So I'll only write a few hundered here... I was reading a local tabloid and ran across a cartoon by artist blogger Bob Rogers. His topic was the recent G-20 summit, where world leaders met to discuss the near collapse of Western Civilization and impending world wide depression, all brought to us courtesy of men like Ken Lay, John Thain, Angelo Mozillo, Bernie Madoff, and so many others--supposedly the best and brightest, the Alpha Plus of our society. These men gambled away the solvency of their banks with wildly over leveraged securities schemes where fraudulently rated bonds were sold through hedge funds to investors, insurance firms, municipalities, and soverign wealth funds the world over. When the scheme went bust, and the wealthy stopped their gentlemen's game of easy money and credit, the whole system nearly collapsed.
You and I got the bill, and it will be passed on to generations in the future as well. The bankers? They got lavish public support, healthy bonuses, and comfortable severance packages. A few got a four walled jail cell as well, but the handful of successful prosecutions barely scratches the surface of the astounding criminal legacy the Wall Street wizards left the country. I have been saying for years that the banks were doing more harm to the country than a thousand Osama Bin Ladins. If I were Obama I'd cancel the proposed surge of 40,000 new troops in Afghanistan and put 40,000 new prosecutors on the trail of financial malfeasance on Wall Street. But it appears law enforcement still applies only to those earning less than $100,000 per year in this country.
Rogers cartoon summed it up in one concise image. A G-20 street protestor exclaimed: "I broke a window and got pepper sprayed, handcuffed, and arrested." Standing next to him a portly banker in a pinstripe suit exclaimed: "I broke the global economy and I was bailed out and got a huge bonus!"
That's life today in a nutsehell, neh? You can see the Rogers cartoon here.
You and I got the bill, and it will be passed on to generations in the future as well. The bankers? They got lavish public support, healthy bonuses, and comfortable severance packages. A few got a four walled jail cell as well, but the handful of successful prosecutions barely scratches the surface of the astounding criminal legacy the Wall Street wizards left the country. I have been saying for years that the banks were doing more harm to the country than a thousand Osama Bin Ladins. If I were Obama I'd cancel the proposed surge of 40,000 new troops in Afghanistan and put 40,000 new prosecutors on the trail of financial malfeasance on Wall Street. But it appears law enforcement still applies only to those earning less than $100,000 per year in this country.
Rogers cartoon summed it up in one concise image. A G-20 street protestor exclaimed: "I broke a window and got pepper sprayed, handcuffed, and arrested." Standing next to him a portly banker in a pinstripe suit exclaimed: "I broke the global economy and I was bailed out and got a huge bonus!"
That's life today in a nutsehell, neh? You can see the Rogers cartoon here.
