When I was a kid, I considered “grownups” to be intelligent and responsible. The older I get, the more I realize how untrue this is. Indeed, with each passing year, my opinion of the overall intelligence of humans decreases. By the time I’m 80, I’ll be convinced everyone is an utterly corrupt moron.
I offer to you the latest evidence:
In case you haven’t been paying attention, here’s how things seem to go during the course of humanity’s reign:
- People screw up horrifically
- Once the damage is so widespread and severe that it cannot be ignored, legislators, at long last, craft some kind of framework to prevent people from doing the same thing again
- Time passes and people forget
- Greed seeps in and people get frustrated they can’t exploit the system like in the good old days
- Pressure is put onto politicians
- Politicians announce “reform” in the guise, always, of “modernizing“, and doing away with those nasty old laws that are just slowing down progress
- Return to step (1)
Again, and again, and again. I mean, honestly, people, I’m not that bright, but this is as obvious as being punched in the nose.
In November 1999, Blowjob Bill signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. Only months later, the market began a two-year wipeout. Even more important, it sowed the seeds for a much more widespread financial crisis years later. To wit:
Oh, well. Bessent will get his way, and by the way the consequences are fully felt, he’ll be safely in his Pink Palace doing whatever it is he does there. Try not to dwell on it.
People never learn. Never.
