Wall Street and Politics: Short-Term Gain for Long-Term Pain

The new financial order must incentivize directors, officers, and regulators to incorporate enduring consequences into day-to-day decision making.

Below is another valuable excerpt from John Kenneth Galbraith's "The Great Crash: 1929":

"The instinct for self-preservation in Wall Street is [not] poorly developed. On the contrary, it is probably normal and may be above. But now, as throughout history, financial capacity and political perspicacity are inversely correlated. Long-run salvation by men of business has never been highly regarded if it means disturbance of orderly life and convenience in the present. So inaction will be advocated in the present even though it means deep trouble in the future. Here...lies the threat to capitalism. It is what causes men who know that things are going quite wrong to say that things are fundamentally sound."