Unless that assumption would lay the blame for a catastrophe on wealthy people and require changes that would make them less wealthy, in which case we cannot take selfishness for granted and have to assume their motivations are altruistic (if misguided). You really need to be up-to-date on modern market ideology.
Modern market ideology does tend to assume people controlling the government and various agencies (for instance, Bernake) are motivated by selfishness.
It also assumes that the home-borrowers, politicians, realtors and bankers who created the housing bubble were motivated by selfishness, as were the hedge fund managers and bankers who helped pop the bubble.
I don't think that this is a conspiracy theory. Just observation (fairly obvious, although I am not sure if right in that case) that selfishness can sometimes lead to actions that harm economy and the people.
Comments
Unless that assumption would lay the blame for a catastrophe on wealthy people and require changes that would make them less wealthy, in which case we cannot take selfishness for granted and have to assume their motivations are altruistic (if misguided). You really need to be up-to-date on modern market ideology.
Modern market ideology does tend to assume people controlling the government and various agencies (for instance, Bernake) are motivated by selfishness.
It also assumes that the home-borrowers, politicians, realtors and bankers who created the housing bubble were motivated by selfishness, as were the hedge fund managers and bankers who helped pop the bubble.
Those market actors also only have limited rationality (and not perfect foresight), and skewed incentives (-> principal agent problems).
That needn't hinder one from constructing a conspiracy theory, though.
I don't think that this is a conspiracy theory. Just observation (fairly obvious, although I am not sure if right in that case) that selfishness can sometimes lead to actions that harm economy and the people.
Greed is (not always) good.
I agree. Though I would be cautious stating that someone wanted a recession _and_ effected [sic] it.