At the ASI.
If Goldman Sachs are very naughty boys for having sold a CDO squared that they knew was likely to fail, aren\’t those flogging the debt of California and Greece also very naughty boys?
At the ASI.
If Goldman Sachs are very naughty boys for having sold a CDO squared that they knew was likely to fail, aren\’t those flogging the debt of California and Greece also very naughty boys?
The argument goes like this:
Pre crisis: these guys are enlightened self-interested rocket scientists; they should be left alone to regulate themselves.
Post crisis: hey, don’t try to regulate the ibanks, they had regulators before the crisis, and we know how that turned out–amirite!1?!
I am puzzled why the last lot of prime minister, finance minister and senior civil servants in Greece aren’t under criminal investigation in Greece for faking the accounts, and in London etc for fraud. As far as fraud goes, it’s not selling something that’s likely to fail that’s the problem, it’s lying about how likely you know it is.
On Goldman, these synthetics really are zero sum – they can’t come into existence without 2 people betting against each other, with no winners without opposite losers, and the losers don’t get to complain, unless the winners rigged the bet, which is sort of the allegation, but not really clear.
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The argument goes like this:
Pre crisis: these guys are enlightened self-interested rocket scientists; they should be left alone to regulate themselves.
Post crisis: hey, don’t try to regulate the ibanks, they had regulators before the crisis, and we know how that turned out–amirite!1?!
[…] Worstall gives his version of the generic libertarian argument against regulating the banks in a recent post for the ASI: Essentially, despite the fact that they did have the power to close Stanford down, despite the […]
[…] Worstall gives his version of the generic libertarian argument against regulating the banks in a recent post for the ASI: Essentially, despite the fact that they did have the power to close Stanford down, despite the […]