- Jun 6, 2007
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The vast vast majority of terrible problems Americans have faced over recent years all have their genesis in failure of authority. Look at the current Gulf of Mexico oil well leak disaster it all stems from BP officials ignoring evidence that the well was not constructed properly. Look at the prior big media issue, the Goldman Sachs fraud issue that all stemmed from Goldman authority not being honest where Goldman represented to some investors that the Home Mortgage backed securities they were betting long on were selected by an independent entity when the truth was that the selection was a negotiated result negotiated with the short invester. Look at another prior big media issue, the acceleration problem with Toyota motor vehicles this problem stemmed from Toyota authorites suppressing evidence that their vehichles were at times accelerating improperly. Consider the taxpayer bailed-out wall street bank authorities paying their employees big bonuses back to their business as usual mode when they have been dragging their feet on home loan mortgage modification programs and they opposed a "small overall cost to them" modification to U.S. bankruptcy law that would have allowed bankruptcy judges to reduce home loan amounts to the current value of the home and thereby reduce the flood of foreclosed homes on the housing market.
The Great Recession that we have been living through provides a field day of examples of failure of authority in America. Bank authorities who bundled home loans and sold them as securities which found their way on banks books and seized up the world credit markets often did not care whether the borrowers of the home loans income representations were correct or these borrowers could afford the mortagege payments when the interest rates reset. The credit rating agency authorities failed to recognize the obvious on these securities. Authorities for Issuers of Credit Default swaps, insurance for these secuirities, sold these swaps for ridiculous prices of pennies on the dollar. Wall Street banks that went belly-up, it turns out that authorities in these banks hid their high level of debt. Etc..
Americans are taught to obey authority and it is promoted in America to respect authority because that value brings effectiveness to America. No one here wants to discard these realities in America, but America desperately needs hold the viewpoint that such values are only part of the values America holds on the subject of authority. Americans should be promulgating throughout the culture that sometimes it is the right thing is to question and challenge authority. Authority in America should not hold some lofty heights but it should be an ordinary and common reality to scrutinize authority and make changes to authority when they are not doing what is right! These values that call for accountability of authority should apply to public and private authority.
Americans throughout our society know countless examples of people that should not be in authority they don't have the character. If one observes another's behavior for a long period of time in the majority of cases one can determine whether that person has good character or not. The bottom line here is that as a culture, we can and should stop putting people in authority that will not do what is good with that authority because a lot of good Americans have to bare the brunt of such bad authority and it isn't a good experience!
The Great Recession that we have been living through provides a field day of examples of failure of authority in America. Bank authorities who bundled home loans and sold them as securities which found their way on banks books and seized up the world credit markets often did not care whether the borrowers of the home loans income representations were correct or these borrowers could afford the mortagege payments when the interest rates reset. The credit rating agency authorities failed to recognize the obvious on these securities. Authorities for Issuers of Credit Default swaps, insurance for these secuirities, sold these swaps for ridiculous prices of pennies on the dollar. Wall Street banks that went belly-up, it turns out that authorities in these banks hid their high level of debt. Etc..
Americans are taught to obey authority and it is promoted in America to respect authority because that value brings effectiveness to America. No one here wants to discard these realities in America, but America desperately needs hold the viewpoint that such values are only part of the values America holds on the subject of authority. Americans should be promulgating throughout the culture that sometimes it is the right thing is to question and challenge authority. Authority in America should not hold some lofty heights but it should be an ordinary and common reality to scrutinize authority and make changes to authority when they are not doing what is right! These values that call for accountability of authority should apply to public and private authority.
Americans throughout our society know countless examples of people that should not be in authority they don't have the character. If one observes another's behavior for a long period of time in the majority of cases one can determine whether that person has good character or not. The bottom line here is that as a culture, we can and should stop putting people in authority that will not do what is good with that authority because a lot of good Americans have to bare the brunt of such bad authority and it isn't a good experience!
