Well, I pay my taxes which are used to pay horrible people to torture children to death. Do you think I should refuse to pay taxes and conduct civil war against the state?
I'm doing wrong making those payments, but out of self-interest and self-protection, I make them anyway. Bad luck for the children.
<In the same way, when Fabrice Tourre signed up with GS he accepted he was part of the problem as well as any possible solution. Therefore when he whined to his girlfriend he was doing things that were wrong, he more or less signed his own confession. >
When I was part of BP Oil, I knowingly helped put lead in petrol, knowing it was doing harm, because the governments and customers and company [in fact nearly everyone other than Friends of the Earth and a few others] were wanting it. I also argued against doing it and in the end the argument was won, though it took another decade [in NZ's case].
Most things do harm, one way or another. Selling hamburgers for example. Driving cars. Selling cigarettes. But it's up to buyers and governments whether they are happy to take the risks or not.
If Fabrice was defrauding people, that's another thing altogether. If anyone asked me about lead, I was happy to say I thought it was mad to have it in petrol and I wouldn't buy it for my car unless I had no choice. If I was the government, I'd have said it was not to be put in the environment [more than some tiny amount to be reduced over time].
All Greenspan did was supply money at a price. What people did with it was up to them. Blaming him because they made and accepted stupid loans is silly. That's like blaming Toyota because somebody drives one over a cliff.
Toyota: "They are not designed for driving over cliffs and don't work well if you do that".
Buyer: "Well, if you hadn't sold it to me I wouldn't have got into trouble."
Irrefutable. But I still blame the Toyota car driver, and the people who loaned and borrowed Greenspan's money.
Mqurice |
