Krugman: Se upp, nu försöker de lura oss igen!

Ni kanske tycker att jag tjatar om Krugman, men jag vill verkligen uppmana er att följa hans kolumner. Han är inte bara klok och intressant, han skriver så roligt och fartfyllt om svåra frågor. Senast i förrgår, om hur Wall Streets bankirer lurade världen fram till finanskrisen hösten 2007, och fick astronomiskt bra betalt för det, och nu verkar på väg att göra det igen!!!:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/opinion/27krugman.html?em.

Han återger ett uttalande av Ben Bernanke, chef på Federal Reserve, där denne vill försvara "financial innovation":
"Consider a recent speech by Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, in which he tried to defend financial innovation. His examples of “good” financial innovations were (1) credit cards — not exactly a new idea; (2) overdraft protection; and (3) subprime mortgages. (I am not making this up.) These were the things for which bankers got paid the big bucks?"
Krugman förutser invändningen att "om nu deras uppdragsgivare tycker att bankirerna verkligen är värda dessa stora arvoden så är det väl okej, de arbetar ju på en fri marknad". Och hans poäng är att i och med att det allmänna fått gå in och täcka alla förluster, med krispaket och med försäkran om att de alla största kreditinstituten av samhällsskäl faktiskt inte kan tillåtas att gå i konkurs, så är det är ju just det som de, bankirerna, inte gör:
"But this brings me to my second point: Wall Street is no longer, in any real sense, part of the private sector. It’s a ward of the state, every bit as dependent on government aid as recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, a k a “welfare.”

Och vidare: "One can argue that it’s necessary to rescue Wall Street to protect the economy as a whole — and in fact I agree. But given all that taxpayer money on the line, financial firms should be acting like public utilities, not returning to the practices and paychecks of 2007".

Och han är uppenbart förbaskad: "Furthermore, paying vast sums to wheeler-dealers isn’t just outrageous; it’s dangerous. Why, after all, did bankers take such huge risks? Because success — or even the temporary appearance of success — offered such gigantic rewards: even executives who blew up their companies could and did walk away with hundreds of millions. Now we’re seeing similar rewards offered to people who can play their risky games with federal backing.
So what’s going on here? Why are paychecks heading for the stratosphere again? Claims that firms have to pay these salaries to retain their best people aren’t plausible: with employment in the financial sector plunging, where are those people going to go?
No, the real reason financial firms are paying big again is simply because they can. They’re making money again (although not as much as they claim), and why not? After all, they can borrow cheaply, thanks to all those federal guarantees, and lend at much higher rates. So it’s eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you may be regulated".

Och slutligen: "Rightly or wrongly, the bankers seem to believe that a return to business as usual is just around the corner. We can only hope that our leaders prove them wrong, and carry through with real reform. In 2008, overpaid bankers taking big risks with other people’s money brought the world economy to its knees. The last thing we need is to give them a chance to do it all over again".