Reader question:
In this headline – Buffett: Bank woes are 'poetic justice' – what does "poetic justice" mean?
My comments:
Let's read the story first. It is as follows:
TORONTO (Reuters, February 7, 2008) – The woes in the US financial sector are "poetic justice" for bankers who designed and sold complex investments that have since gone sour, billionaire investor Warren Buffett said on Wednesday.
The head of the Berkshire Hathaway Inc group of companies also played down worries about a credit crunch by saying that recent interest rate cuts mean low-cost funds are readily available... Buffett, one of the world's wealthiest people, appeared to see irony in the fact that many of the banks who marketed complex investments which have now crashed are bearing much of the fallout.
"It's sort of a little poetic justice, in that the people that brewed this toxic Kool-Aid found themselves drinking a lot of it in the end," he said.
...
Got the picture?
Now, definitions. First, justice. Justice in the ordinary sense means eye-for-eye, tooth-for-tooth revenge or punishment. In the court of justice, for example, when the judge sentences a murderer to death, we say it's justice being served.
Poetic justice, on the other hand, is the sort of karmic view of events by the artist. Or simply, it is justice in literature – in which good conduct is usually rewarded with good while evil is rewarded with evil. In The Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio
Anyways, the idea of poetic justice originates from Aristotle's Poetics, in which the Greek philosopher explains is view that poetry should be superior to history in that it show what should occur (what's morally right to have happened) instead of merely what does occur (what actually happened).
In short, what Buffet was saying was this: Those maverick bankers who had created an environment that led to the sub-prime loan crisis are now forced to drink their own poison. They are being punished for their own crime, figuratively speaking, of course. They deserve it. It serves them right.
Or still in other words, what goes round comes round.
Lock horns
Second opinion?
No tans, naked truths
Private citizen?
Shutting the window on my neighbor
An elderly woman with two large pots
Slow season
Don't make tour groups feel like a race
Ja(y)ded time ahead[1]
Turf war
Unions must protect, not placate
Sore loser
Orchestrating a boom
Ideals certainly make a difference
Get real
The hollow sirens of law enforcement
Unforced error
In their corner?
特朗普发表胜选演说
Between a rock and a hard place?
Pipe dream
Spare tourists from excessive guides
Stock response
Moral victory
Fish story
Shooting for the stars
Work toward fighting social injustice
Saving grace
Rise of wages for migrant workers a must
Shoot from the hip
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