Collateralised debt obligations of the type involved in the Goldman case were fancy new inventions with no clear rules, no free market, and no transparency – all features that were, from the banks\’ point of view, great news. They could make them anyway they wanted, sell them any way they wanted, price them any way they wanted. It was beautiful.
Something that you can make any way you want, sell any way you want and price anyway you want may or may not be beautiful but it\’s certainly a reasonable definition of a \”free market\”.
I’m not so sure it is just plain idiocy.
The creeping statism of everything is complete. A ‘free market’ isn’t a free market unless it is corralled by regulation and legislation. A free market is something the state must create, inflate and direct.
We have become mired in doublespeak and the statists are the ones writing the dictionary.