Re: The problem is integrity
I agree with much of what you said. I also agree that a system such as the one I theorised could be manipulated.
The reason I brought up the old ways of giving loans and the credit rating is because it is a good example of a system IMHO to determine financial integrity on the part of the borrower. If these checks and balances were used correctly in the first place, much of what we see today would not have happened.
I completely agree with you that the financial institutions are corrupt. The systems they set up were designed to fail. There is no question about it. The practise of derivatives in the financial market should never have been put in place... legal or illegal.
There may have been good intentions in trying to get everyone their own home. I dont know the entire context of events that transpired to todays housing collapse, so I cannot condem everyone involved.
But when everyone had access to 400 thousand dollar loans, the price of the average house went to 400 thousand dollars. It wasnt that the real estate market was under valued, it was supply and demand. I highly doubt that these loans were handed out to people putting 40 thousand dollars down on their home. I highly doubt that most of the people getting these loans had financial integrity for the size of the loans they received.
And I agree again. We could have new leadership... and everything else... but corruption will come again unless there is a way to check for integrity. And even though I appreciate the way the natives used to elect their leaders... I have a hard time fathoming how this could be applied in the world of today, since the populations are so huge.
And how do we, as a society, prevent corrupt people from coming into places of power? Unions were originally a way, designed as a form of vigilance to prevent companies from exploiting employees. They were kinda like the system you mentioned above. But now even the unions are run like corporations, and have lost their direction.
Corruption, like a tree with termites... eats away at its integrity, setting up its eventual fall.
The credit score is just a system, a tool which can determine financial integrity. But it is a very effective tool when used correctly.
So as far as I can see, the only way the world can eliminate corrupt people from power is by eternal vigilance using tools which determine integrity disclosed to the people with extreme transparency.
If the bankers at the top who are corrupt, were never allowed to take their position in the first place, and only those with integrity were... we would be seeing a different story. The same with government, the same with medicine, and the same with everything.