Wednesday, September 09, 2009

The Law of Gravity Is Still Suspended

There are certain incontrovertible truths in this day and age that neither political orientation nor willful myopia can change. One is that health-insurance companies are primarily in business to soak people and not help them deal with illness and disease. (See post above.) Another is that the serial meltdowns of financial institutions have one thing in common: These greed obsessed financiers, bankers and mortgage brokers thought that they could suspend the law of gravity, and what went up would never come down.

As has been proven time and again, not only did their wild-assed investment schemes come down, but they landed with a sickening thud that did much to contribute to the current recession.
Yet for all of the anger that the Countrywides, AIGs and Madoffs generated, the will to reform the financial industry seems to have faded.

Economist Alan Blinder believes that it's because the fiancial crisis is really complicated, while Barry Ritholtz hits the ball out of the park in noting that Blinder's naïveté has, um . . . blinded him to the real reason: The toxic relationship between Washington and Wall Street that helped get us into this mess hasn't significantly changed.

Cartoon by Ted Rall/Universal Press Syndicate

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