Economy in Need of a Surgeon's Scalpel

Armstrong Williams

Townhall - Armstrong Williams - There was a time when failed Wall Street investors hurled themselves from their high-rise offices. Now, their office windows are made of Plexiglas and they are rewarded $700 billion bail-out packages for sending the economy spiraling in on itself. In my weaker moments I pine for 1929-style personal responsibility. I am not alone. A lot was written in 2010 about how a greed-fueled mortgage industry nourished our current economic crisis by lowering lending standards, propagating the fallacy that home investment was safer than purchasing shares and selling mortgage backed securities while at the same time cranking out one dubious mortgage after another. The common threads being a lack of appropriate government oversight and the fact that our financial systems reward extravagant risk taking. This is to be expected on Wall Street where the primary actors are fattened on the core belief the market will always correct itself (and if it doesn’t, one might now add, the government will). REad full column here:

Economy in Need of a Surgeon's Scalpel