The monsters of American capitalism

Trump, Bankman-Fried's, and Musk

If this past week presents any single lesson, it’s the social costs of greed. Capitalism is premised on greed but also on guardrails – laws and norms -- that prevent greed from becoming so excessive that it threatens the system as a whole.

Yet the guardrails can’t hold when avarice becomes the defining trait of an era, as it is now. Laws and norms are n…