[Pen-l] "Wall Street is Really Predicated on Greed"

["Charles Brown" <charlesb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/2008-April/070870.html

by Immanuel Wallerstein

Commentary Number 230 (April 01 2008)


It is not I who is saying that Wall Street is really 
predicated on greed, but
Stephen Raphael. And who is Stephen Raphael? 
He is a former member of the
Board of Bear Stearns, the Wall Street bank
 that collapsed last month. And
where did Raphael say this? In an interview 
with the Wall Street Journal,
which is more or less the house journal of 
Wall Street. And what was Raphael's
point? It was to explain (or was it to excuse?) 
the collapse of the firm.
"This could happen to any firm", he said.

Yes, indeed it could. And it did. Meanwhile, 
while this was happening, the
chairman of the firm, Jimmy Caynes, was 
nonchalantly playing bridge in a
tournament. Not too smart for a greedy banker.
 As a result, he lost most of
his personal fortune, and another greedy firm,
 JPMorgan Chase, came in like a
vulture and made a killing. Oh, incidentally, 
some 14,000 employees of Bear
Stearns are, or will soon be, out of a job.


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