Financial Crisis
Megan McCardle does a fine job of arguing that their really is no one to blame for the financial crisis. It’s a position I find compelling. In making her points she makes this observation which I wholeheartedly agree with and find to many people both on the right and left seem to forget.
It’s not that I don’t think bankers are greedy. I’m sure they are. I also think homeowners are greedy. I think community organizers are greedy. I think greed is a trait fairly evenly distributed throughout the human race, though the focus of that greed varies quite a bit. That makes it unsatisfying as an explanation for . . . well, almost anything. It’s like blaming the financial crisis on oxygen.
March 17th, 2009 at 11:18 am
I agree that greed isn’t the issue- self-interest is the engine that drives capitalism. I think that deregulation, apathy, and incompetence are the main issues.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
I have heard you denounce corporate greed about a million times. So to hear you say this is rather odd. Care to reconcile this seeming contradiction.
March 17th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
I’d like to see you find somewhere where I’ve stated it that simply… I’m sure I’ve said that corporate and managerial greed leads to corruption, fraud, and other things that are bad for companies or consumers, but that’s totally consistent with my current point- we need regulation and informed, vigilant consumers/investors to counteract those consequences, as I just said. That way the energy generated by greed and self-interest is channeled into the proper free-market avenue of generating wealth, rather than (for instance) trying to shift existing wealth into your own posssesion in a zero-sum Ponzi scheme.
March 18th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
On many occasions you have spoken to the superiority of the state over the cooperation because the state is a neutral party while the corporation is biased by greed.
Are you saying greed is not a systemic problem in corporations?