Comments on: Economics According to Meg

By: Mr. Money

Mr. Money — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 16:50:08 +0000

Yeah, I don’t think anyone would get fired over $20, unless the manager/owner is a real tightwad, in which case it’s probably for the best to get fired and move on to a better paying job.

Regardless, we should have let the banks fail, taken our medicine and moved on without the hyper-inflation that we’re now near-guaranteed to experience.

@flotsam, the rules and regulations were in place, but the big firms convinced the SEC that they could regulate themselves. The real issue is ensuring there is no collusion between government entities and corporations, which is tough but necessary. The free market works as long as government is there to make sure everyone is playing on a fair and balanced field. Such was not the case here as the big banks got the benefit of the doubt and government help when that benefit proved dubious.

By: The Politics and Money Carnival - Edition 10

The Politics and Money Carnival - Edition 10 — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 15:32:19 +0000

[...] presents Economics According to Meg posted at Simpson’s [...]

By: flotsam

flotsam — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:36:52 +0000

@gedeon – The people you refer to are not anonymous, or in any way innocent. Nor are are they so numerous that you can validly dissipate the blame so that no one is responsible for anything – I repeat, that is fogging the issue. Bolstering up a faulty system to keep it going hardly sounds like a good idea. Giving continued free-rein to the free-marketeers even less so. It was unrestrained irresponsible [and greedy] behaviour in the free market which created this problem in the first place. More free marketing is the answer???? When was the last time repairing a punctured tyre with a nail worked? Curing a problem with more of what caused it in the first place is lunacy.
The best answer is to let companies fail – lots of people will get hurt, including some of those who caused the problem – and then set down rules and regulations to prevent irresponsible behaviour. Relying on self regulation doesn’t work – events have demonstrated that.

By: Luke Gedeon

Luke Gedeon — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 05:29:31 +0000

@ flotsam, I guess you could call it fogging the issue if the CFO’s really were the only ones at fault, but they are not. I am simply placing the blame at the feet of the guilty party. In this case it happens to be a very large group of people who were so enamored with the future that they decided to ignore history. (I guess I could blame all the teachers who make history seem to be a boring subject but…) Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.

Oh, and I was not suggesting that we go ahead with the bailout (explained that better in my post a few hours later), I am just saying that bailout or not, we are still going to end up paying for this mess out of our own pockets.

Whoever ends up losing money is going to have less money to lend to the people who buy the products, services, or whatever that your company produces. That means a smaller raise (if you get to keep your job).

So pick your poison. You are going to pay. I would rather take my poison in a free market, but it is going to hurt pretty bad no matter what.

By: flotsam

flotsam — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 21:54:11 +0000

@Gedeon Of course these thousands of unfortunate people who made hundreds of thousands of mistakes don’t deserve to be fired. Isn’t it strange when something goes wrong how people dive in and try to spread the blame around so many unnamed people – if my memory serves me correctly it is called fogging the issue.

And ending with a veiled threat; if you [you poor rubes who are silly enough to pay tax] don’t pay for this bailout then you will pay in every other way, so you may as well pay up and keep these fat cats happy.

By: Should we fire everyone that caused the Great Crash of 2008? - Luke Gedeon

Should we fire everyone that caused the Great Crash of 2008? - Luke Gedeon — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 22:28:04 +0000

[...] Meg Stivison very kindly provided the topic for today’s post. She voices a thought that I am sure just about every American has thought over the last several days. Her version: So if you are making minimum-wage as a cashier and at the end of the day, your drawer is missing $20, you probably get fired, because losing a twenty is either stealing or incompetence. But if you’re making a huge salary as a CFO, and large amounts of money disappear from your bank, the government will come in with lots of money to help you out! [...]

By: Luke Gedeon

Luke Gedeon — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:10:00 +0000

As a former manager of cashiers, I would not fire you over $20 the first time, maybe not even the second time. Good employees are hard to find, and expensive to train.

We would have a talk, and I would explain the importance of keeping other people out of your drawer and verifying all transactions. If it happens again, and I think it is just a matter of incompetence I might assign you to a part of the store that does not involve handling money.

Firing someone for theft should never be taken lightly, even when it is required.

As for the banks, we are talking about thousands of people who made hundreds of thousands of mistakes, based on the assumption that housing prices would continue to go up. It is just not practical to fire that many people.

Also it really does not matter whether we do the bailout or not. The money is still coming out of the same pocket. We are just fighting over which hole it is going to leak out of. In the end anyone that has any money at all is going to end up losing about half of it (more or less). You can pay it through lost investment, lost jobs, higher taxes, or inflation, but one way or the other if you have money you are going to pay.

By: Financial Disaster

Financial Disaster — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 13:32:57 +0000

[...] Via Simpson’s Paradox — Economics According to Meg [...]

By: Troubled Times : CREDIT CARDENZA

Troubled Times : CREDIT CARDENZA — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 13:32:35 +0000

[...] Via Simpson’s Paradox — Economics According to Meg [...]

By: Mercurywaxing

Mercurywaxing — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 22:00:33 +0000

I’ve been ranting about this in twitter. I work in Greenwich, and some of these guys are laughing about it and at us. Others are saying they won’t take any bailout that includes a pay cut because they EARNED their 20,000,000 by driving their funds, companies, and economy into the ground. These are the same people that last year were talking about how, “only poor rubes pay taxes.” (real quote)

You have no idea how much I detest these people.