Mama, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Bankers

Paul Krugman has written an Op-Ed entitled "Bankers Without a Clue" in regard to the testimony of big bank executives before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. Americas best and brightest bankers are all pleading ignorance about the cause of our current economic crisis, so Krugman, a Nobel Prize winning economist, offers to enlighten them. Here's some of what he said:

"Consider what has happened so far: The U.S. economy is still grappling with the consequences of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression; trillions of dollars of potential income have been lost; the lives of millions have been damaged, in some cases irreparably, by mass unemployment; millions more have seen their savings wiped out; hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, will lose essential health care because of the combination of job losses and draconian cutbacks by cash-strapped state governments.

And this disaster was entirely self-inflicted. This isn't like the stagflation of the 1970s, which had a lot to do with soaring oil prices, which were, in turn, the result of political instability in the Middle East. This time we're in trouble entirely thanks to the dysfunctional nature of our own financial system. Everyone understands this — everyone, it seems, except the financiers themselves."

Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be bankers.