Has The Corruption, Greed And Malfeasance Which Pervaded The Banks Gone Away?
Rightly, the students of Austrian Economics have laid the blame for the current economic crisis squarely on the doorstep of the Keynesian policies of governments and central banks. However, in this case, there are other culprits involved, most notably the former titans of financial services. During this decade, major international money center banks from Wall Street to London and even to Zurich displayed unimaginable greed, reckless risk taking and gross negligence. Depositors, borrowers and shareholders should be questioning whether any major financial institution will ever again be worthy of their trust. The original sin of our current downfall can be traced back to the mid-20th century when politicians broke the fundamental financial disciplines guaranteed by gold-linked currencies. More recently, politicians “encouraged” banks into “social lending” for low-income housing, which led to the sub-prime problem. Also it was politicians, like Bush-Greenspan, who injected vast amounts of
