Jeffrey Sachs: "That's not a free market, that's a game"

[tabatha]

"The banks have said, leave us deregulated, we know how to run things, don't put government in to meddle. Then with that freedom of maneuver they took huge gambles, and even made illegal actions, and then broke the world system. As soon as that happened then they rushed out to say 'bail us out, bail us out, if you don't bail us out, we're too big to fail, you have to save us'. As soon as that happened, they said 'oh, don't regulate us, we know what to do'. And they almost went back to their old story, and the public is standing there, amazed, because we just bailed you out how can you be paying yourself billions of dollars of bonuses again? And the bankers say, 'well we deserve it, what's your problem'? And the problem that the Occupy Wall Street and other protesters have is: you don't deserve it, you nearly broke the system, you gamed the economy, you're paying mega fines, yet you're still in the White House you're going to the state dinners, you're paying yourself huge bonuses, what kind of system is this?

When I talk about this in the United States, I'm often attacked, 'oh, you don't believe in the free market economy', I say, how much free market can there be? You say deregulate, the moment the banks get in trouble, you say bail them out, the moment you bail them out, you say go back to deregulation. That's not a free market, that's a game, and we have to get out of the game. We have to get back to grown-up behaviour."

Jeffrey Sachs, Columbia University

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/talktojazeera/2011/12/2011121074125944352.html

[dkf]

1. It's silly to think we don't need any regulation. Who is saying that?

But we have to be smart about how we do this because it needs to incentivize the right things and stop the damaging things. It should also encourage new players to enter markets to increase competition which drives down costs and spurs innovation.

[bluerum]

6. The bankers are saying that.

[Yavin4]

8. " Who is saying that?" Um...I Guess You Haven't Been Watching Any of the Republican Debates?

Both Romney and Gingrich have called for more deregulation of the financial industry.

In addition, the Republicans in the Senate don't want to confirm Obama's choice for the CPA because they don't believe in the existence of the agency itself.

[patrice]

2. Without strategic maintenance, all systems tend toward entropy and calling them "free _____" doesn

't change that fact.

[patrice]

3. SUBSIDIES and TAX BREAKS are ADDICTIONS/SLAVERY. LIBERATE WALL STREET!

[ElboRuum]

4. Games have rules, Jeff.

The free market is nothing more than economic anarchy protected from without from those who would impose order. At this point, I WISH it was a game. At least then we could agree that there is a playing field that needs to be level.

[unblock]

5. i've never been big on sports analogies, but sometimes they work well. football needs referees.

refs get lots of flack whenever they make a dubious call, but no one seriously thinks the game could survive or be meaningful if they simply removed the refs from the field and let the teams be "free" to do as they please.

rules have to be reasonable and reasonably enforced, but it just doesn't work to simply not have any rules.

[malaise]

7. Somethng's got to give

This shit cannot continue