Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Fixing the Economy

I read this...

Dean Baker | The Financial Meltdown Continues
Dean Baker, Truthout: "Virtually the only certainty in the current financial situation is there will be more problems ahead. Those who controlled the levers of economic and financial policy neglected their greatest responsibility, which was to ensure an orderly financial market and prevent exactly the sort of collapse that we are now seeing. This was a policy failure of massive proportions, not a natural disaster."


It occurs to me that there's a better way of fixing the economy than having taxpayers -- most of whom are middle or working class -- pay to bail out failing financial organizations. Howbout identifying the people most responsible for the mess -- bank presidents, economists, officials in charge of the finance sphere, etc. -- and making them pay for it instead. They have more money. They are, collectively, a wealthy bunch of people who have profited from the bad decisions that are now costing innocent people their equity and retirement money. We could take, say, half of the assets from each culpable person. Most of them are rich enough that they'd still be rich after that, so it wouldn't be crushing (as compared to losing one's house to foreclosure and becoming homeless). Fining the culpable parties would raise enough money to fund some of the necessary interventions. It hardly seems fair to let the people in power pocket their ill-gotten gains and walk away free, while other people foot the bill for their foolishness.
Tags: economics, news
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  • 3 comments

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ysabetwordsmith

ysabetwordsmith

September 20 2008, 20:17:44 UTC 12 years ago

Not exactly. Jesus, who is considered an aspect of God, was not only poor himself but persistently annoyed rich people and told his followers to give everything they had to the poor.

It's a wonder people even pretend to follow him.
dulcinbradbury

dulcinbradbury

September 20 2008, 20:44:51 UTC 12 years ago

If you can demonstrate probable cause that an individual made a decision that was knowingly reckless... then I agree. The ENRON scandal is a good case for that.

However, if you hold all responsible... if not *guilty* parties to that kind of standard, I think you'd run the risk of... well, eliminating risk takers. Risk takers do a lot of wonderful things and disastrous ones. It IS a problem if people are too paralyzed by fear of consequences to take risks. And I'm not sure where that middle ground is.

Medical ethics are discussed all of the time as part of policy development. Seems to me we need more people talking about and teaching business ethics.
ysabetwordsmith

ysabetwordsmith

September 24 2008, 20:15:55 UTC 12 years ago

I don't want to eliminate risk takers. I do want them to be the ones paying when the risks they take turn out badly. If they are bailed out without penalty, they have no incentive to improve their risk-taking skills.