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There is responsibility for self, for family, for dynasty. For community, state, nation. Local ecosystem, environment, planet. Foundations, infrastructure, superstructures. Habits, memes, social and legal norms. And all of these on the scale of weeks, years, centuries.
When you are responsible for safeguarding and monitoring long-term infrastructure health and development, you should know when to be on high alert. You should know what your contingency plans are in an emergency. And you should be self-aware about how much time may be needed for implementation. When you have to resort to quiet threats, rather than understood emergency plans that get tested in the absense of a crisis, you’ve already lost.
Everyone in charge of handling economic emergencies suffered from a deadly lack of preparation, leading to gross irresponsibility. They are selfishly hoping to salvage their own face, in the face of the destruction of the life’s-work-equivalents of millions of people, rather than discovering the elegance of a true large-scale solution. Noone has been honest enough to step back, publicly admit their own failure — pass on what killed you to those who come after — and try to correct to a completely new plan and more realistic worldview.
Bonus chatter :
- Hyun Shin + Markus Brunnermeier + Harrison Hong + Paul Krugman + Alan Blinder = Princeton financial crisis redux.
- Legendary economist Ed Glaeser describes a three-tiered US housing market.