Yes, Throw ‘em in the Brig—but Remember that We Need to Change the Structure, Too
By Jake Blumgart - Jan 30th, 2009 at 5:24 pmBoth President Obama and Vice President Biden denounced the excesses of Wall Street today. Biden, with characteristic gruffness, told CNBC: “I’d like to throw these guys in the brig.” Preferably a brig with crocodiles.
Jon Stewart hummed a similar tune on Wednesday night. (Caution. This is not one of Stewart’s better entries. All in all Wednesday was a weak episode. But I can’t fault Stewart; no one can be consistently funny almost every day of every week of every year. He is still my preferred source of TV news.)
But despite the scolding of all these liberal heavyweights, let’s not forget the context here. Our current crisis cannot be blamed entirely on The Masters of the Universe. It is their job to generate capital, and they did so blithely, with no regard for the ultimate human cost, and no eye for future consequences (which is the way capitalism tends to work).
They were able execute their duties in a particularly unstable way because sensible regulation had been stripped away from the old engines of finance (Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, I’m looking at you), while newer wealth generators, hedge funds for example, were left to their own devices. Both Democrats and Republicans were responsible (and come to think of it, maybe the Masters of the Universe were too, as they did have an awful lot of excess cash for lobbying, which led to a lot of excess influence in both parties). It is the whole edifice that is rotten and in need of reform, not just those in charge.
[...] are these people on?” which I maintain would’ve been a better question. Jake Blumgart over at Pushback makes the point that these executives aren’t so much at fault as the system is. He’s on [...]
January 30th, 2009 at 7:52 pm