Honors Transfer Student Profiles
Beth Bruni
When Cañada College student Beth Bruni was asked to research the role of the U.S. government in the collapse of the housing market she was shocked by what she found. “The most surprising thing I learned during my research was how corrupt our financial system is,” she said.
Bruni’s research, “Government Intervention: A Review of Government Involvement in the Housing Market”, will be presented on May 1 at the Third Annual Community College Honors Research Symposium at U.C. Berkeley. She will join seven other Cañada students presenting original academic research at the symposium.
“As I learned about the complex financial derivatives, credit default swaps, and false practices performed by business professionals I learned how they affected the situation and increased the speed at which our economy began to fail” she said. “Overall, I was shocked by the lack of government regulatory authority in the market. When I learned how much employees of financial institutions were driven by incentives to attain the largest short-term profits for their companies without regard to the long-term consequences for the economy my mouth dropped.”
As part of her research, Bruni pored through numerous academic and news articles examining the argument for and against government involvement in the financial sector. Included were four books by Robert Shiller, who has served as vice president of the American Economic Association. Another book that helped in her research was “Bailout Nation” by Barry Ritholtz. Bruni’s economics professor, Paul Roscelli, assigned three to four articles a week that provided fodder for classroom debates on the subject. “We had to come prepared to argue our case,” she said.
Bruni, an economics major who plans to transfer to U.C. Berkeley, said the research brought her to the conclusion that the government needs to be involved solely to regulate and make changes in current law, as well as create new laws to make sure this type of economic meltdown is not repeated.
“I would tighten the regulations surrounding subprime loans and the payment options available to consumers who are buying a house,” she said. “I would also increase transparency in the process. Finally, I would adjust the rules and regulations for when bailouts are given.”