Dr Dave is right. It is more of a crime than it is an economic crisis. Eugenia Renskoff

I still don't understand why you refer to this as an "economic crisis" when it is in fact an straight up "economic crime".

If someone stole millions of dollars from Federal banks over a few months, would that be an economic crisis?

dr dave

Hello, Brian, I don't mind the fact that these Wall Street guys are rich. I know they cannot feel my pain (the pain of a person who lost her home due to mortgage fraud and foreclosure). They have never had that happen to them and probably never will. I do mind the money that was distributed to their companies not being distributed to people like me. My circumstances have changed very drastically since my experience in GA. It has changed for the worse. I am writing a book about it. Eugenia Renskoff

Its not so much that they missed the signals as it is that no individual wanted to be the first one to say this thing (the bubble) is going to blow up in our faces. That person would have immediately been branded as not a player in the game. It's basic tribal sociology.

We routinely use taxation to reflect our thinking on the advisability of certain behaviors. We tax very heavily tobacco.

Why not taxes the thieves on Wall Street?

There is no objective standard for "risky behavior". All understanding of risk is based on models, and models are shown to be wrong all the time.

The problem is that someone who really understands risk models can make millions of Wall st. or can go into civil service. Which would you choose?

nothing will change until campaign finance rules are drastically changed. if a lobbyist can get to a legislator and actually give them money, then the industry will never be properly regulated. it's so obvious and out in the open- why isn't there a huge populist revolt against this fact? the politicians aren't going to change it, we have to!!

(Let's preface all by noting that Greg David and Crain's are conservative, business-can-do-no-wrong types.)

Sheila Bair, along with Elizabeth Warren and a few others, are among those Timothy Geithner has been gunning for over months.

We now know, conclusively, that Geithner conspired (and use that word intentionally) with AIG to deceive the American people.

Geithner must go. Bair and Warren should be given greater attention and Obama should be listening to them rather than the Bernanke-Geithner-Summers Robber Banker contingent.

American bankers provided billions in liquidity for our economic system to grow. Nobody forced anyone to buy CDOs. Free markets entail risk.

I'm a total skeptic about this Commission... is it for real or are the politicians just going through the motions for public consumption?