Wall Street Greek: Regulation & Treating Human Weakness

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The warning goes, beware of axe wielding Congressmen when Wall Street screws up. They will chop down every tree in the forest for the sake of a few bad apples. Before everything got cataclysmic-level bad in this Great Recession of ours, there were ample wise voices to be heard, warning of Congressional tendencies toward over regulation in similar periods of the past. Since the system nearly broke down though, the market minions seem content to turn the wheel over to big government, and to shut their eyes and hope for the best. So I pose the question, if a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? The answer may surprise you.

Regulation

Then again, there is not a Wall Street firm left that does not call Uncle Sam daddy these days. So, who would dare raise their voice, especially after the public ridicule and resentment born by once proud corporate leaders like John Thain and Angelo Mozilo. One man attempted to raise his voice and became a sacrificial lamb. Ken Lewis, the former CEO of the biggest bank in America, last week testified to a sort of bullying by government messengers Bernanke and Paulson. So who is left then to champion capitalism?

Was there really so much wrong with America before last November's election? Given the amount of reform legislation passed and ongoing efforts for change, one would think our great nation was a backward state before 2009. Listing reform efforts, we have seen or are seeing: financial markets reform (in its many facets); foreign policy reform; health care reform; credit card reform; housing reform; auto industry reform; immigration reform; and forgive me if I've forgotten any as the list is overwhelming...

One might accurately argue that the swing in party leadership that has occurred, with a Democratic Party led White House, Senate and House of Representatives, from a relatively recently Republican led one (over the years), should well be expected to usher in such vast change. Furthermore, it is inarguable that some change was desperately needed within each of the aforementioned segments of America. Still, history tells us that government has often been guilty of making a greater mess of things while reacting to the problem of the day. This has especially been the case when it comes to financial market regulation. This regulation has often proven less than optimal for free market operation. Thus, we wonder if, while we may be making great progress for society in this time of change, it is also possible we are overstepping our bounds.

Human Weakness

There is a tendency to see fault in others, the violators, that is stigmatized and attributed to "bad people." We view these bad people differently than our own selves and the ones we love. We give them labels and serve up their trials as complement to our bagels and coffee at brunch. We decide that we need to better police these "bad people" in order to safeguard the rest of us. Only when we can understand that we are all equally evil, just in different ways, can we sincerely forgive. In fact, if we could honestly do that, then we could forgive almost anything. So I posit that if we could police ourselves, and give high moral and ethical values the most fertile ground to thrive within our children, we would truly go further to solving our problems. We would cure them from the root. However, human nature is to treat the symptoms of our sickness, to remove the pain, and to ignore the common weakness we all have to illness. Similarly, we ignore immunizing our children from those illnesses.

Just as medicine can have side effects, regulation can as well. However, neither can truly solve the real problem, which is based in the weakness of our humanity. We need to look at things from a deeper perspective if our society is to truly progress. To cure illness is impossible without first understanding it. Understanding our individual weaknesses and those of our brothers, therefore, goes towards solving our societal issues.

Returning to the metaphor of the tree and the forest, before we cut down too many trees, perhaps we might inspect our own. Instead of destroying a single tree, we might consider fertilizing the ground the forest grows upon. Regarding the tree that deserves cutting down because of its rotten bounty, we might consider forgiving it to produce fruit another year. For it is assured that if a tree falls in the forest, a sound is heard by Someone.