Learning from Your Mistakes

Here's an example of "American Exceptionalism". The Bush and Obama administrations have decided that there are no lessons to learn from the financial collapse, at least according to this blog entry by Barry Ritholtz:

Ever wonder why the banking sector continues to operate as it always has?

Here’s a possible answer: According to a report on Corporate Governance by Professor Emma Coleman Jordan of the Georgetown University Law Center (Public Directors Are Necessary to Restore Trust and Accountability at Companies Rescued by the U.S. Government) one simple issue might help to explain why change has been so elusive at the bailed out banks: Their people.

Jordan notes that the folks who run the major banks today — the senior executives, directors, managers, etc. — are essentially the same exact folks who ran them (into the ground) 5 and 10 years ago:

“The prospects for a robust prudently guided financial sector have been substantially clouded by the fact that the both the corporate governance structure and the executive leadership of the financial sector remain largely unchanged—92% of the management and directors of the top 17 recipients of TARP funds are still in office.”

You read that correctly — 92% of the TARP recipients’ senior management remains essentially unchanged post-crisis . . .

Funny, something like twenty million Americans have had their lives turned upside down (house foreclosure, loss of job) by this financial disaster. They've been forced to "learn their lesson" for something for which they are not responsible. Meanwhile, the fat cats who flipped the coin with the "heads I win, tails you lose" call are still sitting behind their big desks pulling in astronomically big salaries and stock bonuses. While they gleefully prance and dance amid buckets of bailout money, the ordinary folk who are 'just victims' get to wander the streets in search of jobs and housing. Guess who's going to learn from their mistakes?