Gretchen Morgenson

We were so lucky to have Gretchen Morgenson from the New York Times come to our school and give us a lecture on her new book "Reckless Endagerment".  I'll be honest, in the beginning, I had no idea what she was talking about.  Having been both a business writer and a editor in her career, Morgenson really knows her stuff.  However, after a few minutes I felt I was caught up to speed and really did enjoy her lecture.  She had the whole audience engaged and I really believe it was because everyone in that room could tell she was passionate about what she was saying, you could feel it.

Her new book she co-authored talks about how we have gotten into this economic crisis, and why we are still in it today, so many years later.  Something that really hit me was her opening comment.  She said how when she began in this career, she used to write about innovative companies, successful business plans etc. believe it or not.  Now, ever since 1998, it has been "all scandal, all the time," which really is sad.

Having not a lot of background in Finance, it was interesting to hear how the financial sector has become much bigger and more powerful than ever before.  Because it has been dominating the economy, it has helped to create an imbalance in our country- thus leading to the crisis.  She talked a lot about the "Too big to fail" laws, which sadly was the first I had heard of them.  I was glad I attended the lecture as later that night it was discussed heavily in the Presidential Debate! It was the greatest feeling to actually understand what the issue was they were debating about, and have already made up my decision, based on facts I learned at the lecture, so I could gauge the candidates answers to mine.

Probably the most depressing aspect of the lecture however, was the lack of legal consequences many bank officials have received due to this financial crisis.   Morgenson stated that only one major executive has gone to jail, from some obscure company with $3 billion in fraud.  Compared to the bank failures in the 1970's with 1100 cases brought to court and 839 officials put in jail, we can see the stark contrast of how the SEC has handled the situation today in 2012.  With only 31 cases, and a $12 million recompense from the nine executives, it hardly makes a dent in the billions of dollars lost in the suffering economy.

It gave me hope to see that people such as Morgenson and her colleagues with fairly influential positions were not turing a blind eye to this crisis, however, I hope more light is shed onto this in the future, before it's too late.