Eyes and ears are poor witnesses when the soul is barbarous. Heraclitus
Posted mid-Sunday, as bail-out talks continue.
Pinker complains in The Blank Slate of the increasing emphasis in the 20th century on nurture. This may well have increased our sympathies for others, but has led us to undervalue human nature and therefore not consider moral hazards that tempt it. Our experiences are so variable and their impact so ambiguous, we may be quick to assert effect where none existed – or emphasize it when convenient. Indirectly, we came to devalue that third and most personally consequential component – human agency. We say, “Officer Krupke, I’m down on my knees” and grin, but we aren’t always ironic. Our experience and history, however, should make us more optimistic and also wary: men can be good (and remarkably so) and men are fallible. (Sinners some might say, while the Deists find us prone to errata.) A culture’s use is in restraining us from being our worst and encouraging our best; the more those restraints and rewards are internalized the smoother, more productive, and happier our lives. Our goal is not too many laws but good ones, not many restraints but necessary ones.
The general consensus is that increased subprime lending encouraged by Congress led CEOs to make bad loans. We are selfish, our vision narrowed to our time and our profit: the home buyers may have been naïve but also wanted a free lunch; the CEOs wanted to please Congress the source of their jobs, power & money; Congress wanted to buy votes, increase campaign contributions, and purchase their own houses cheaply. Those least likely to feel the consequences of their follies are in Congress.
Which is a long way around to the point: What the hell were Dodd and Frank doing writing a version of the bailout? Why do they think they should? Why does anyone else listen to them? Isn’t having a dog in that fight exactly the reason for recusals? Is there no moment when we say your history has undermined your authority?
Oversight/transparency: Onerous, unworkable and repetitive reporting and oversight requirements, hindering proper implementation of program.
Bankruptcy “Cramdown” (aka, trial bar give-away): Included so-called “cramdown” provisions allowing bankruptcy judges to reduce mortgage principal under the guise of helping those at risk of foreclosure. If enacted into law, the provision would be a bonanza for trial lawyers and undercut the effectiveness of any economic recovery effort by making it even harder to value mortgage-backed securities.
Affordable Housing Slush Fund (ACORN Fund): Included a giveaway that would force taxpayers to bankroll a slush fund for ACORN an organization fraught with controversy for, among other scandals, its fraudulent voter registration activities on behalf of Democratic candidates.
None of us is immune, but surely extending moral hazards farther – to unions & trial lawyers & Acorn workers – doesn’t ensure virtue. Nor does their inclusion seem disinterested or unconnected with benefits that accrue directly to Congressional Democrats charged with oversight.
The tension between the French and the English Enlightenments (so clearly defined by Himmelfarb), that between Adams and Jefferson, underlie arguments today. Choosing the wrong model can lead to partial blames for the mess and therefore encourage partial solutions. Populism tugs at our heart strings – we have sympathy for “the folk.” And we are drawn to our factions. We assume some representative or group is virtuous the poor, the intelligentsia, the rich, the agrarian, the urban, the masses, the enlightened despot, the . . . . Of course, we see ourselves as righteous. But the voice in our ear, the voice of history or religion or common sense, should make us hesitate. Eighteenth century Anglos would observe that an aristocracy of meritocracy is still made up of humans. And history should keep us humble.
I often quote Abigail Adams; she represents our enlightenment well:
I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature; and that power, whether vested in many or a few, is ever grasping, and, like the grave, cries, “Give, give!” The great fish swallow up the small; and he who is most strenuous for the rights of the people, when vested with power, is as eager after the prerogatives of government. You tell me of degrees of perfection to which human nature is capable of arriving, and I believe it, but at the same time lament that our admiration should arise from the scarcity of the instances.
She warns but also implies the grandeur of maturity & responsibiity. A belief in the universality of human nature assumes all can transcend their own interests with remarkable altruism and all are tempted and vulnerable. We are conscious agents. Himmelfarb argues that neither the British nor the English placed man’s reason as the ultimate goal of their revolutions, but rather as a means to an end. The Anglosphere was always seasoned with a sense of human fallibility. Ben Franklin laughed wisely at his own rationalizations: “So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.”
And, wasn’t this crisis not unlike 9/11? Hadn’t voices been raised in the past, hadn’t we seen what we knew was risky (and selfish and disproportionate) behavior? I know that I was insufficiently engaged, just as I was in that series of attacks prior to 9/11. Bill O’Reilly asks Karl Rove why didn’t someone tell “the people”; Rove responded he could send O’Reilly the warnings linked on the post below. We didn’t want to know we didn’t want to think about it. Most of us the us who will probably get stuck with the bill and the us who will have trouble running our businesses without those loans that buy supplies that let us grow, the us that will work a few years longer and those that will work a few years harder just didn’t want to think about it. So, of course, we are responsible, too. Admitting that should make us sympathetic to the banker, the congressman, the loan recipient. But responsibility should be assessed; transparency (and shame and clarity) instituted. We should be more “awake” and help guard against moral hazards we understand all the more because we, too, are vulnerable.
Human nature of helping each other needs to be setup carefully. Helping and giving are have very different outcomes. The bailout is giving, the sub primes loans were giving, once you start giving and people start depending on it there is no end in sight.
I am not going to say good things for Dodd etc but to blame him and say he ought not be involved and at the same time not ask why the guy (Paulson and gang) are seriously involved and now are the ones to set the terms for the bailout is certainly more mistaken than to merely in a partisan way blame Dodd.
there has been a relentless setting aside of oversite and restraints and, guess what: the guy and the party in charge for the past 7 years are in some way also at fault. Remove Dodd and what, let Shelby be put in chargwe when in fact he walked away from his committee duties?
The Congressmen that betray American and bailout Wall Street Gamblers.
Vote in Favour of the $700 Billion Bailout List:
Ackerman
Allen
Andrews
Arcuri
Bachus
Baird
Baldwin
Bean
Berman
Berry
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Blunt
Boehner
Bonner
Bono Mack
Boozman
Boren
Boswell
Boucher
Boyd (FL)
Brady (PA)
Brady (TX)
Brown (SC)
Brown, Corrine
Calvert
Camp (MI)
Campbell (CA)
Cannon
Cantor
Capps
Capuano
Cardoza
Carnahan
Castle
Clarke
Clyburn
Cohen
Cole (OK)
Cooper
Costa
Cramer
Crenshaw
Crowley
Cubin
Davis (AL)
Davis (CA)
Davis (IL)
Davis, Tom
DeGette
DeLauro
Dicks
Dingell
Donnelly
Doyle
Dreier
Edwards (TX)
Ehlers
Ellison
Ellsworth
Emanuel
Emerson
Engel
Eshoo
Etheridge
Everett
Farr
Fattah
Ferguson
Fossella
Foster
Frank (MA)
Gilchrest
Gonzalez
Gordon
Granger
Gutierrez
Hall (NY)
Hare
Harman
Hastings (FL)
Herger
Higgins
Hinojosa
Hobson
Holt
Honda
Hooley
Hoyer
Inglis (SC)
Israel
Johnson, E. B.
Kanjorski
Kennedy
Kildee
Kind
King (NY)
Kirk
Klein (FL)
Kline (MN)
LaHood
Langevin
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Levin
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (KY)
Loebsack
Lofgren, Zoe
Lowey
Lungren, Daniel E.
Mahoney (FL)
Maloney (NY)
Markey
Marshall
Matsui
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum (MN)
McCrery
McDermott
McGovern
McHugh
McKeon
McNerney
McNulty
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Melancon
Miller (NC)
Miller, Gary
Miller, George
Mollohan
Moore (KS)
Moore (WI)
Moran (VA)
Murphy (CT)
Murphy, Patrick
Murtha
Nadler
Neal (MA)
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Pallone
Pelosi
Perlmutter
Peterson (PA)
Pickering
Pomeroy
Porter
Price (NC)
Pryce (OH)
Putnam
Radanovich
Rahall
Rangel
Regula
Reyes
Reynolds
Richardson
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Ross
Ruppersberger
Ryan (OH)
Ryan (WI)
Sarbanes
Saxton
Schakowsky
Schwartz
Sessions
Sestak
Shays
Simpson
Sires
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (TX)
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Souder
Space
Speier
Spratt
Tancredo
Tanner
Tauscher
Towns
Tsongas
Upton
Van Hollen
Velázquez
Walden (OR)
Walsh (NY)
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watt
Waxman
Weiner
Weldon (FL)
Wexler
Wilson (NM)
Wilson (OH)
Wilson (SC)
Wolf
Folks, if your representative IS on the above list, please call, fax or email them and give them hell. Threaten them with campaigning for their political opponents.
Folks, if your representative is NOT on the above list please call, fax, or e-mail them and show your sincere appreciation! They deserve it!
I believe Nancy Pelosi deliberately sabotaged the Bill today.
The next time they bring it up, it will have all her goodies in it.