|
Edited on Fri Apr-10-09 07:08 AM by MannyGoldstein
From today's NY Times:
"Thirty-plus years ago, when I was a graduate student in economics, only the least ambitious of my classmates sought careers in the financial world. Even then, investment banks paid more than teaching or public service — but not that much more, and anyway, everyone knew that banking was, well, boring.
Instead, however, finance turned into the monster that ate the world economy. "
Of course, as in all financial debacles, Larry Summers was on the wrong side:
"Needless to say, the new superstars believed that they had earned their wealth. “I think that the results our company had, which is where the great majority of my wealth came from, justified what I got,” said Sanford Weill in 2007, a year after he had retired from Citigroup. And many economists agreed.
Only a few people warned that this supercharged financial system might come to a bad end. Perhaps the most notable Cassandra was Raghuram Rajan of the University of Chicago, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, who argued at a 2005 conference that the rapid growth of finance had increased the risk of a “catastrophic meltdown.” But other participants in the conference, including Lawrence Summers, now the head of the National Economic Council, ridiculed Mr. Rajan’s concerns."
Sanford Weil was the fellow to whom Bill Clinton handed the signing pen he used to OK the Glass-Steagall Act. Clinton was then paid millions by Citigroup - this was was a total coincidence, of course.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
