From earning six figures to hoping for $7 an hour - CNN.com: "AURORA, Colorado (CNN) -- In her best year as a mortgage broker, Laura Glick says she made 'six figures.' This week she was one of more than 1,200 people attending a job fair and applying for one of 150 jobs paying between $7 and $12 an hour at a new Kohl's department store in a Denver, Colorado, suburb."
-------------
I feel for these people. I really do. But my sympathy is tempered by my memory of that they did. I can't help pointing out that these folks poured gasoline on the housing crisis. Many of these people put their fellow human beings in financial situations so risky that eventual ruin was a foregone conclusion. Why? So they could make a fat commission. And if their fallback position is a minimum wage job, what does that say about their skill set and level of education? I say that because it seems to me a whole lot of people were taking advice from professionals who had a very limited understanding of what was really going on, and who gave not a single thought to the consequences of their behavior. It was just groupthink.
1 comment:
This goes the underlying behavioral dynamics of what could be termed an economic tragedy of the commons. In a free market economy, economic behavior does make a difference and it isn't always rational with a long term outlook.
For example, consider Fed chairman Alan Greenspan's testimony to Congress this past fall in which he said he assumed mortgage lenders and investment banking houses that securitized loans would not act in a way to jeopardize their interests or long term survival. But that's exactly what they did and Greenspan said he was blindsided.
Post a Comment