Yesterday there was a diary on the recommended list in which those of us disappointed with the lack of real change were warned that
a lot of folks will need to STFU already with the conspiracy theories,
which I took to be a reference to this diary on the recommended list on Tuesday.
Well, in the sense that (even though he was not my first choice as the Democratic Party nominee) I voted for him, canvassed for his campaign, donated office space to his campaign, and celebrated his historic victory, I have bet on Obama.
A recent article by former savings & loans fraud investigator William Black, How the Servant Became a Predator: Finance’s Five Fatal Flaws, made me realize that who I am really betting on is Gresham.
more below the jump
Sir Thomas Gresham was an English financier in the 1500s who famously stated "bad money drives out good." As William Black explains about our current situation:
- The financial sector’s predation and its leading role in committing and aiding and abetting accounting control fraud combine to:
• Corrupt financial elites and professionals, and
• Spur a rise in Social Darwinism in an attempt to justify the elites’ power and wealth. Accounting control frauds suborn accountants, attorneys, and appraisers and create what is known as a "Gresham’s dynamic" — a system in which bad money drives out good. When this dynamic occurs, honest professionals are pushed out and cheaters are allowed to prosper. Executive compensation has become so massive, so divorced from performance, and so perverse that it, too, creates a Gresham’s dynamic that encourages widespread accounting fraud by both financial firms and firms in the real economy.
As financial sector elites became obscenely wealthy through predation and fraud, their psychological incentives to embrace unhealthy, anti-democratic Social Darwinism surged. While they were, by any objective measure, the worst elements of the public, their sycophants in the media and the recipients of their political and charitable contributions worshiped them as heroic. Finance CEOs adopted and spread the myth that they were smarter, harder working, and more innovative than the rest of us. They repeated the story of how they rose to the top entirely through their own brilliance and willingness to embrace risk. All of their employees weren’t simply above average, they told us, but exceptional. They hated collectivism and adored Ayn Rand.
From what I've seen so far since this year, Gresham looks like a safer bet than Obama.
And I'm very, very unhappy about that. In fact, I'm angry about it.