Think Twice Finance

Goats Galore. This Crisis is the Fault of About a Dozen People. They have been Discovered and Removed from Office. So Don’t You Worry Anymore.

Scapegoating has never been an exact science. But the witch hunts following the Subprime Mortgage crisis have the feel of a newly discovered sequel to Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass.” The low point was the axing of a State Government official in Saxony. I don’t know which part of that decapitation bothers me more, the possibility that he abused his responsibility or the fact that he had it in the first place.

And the President of Standard and Poors. Poor woman. What about the governments who dropped responsibility for bank credit decision-making in the laps of these three small firms in the first place? And what about a financial system that bases the lending decision on standards other than the judgment of bankers?

And the bridge partner and heir apparent of the head of Bear Stearns. I would have sacked the head of Bear Stearns for choosing his bridge partner to be second in command in the first place. The man never claimed to be good at anything but bridge. How can the Chairman blame him now?