While I probably wouldn’t ask any high school students to
actually read All the Devils Are Here, reading it myself did provide me
with a tremendous amount of insight in terms of what actually caused the
economic collapse in 2008. It’s still
almost unfathomable to me, as I’m sure it is to most people who aren’t
well-versed in the world of finance, that the banks who we pay monthly mortgage
payments to are actually lumping our mortgages in with thousands of others
given to people who may or may not be responsible with their money, and selling
it off to outside investors in pieces.
It’s a baffling thing to try and wrap your head around, but in this day
and age it’s apparently essential to even begin to understand how our economy
works. More than anything else, this
book caused me to really question how many of us are forming political opinions
and making important financial decisions based on outmoded economic
theories. I’m sure that a national
economy was something that could have been comprehended by a human being when
Adam Smith was alive, but with all that has changed about it in the last 30
years, I really have to question whether or not his free market principles of
economics would even apply to the modern world anymore. I'm not an economist by means, but based on what I've read it just seems like chaos theory- the prediction of unpredictability- is the only principle governing the modern economy anymore.
Mr. Toedt, I agree with you that assigning this book may not be suitable for high school students. It was very hard to wrap my head around the ideas myself. The book discussed how mortgages were being offered to people who could not necessarily pay them off though Prime-Sub Mortgages. It seems to me that these people did what they could to make themselves rich, quick. And the people buying the mortgages they couldn't pay back did that to get a house, quick. No one seemed to be thinking about how all this would effect the ecomony down the road, if they even thought it would.
ReplyDeleteYeah Louis I definitely agree with you. The economy, and the government's relationship with the economy, has changed drastically in the past century. I don't think strict laissez-faire capitalism, adhered to based on a commitment to it as a philosophy, is desirable in the modern world. I'm not advocating all-out socialism or government ownership of all major industries either, but an economy as technologically sophisticated as the United States with so much opportunity for abuse just has to be regulated. I think minimum regulation is most desirable, but regulations are necessary.
ReplyDeleteWell said, Louis. Great point about outmoded economic theories. I wonder...
ReplyDelete