This quote about the current financial crisis has been flying around the econblogosphere, but it's so good that I feel the need to repeat it:
On greed, let me repeat: If unusually many airplanes crash during a given week, do you blame gravity? No. Greed, like gravity, is a constant. It can’t explain why the number of crashes is higher than usual. And let me add: This isn’t a morality play. What we’re seeing are the consequences of monetary-policy distortions of interest rates and regulatory distortions of incentives, amplified in some degree by private imprudence, not the consequences of blackheartedness.
Something very good to keep in mind when you hear John McCain blather about how greedy suits made bad investment decisions. Funny how that happens – everyone all of the sudden just gets greedier than they were before! Maybe if those whippersnappers had gone through McCain's national service plan they wouldn't be so goldern greedy!
(Lest you think McCain is the only mindless jabberer, keep in mind that Obama is also a proponent of the sudden-outbreak-of-greed theory of finance, and maybe he thinks his national service program would keep the third deadly sin in check.)
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