But what's really all that shocking about the Ponzi scheme? Is it the greed? No, Madoff's greed isn't shocking. In fact, greed like his is what our economy needs to grow (I hate to be the one to say that, but I don't make the rules...). Is it the idea that he was paying investor A with the money of Investors B and C rather than through any real production? I can't see how that in itself is all that shocking. It's unsustainable, obviously. It only works if there's constant growth, and there's no such thing as constant growth. But unproductive tricks like this are not only common, they're the back bone of our economy. We spin gold from hay while 90% of the world starves. That's not a dirty secret. That's Wall Street. That's the financial sector.
The only thing I can even think should be deplorable in the Madoff scandal is the deceit involved...that the people who gave him the money didn't know what he was actually doing with it, and believed he was doing something else with it. It's fraud, sure. But done in more subtle ways, it's pretty common and pretty legal. Unsavvy consumers end up getting hosed all the time. And what's the free market's answer? Make it illegal? Give them their money back? No. It's 'buck up and make better decisions next time.' Free market for the poor, regulation and even subsidy for the rich.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
I wish I were more shocked about the Madoff scandal
Feministing readers can get so confused sometimes
Take this thread about a store that refused to write a 3 year old's name on a cake, because his name is Adolph Hitler (sisters JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell, and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell. I am not lying).
Commenters are filled with righteous indignation about how the PC police have really gone too far if a store refuses to do anything a customer wants. How is this okay but it's no okay for pharmacists to refuse to give birth control then?! (Because no one has the right to have their name written on a birthday cake, but in the context of liberal capitalism, we have to have the right to medication) Hypocrits! What would you be saying if the same store refused to write Hussein on a cake?! (I'd call it racist or islamophobic or just plain ignorant, and that would be the problem, not that a name didn't get written on a cake.)
Other commenters on the other side of the debate seem to be a little misguided as well. There are ways to defend the store's decision that have nothing to do with defending the imagined rights of a private company and everything to do with being a store that is able to discriminate between customers with ethics and customers without and the kind of money and business they want to take. Why do people think there's no place in politics (or life?) for talking about what's right and what's wrong and that we have to either condemn or defend every action (good or bad) because of some abstract belief in "rights."
p.s. If you're concerned about whether little Adolph got his cake, relax. Wal-Mart was up for the job.
