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Posted by: lenseview 1 year, 1 month ago

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lenseview1 year, 1 month ago

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Seems to me notions of personal responsibility aren't incompatible with assigning blame to others as well -- e.g., unregulated and greedy financial institutions, as well as asleep-at-the-wheel politicians. Many individuals were just plain victims. But some weren't -- some knew or reasonably should've known they were taking big risks. I know some of these people. I feel bad for them, genuinely bad -- but just because others participated in and encouraged their short-sighted, stupid decisions doesn't mean they (some of them) didn't make the decisions. Did they really need 5 bedroom houses and state of the art kitchens, etc? Yea, lots were screwed over, misled, etc. But too much of our culture then (until right now maybe) seemed to encourage institutional and personal greed...people at all levels feeling entitled to things they shouldn't have, feeling they "need" too many things rather than simply "want" them. IMO it's not an apology of the large-scale corruption, failure of big institutions to also hold some people accountable. There are some grays and, while this piece, doesn't address the other sides of the elements, it does point up a side that sometimes gets a little lost.

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