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Responsibility, Repair And Redistribution In The Wake Of The Financial Crisis, Amy Sepinwall

Amy J. Sepinwall

The point of departure for this paper is a claim about widespread shared responsibility for the financial crisis and the bailout it necessitated. We are inclined to decry Wall Street’s villainy, all the while conveniently overlooking our own role in precipitating the crisis. But individuals, we now know, prefer to spend rather than save and, as a result, require the kind of financial alchemy that can transform one’s house into a virtual ATM, or one’s exceedingly modest savings into a fiscal cushion that can sustain a long, comfortable retirement. Risk, then, is the inevitable price of our preferences for leisure …