This problem-set concerns an essentially fraudulent culture that is a symptom only of a larger transformation that some commentators call "financialization," where the finance sector overshadows the real productive economy and takes control of it. It is naïve in the extreme to think that a new set of prudential standards can change the finance culture when politicians themselves created it, starting with deregulation policies in the Reagan years, and when financiers hold the highest public office. In one sense, the real power and influence is anchored in a set of beliefs about markets and finance, especially given its demonstrated immense profits in the 2000s with the invention of new financial products and the new information technologies exploiting the speed of transactions. Under these circumstances the financial moguls hardly needed to buy favors or to exercise pressure: It was done for them by politicians and policy-makers. Banks use the latest mathematical modeling to demonstrate risk profiles that popularized the belief that unregulated markets are virtually foolproof. These attitudes still persist today, despite the crisis and the dangers of further crashes, constituting the greatest single stumbling block to genuine reform.
full: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/17536-the-crisis-of-finance-capitalism-and-the-exhaustion-of-neoliberalism _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
