I just emerged from two hours of shock, awe and shame. I expect those last four words were an alternate subtitle to Charles Ferguson's documentary, "The Inside Job," about the financial meltdown in 2008. A painful look into the misguided yet entrenched banking system--fueled by instant gratification and short term incentives over long term failure. Like I said, shock, awe and shame.
I've never been one for what they call "high finance." In fact, I've spent the past six years learning about banking at the other end of the economic spectrum. You know, for poor people...aka the unbanked...aka the world's majority. We're talking loans of five or six hundred dollars. Microfinance. Add a half dozen zeros and extend that loan to a similar demographic in terms of education and relative income? You're damn right I don't get it. That's just insane.
So when the public refrain during the meltdown echoed my novice suspicions, I simply agreed and turned my attention elsewhere. To be honest, I assumed smart people would come along and fix it. A little regulation here, a little bonus-cutting there. Maybe even a sprinkling of new management and tossing out of derivatives altogether.
Well, tonight was another lesson in the pitfalls of over-reliance on such optimism. Despite recognizing the layers of egregious abuses in modern banking, our government has done little to correct the neglect and mismanagement of our financial system. We are, in effect, condoning indecent behavior of a financial system gone array.
And so my thoughts turn to the culture in which his behavior has thrived. Have we resigned to the force of greed as a driver for bad business? What good is success when it is measured by mega-salaries handed freely to the architects of our collapse? Do banking executives have any sense of perspective? And why do we continue to appoint and follow public servants who are neither interested in the public nor the service, in lieu of their personal coffers?
At the end of the day, the financial system collapsed from the collective efforts of many men (okay, and some women). Despite the [somewhat] understandable momentum of groupthink, I'd like to think that each of those people had some sense of the insanity they were endorsing and driving...that mini alarm bells were going off in their heads...that the pang of overextension and excess crossed their chests. But where was the balance? Why did they go so far, with so little sense guiding their way? As imperfect human beings, are all of our better values lost in greed?
We have let the pursuit of money tarnish our national character, and we are a long way from recovering. The Inside Job is terribly depressing. Now go see it.
I've never been one for what they call "high finance." In fact, I've spent the past six years learning about banking at the other end of the economic spectrum. You know, for poor people...aka the unbanked...aka the world's majority. We're talking loans of five or six hundred dollars. Microfinance. Add a half dozen zeros and extend that loan to a similar demographic in terms of education and relative income? You're damn right I don't get it. That's just insane.
So when the public refrain during the meltdown echoed my novice suspicions, I simply agreed and turned my attention elsewhere. To be honest, I assumed smart people would come along and fix it. A little regulation here, a little bonus-cutting there. Maybe even a sprinkling of new management and tossing out of derivatives altogether.
Well, tonight was another lesson in the pitfalls of over-reliance on such optimism. Despite recognizing the layers of egregious abuses in modern banking, our government has done little to correct the neglect and mismanagement of our financial system. We are, in effect, condoning indecent behavior of a financial system gone array.
And so my thoughts turn to the culture in which his behavior has thrived. Have we resigned to the force of greed as a driver for bad business? What good is success when it is measured by mega-salaries handed freely to the architects of our collapse? Do banking executives have any sense of perspective? And why do we continue to appoint and follow public servants who are neither interested in the public nor the service, in lieu of their personal coffers?
At the end of the day, the financial system collapsed from the collective efforts of many men (okay, and some women). Despite the [somewhat] understandable momentum of groupthink, I'd like to think that each of those people had some sense of the insanity they were endorsing and driving...that mini alarm bells were going off in their heads...that the pang of overextension and excess crossed their chests. But where was the balance? Why did they go so far, with so little sense guiding their way? As imperfect human beings, are all of our better values lost in greed?
We have let the pursuit of money tarnish our national character, and we are a long way from recovering. The Inside Job is terribly depressing. Now go see it.
Well said! Great movie, and great writing
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