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Comment by rodgerd | Hacker News Reader

Sure, why not, let's have the unemployment of 1929, the pandemic of 1918, and the collapse of an unsound financial sector à la 2008. It'll be swell.

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Well, we didn't actually have the collapse in 2008. It all got propped up in the vain hope that the banking sector would stop doing stupid risky things.

Now we have the same choice. We can prop it all up again, in the vague hope that bankers will change their behaviour. Or we can let Wall St go to the wall.

If we do prop it up, we have to know that we'll need to do that again in another 10 years, and again after that, and so on. Until the bankers change their behaviour.

The only thing that would change the status quo would be personal responsibility to the criminals in charge, the actual persons, not a vague concept of "system". Those that rigged the game, that live luxurious lives beyond our dreams off bailouts that we paid in a crisis that caused suffering to billions of people.

If those responsible got life sentences en masse for their crimes which probably killed far more people than any serial killer could hope for, then maybe their ilk would think twice before doing that. When punishment is effectively ZERO, then why not risk it?

It's a tight community that instigate and tolerate financial practices that ultimately aren't benefiting of the average Joe, quite the contrary.

It's there for a reason, the same reason it's not stopping.

Unless there is a chance to beleive in representatives to truely represent the population, it's a dead game.

We will slowly turn to cryptocurencies and detach ourself from this non sense system of taxation and fiat decisions that are totally out of our control.

>We will slowly turn to cryptocurencies and detach ourself from this non sense system of taxation and fiat decisions that are totally out of our control.

What prevents the same sort of tight community of crony elites from developing in such a system? It seems to me the course of action should be precisely opposite: greater democratic control, better institutions, more literacy and education so people can make informed decisions and pressure their representatives.

Cryptocurrencies so far seem to be a plaything of exactly the kind of people that are wrecking the financial markets. I don't see them as being the answer to anything.

until first-world governments cannibalize themselves and are outcompeted by something new

It's ironic that the economy / stock market hasn't become more resilient since 2008, despite more measures being taken. I mean sure, it's more difficult to get a mortgage you can't pay now (speaking for myself), but there's so much more fragile stuff that has been added in the past ten years; for example, a lot more amateurs have jumped into the stock market because one, savings interest rates have plummeted to effectively zero, and two, the attraction of getting rich quick thanks to bitcoin and overvalued hip stocks like TSLA.

From what I've read, Wall Street never recovered after 2008 since nobody trusts any counterparties. That's why the interest rate has been held at zero.

In some sense, Wall Street has been a zombie since 2008.

At that time, mortgage-backed securities were one problem. Today auto loans are supposedly pretty frothy.

The economy and the stock market are not equivalents.

The good news is that the siderial motion by which the sun "rises" cannot be affected by human follies.

Good point. Only Superman can affect that.

really not hoping for a world war to boot.

I think there will at least be a new cold war.

Solving global warming, overpopulation and income inequality, all at once!

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