- A black guy.
- A Hispanic.
- An Indian. Two Indians, one a diplomat.
- A Chinese.
- A Sri Lankan.
- A Jewish guy.
In the aftermath of the Great Recession I noticed there were six most visible fall guys. When democracy and the market are at their best, I believe that does not leave room for racism. Europeans have numerous schisms. But when those same Europeans gather in America, a white identity gets formed. Perhaps the Chinese identity is a similar melting pot identity formed over a few thousand years. It has always amazed me how a billion people can be a single ethnicity.
When Wall Street wiped out 13 trillion in wealth, there were six fall guys, the most visible ones.
Corruption in a city like New York where there is so much power and money concentrated in one small place is like speeding on the interstate highway. You can police it, you can get people to pay fines, but you can't perhaps eliminate it. You are essentially dealing with human nature. Greed has a tendency to creep in.
One way to look at it is, after about 70 years banks accumulate so much in bad loans, those bad loans need to be wiped out, the slate needs to get clean. So it was not bad behavior. It was just the slate getting cleaned for a fresh start.
But then there are other complaints. America built infrastructure in Europe, and then it stopped. Why stop? Why not go on to build infrastructure in Africa? Asia? Latin America? That was racism. A country choosing to destroy or park trillions while there is such unmet need in terms of infrastructure, credit, and clean energy is racism.
The six fall guys point at that racism that impact billions of people.
Also, there needs to be a less painful way to wipe out bad loans. An economy should be able to wipe out bad loans without bringing itself to the knees. Maybe this should be the last Great Recession.
