Moral Obligation Versus Risk Management

This link describes people with high credit scores who are walking away from property that is underwater (i.e., what they owe on it is more than its currently worth). The article itself reveals nothing that we haven't known before. It's some of the comments that readers of the article have posted. One in particular struck me from a reader named 'questioner 5000': "However, that STILL doesn't solve the problem of a bank making a loan to people, who buy a home for $600,000, put down a 20% down payment, have good jobs and a spotless credit history, who suddenly decide, (because writers like you think it's "savvy"), to walk away from their contractual and moral obligations". Yes, in essence, even if it doesn't make sense, you have to stick to it because you have a moral obligation to stick to the agreements you've made. Most people would agree that such behavior is necessary to insure the smooth workings of our society. It's doing the right thing. Or as one of my teachers harped at me, "You must accept the consequences of your own actions." Or as a Gunny once commented, "You have to eat your own cooking even if it tastes like shit."

Okay, I can deal with that. And I've taught my own children the same.

But then I heard mention in the news about the Q & A between the Chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, Phil Angelides, and the Chairman/CEO of Goldman Sachs Group Inc, LloydBlankfein. The exchange I'm referring to is about 45 minutes into the hearing. Mr. Angelides asked if it was right for Goldman to sell mortgage-backed securities into the market and simultaneously bet against these same securities. Mr. Blankfein indicated that this behavior may not have been right. But he then goes on to say that when the behavior is taken in "context", it seems that the behavior was all right in order to manage Goldman's risk! In other words, Goldman only moral obligation was to do only what was in their own best interest. Whereas implications of the comments of 'questioner 5000' is that each individual has a moral obligation to do what is in the best interest of society as a whole.

So, according to Mr. Blankfein, if those people whose houses are underwater walk away from their mortgages, then it's okay when taken in the context of managing their own personal risk.

Or is it that one set of morals applies to the big money interests and another to rest of us saps?