Joseph Stiglitz on Managing the Global Credit Crunch

What’s been lost so far in all the uncer­tain­ty and con­fu­sion of this coun­try’s cur­rent finan­cial fias­co?

The fact that a cadre of white col­lar crim­i­nals are still out at large, just pos­si­bly pulling off one of the great­est heists in this coun­try’s his­to­ry?

I think so.

I also imag­ine them as a well fund­ed group of char­ac­ters –polit­i­cal­ly con­nect­ed too, undoubt­ed­ly set for life now – all of the mon­ey need­ed for a life­time of com­fort and leisure, secured in just 3 to 5 years of fraud and deceit.

Too many under­es­ti­mate the untem­pered short term prof­it motive — to get in and out quick­ly, mak­ing mil­lions, no wait, some mak­ing bil­lions in the process.

While many of us now reel in the uncer­tain­ty of our own short and long term finan­cial secu­ri­ty, the par­ty’s just begun for those who’ve per­fect­ed steal­ing with a pen­cil.

I’ll tell you what I think is miss­ing from this news sto­ry thus far. Mort­gage and bank­ing CEO’s in suits being led away in hand cuffs, a new breed of no-non­sense reg­u­la­tors being intro­duced to the Amer­i­can peo­ple, and how about a uni­fied Amer­i­can voice declar­ing enough is enough!

“I believe that bank­ing insti­tu­tions are more dan­ger­ous to our lib­er­ties than stand­ing armies. If the Amer­i­can peo­ple ever allow pri­vate banks to con­trol the issue of their cur­ren­cy, first by infla­tion, then by defla­tion, the banks and cor­po­ra­tions that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the peo­ple of all prop­er­ty until their chil­dren wake-up home­less on the con­ti­nent their fathers con­quered. The issu­ing pow­er should be tak­en from the banks and restored to the peo­ple, to whom it prop­er­ly belongs.” — Thomas Jef­fer­son, Let­ter to the Sec­re­tary of the Trea­sury Albert Gal­latin (1802) 3rd pres­i­dent of US (1743 — 1826)

Gary E. Geraci
http://afederalwhistleblowerstory.blogspot.com/