... or, ARE YOU SMARTER THAN AN INVESTMENT BANKING CEO?
Phew, we finally got through the death week of AIG, LEHMAN and MERRILL! Now that we are all in hindsight mode, can the real culprit please stand up?
Huh, no one seems to be forthcoming. Let's see, who can it be ... here are a few suspects :
1. Capitalism : Love that one. Let's all blame it on an abstract philosophy and get it over with ... haha!
2. Exec Comp : "If only I got paid way less than I did ... I'd never have allowed this to happen" .... yeah right.
3. Wall Street : yes, lets go blame a street. That'll fix it.
4. Mortgage markets : abstract enough to not offend any real person ... specific enough to sound insightful on CNBC ... hmmm, good one.
5. Toxic assets : sure ... when they paid my bonuses over the last 6 years they sure looked diet friendly ... all of a sudden I see the toxins within!
6. Greed - my personal favorite. Don't blame the greed-y ... just the greed. Don't investigate the fat-cats who sat and watched the thing go down - just hypothesize and lament the growing greed in society. What a brilliant idea! "Its not me, its the invisible aura of greed around us .... "
Well, let's get real. All 6 of the above candidates have one thing in common. They are concepts, not people. And we all know why blaming concepts is far easier than blaming people.
The fact that not a single human being has been held accountable ( not counting those "fired with a fat severance") for 1 trillion dollar debacle is simply astounding. In fact, Hank the saviour has come up with a brilliant plan to kill the 'toxic assets' and save the 'toxic banker'. What a stroke of genius!
The events unfolding around us are testimony to the fundamental problem that nobody is willing to address. The problem of not just a few bad apples, but an entire rotten orchard. I remember a comment made by an Indian politician several years ago ...
"The problem is not when one becomes corrupt, its when one starts believing that corruption is the new normal"
This is a case where several individuals, over time, came to the conclusion that collusion, non-disclosure, public lies (obfuscation taken to the extreme), in-group favor trading, flawed ratings, and complete lack of accountability ... had become the new normal. These individuals are now trying to quickly shift the blame on to anything other than them - helped, in part, by the growing panic that the common man will take the hit.
Don't get me wrong - I don't think Andrew Mellon's 'lets purge the system' approach will yield a different outcome this time than it did in the 1930s ... I am squarely against a revisit to depression era economics.
What I would like to see, however, is a plan for rescue and a plan for renewal. Lets rescue the banks and the markets by all means. But lets renew our expectations of bankers. Lets hold significant individuals accountable for criminal errors in judgment. Lets set new expectations in transparency ... train the next generation of bankers to talk straight, be authentic, speak simple english and stand up to pblic scrutiny.
Lets take a stand that the financial elite is no longer an acceptable social class - just like we discarded the royal elite in the French revolution. Lets recallibrate our expectations from our bankers and hold them accountable to a new era of market practice.
How will all this get done?
Well how 'bout you send me a blank cheque for 700 billion and I'll send you a plan ....
