Words&Dirt

“Tengo knew that time could become deformed as it moved forward. Time itself was uniform in composition, but once consumed, it took on a deformed shape. One period of time might be terribly heavy and long, while another could be light and short. Occasionally the order of things could be reversed, and in the worst cases order itself could vanish entirely. Sometimes thing that should not be there at all might be added onto time. By adjusting time this way to suit their own purposes, people probably adjusted the meaning of their existences. In other words, by adding such operations to time, they were able––but just barely––to preserve their own sanity. Surely, if a person had to accept the time through which he had just passed uniformly in the given order, his nerves could not bear the strain. Such a life, Tengo felt, would be sheer torture.”

––1Q84, by Haruki Murakami, pg. 275

“When it comes to regulating Wall Street, one overriding cost does not make it into any individual weighing: the public’s mounting distrust of the entire economic system, a distrust generated in part by the Street’s repeated abuses. Wall Street’s shenanigans have convinced a large portion of America that the economic game is rigged.

Capitalism, alas, depends on trust. Without trust, people avoid even sensible economic risks. They also begin thinking that if the big guys can get away with cheating in big ways, small guys like them should be able to get away with cheating in small ways––causing even more people to distrust the economic system. Moreover, people who believe the game is rigged are easy prey for political demagogues with fast tongues and dumb ideas.

Tally up these costs and it’s a whopper. Wall Street has blanketed America in a miasma of cynicism. Most Americans still believe, with some justification, that the Street got its taxpayer-funded bailout without strings in the first place because of its political clout, which was why the banks were not required to renegotiate the mortgages of Americans who, because of the collapse brought on by the Street’s excesses, remained underwater for years. It’s why taxpayers did not get equity stakes in the banks they bailed out nearly as large, in proportion, as Warren Buffett got when he helped bail out Goldman Sachs. When the banks became profitable again, taxpayers did not reap many of the upside gains. We basically just padded their downside risks.

The Street’s political clout is not unrelated to the fact that top bank executives who took great risks or overlooked excessive risk taking retained their jobs, evaded prosecution, avoided jail, and continued to rake in vast fortunes. And why the Dodd-Frank Act, intended to avoid another financial crisis, was watered down and the rules to implement it were filled with loopholes big enough for Wall Street executives to drive their Ferraris through. The cots of such cynicism have leached deep into America, contributing to the suspicion and anger that have subsequently consumed American politics.”

––Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few, by Robert B. Reich, pg. 73-4