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Re:WikiLeaks Wants To Spill Your Corporate Secrets by jrockway on Monday November 29, 2010 @07:21PM (#1952467)
I don't work for an oil company or an investment bank, two of which are targets of his next round. Change the title!

I do, but honestly, we aren't doing anything particularly evil. The subprime meltdown was not caused by one person's evil dealings, it was caused by many parties each doing something not-particularly-evil individually. It's like littering -- if you do it, it doesn't matter, but if everyone does it, then there's a major problem. Liar loans and CDOs were like littering, not really a problem when one person or bank "does" them. But when the whole industry does little things like this and people bet a lot of money under the assumption that this isn't happening (because the credit rating agencies mislead them), then things unravel. But it's just a colossal fuckup, not some super secret backroom deal designed to fuck over retirement funds. (The big issue was that the credit rating agencies were lazy, and told institutional investors that CDOs were a good credit risk. They obviously were not, and people lost a lot of money either buying the CDOs, or selling insurance on the CDOs.)

The bailout was similarly non-evil. The banks said, "we're fucked unless you give us a lot of money, and if we are fucked, so is everyone else", and the government said, "you're right, take the taxpayers' money". The banks did, they continued to operate, and eventually paid it back.

Hardly the crime of the century.

Re:WikiLeaks Wants To Spill Your Corporate Secrets by weavejester on Monday November 29, 2010 @08:37PM (#1952679)
I do, but honestly, we aren't doing anything particularly evil.

You may not be. In fact, it's probable that the vast majority of people working for the banking industry are honest, law-abiding citizens.

But just because most people are honest, doesn't mean all of them are. I find it somewhat hard to believe Madoff was the only one lining his pockets at other people's expense.

Re:WikiLeaks Wants To Spill Your Corporate Secrets by jrockway on Tuesday November 30, 2010 @02:37PM (#1955282)
But FWIW, Madoff was not an investment bank.