In mathematics QED Quod Est Demonstrandum is used at the end of a proof. It means that which was required to be proved has now been provided for all to see. I have been arguing for the past two years that the US Financial System has gone off the rails because unmitigated greed (I have timidly called it Greedy Guts) has prevailed without any countervailing regulations. Well former NASDAQ President Bernard Madoff has provided the $50B Ponzi proof for my arguments. Make no mistake this was vicious Financial Murder committed by Madoff and buddies(more to come here???). Now that Madoff is going away for 150 years – one wonders what if anything at all has been learned. Will White Collar criminals get tougher prosecution and sentencing. Will upcoming financial regulation be enough to catch these type of finacial fraudsters? Will there be any attempt to control the extrvagantly outsized rewards only possible in financial markets and which surely contribute to its risk-taking instabilities? Or will massive and ever more frequent financial bloodletting, like the current rash of random murder sprees, just be a part of modern civilization?
Financial Bloodlettings The current Massive Toxic Mortgage Triggered bloodletting is also euphemistically being called a “financial bubble”. And commentators as diverse as Niall Ferguson of The Ascent Of Money and the MIT Technology Review are saying that “financial bubbles” are the inevitable stuff of financial markets. Like 100-year floods in the Mississippi river basin, they come with the territory. So let me see – are the financial “experts” saying that Ponzi schemes ignored by “de”regulators, huge capital leveraging, massive and yet almost totally opaque financial instrument markets, supergalactic financial executive compensation packages, and achieving the trifecta, getting-off scott free for any gross financial damages to clients, communities, and even national fiancial systems – these are all the “inevitable” grease necessary to run finanacial systems in the great Captalist Way ? Well, let Bernie Madoff have the last word – “QED”.