Shame on the addicts of Wall Street

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-oppay15a5966069dec15,0,2239687.column

Les Payne
December 15, 2008

While gnashing our teeth over the failure of the auto industry bailout, let's talk about "derivatives."

These financial instruments are cited as key examples of the greed that sparked the Wall Street meltdown wrecking the economies of the entire capitalist world. (Don't get me started on swaps.)

Since the life savings of working people are affected, I've struggled mightily to understand derivatives. This gamble, as my less business-challenged friends explain it, is beneath the dignity of a three-card monte game. Derivatives are more like side bets on three-card monte, with $250,000 minimums.

The profits from "derivatives" that these capitalists report is taxed at a rate half that paid by American workers earning their money by the sweat of their brow.

This stark class disparity carries over to the way the federal government treats those who work, as opposed to the idle who scheme. The $700 billion panhandled from taxpayers for the Wall Street bailout, for example, was entrusted to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who is a creature of the shoddy practices that collapsed the financial system. The former Goldman Sachs chief executive seems bent on distributing the loot to the banks with no demands for structural changes to curb Wall Street greed and fraud.

We need look no further for the latter than the Thursday arrest of a legendary Wall Street titan who reportedly said he ran a "giant Ponzi scheme" out of his highly respected investment securities office. Former Nasdaq chairman Bernard L. Madoff, who is a pioneer of modern Wall Street, confessed that his operation reportedly is "all just one big lie" that has lost as much as $50 billion. His firm handles mainly wealthy clients and gained a reputation for generating high yields, whether the economy was up or down.

FULL story at link.

[Double T]

1. wall street has always been owned and operated by criminals.

Nothing is or will EVER be done as the criminals are in charge of the criminals.

[BeFree]

2. See

This is exactly the kind of real cynicism that infects our country.

Far too many folks feel the same way and there is nothing on the
horizon that is coming to heal this infection.

Except if bushco goes down. 'Twould be the 'Shot heard 'round the world"
if we jail leading members of the administration, eh?