Old Wall Street Discusses the New

http://norris.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/old-wall-street-discusses-the-new/

by MaysonL • 16 years ago

54 10 16 years ago

norris.blogs.nytimes.com

parallax7d• 16 years ago

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

jayruy3• 16 years ago

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

anamax2• 16 years ago

> 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.

samratjp• 16 years ago

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

p3ll0n• 16 years ago

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.

studioprisoner• 16 years ago

I thought this was about the movies. ha!

Tichy• 16 years ago

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

Old Wall Street Discusses the New

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