While I'm Ranting, Might I Add...

Like the rest of you, I've been following this financial market collapse episode. I don't pretend to know what the solution is, nor do I claim to be a great policy analyst, but it is apparent that there is something wrong with our current system.

I don't want our economy to tank, and I don't want a bunch of home owners to lose their houses, or hardworking people to lose their retirement, but I am not sure I like that the federal government is bailing out all these financial institutions that made poor decisions and took big risks and, frankly, lost. Perhaps the alternative, letting the market have its way with them, would have been the greater evil. Who am I to say?

The thing that really gets me, and I may be wrong here, but it seems like all this corporate greed has been inevitably leaning ever closer to this demise for some time now. Am I wrong here? Am I just wearing blue tinted liberal lenses? Anyone with a semblance of an IQ could have seen a while back here that the housing market (key word: bubble) was just too good to be true. That is one belief I cling to tightly. If it seems too good to be true... But I digress.

My point is, there was very little regulation. There was a lot of predatory lending going on, even some illegal and shameless deception. But even if it was all on the up and up, I find it hard to believe that there wasn't more education required before entering into such risky loans. I mean, this is America where the trend since the early 80s has been away from savings and into debt. We are terrible with our personal finances (and our governments aren't much better with theirs). If I want to perform some medical intervention on a patient I have to explain to them both the benefits and the risks of such a treatment. Only then can I get informed consent. Why is it different when it comes to money?

When it comes to politics I have to admit to not remembering much before 2000. That was the first presidential election I was able to vote in, and that was when I was in college and started looking at current events with a more mature eye. To me, tt seems like Bush really handed the reigns over to the industries when it came to regulation. Again, I could be way off the mark here and if I am please correct me. Perhaps this is history repeating itself and Bush if following some earlier presidential precedent.

I think it is the government's job to protect its people, its citizens, not corporations or big industry. I understand that if the economic or environmental or political climate here becomes too inhospitable and toxic to industries they will go over seas to places with less regulations and our economy might suffer. Well, most of the goods we buy these days aren't manufactured in the good ol' US of A anyway, but I do understand that is a legitimate concern.

I still believe, however, that the government needs to be the advocates of its citizens. I think most Americans believe this because we are outraged when something tragic occurs, something that seems preventable, had there just been more rules or safeguards. Tainted dog food from China? How could it be? A college student guns down his fellow students? Where was the intervention? Metrolink crash? How could that happen? It is incredulous, right?

According to all the stuff I've been posting by Jonathon Haidt, moral psychologist and humankind observer, pretty much everyone in the whole world has an understanding of suffering and harm, and a drive to avoid it. That was a huge factor in the development of governments to begin with. So regulations don't seem so bad to me. In fact, it seems like government's job.

I'm not saying I want them to regulate everything, but we accept its authority to regulate speed limits because excessive speed is dangerous. We accept its authority to regulate what constitutes a doctor, or a lawyer, or an electrician, because these professions have the potential to cause damage if the practioner is not properly educated and trained. We expect the government to protect us from food that could make us sick, and drugs that are not safe. Why should we not also accept the government's regulation of financial lending, for the sake of the person borrowing? Why is that so taboo? Here is an interesting aside.

I guess I'm not even looking for an absolute in the sense that the government would prohibit all sub-prime and other awful loans, just that they would require not only full disclosure but also a certain amount of education to the person taking the loan. Before I took my Stafford loans I had to complete some training, and that was a stable low interest rate student loan. I think people should know what they are getting themselves into, both borrower and lender, and then I think we should let the cards fall where they may.

That's all I've got in me for now. But seriously, if anyone has another side of the argument, by all means speak up. Please.