…PR, what you’re saying is that you’d rather cut off your nose to spite your face. Which is fine, but obviously I don’t share that view…..
I’m not one to cut off my nose to spite my face.[/quote]
Where’s my nose? I’ve lost my nose!
More seriously, what I am saying is that fairness is a goal just as valid as cost minimization. For some of us, it is less important than cost minimization; for some, more important. Your characterization of my priorities clearly places you in the first category. Obviously, I am in the second category. I accept the variety of views, but I don’t accept that fairness should be swept aside entirely.
I am not prepared to achieve fairness at any cost, but I think the public debate should acknowledge it as an important goal for many of us, and give it serious weight and priority. At the moment, fairness is receiving only a perfunctory acknowledgment, as something that must be deferred. I am suggesting that is a mistake, because it means that, in this first and most significant phase of the unwind, when vast amounts of wealth are being reallocated, the most irresponsible people will benefit the most from the entire bubble and its aftermath. You mentioned, davelj, that many of the well-paid professionals who actively aided and abetted, and profited from, the bubble will see no really large personal pain now. I am saying that part of what we should be doing, as part of a focus on fairness, is to change that.
I am a financial technician in the heart of the financial services industry, and near to some of the companies and issues that we read about every day on the front page of the WSJ. The lesson I personally am learning from the bubble and the unwind, and the way the unwind is being managed, is that reckless behavior, executed carefully to maximize my personal upside and to socialize as much downside as possible, will pay off handsomely.
If I buy a home in the future, I will make sure to do so using government-subsidized loans that require next to no downpayment. As home prices eventually start on their next up cycle, I will buy many homes with little or no money down, signing whatever the mortgage broker says about my living in each of the homes to get the best deal, and when prices eventually become frothy again, I will HELOC the hell out of each one, and walk when prices start to go down again.
And that is just the beginning. Knowing that the whole game is driven by selfish populism, I owe no moral allegiance to the rest of the population. All that scrupulous paying of taxes, regardless of how easily I could avoid some if I tried? Gone.
By demoting fairness to the bottom of the pile, we are allowing a corrosion of trust in our community that may have long-term consequences. I’d rather take my medicine now. My belief is that if we all did that, we’d all be much better off 20 years from now. So I don’t see putting fairness high on the priorities as self-denial or self-mutilation in any way. It’s in our best long-term interest. The biggest obstacle is that very few people think for the long term.
