2008-09 Financial Fiascos

"A former member of The Goldman Sachs Group’s board of directors was charged today with giving confidential tips to Galleon Management hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam. It was the latest allegation in a far-reaching Securities and Exchange Commission investigation of insider trading." 

Go here for one of many iterations of the story.

Why do we find plainly so many immoral or amoral actions (and inaction) taken by so many of the people running some (not all) of  the top tiers of various entities in the financial sector ? The question is posed in light of this February 5 post at The Epicurean Dealmaker (TED).  According to TED, financial instruments are just products,  and TED argues that

Remember when Paul Krugman was exploding with outrage after Goldman’ Sach’s Mr. Blankfein testified to Congress that the financial meltdown was like a hurricane no one could foresee ? Remember the Epicurean Dealmaker’s  admonition that the lack of foresight was self-induced?

Perhaps Mr. Blankfein drank his own Kool-Aid.  But he was in fact dead wrong, according to this Jason Zweig article




