Blame These 25 People for the Financial Mess
- Posted by: Zach Frechette
- on February 16, 2009 at 6:09 pm
While assigning blame for things is rarely productive, Time’s interactive list of the 25 people to blame for the financial crisis (”The good intentions, bad managers, and greed behind the meltdow”) is actually a pretty handy tool, for two reasons: the illuminating mini-profiles of the people who—blame aside—were the wrenches in the gears of this catastrophic machine failure, and the nuanced selection of who was included on the list. To wit: in addition to the nefarious bank managers and questionable loan operators, people like Alan Greenspan, ex-Security and Exchange Commission chief Chris Cox, and you, the American consumer, all make the cut. The whole setup is a bit inflammatory—from the Usual Suspects-esque police lineup to the “guilty” to “innocent” interactive ratings scale—but it’s hard to blame a poor newsweekly for trying to get some attention these days. Plus, it’s really just about understanding who to hold accountable. At the top of the list right now? Phil Gramm, the former chairman of the Senate Banking Committee from which so much of our bad financial regulation (or deregulation, as the case may be) was born.
DISCUSSION: 3 Comments
this is a really fascinating article re the wall street bonus culture: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/03/wall-street-bonuses200903?printable=true¤tPage=all How had it come to this? Huge bonuses in good years leading, or so
it seemed, to terrifying drops and talk of clawbacks? For, not so long
ago, investment bankers were like dentists and lawyers, toiling in the
upper middle class for 40 or 50 years before retiring to their nice
homes in Connecticut. Their firms were partnerships. In a good year the
partners got bonuses; in a bad they wrote checks to the partnership to
cover the shortfall.
Then, in the 1980s and 90s, the firms went public, and everything
changed. “They shared the downside risk with their investors, yet
seemed to keep the upside for themselves,” says Charles Elson, director
of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance, at the University of
Delaware. “It’s a lousy deal for shareholders.”
We as people have to blame ourselves as well. I mean the persons who were involved in stocks started it all when they start pulling out. We can’t just blame the leaders too we allowed it to happen.
@Anonymous – Funny you should say that, I agree with your statement, and so does Time. Number 5 on the list of people to blame just so happens to be “American Consumers” though I suppose there is a difference between stock holders and your average consumers. Nonetheless, Time has recognized the bitter fact that we hold much of the blame as consumers in this society.