Quoted from the charming David Brooks about debts and the shared responsibilities of lenders and borrowers in today’s NYT:

And now the reckoning has come. The turn in the market punishes many of those seduced by financial temptations. (Sometimes capitalism undermines the Puritan virtues, but sometimes it reinforces them).

The example of a single divorced woman whose story he summarizes above in his column may fit, but Brooks doesn’t engage the real issue, namely that it is necessary for the thing he glorifies as “capitalism” to have ever-increasing consumption by the likes of this woman. And it is not true that capitalism undermines Puritan values only “sometimes”. It does so always, I rather think. Divorce, for instance, in this case, might be frowned upon by a Puritan-in-name society or today’s conservatives, but it does mean doubling your housing, transportation, toys for the kids, phone, washing machine, etc. What is there not to like by greedy money makers? And aren’t the tears shed by family-value supporters crocodilian? Much of the US economy is consumption driven: meaning immediate consumption. Brooks also doesn’t say (and here he lies by omission) that the most important group of those “seduced by financial temptations”, in the banking and insurance industry, will not be punished. He continues:

Meanwhile, social institutions are trying to re-right the norms. The government is sending some messages. The Treasury and the Fed are trying to stabilize the system while still ensuring that those who made mistakes feel the pain.

But he lies again when speaking of re-righting “the norms”. The so-called risk-takers of financial capitalism are protected after all, because, as is explained, feared, or tolerated, no matter the excesses, it would be worse for everyone if the “structure” were to collapse. Would it? Yes the Fed is trying to stabilize the system (system here is little more than saying that greed is systematic, that is to be found always and everywhere), but “ensuring that those who made mistakes feel the pain”? Well, Brooks has chosen his side: let them be punished, those idiots who didn’t know how to save and thought the good life would last (that is: who were not smart, speedy, greedy, lucky enough to make a killing on the market in time before its downturn).