We in the U.S. seem to have way to many Billionaires and way to many Millionaires lately, more so when our country in the last 7 years we have been in a recession. How is it they maintain making money while the rest of society collapses to the ground. Can we blame them for others failures to thrive or they share no blame in this? I have to believe there is a link there somewhere. I remember the wall street and mortgage loan fallout at the beginning of this recession/ Depression where in. I wonder what happened to the 99% percenters.
There is enough documented evidence that three things were wrong right before Wall Street caused worldwide financial disaster. Home valuations kept going up, meaning infinity was regarded as possible. This was obviously impossible to anyone who knew that those who made these incremental increases were artificially inflating values. Second, mortgages and other things were bundled into Credit Default Swaps. Third, banks were giving people who would have never qualified for mortgages in the past, mortgages, even though they were aware that some people would eventually be unable to pay.
Just as in the Great Depression of the 1930s, for every dollar a financial institution had on hand, they owed 23. Right before the collapse, an in-house Stock Market Analyst at the Ford Motor Company began noticing strange trading patterns, The people at Ford moved their money to as many safe havens as possible. Of the Big Three automakers, Ford did not ask for a bailout like GM and Chrysler.
Wall Street made quick cash and people - wealthy and highly informed - saw what was coming. The Justice Department has finally begun to issue fines and penalties after all this time. The “big fish” have escaped punishment.
businessinsider.com/why-wall-street-execs-werent-prosecuted-2013-1
But what do we get on our daily news? Stuff like this? No. Or tiny fragments. People in power and who are wealthy and informed, got the information they needed before the public ended up footing the bill for entities that were “too big to fail.” They weathered the storm.
Tougher regulations are now in place, but sub-prime lending has returned. But even the big fish know they are under greater scrutiny now.
Peace,
Ed