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> protecting the poor from their own stupidity... I felt like accepting your rightish narrative and then you drop this asocial bomb?
by vletal 5y ago
> protecting the poor from their own stupidity...
I felt like accepting your rightish narrative and then you drop this asocial bomb?
- vasco 5y agoThat is what is implied by the policies we have in place today. I don't believe your intelligence is measured by your bank account, that is the whole point of the comment.
- bobthepanda 5y agoThe regulations are not really in place to protect "the poor from their own stupidity." The regulations are in place because the lesson of the Depression is that one person losing their shirt is personal responsibility, and that's fine, but millions of people losing their shirts at the same time will pull the rug out from under the wider economy and be a societal disaster. The criteria for accredited investors is a very crude way to address this problem by reducing blast radius; we could come up with something more convoluted like requiring a minimum amount of bond posted to act as a floor (similar to how non-insured people driving cars works in some states) but the effect would be roughly the same.
- vasco 5y agoThe lesson of the Depression is that the Fed at the time sat on their ass and let the economy collapse around them instead of doing something. It had little to do with retail investor euphoria.
- skohan 5y agoSurely it had something to do with retail investor euphoria...
- lottin 5y agoCan you quote any economic historian that agrees with you?
- jessaustin 5y agoWasn't that a synopsis of Ben Bernanke's entire output over his whole career? Personally I don't completely agree, especially as Bernanke used that theory to justify some of his own questionable actions...
- MR4D 5y agoI’m not the OP, but there’s a whole book on the topic. Fascinating read if you ever get the chance. A Keystone Cops level of professionalism displayed by the central bankers at the time. Lords of Finance - https://www.amazon.com/Lords-Finance-Bankers-Broke-World/dp/0143116800 https://www.amazon.com/Lords-Finance-Bankers-Broke-World/dp/...
- consultanturnot 5y agoUsing your shirt analogy, what shirt do shorters (at the HF-level) wear? The shorters have a vested interest in an equity falling.
- vletal 5y agoEven if that was the case the hyperboly is put in a way that it's undermining the greater point.
- fallingknife 5y agoTell that to the SEC, who literally decides what people can invest in based on their income/net worth, which is what he is referring to.
- young_unixer 5y agoHe/she just said what top level comment didn't want to make explicit. What else would they need to be "protected" from?