Nerd Notes: Columbia Economist -- Banking Crisis is Actually Banking Scandal

The 2006 Nobel laureate for economics (and Columbia University nerd) Edmund Phelps has this analysis. Here's a piece of it:

What has occurred is not just an old-fashioned banking crisis but also a banking scandal. Most of the big banks were shot through with short-termism, deceptive practices and self-dealing. We must institute basic changes in corporate governance and in management practice to restore responsibility and honesty for the sake of the economy and for the self-respect of the country.

I.e., STOP BEHAVING LIKE IRRESPONSIBLE IDIOTS.

I kind of -- no, I very much -- like his closing statement:

To prosper and advance, the American business sector is going to need a financial system oriented toward business, not "home ownership."