I want your money...The Economist

[Vadim]

I have just got a new The Economist magazine.
Here is the link to an interesting article:
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?source=hptextfeature&story_id=12305249

A question for Adam: do you want to change your avatar from "I quant you" to "I want your money"?

 

[Bastian Gross]

Who does agree that "Congress should pass it [Mr Paulson's $700 billion government bail-out plan] —and soon."?

 

[Uncle Max]

The problem is that government knows better if bailout necessary to survive. However, if the situation is so bad that we have to pay $700B and more later, then:
Christopher Cox (SEC Chairman) should go to jail for life
Alan Greenspan (former Fed Chairman) should go to jail for life
Ben Bernanke (Fed Chairman) should go to jail for 1-5 years
Hank Paulson (Treasury Secretary) should go to jail for 1-3 years

Those people let it happen. Bankers just gambled the market because they had positive EV for their income from this gamble. Where was the government?.. Why nobody stopped loosening underwriting standards? Why nobody stopped derivatives game on questioned mortgages? Why they gave monopoly to three ratings agencies to decide which bond is safe to buy? So many questions should be answered. And if we (taxpayers) have to pay that much money to make sure economy survives, then somebody must be responsible for things that happened.

 

[Subramaniam]

maxrum wants to send a lot of people to jail.
For ex. Alan Greenspan, I might agree.

Why do you want to jail Bernanke, he came much recently, and atlest as soon as he took over, he was rasiing interest rates, and with the market turmoil, brought them down quickly.

I am not saying he has done all things right, but its a little unfair to blame him for the current crisis. Same holds for Paulson the trasury secy. As a treasury secy, I dont think he caused this mess.(less true about Paulson the GS ex. CEO)..
Christopher Cox is becoming a good scapegoat, but his role is somewhat limited..

I think its a complete failure of the risk management units of individual banks as well as the greedy bonus culture in them that needs to take fair amount of blame..