drfaust
Rising Star
Bankers, today's bankers are largely bureaucrats. They work in large firms and they work long hours and they toe the line. They are largely bland and quite boring people. It was the robber barons of yore who took risks that were closer to the Hollywood version of evil.
It is the hedge fund managers of today who take risks with other people's money that might play the role of evil today. Except most of it is theater, and most of that is quite boring as well.
As Taleb and many others point out, much of financialization, a word which defines our era, is merely a form of insurance. And insurance is a profitable business. Except when it fails.
In the case of the banking system, systemic players get bailed out when they fail, and so the game is rigged. So maybe rigged is a better word than evil for the banking system? The term used here in the literature is "moral hazard". The Too Big and too Bland to Fail Banks get to privatize the profits and socialize the risks through the medium of a sovereign state and a central bank. That is the moral hazard.
From even a purely financial perspective, from even the most "markets are the most efficient" way to allocate resources model, the moral hazard problem is a very big problem. The incentives are skewed as they might say from that way of speaking.
At a larger level, the dominant form of capitalism that we have in the world globally would probably best be described as monopoloy or oligopoly with state sponsorship. Monopoly capitalism is its own subject of study.
There is a vast literature on these subjects. Most of the vids I saw posted here do not get into the discussion too deeply. For example, money and the money markets today depend upon the "shadow banking system" or very interdependent credit markets for maintenance of the money supply. I don't see any discussion of that aspect in what was posted here.
It is the hedge fund managers of today who take risks with other people's money that might play the role of evil today. Except most of it is theater, and most of that is quite boring as well.
As Taleb and many others point out, much of financialization, a word which defines our era, is merely a form of insurance. And insurance is a profitable business. Except when it fails.
In the case of the banking system, systemic players get bailed out when they fail, and so the game is rigged. So maybe rigged is a better word than evil for the banking system? The term used here in the literature is "moral hazard". The Too Big and too Bland to Fail Banks get to privatize the profits and socialize the risks through the medium of a sovereign state and a central bank. That is the moral hazard.
From even a purely financial perspective, from even the most "markets are the most efficient" way to allocate resources model, the moral hazard problem is a very big problem. The incentives are skewed as they might say from that way of speaking.
At a larger level, the dominant form of capitalism that we have in the world globally would probably best be described as monopoloy or oligopoly with state sponsorship. Monopoly capitalism is its own subject of study.
There is a vast literature on these subjects. Most of the vids I saw posted here do not get into the discussion too deeply. For example, money and the money markets today depend upon the "shadow banking system" or very interdependent credit markets for maintenance of the money supply. I don't see any discussion of that aspect in what was posted here.
