A friend writes:

It seems like this is a ripe opportunity to do one of those Daily Show kind of things where you do a little research and show the titans of finance bellowing for release from the hand of government, singing the praises of the market and its perfect mechanism, and then grabbing at the public purse when they've made a mess of things and don't want the market to clean it up.

There's only one problem here: I don't see any hypocrisy.

Wait, wait, you're saying, isn't it true that they call for free market when they're doing well and then for a bailout when things go bad.

Yes. It's true. But they're not hypocrites. They're businesspeople. Not idealists.

They want money. They want profit.

When they make money on the free market, they call for the free market. When they make money through regulation, they call for regulation. When they make money through government bailouts, they call for bailouts.

They are entirely consistent.

The only consistent free market idealists I've heard of are economics professors, a small group of activists and, possibly, John Mackey, CEO, of Whole Foods.

BTW, business is not always anti-regulation. They are often big boosters of regulation for, again, selfish reasons. Bruce Yandle explains how this works.

UPDATED: Oooops.

I actually looked up the definition of hypocrisy:


a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not ; especially : the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion

My bad.

They're hypocrites.

categories: Understanding The Crisis

9:01 - September 17, 2008

What is this?

Share