Quote Originally Posted by motorfirebox View Post
Dayuhan, bubbling and nosediving are what I see indicated--I'll admit we're not there yet. As for what we need, re: government oversight and private investment, what we need is for fraudsters and enemies of the state to be thrown in jail for their crimes. We can't function as a society when some groups are above the law, and the group that most flagrantly and exorbitantly flaunts the law in the US these days is investment bankers. It's useless to talk about more or less oversight when that oversight is utterly toothless.
That seems to me a bit like leaving a kilo of ground beef in front of your dog, telling the dog not to eat it, then coming back the next day and whacking the stuffing out of the dog for having eaten the meat. I've no objection to punishing those who committed fraud, but throwing some or a lot of investment bankers in jail is going to provide little more than emotional satisfaction if we don't recognize and stop repeating the perverse incentives that encouraged and rewarded their behaviour. Again, the illusion that regulation or oversight can somehow compensate for bad management of incentives needs to be perforated and dismissed.