Feb 11, 2011, Lewes, DE: What had happened on Wall Street, the so-called “meltdown” that left most of us shocked and without answers, was treated from the very beginning as virtually an Act of Nature, like an earthquake or a volcano, for which there could be no blame, no punishment; it was deemed as “something” beyond the purview of man that could literally happen to anyone, and, thusly, it was treated as if no one was really responsible for its consequences; that is, until the Commission formed to look into what happened during the “meltdown” completed its investigation and revealed its conclusions.
What the investigation revealed, was that the entire financial disaster that brought America to its knees, in the opinion of the investigators, could have been avoided.
It is only now that the pieces are starting to fall into place, and for that, we must thank Michael Lewis for his new book, “The Big Short”
Lewis is the first one to give credit to those still standing who saw it coming and acted in opposition to what they saw as impending disaster to preserve their holdings. They, for one, provided the backgrounder that allowed Michael Lewis to write his revealing book explaining to what really happened leading up to the disaster on Wall Street and afterwards.
If anything, now pundits are asking themselves if we were not all subjected to a massive cover-up of the events that actually took place making it look as if there were no crime that took place, and no intent.
In effect, because of the unknown quality of events leading up to the breakdown of our economy, no one in particular was thought to be to blame. This attitude was reinforced by then Secretary of the Treasury. Paulson, and Fed Reserve Chief, Greenspan, later inherited by Bernanke, his successor, who conspired among themselves to put out the fire with borrowed taxpayer funds before the truth would be revealed.
At the time, Paulson set the tone by working with then president Bush and others to prop up the very firms who were responsible for what happened in the first place. As a result, these now restored firms, restored because of hand-outs of taxpayer monies by Paulson, another insider and former president of Goldman Sachs, are now resisting any attempt at reforms suggesting that we might face the very same conditions again at some future time.
It is Author Lewis’ view that CITIBANK, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and the other culprits, should have been allowed to lapse into bankruptcy and receivership, allowing the government to nationalize them. That didn’t happen. And the problems were never addressed. No one went to jail in the wake of this disaster that has created massive unemployment, dislocation and instability and is yet to be resolved. By the same token, these very same companies are at it again, making deals, and giving big bonuses with no indication of contrition or interest in changing their ways. In some respects, a case could be made that Paulson and the Federal Reserve, by issuing the bail-outs, actually rewarded their bad judgment, selfishness, and collusive behavior.
Investigators, who were part of the Commission convened by the government to get to the root of the problem, after 700 interviews and countless dispositions, have independently come to the conclusion that because we didn’t address the causes, it could in all probability occur again. In other words, it just may be that we learned nothing from this terrible misadventure that has literally changed the lives of the majority of this country and none of that has even been discussed or investigated which, by itself, not only seems incredulous, but against the best interests of the citizenry, and an offense, itself.
In the mind of this writer, it is not too late to conduct a full investigation of the impact of this canard on the American people or to penalize those who, with knowledge, led this misadventure to make money on the backs of the American people.
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