I would say ‘I can hardly believe my ears’ but my hearing is not yet among the several Minor Mutinies that characterize Middle Age. I am listening to Secretary Goldman Sachs Paulson say on C-SPAN, “There is no reason for people not to be confident, in my judgment.”
Who in their right mind would be reassured by this? Who but the most inside track of the Inner Circle that is the conglomeration of wealth and power in America would be rendered confident by Secretary Paulson’s assurance that, in his judgment, there is no reason not to be confident? Secretary Paulson’s judgment is specifically at issue.
You can’t have this both ways…either the man is brilliant, or he’s a dope. Someone from “The Street” recently remarked to me on Henry Paulson’s Smarts, “He’s REALLY smart…he’s from Goldman Sachs.” I cannot be the only one noticing how often Goldman Sachs features in America’s New & Improved New Deal. It puts me in mind of how often Harvard and Yale feature in our ongoing political saga.
Either Henry Paulson didn’t see It coming, in which case he is incompetent and just about the last person whose stewardship we want now. Not seeing economic imbalance of this magnitude, with all the financial measurement tools and analysis skill available for determination of financial conditions, seems about as plausible as not knowing that a hurricane is coming with all the measurement tools and analysis skill available for determination of atmospheric conditions.
Or Henry Paulson is a wizard, in which case he DID see it coming…as many did…and he is, again, just about the last person whose stewardship we want now.
I also listened to Christine Lagarde, the French Minister of Economy, Finance and Employment. VERY impressive, she is…intelligent, articulate, logical, likable. But I disagree with her on this. She pointedly declined a question about the U.S. role in the International Crisis, saying that it serves no purpose now to play the Blame Game.
She is right in a sense, of course…survival first. I only just yesterday came across this quote attributed to Henry Kissinger, “While we should never give up our principles, we must also realize that we cannot maintain our principles unless we survive.”
But we are a high-speed, multi-tasking people…we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can prosecute capital letter Wrongdoers concurrent with bailing out lower case wrongdoers and upper case Dummies. It would be a pretty ironic time for us to get all focused and first-things-first-y but, if we WERE inclined to sensible orderliness…which would have averted a Mortgage Meltdown…we would whisk the Bad Guys off the board BEFORE introducing a Rescue Package to the game.
Ms. Lagarde anticipates the burgeoning of Ethics in university curriculum…again…as there was pursuant to an earlier episode of As The World Turns On Its Axis Of Evil. If the bit of history about Organized White Collar Crime has repeated itself, and the bit about absence of ethics has repeated itself, we have every reason to suppose that they will both repeat themselves again.
IN PARTICULAR can we expect Organized White Collar Crime (a.k.a. Racketeering) and Absence of Ethics to reassert themselves if they have been profitable in the past. Again. If we will not aggressively pursue the several crimes that UNMISTAKABLY “underpin” this man-made disaster, but instead will effectively and substantially REWARD the crimes, then all the Ethics classes in the world won’t mean a thing. The theory is blah, blah, blah. The reality is that criminal behavior is lucrative. People gravitate to that which is lucrative, they are quite reliable that way.
Ms. Lagarde points out practically that there would be so MANY fingers to point, as support for the argument against playing the Blame Game. I see it oppositely. Because there are so many fingers to point is EXACTLY why some heads must roll. No economy, no country, no civilization and therefore no individual can afford to throw in the towel by lamenting that there is SO much wrong, there is no point in correcting ANY wrong.
It would not be feasible to prosecute every shifty real estate agent and indiscreet loan officer even if it were necessary, which it is not. The buck stops somewhere in every chain of command. For what reason would people in those positions be paid big bucks if not to make sure companies and economies don’t fall into preventable crisis? Who ELSE would be culpable for a wide-ranging, far-reaching, ongoing lapse of sound business practice?
I would have to watch the segment again to know whether Christine Lagarde reported this as her own experience, or whether she was relaying an experience reported by another. Indeed, the remark directly preceded her welcoming “Senior” minds into the discussion…people who have lived through previous crises, people with experience…and her thanking one distinguished gentleman in particular. It is possible that she was relaying his experience, also thanking him for his insight.
Whether it was Ms. Lagarde or the distinguished gentleman she personally thanked, the story was that “these young guys” came from America to explain the whole derivative market thing. This goes here like that, that goes there like this, yada yada yada about “scattered risk” until, voila, “I was buying something without any risk at all…and I thought, ‘well, this is bollocks.’” The room erupted in an appreciative laugh…THANK YOU, an official who is not lying…but the Truth is, it’s not funny.
It is the Bollocks, the Corrupt Executives and Corrupt Officials, who should be thrown behind the same bars that they are so free and easy about slamming other people behind. OUT, in disgrace, the “merely” inept…sans parachutes. Let that be a lesson to Middle Management and tangential providers. Hanging horse thieves is part of our Wild West heritage. Public stockades are part of our Pilgrim past.
This is a fine time to quit worrying about what the neighbors think. Have we not been sold on a War On Terror these many years? Implicit in that War On Terror is an abiding threat that Terrorists mean to harm us if they can, is it not? We are meant to be constantly vigilant for sign of infiltration or attack, are we not? If we will not fearlessly round up our OWN Bad Guys, if we will not compel our OWN People unto observance of Law by smiting our OWN Bad Guys, how else can our enemies construe it but that we are a bunch of weenies?
We are talking about Executive Compensation when we should be acting on Executive Consequences.
And we are NOT talking about Economic Terrorism…why is that? Usually Homeland Security is everywhere you don’t want to be. For sure, I haven’t seen this many people terrified people since the run-up to War in Iraq…the last time Administration, Congress and Media worked in concert to scare the bejeezus out of the citizenry.
