There are lots of insiders who think that the issues with derivatives market were the cause... In fact the commodity futures trading commission more or less said that their evaluation was that there was a concerted effort to use derivatives to obfuscate risks and for the most part caused the issue.
That is fine that one guy wrote a book about the crisis. And it is very nice that he decided to pass the buck on who was at fault by using the stale "Big Government Is Bad!" and "Any Regulation Is Big Government!" lines. But when the group in charge of looking after derivatives (ICE Trust, an industry self-regulatory body), that is independent of the government, comes out and says that after looking into the issue there was a fault with the actual system... I tend to give them a bit more credit... Perhaps everyone should just believe John Allison and his incredibly strong (Ayn) Randian ideological bent though?
Also you seem to be missing the point on the Wall St. vs Main St. thing... The bigger issue to most is that somehow Wall St. firms are 'too big to fail' and the little guy (read: everyone else) had to give them a huge bailout because they gambled and lost. In the eyes of most, its as if they had to pay for someone's trip to the casino, out of their own taxes. It's not about being able to leverage capital markets... It's about having to pay for your losses yourself, rather than having everyone else bail your ass out to the tune of billions of dollars. Taking all of the risk out of the system for the big boys, while it still exists for everyone else seems pretty BS (especially if you're part of 'everyone else').
Edit: Wall St. isn't 'bad' but the way it shook out this time was utterly bullshit and people have the right to be angry and adversarial about it.
There are lots of insiders who think that the issues with derivatives market were the cause... In fact the commodity futures trading commission more or less said that their evaluation was that there was a concerted effort to use derivatives to obfuscate risks and for the most part caused the issue.
Again, I'm not arguing that it hasn't been stated, or suggested, or argued that "derivatives were one of the big causes of the crisis". I'm arguing that it hasn't been proven, and that there are other, credible, competing views. And even to the extent that derivatives might have been a significant part of what happened, one can question if they were the cause - or whether there might have been "upstream" causes which pulled the derivatives trading along for the ride.
That is fine that one guy wrote a book about the crisis. And it is very nice that he decided to pass the buck on who was at fault by using the stale "Big Government Is Bad!" and "Any Regulation Is Big Government!" lines.
A lot of people wrote books about the crisis. But from your discussion here it seems to me that your mind is made up regarding what did or didn't happen, so this discussion is probably pointless.
Perhaps everyone should just believe John Allison and his incredibly strong (Ayn) Randian ideological bent though?
Are you suggesting that? Because I'm not. And what, exactly, does Rand have to do with this? Ideology is irrelevant, an argument is sound (or not) regardless of the ideological orientation of the initiator of that argument.
8Also you seem to be missing the point on the Wall St. vs Main St. thing... The bigger issue to most is that somehow Wall St. firms are 'too big to fail' and the little guy (read: everyone else) had to give them a huge bailout because they gambled and lost. In the eyes of most, its as if they had to pay for someone's trip to the casino, out of their own taxes.*
Oh, whoah, whoah, whoah... you seem to be assuming that I approved of the bailouts. Absolutely not. I was as angry as anybody you're going to meet about that bullshit. And yes, that particular aspect of the whole situation, the "why should I bail you out because you made bad choices" line of thinking, I mostly support.
* It's about having to pay for your losses yourself, rather than having everyone else bail your ass out to the tune of billions of dollars. Taking all of the risk out of the system for the big boys, while it still exists for everyone else seems pretty BS (especially if you're part of 'everyone else').*
Absolutely. But I see that as an indictment of the corruption in our government, and the "crony capitalism" we have going on, not as an indictment of just "Wall Street" in and of itself.
That is fine that one guy wrote a book about the crisis. And it is very nice that he decided to pass the buck on who was at fault by using the stale "Big Government Is Bad!" and "Any Regulation Is Big Government!" lines. But when the group in charge of looking after derivatives (ICE Trust, an industry self-regulatory body), that is independent of the government, comes out and says that after looking into the issue there was a fault with the actual system... I tend to give them a bit more credit... Perhaps everyone should just believe John Allison and his incredibly strong (Ayn) Randian ideological bent though?
Also you seem to be missing the point on the Wall St. vs Main St. thing... The bigger issue to most is that somehow Wall St. firms are 'too big to fail' and the little guy (read: everyone else) had to give them a huge bailout because they gambled and lost. In the eyes of most, its as if they had to pay for someone's trip to the casino, out of their own taxes. It's not about being able to leverage capital markets... It's about having to pay for your losses yourself, rather than having everyone else bail your ass out to the tune of billions of dollars. Taking all of the risk out of the system for the big boys, while it still exists for everyone else seems pretty BS (especially if you're part of 'everyone else').
Edit: Wall St. isn't 'bad' but the way it shook out this time was utterly bullshit and people have the right to be angry and adversarial about it.