In the wake of the 2008 crisis, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein famously told a reporter that bankers are “doing God’s work.” This is, of course, an important part of the Wall Street mantra: it’s standard operating procedure for bank executives to frequently and loudly proclaim that Wall Street is vital to the nation’s economy and performs socially valuable services by raising capital, providing liquidity to investors, and ensuring that securities are priced accurately so that money flows to where it will be most productive. The mantra is essential, because it allows (non-psychopathic) bankers to look at themselves in the mirror each day, as well as helping them fend off serious attempts at government regulation.
There has been no shortage of big promises since Reagan’s “It’s Morning again in America,” but in the end, they all left the middle class staring into thin wallets while their manipulators were living high on the hog. The failed big ideas began with Reaganomics. The stimulating effect of its tax cuts was supposed to “trickle down” to the masses, but the flow had the viscosity of molasses and stuck with the ultrarich.
Are you uber-oligarchs capable of noticing when greed may tip way beyond mere economic stupidity and immorality into life threatening self-destruction? When – as happened many times in the past – insatiable top-down class war could wind up taking you on a tumbrel ride toward guillotines.
Stejný výrobek se stejnými výrobními prostředky vytvoří Němec za stejnou dobu jako Čech; německý kadeřník nestříhá dvakrát rychleji než český, německá obsluha kasy v supermarketu neodpípá za hodinu dvakrát víc zboží než česká. Navíc silně pochybuji, že by neznačková bangladéšská šička značkových triček nalezla sobě rovnou v Německu nebo Norsku.
American inequality didn’t just happen. It was created. Market forces played a role, but it was not market forces alone. In a sense, that should be obvious: economic laws are universal, but our growing inequality— especially the amounts seized by the upper 1 percent—is a distinctly American “achievement.”
“The difference between theory and practice is always greater in practice than it is in theory.” This difference between theory and practice is driven by complex interactions not only between rules but between multiple players with competing incentives.
Business schools by and large teach an extremely limited notion of “value,” and of who corporate stakeholders are. Many courses offer a pretense of data-driven knowledge without a rigorous understanding and analysis of on-the-ground facts. Students are given little practical experience but lots of high-altitude postulating.
Suverenita státu spočívá v tom, že sám rozhoduje o přijetí toho či onoho uprchlíka – a zároveň zajišťuje bezpečnost svých občanů a respektování svého ústavního pořádku. Teprve když je zjevné, že uprchlíci splňují podmínky Úmluvy o dodržování zákonů – což státy mají vyžadovat – přísluší jim i další práva uvedená v Úmluvě. Jde např. o zajištění svobody náboženství nebo svobodu pohybu.
