but it happened and since then, yeah, you can bet I'm distrustful of the big bankers because the event has proven in the clearest way possible that they are greedy and untrustworthy and unable to learn from history. 
Reply With QuoteWell this whole discussion has been a bizarre digression to begin with. I had the feeling that people kept pressing me to explain my thinking on a point that I didn't even originally bring up and wouldn't naturally ever bring up by myself anyway, but I was just jumping in on. And part of it was just to give an impression of the way I think about politics. For me it's all about policy and statistics, and the emotional side doesn't really speak to me, at least not in terms of what to actually do. I'm a wonk's wonk (wonk = people most interested in statistics & policies and not the emotional or horse-race side).
But I'm particularly liberal in the sense that I recognize other people see politics a lot differently than I do, and there's not only nothing wrong with that, but it's a good thing not everyone thinks like I do and that people are still moved by the emotional side. Politics would be moribund if it were all wonks and no bleeding-hearts. And to the extent I know you all (raph, Melan, I don't feel I know zacharius well yet but seems like a nice enough guy) only by what you post, I have nothing but warm feelings & friendship, and I don't think anyone should ever be made to feel bad for their honest political opinions because, you know, values & beliefs like that are sacred. Who am I to say people can't believe & value what they do? (Although GMD & Vae know how to test my commitment to that, anyway the trolling part.)
And actually I need to apologize. I was out of line saying if people "really cared" they'd study the issue like a wonk. That's not true at all. Of course people can care about politics in all sorts of ways, whatever is honest to their beliefs and values, and it was wrong of me to denigrate that. So sorry about that. Mea culpa (again).
But for the record I don't even disagree. Bankers & people in the finance world undoubtedly get into the field because they're interested in making bookoos of money, and I expect people that rise to the top, a sizable proportion of them are of the personality that if they saw an exploit they thought they'd get away with, they'd take it. I don't deny the grounds for calling them greedy or untrustworthy, it's just not the part I'd personally focus on.
Edit: Just regarding zacharius's point, no, I wasn't directly referring to you. In the text you quoted I was making a more general rhetorical point about what a wonk's perspective on politics is like & using that kind of language to dramatize it. But re: your actual point, if you want me to respond to it, my thinking is we're using the term "historical context" in much different ways, so the two things we're talking about can co-exist. What I was talking about is a narrative that gets passed down to people from their grandparents & great grand parents when they're developing their values in childhood, why certain villages or certain families in certain regions lean a certain way politically and have characteristic opinions, that gets slowly percolated over decades if not centuries. I mean I'm talking about how the term "banker" and "finance" has been given meaning since the medieval period, with all its emotional valence of corruption & distrust we might hear from our grandparents & take for granted & just assume today, but actually were given that content over a long period of history that's worth recognizing. What you're talking about is the really concrete context of people's direct experience with some events or experiences, that probably also taps into those deep-set narratives, but is also a direct experience they respond to as well. So we were making a bit different points about what history adds to meaning (values you just absorb growing up vs. lived experience) that exist alongside each other together, at least the way I think about it. So that's how I'd reconcile what I was saying with your point, at least on my first pass. Ok, well, there's also the part about emotional valence vs. detached wonk-think, but that doesn't really change either way. People can despise bankers because of what they learned from their grandparents or because they used to love bankers until this or that crisis they witnessed turned them. Either way wouldn't change the point I was making from those posts that emotion, wherever it comes from, is a distraction to policy-making from a wonk's way of looking at it. So just on that front, the housing crisis isn't really a counterargument to my broader point (which, again, I was rhetorically dramatizing because it's a politics thread, which always invite a little drama.)
Originally Posted by raph
