The neocons, Greenspan, and the Bush Administration deliberately tried to destroy governmental regulation so financial markets could operate without intervention or oversight.
The current massive frauds and thefts are the logical conclusion of those policies and probably just the leading edge of what’s coming.
Bernie Madoff’s victims. The list is quite long. Some hedge funds lost everything as have private investors. How would you like to be retired, living off investments it took you decades to amass, only to find it all gone. Many are facing that nightmare now.
Ira Roth, a New Jersey resident, who says his family has about $1 million invested through Mr. Madoff’s firm, is “in a state of panic.” He said his 86-year-old mother-in-law has been living on the investments’ returns, and he has been using the funds to pay college tuition.
Richard Spring. A Boca Raton resident and former securities analyst, says he had about $11 million — or 95% of his net worth — invested with Mr. Madoff. “That’s how much I believed in him”
Dreier swindle. Millions are missing from escrow accounts, Picasso’s have vanished off the walls. He stopped paying malpractice insurance which means lawyers in his company are potentially unprotected against the expected incoming tsunami of lawsuits.
He also, while in custody no less, got his bank to transfer $10 million from an escrow account to a personal account, something that no doubt will make litigators overjoyed as they can now go after the bank’s assets as they may be “jointly and severally liable.”
These swindles were not flukes, they were not aberrations from the norm. They are the logical outcome of years of the Federal government allowing greed and corruption to run unchecked in the financial markets.
When we finally get the full extent of the damage, the Bush Administration will go down as both the most incompetent and most corrupt in history. Unless you believe the fantasy that governmental officials weren’t personally benefiting from the financial plundering too.
The most bizarre notion of this financial collapse is the belief that the commonly shared human traits of greed, incompetence and envy were somehow miraculously suspended through a combination of deregulation and good intentions.
The Republicans have consciously promoted the idea that capitalism needs only the overlay of christian values to function in perpetuity for the benefit of all.
Hopefully we are witnessing the decline of the Third Great Awakening and a return to critical analytical thought.
GWB:Christianity::Al Queda:Islam. Christian values indeed.