In the financial world there has been another stunning scandal; Bernie Madoff, scamming people and institutions to the tune of $50 billion. It boggles my mind that he could get away with that much and that he would try it at all, given his background. I wonder, was he desperate, crazy, or stupid?
There has also been a lot of talk about the government bailouts; mainly that we're not allowing the market to take care of itself, also known as free-market capitalism. A lot of conservatives like the idea almost to the point of religion. The other side, mostly liberals think that the government should have more involvement in the running of the country. Be bigger and more controlling, aka socialism. Though they haven't come out and called it that formally.
Anyways, I was thinking that one would seem to prevent the abuse from the other, but then it could be abused itself. What I meant by that is that the capitalism model is prone to the type of abuse we've seen, people abusing the system to try and get more money out of it than they should at the expense of other investors. And usually the other investors loose, as in with Enron and the accounting scandals and Mr. Madoff most recently. On the other side, if the market were regulated and the economy as with a central government model, then you might get abuse by the government. like excessive regulation or outright oppression. Unfortunately, corruption can occur anywhere.
So will people ever treat each other better? With or without religion people are going to get greedy in some fashion, for money or power, or both and sometimes other will suffer. It seems to be the human condition and probably will go on till the end of time. Right now I think all we can do is hope for the best and be careful.
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