
Old Wall Street Discusses the New - MaysonL
http://norris.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/old-wall-street-discusses-the-new/
======
p3ll0n
I thought Michael Lewis' "Liar’s Poker" was describing a world that was
ending, not that a world was beginning. And what it was describing, it turns
out, is a period in finance that went on for another 25 years or 20 years.

The incentives for people on Wall Street got so screwed up, that the people
who worked there became blinded to their own long term interests because the
short term interests were so overpowering. So they behaved in ways that were
antithetical to their own long term interests.

------
parallax7d
Aren't the banks themselves doing the same thing? Use OPM (taxpayer bailouts)
to socialize any losses on huge bets with huge payoffs.

~~~
jayruy
sure but you can't attach moral obligation or duty to a corporate entity, all
you can do is regulate (and we are trying...)

to tie the two together, i don't believe regulators are paying nearly enough
attention to how incentives have changed over the past 15 years and why board
of directors have become powerless to common sense in this arena

~~~
anamax
> sure but you can't attach moral obligation or duty to a corporate entity,
> all you can do is regulate (and we are trying...)

Actually, that's not "all you can do".

Note that regulators "don't have any skin in the game" and that regulation is
systemic risk (by definition).

Also, regulation is always behind.

And that's without even addressing the elephant in the room, regulatory
capture.

~~~
jayruy
although i appreciate your attempt at libertarianism, your logic is non-
nonsensical: you attack regulation without offering an alternative or re-
defining the problem

~~~
anamax
> your logic is non-nonsensical: you attack regulation without offering an
> alternative or re-defining the problem

Non-sensical?

Do you really believe that the properties of regulation are affected by
alternatives? (Hint: the relative merit is, but not the absolute properties.)

It's perfectly appropriate to interrupt a regulation love-fest by pointing out
that it does not have the properties that its fans claim.

Do you really want to argue "we must do something, regulation is something,
therefore we must regulate"?

And, there's the small matter that regulation can take many forms. For
example, torts are a form of regulation.

Yet, question bureaucrats, and folks rise up.

You remember bureaucrats. They're folks with no skin in the game....

~~~
jayruy
in politics relative merit is what gets things done (Hint: you can get around
this by starting your own libertarian paradise on some uninhabited island, may
I submit the name "jackassland" for your consideration)

------
Tichy
And old wall street was investing their own money rather than OPM? They must
have had such a bad life, those old timers.

------
samratjp
Judging by the title, I expected the op to rant about quants.

------
studioprisoner
I thought this was about the movies. ha!

