Who's to Blame for the Crash of 2008?
Ugly out there, isn't it? I'm furious. I'm absolutely beside myself at the stupidity of it all. What really burns me is that throughout the financial services industry, they're firing the sales professionals who were selling in good faith, believing that they were actually helping their customers.
And now, they're taking the fall, along with all the poor investors who believed that they were being sold something more than just a bill of goods. Now, I'm so angry I can barely think straight, but in my view, there are three possible culprits:
- Financial Industry CEOs. As I've written repeatedly in this blog, the people running corporations are marginally smarter (if that) than the people who do the real work. Even though many CEOs get paid more in a single day than the average worker makes in an entire year, the C-level idiots in the financial services industries were too clueless to understand the basics of risk.
- The Bush Administration. Or, more precisely, the anti-regulatory wing of the Republican party. You'd think that they would have learned from the Savings and Loan scandal during the Reagan administration that financial markets require reasonable regulation. But NOOOO... Instead, the Republicans are running one of the "Keating Five" as their presidential candidate. (!!??)
- The Business Media. Yeah, that would be us. There has been far too much cosying up between the business media and the companies that they cover. While I've never seen any "puff pieces" on BNET, pull out any copy of Businessweek or Fortune and, with all due respect, you'll be treated to articles that are nothing more than kneeling reporters planting kisses on CEO kiester.
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UPDATE (9/23): This issue is discussed further in the following blog entries: