Re: [tlug][OT] Free markets

[Shawn Brown <javajunkie@example.com>]

>> Congress pushing hard to get
>> industry to lend to subprime borrowers in the current mess).  It's not
>> clear that *any* of them would have happened if the market had been
>> left to its own devices.

Did you have a chance to speak with any risk managers of any major financial institutions at the time those decision were made?  Did you happen to speak to any who were against expanding subprime liability.  Do you know someone who argued with the national risk managers (the institution I know about has national risk managers who get the final say regardless of specific industry).  Do you know what they said about why they lost the argument and what they thought the future held, and what they though about their own personal careers when they were on the record for "not being comfortable with that decision".

I never heard from such a person once, not once about Gov. pressure.  I am not saying the pressure wasn't there, nor am I saying that such pressure was not the reason for expansion into subprime, but I will say that based on my discussions I would have expected to have heard about it.  I do believe that the rationale was perceived potential profit although I fully admit that #1) I was not involved in direct discussions myself and that #2) my informant could have withheld information from me in the same way the the US withheld information on UFO's in the 1950's (1).


Shawn

(1) No the Govt. did not withhold information on UFO'S, they withheld information on military activity.  My point is that some people perceived them to have done so.