The Culture that Spawned the Crisis

John Bogle, Douglas Kmiec, and John Templeton Jr. share their views on current societal values and their effect on our behavior and the financial markets in, "The Culture that Spawned the Crisis: A Closer Look".

This talk provides an interesting follow up to the themes of capitalism and morality vs. immorality discussed in our last post, "BB&T prefer liberty & reason to bailouts".

A key point made by John Templeton Jr. early on in this talk: "Culture is Everything". As the opening argument suggests, changes in our cultural values have led to a marked change in the way that we live, interact, and do business with each other, and not necessarily for the better.

Hat tip to Stocktwits community member, Aiki14, for drawing our attention to this discussion.

When you find the time, please enjoy this video and the discussion on "the social, cultural, and moral causes of the current financial crisis in the United States". I hope it will spur some thoughts on the prevailing cultural & moral climate in our country (& in our world).

What lessons did take from the discussion? On what points did you agree or disagree? Please share your thoughts with us here.

Related articles and posts:

1. The Moral Case for Competitive Capitalism - The Freeman.

2. John Bogle: The Free Market's Moral Crisis - Fora.tv.

3. Need for More Capitalism in our Financial System - Seven Scholars.

4. Friedrich A. Hayek at Stanford, 1970 - Finance Trends.