Financial Services Committee: Clueless About Reform

Via SeekingAlpha:

“One of the huge lessons of our work over the last few years has been how shockingly stupid incredibly smart people can be,” said Davidson, who with Blumberg has been reporting on the crisis for nearly two years as part of National Public Radio’s “Planet Money” team. “That includes bankers, regulators and investors.”

OK, that’s a given. Lesser known is this: Our elected officials in Congress — the ones trying to reform our financial services industry as we speak — don’t really understand the issues at hand.

“We spent a day with the Financial Services Committee — Barney Frank’s committee — and it was an amazing experience,” Davidson said. “We talked to 13 congress people, 12 of whom admitted that they don’t understand this at all. And the guy who thought he did really didn’t.”

It’s interesting, then, that these are among the folks calling for investor protections and significant financial reforms. And by “interesting,” I mean “anxiety-inducing.” I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt; their intentions are good, after all. But you know what they say about the road to hell.

NB: the directly quoted material in this excerpt is from two NPR reporters. N. P. R., Hardly the hotbed of libertarian firebrands.

Personally, I am far less forgiving than the authors of this piece (who are directors of the Maryland Association of CPAs). Anyone who, in full knowledge of their ignorance, nonetheless feels entirely justified in completely restructuring complex markets involving trillions of dollars at risk is a public menace. A public enemy, in fact, all the worse because they presume to be performing “public service.”

Don’t do me any favors. The greatest public service these people could perform would be to put away their wands, and stop playing Sorcerer’s Apprentice (or, more accurately, stop playing junior apprentices to Sorcerer’s Apprentice Barney Frank.)

Comments

[john s. gordon]

not just congresspeople, there are lots of clueless career bureaucrats in the federal village too.
> jack

2009 Nov 23 08:53 AM

[Yakubu]

Craig Pirrong is your typical arrogant, self-serving white boy who thinks that there are only a few "initiated" right-wing nut cases who "understand" the markets. Guess what, Craig. Most of the idiots who move in your crowd are so clueless that they help throw the economy in crisis every decade or so, and for the past year they have perpetually accused Democrats of being "socialists" who are about to nationalize banking, or health care or whatever else is under discussion in Congress. Get a life!

2009 Nov 24 02:26 AM