And so the unravelling of the latest financial bubble gathers pace. Here and in the States failing financial institutions have been backed with taxpayers' money.
I quite understand the decision to make sure depositors don't lose out: you should know that if you put your money into a bank account it won't disappear. However, bailing out risk-taking investors with our money? That's just wrong.
If the value of your investments effectively can't go down, you shouldn't get benefits based on that supposed risk. And the free-marketeers ought to be agreeing, because they invented the phrase "moral hazard". That hazard doesn't just apply to business people, it applies to the politicians who bale them out too.
I quite understand the decision to make sure depositors don't lose out: you should know that if you put your money into a bank account it won't disappear. However, bailing out risk-taking investors with our money? That's just wrong.
If the value of your investments effectively can't go down, you shouldn't get benefits based on that supposed risk. And the free-marketeers ought to be agreeing, because they invented the phrase "moral hazard". That hazard doesn't just apply to business people, it applies to the politicians who bale them out too.
there's a letter in the FT from a French investment banker that's on the filthy lucre:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/747b650c-f557-11dc-a21b-000077b07658.html