On Face The Nation: Greed Is The Root Cause Of Financial Crisis

Yesterday afternoon I see the scariest of headlines on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. It said, basically, Bush wants additional emergency powers during the nation's current financial crisis. Today I hear the most amazing thing on Face The Nation.

Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) and Representative Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) are on the show. Mr. Shelby addresses a question about overhauling rules and regulations by stating:

"What caused this? What's the root cause of all this, and where we are today? Greed and lack of regulatory oversight."

Mr. Frank ended the segment by saying "Amen" to what Mr. Shelby said. I'm no expert in economic matters. But I do know that there is probably plenty of blame to go around for this mess.

To put this in context, there have been discussions about executive compensation throughout all this. Some are saying, "tax the executives." Sounds good to me: punish those irresponsible few which put their "needs" first instead of the needs of the many. How wonderful that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson seems to be ignoring the role of executive compensation, based on his interview on This Week with George Stephanopoulos.