Monday, September 15, 2008

Perhaps the Protestant Work Ethic Might Have Helped Lehman Brothers?

It bears mentioning on this day that the stock market suffered its worst loss since the World Trade Center was obliterated, that one of the corporations assisting in the crash is Lehman Brothers. Lehman is no victim.

Back in 2000, they bedded down with a "mortgage sweatshop" and rationalized their moral bankruptcy with the argument that they were "an underwriter, not a regulator." The mortgage sweatshop defrauded some people, charged abnormally high interest rates, and then went out of business. Now Lehman brothers is paying the price for its ethical relativism. Unfortunately, they are hauling many investors (including a Dallas area school district) and the market down the tubes with them.

I don't hear very many free marketeers preaching the delusion of letting the market fix this problem rather than writing some strong regulations against businesses whoring around with unscrupulous and criminal elements. Today's carnage could have been mitigated.

1 comment:

  1. Finance world is very crazy... i can't believe a big company as Lehman is dead !... poor capitalism...

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