Carter the Examiner has highlighted the most important point. One can attempt to write every regulation in the world, create oversight that is fool-proof and limit by law or fiat the activities of every financial institution in the world and in the end it will do no good. It is about the people; it is always about the people and in the end you are at their mercy.
Those of us who have operated in the financial markets, especially as deal makers, will tell you it's not about the money. Ha! you say, when someone says it's not about the money it is. Not quite. The money is very, very important but in the end it's ego. The money is just proof that, "I did that," when nobody else could or would. It's the chase, the win, the rush that keeps these folks going, which is why so many retire at a young age if they have been successful, not because they have enough money (one never does) but because you can't keep doing it for too long. It has become a young person's game and it is the person that must be managed, taught monitored and yes, controlled.
Carter is correct in saying that unless one gets burned the individual's memory is short or non-existant. He also implies that these folks can't be taught. I disagree. Carter is a smart guy I am sure. Where he examines I haven't a clue, but if it is a place like the Fed he is certain to have a damn good education at the college level, perhaps even an advanced degree or two. Carter LEARNED, but perhaps he hasn't asked himself why he learned. The answer is simple; if he hadn't he would have failed and been kicked out. No more Carter the Examiner but Carter the drop-out. There were consequences to not learning.
Dcisions such as those that were made which caused the crisis were not made by some dopey French kid at a desk at Goldie who liked to text his lady friend as to how smart he was. Nope. They were made far higher up the food chain at Goldie and in other institutions involved. A Vice Predident at BT Co. Leveraged Derivatives doesn't set the policy that enables him to "Rip the heart" out of one of the Bank's best clients. The junior guy in Treasury at Lehman doesn't decide to engage in 105 transactions rather than deleverage. The desk officer for Mexico at a N.Y. bank doesn't decide to lend $80,000,000 in a single transactionto the country in 1982 just before they go bust. But are any of the real decision makers assigned the consequences? Nope again. Never have been.
The examples above are just a few of hundreds of bad decisions that were made. None of the decision makers were attempting to defraud or steal from the market place, unlike the examples of Enron and Berings which Carter mentions. These were just bad decisions which, while having corporate and worldwide consequences had little to no effect in a broad sense to those who really caused them to occur either through commission of responsibilities or most likely through the ommission of actions that could have been taken. The disgraceful corporate culture created and being allowed to flourish by the management of Bankers Trust in place at the time caused the near-forced sale of the bank, resulting in said management (many of whome having been removed) becoming multi-millionaires. Nice trade guys.
Last year or so I mentioned an old movie called, "A Walk in the Sun" and it's recurring ironic line, "Nobody dies" (look it up). If nobody dies, it is just a walk in the sun. It is always the people and in this business as in war, if nobody dies we will have more of the same and more wars. We'll talk about slaughter tomorrow and how, perhaps to avoid it as a necessity.
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