4 ms·

How about greed? How many decades of repeated patterns of cooking figures, "losing" paperwork, and outright fraud does it take to see that a sizeable percentage

How about greed? How many decades of repeated patterns of cooking figures, "losing" paperwork, and outright fraud does it take to see that a sizeable percentage of people running the largest financial companies just want to rake in whatever they can. Since so many products are so arcane and/or never disclosed in detail, there's ample opportunity to mess with and profit from just about anything that isn't prima facie simple. I don't know how to rein in the seemingly endless stream of schemers... and the thought that "everybody does it" (think LIBOR), and that shining the proverbial sunlight into the back rooms will cripple what financial system we have just makes me want to burn it all down anyway. Lots of frustration, little action. No answers.

rapind 6y ago
The first step is to stop bailing out all this fuckery. Look at your politicians stance on wall street bailouts.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  And then look at all the voters’ stances when they find out their 401k don’t look so great, or when their governments have to raise taxes to pay for pensions since the pension fund isn’t worth much.
  - rapind 6y ago
    Easier to swallow if the bailout goes directly to these voters instead of this trickle down nonsense.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      It’s hard to make a cash bailout that isn’t based on income/wealth due to the optics. By inflating asset values, it isn’t as discriminating against those on the upper end of the income/wealth scale, who also probably have major business interests in propping up asset values.
  - eli_gottlieb 6y ago
    Voter here. It's not just that I'm willing to subsist on dog kibble in 35 years to see most of Wall Street go to jail. It's that I'm willing to make that trade this year. If you founded a political party whose platform was "fuck Wall Street in every way possible, and damn the consequences", I think most of my generation would vote for that.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      It would be nice if people who thought that came out and voted (skewing towards younger population). Obviously, a larger portion of the older population who do have their wealth tied up are not going to be a fan, and they tend to be the ones with the funds and votes to dictate political discourse.
      - Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
        Many of us do. But telling people to get out and vote when they've been disenfranchised, or will be fired, in essence, for voting is pretty tone deaf.
      - eli_gottlieb 6y ago
        I took a post-deadline low-workload day to vote early in my state's primaries. You can guess who I voted for.
  - jschwartzi 6y ago
    I think we made a huge mistake going from pension to 401k for retirement. Pensions have a strong incentive to maintain solvency and so will be risk-averse, while with a 401k you are expected to be sophisticated enough to know how risk-averse you are given your retirement time horizon. A lot of people are not sophisticated at all with investing. So the upshot of that is that the 401k becomes a lever to encourage people to get angry when the stock market doesn't do so well. And then you have this artificial propping up of something that's supposed to be an equity market for sophisticated investors. It's great if you're a financial services company because you can hold peoples' retirements hostage with your stupid decisions.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      > Pensions have a strong incentive to maintain solvency and so will be risk-averse, If this was true, then pretty much every government in the US (and around the world) wouldn’t be saddled with enormous debt for labor performed in previous decades. Government defined benefit pension plans assume 7%+ return on investment, that doesn’t scream risk averse. Nor does the fact that pensions regularly place their bets with VC funds, PE firms, REITs, and other risky investments. The only thing defined benefit pensions do is give control of a huge pot of money to a small group of people with no transparency, inevitably resulting in corruption. With taxpayer funded pensions, you get the added bonus of today’s voters and workers and politicians pushing all the costs onto future generations of taxpayers. Source: https://www.data-z.org/pension_database/ https://www.data-z.org/pension_database/
marcus_holmes 6y ago
Well, one thing we could do to rein in the seemingly endless stream of schemers is let them face the consequences of their actions. Stop bailing out Wall St and the Square Mile, and let them go bankrupt. The pain would be considerable. But we're used to that now, and it's like ripping a band-aid off: it hurts a lot more for a lot shorter time.
- zentiggr 6y ago
  We just have to get their cronies in the SEC and DOJ to step up and chastize their former / future coworkers. Q.E.D.
pnutjam 6y ago
Isn't this the same crap everyone was criticizing Italy for last time the economy took a dump?

rapind 6y ago

The first step is to stop bailing out all this fuckery. Look at your politicians stance on wall street bailouts.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
And then look at all the voters’ stances when they find out their 401k don’t look so great, or when their governments have to raise taxes to pay for pensions since the pension fund isn’t worth much.
- rapind 6y ago
  Easier to swallow if the bailout goes directly to these voters instead of this trickle down nonsense.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    It’s hard to make a cash bailout that isn’t based on income/wealth due to the optics. By inflating asset values, it isn’t as discriminating against those on the upper end of the income/wealth scale, who also probably have major business interests in propping up asset values.
- eli_gottlieb 6y ago
  Voter here. It's not just that I'm willing to subsist on dog kibble in 35 years to see most of Wall Street go to jail. It's that I'm willing to make that trade this year. If you founded a political party whose platform was "fuck Wall Street in every way possible, and damn the consequences", I think most of my generation would vote for that.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    It would be nice if people who thought that came out and voted (skewing towards younger population). Obviously, a larger portion of the older population who do have their wealth tied up are not going to be a fan, and they tend to be the ones with the funds and votes to dictate political discourse.
    - Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
      Many of us do. But telling people to get out and vote when they've been disenfranchised, or will be fired, in essence, for voting is pretty tone deaf.
    - eli_gottlieb 6y ago
      I took a post-deadline low-workload day to vote early in my state's primaries. You can guess who I voted for.
- jschwartzi 6y ago
  I think we made a huge mistake going from pension to 401k for retirement. Pensions have a strong incentive to maintain solvency and so will be risk-averse, while with a 401k you are expected to be sophisticated enough to know how risk-averse you are given your retirement time horizon. A lot of people are not sophisticated at all with investing. So the upshot of that is that the 401k becomes a lever to encourage people to get angry when the stock market doesn't do so well. And then you have this artificial propping up of something that's supposed to be an equity market for sophisticated investors. It's great if you're a financial services company because you can hold peoples' retirements hostage with your stupid decisions.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    > Pensions have a strong incentive to maintain solvency and so will be risk-averse, If this was true, then pretty much every government in the US (and around the world) wouldn’t be saddled with enormous debt for labor performed in previous decades. Government defined benefit pension plans assume 7%+ return on investment, that doesn’t scream risk averse. Nor does the fact that pensions regularly place their bets with VC funds, PE firms, REITs, and other risky investments. The only thing defined benefit pensions do is give control of a huge pot of money to a small group of people with no transparency, inevitably resulting in corruption. With taxpayer funded pensions, you get the added bonus of today’s voters and workers and politicians pushing all the costs onto future generations of taxpayers. Source: https://www.data-z.org/pension_database/ https://www.data-z.org/pension_database/

marcus_holmes 6y ago

Well, one thing we could do to rein in the seemingly endless stream of schemers is let them face the consequences of their actions. Stop bailing out Wall St and the Square Mile, and let them go bankrupt. The pain would be considerable. But we're used to that now, and it's like ripping a band-aid off: it hurts a lot more for a lot shorter time.

zentiggr 6y ago
We just have to get their cronies in the SEC and DOJ to step up and chastize their former / future coworkers. Q.E.D.

pnutjam 6y ago

Isn't this the same crap everyone was criticizing Italy for last time the economy took a dump?