful phrase that means there are no cops on the beat.
Then there is Congress. Legislators didn’t just pass on the chance to regulate derivatives that have contributed to the meltdown;
they went out of their way to bar the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from exercising oversight in this area.
They also made themselves willing champions of anything Wall Street wanted, just so long as the campaign contributions kept flowing.
Then there was the Fed under Greenspan. He set the tone for the debacle now engulfing us,
pushing a view that the best form of regulation was essentially no regulation.
The markets would take care of themselves, according to the Greenspan doctrine, and risk could be dispersed among investors.
After all, errant behavior would tarnish an individual’s and institution’s reputation,
limiting their ability to do business over the long term. This would deter taking on undue short-term risk to make a quick buck.
It’s tough to believe anyone living in the real world actually believed that. Yet here is what Fed Vice Chairman Donald Kohnsaid on the topic as recently as 2005.
“Most asset managers are employees of institutions --mutual fund families, bank holding companies -- that are in the market for the long haul,”
“It is not in their interest to reach for short-run gains at the expense of longer-term risk,
to disguise the degree of risk they are taking for their customers, or otherwise to endanger their reputations.”
This kind of thinking was center stage in bringing us to the sorry point we’re at today.
The Nattering One muses... I keep hearing alot of belly aching from my Republican friends about how Obama is going to spend all our money...
Funny thing, its your idiotic dogma that got us to this sorry point in the first place.
This poor Democrat is just having to clean up your post party mess and pick up the pieces...
And let's not forget the drunken orgy of all those free spending, living beyond their means, greedy flippers, commodities and stock speculating...
loan, escrow, title and real estate agents; that stood by cheering, while they profited handsomely.
Again for those who are clueless; ignorant; in denial; deaf; dumb and blind...
AKA mostly Republican's; the religous right and hook in slackjawed mouth media Democrat's...
We Natter in a most Yoda-like manner... just starting our journey to the darkside are we.
And yawl can now thank your outdated ideology; dogma; 6 yrs of congressional control; 8 yrs of your main man the retard in cheif Shrub Jr....
and mostly yourselves for putting us all into a soon to be third world shit hole country.
You want to pay for the bailouts? Why don't we just TAX that political organization masquerading as a place of worship? Aka THE CHURCH. 10% should be just fine...
Now shutup and get out of my sight and way; before you get the tar n feathering you so richly deserve from the rest of us...
who are intelligent enough NOT to hold your false gods; and hypocritical worthless lip service "values" so dear.
Just leave, stain. Please. And let the rest of us attempt to pick up the pieces of our shattered dream.
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