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Instead of creating prosperity, Wall Street destroys it. Economies are wrecked. Millions in them are harmed. Fraud's legitimized, and troubled banks most responsible get trillions in bailouts to keep them operating to steal more.
Shiller doesn't excuse financial chicanery. Financial capitalism is like nature, he says:
"For all its beauty, it produces ugly things as well."
Nonetheless, we need more financial innovation, not less, he believes. We need to "democratize" and harness it to create good. He fails to understand that money power in private hands and democracy can't co-exist. Crooked bankers prove it repeatedly.
Finance capital's too broken to fix. Harnessing it productively is nonsense. Shiller knows better but claims investment bankers resemble "diplomats negotiating an understanding between contentious powers." They're "keepers of the peace and promoters of progress."
His students hear this bunkum. He wants finance given redemption. Forgive their sins because they can, should, and often do improve societies, he claims. He believes financial innovations and societal gains go hand in hand. Securitized fraud proves otherwise.
At issue is permitting finance to operate unrestrained, letting it consolidate to super-sized levels, allowing it to occupy and run Washington, and giving it control of the nation's money for private gain. It results in the grandest of grand thefts. Government becomes a willing partner.
Instead of praising finance capital, Shiller should condemn it, demand too-big-to-fail institutions be broken up, insolvent ones shut down, regulations with teeth be reinstituted, lawbreakers do hard time in prison, and most of all return money power to public hands where it belongs. It includes publicly run state and local banks, replacing predatory ones.
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