Its in the banker's best interest to work for the US Economy as a whole, since their money and investments depend on the valid repayment of subprime mortgages.
I don't want to start an argument here, but that's not true; the banks' (i.e., shareholders') money depended on the US Economy. The bankers' money (salaries and bonuses) got paid even after the crisis.
The bankers were playing with other people's money, not their own.
Sure, they fired a lot of employees, but I wasn't exactly talking about the branch managers or salaried analysts when I said bankers. The Lehman Brothers executives still paid themselves $100M three days before the bankrupcy, and the others weren't exactly on ramen noodles either.
Perhaps. But they would have made even more money if the financial crisis never happened. We've got a case where executives make bad decisions for short-term personal gain.
This assumption that people always work for the long-term gain, even for themselves, was proven wrong in the financial crisis. The economy is made up of humans, and humans make mistakes.
Later, you bring up the point of $100 million paid to the Lehman Brothers executives. Do you know how much they got every year ? These guys are paid $50 million / year or $30 million / year PLUS stock options... if they wanted to make more money, they should have kept Lehman Brothers operating for just 3 more years.
