‘Do us a favor and take our money’. That’s investment sales nirvana and we’re vulnerable to it. I don’t think it’s greed that lures us to trust presentations, at least, not until we arrogantly believe we’re outwitting Ponzi. It’s the lack of information that fools us. Con.
Do we have rights that are never used? There’s a lack of information in our political system.
Given rational ignorance, this means that elections do not generate representative outcomes.
…voters in national elections are provided with a coping mechanism, a bit of publicly provided information, given to them directly at the moment of voting, the party label on the ballot.
…in local elections, voters given information too, but it is of a lower quality – very weak information at the local level – left largely adrift without the tools to provide much meaningful input in local elections.
There is a lack of information about finance and financiers ‘with the ability to con people into feeling they’re doing us a favor by taking our money‘.
…”money managers” are at this too both US and foreign, bank and sponsored funds with exposure to these frauds,
…hedge funds with the ability to move fast and effectively, moving money around, trades with insider parties and any vehicle that moves large amounts of money and hence obscures from view very large cash movements and hence frauds.
This is part of the financial and social cost beyond the current bank and other financial institution disasters – a result of lax, irresponsible, negligent and criminal conduct – non-enforcement of existing regulations and a refusal to add necessary new controls and regulations to the financial system to reflect new dimensions of the risk structure of markets and financial instruments over the past 10-15 years.
Accountable? Our President, our Vice President, this White House administration generally and our Congress, especially those who were supposed to be the knowledgeable and responsible watchdogs over the industry: the list includes Bush, Cheney, Paulson, Cox and the SEC, Pelosi, Frank, Dodd and a whole cast of characters right from the top to the bottom ranks of all of those who should have objected.
The ultimate blame falls on us for being too in love with feel-good, transitory satisfaction, greed/money/toys, self-centeredness, not being constructively critical, extreme cowardice for not speaking up, and allowing a design and implementation that encourage our passivity and hence downfall.
We are the fools for being made fools of.
We pay them to steal from us and we keep them on top. And afterward, do we demand accountability?