"Like not letting private money play an enormous role in politics, and paying civil servants enough so that more of our best brains choose public service over Wall Street. "

That is one the best statements I have heard in a long time. The logic of it is undeniable; it should be fairly obvious that is it the way to go.

Oscar

Excellent reading and viewing choices!

Actually, I occasionally need someone to draw a picture. This is a good one, especially midway onward.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTUY16CkS-k

We do need to arrive at a point where we can take the money out of government decision making. It is important that we find a theoretical or strategic foundation to get to that point.

In addition to how lobbyists’ money does so much harm, how do we emerge from a highly centralized government that facilitates the interests of only a few powerful groups and is insulated from popular will or other broad based interests? (Several polls show that the government practices do not follow strong public desires.)

Singapore was born with a strong leader that cared about his new nation and had the management skills to achieve desirable results. He also operated in a highly centralized manner, but with different results from our current condition. I would like to find a few additional examples and see what other forces caused others to shed their centralized and more inept government. Is it a development process that we need to restart?

There are plenty of things to like about Singapore, not the least of which is that they are a competitor to China and suspicious of China's aspirations in Asia. This means that it is highly likely if not inevitable, that Singapore will move closer and closer to the United States as China rises and competition between China and the United States becomes more acute.

Along with India, Viet Nam, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Taiwan and perhaps someday Burma, Singapore is likely to join with the United States in an alliance to check the aspirations of China in Asia. What's not to like about that?

But before Professor Walt waxes too enthusiastic about Singapore, he should study its history of academic freedom. As someone who still has a job at Harvard only because of the tenure system, I am sure that Walt values academic freedom highly. If Walt worked at the National University of Singapore instead of Harvard he would undoubtedly be out of a job by now.

And let's hope he doesn't make the mistake of chewing gum on a public street in Singapore; doing that can get you fined; tossing it on the street can get you jailed. Nor should we forget that caning is still a legal form of punishment in Singapore and is, in fact, frequently carried out.

As for his criticisms of Goldman Sachs and the rest of the U.S. banking system and his praise (as muted as it was in this post) for the system in Singapore, it pays to remember that authoritarian systems are always able to police their institutions better than democracies are; that's one of the things that make them authoritarian.

Why are leftists always attracted to authoritarian regimes?

decade, a better place to begin would be the book "On Money and Markets", by Henry Kaufman, the former Solomon Brothers's analyst, and the original "Dr. Doom" of the 1970's.
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Kaufman avoids the snarky finger pointing that is a trademark of Walt's, and discusses the issues, risks, rewards, and failures, that are inherent in a free-market economy, including problems with banks actions, regulatory failures and opens a discussion for suggested remedies.

Blue13326, Singapore is more often considered right-wing. Walt doesn't actually much about Singaporean policy that he likes, perhaps because he hasn't made it a point of study.

Singaporean politics is not much influenced by lobbyists, because Singaporean politics is not much influenced by anything other than its ruling dynasty. There is effectively no political competition in Singapore.

My understanding is that Goldman Sachs bet better than all its competitors and was not "bailed out"*. AIG owed it a lot of money, but GS expected AIG to go down and hedged itself so that it had no exposure.
*There are a large number of institutions that did not really need money and had no problem paying it back. Paulson's logic was that both the weak and the strong needed to take money to avoid signalling who was weak.