Don't Save the Dinosaurs
With the announcement that AIG will be bailed out with taxpayer money, I am now convinced that nobody in government understands how capitalism works. The whole idea behind Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" was that people are going to be greedy bastards no matter what, so let's at least reward the smart and greedy and... here's the crucial bit... punish the greedy and stupid. You can't have laissez-faire profit and then socialize loss.
Many a company got greedy and dumb recently, and now its time to give them their Darwin Award. By keeping around the people who thought investments backed by dodgy mortgages was a good idea, you just allow them to continue being stupid. What's worse is that it is being done on the taxpayer dime. Only the narrow worldview of the quarterly report would consider this a sound use of the public trust. Would AIG's failure have a negative impact on the economy? Hell yes it would but sometimes that is a necessity. Let the comet hit Wall St., kill the dinosaurs, and let something better rise up to replace them.
Many a company got greedy and dumb recently, and now its time to give them their Darwin Award. By keeping around the people who thought investments backed by dodgy mortgages was a good idea, you just allow them to continue being stupid. What's worse is that it is being done on the taxpayer dime. Only the narrow worldview of the quarterly report would consider this a sound use of the public trust. Would AIG's failure have a negative impact on the economy? Hell yes it would but sometimes that is a necessity. Let the comet hit Wall St., kill the dinosaurs, and let something better rise up to replace them.