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> Iceland Not clear to me the executivies were charged for anything applicable to the overall collapse http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/215

• RangerScience 12y ago
  > ...charged for anything applicable I don't know if it's similar enough, but, a good extreme example is Al Capone. He wasn't charged with organized crime, but I don't think you could argue he wasn't jailed for it. Conversely (although that may be the wrong operation) and by design, you can do a Wrong Thing and not be jailed because it's a new Wrong Thing and thus there's no law against it - there's actually a technical term for this, and AFAIK it's one of the basic principles of our judicial system. > Not viable... I think you're reading in that I think we shouldn't have bailed out those institutions, since you're using examples with emotional impact. And actually, there may be an interesting correlation here... What do you think of the "Right to Die"? To continue with the medical analogies, if you have someone in a vegetative state (for the purposes of the analogy, they are no longer a viable person), you don't pull them off life support immediately, because it IS about more than just them. But you do let them die, eventually. So let's say you have this retirement and mutual fund that has - by virtue of a CONTINUED need for financial life support - demonstrated that it has entered a zombie state. Well, if you consider the invested funds as the organism's energy... redistribute that energy to new organisms (aka, break up the company). Energy still exists, energy is still invested - and yes, of course I'm simplifying this and it could be non-feasible due to the effort involved in that break-up, but the idea remains. > Where all those... ...Protesting? :D Joking aside, well - again, that energy isn't lost. Where does it go? I'm very much not enough of an economist to say what circumstances money is actually destroyed, but... as Lewis CK put it: nothing's on fire and nobody's dead. Now, want to say that energy doesn't go someplace appropriate? We could go the angry route and say it's going to the wall street bankers that caused the collapse, which in turn then looks like a whale eating krill. At some point the whale needs to die so there can be nourished krill, and the Cycle Continues, as they say. I'm OK with more than old corporations dying but I don't think either of these positions have anything to nihilism. Then again, SMBC is my understanding of nihilism. (http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2394 http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2394)
• jacquesm 12y ago
  They couldn't lose their home to their HELOC (Home Equity Line Of Credit) because they could simply continue to pay the interest and do payments on the principal. They probably shouldn't have taken that loan to begin with but now that they have it they should simply be paying off on it. The fact that bad debt was issued required two parties to be willing partners, one to issue the debt and another to take it on and that's something that didn't have to happen. Taking on debt without having the means to pay it back is supremely stupid. As for the 401k, don't you get a say which funds that money gets invested in? Don't you get a say on whether or not you contribute to them anyway? As far as I get it it is mostly a tax deferment scheme, pay out later (after (hopefully) compounding for a number of years) for when you're earning less than you do today. A flat taxation regime would take care of that in a heartbeat (then deferment has no advantages). Personally I wouldn't trust any institution with my pension, but that's me being paranoid. If you do choose to put your money in the hands of others for increased long term return you have to keep in mind that any kind of returns indicate an increase in risk and if you're unaware of where those risks stem from then you are probably assuming a good part of that risk yourself.
  • dllthomas 12y ago
    "Taking on debt without having the means to pay it back is supremely stupid." Or desperate.