tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13399254.post3688092295710861847..comments2024-02-14T11:04:27.663-05:00Comments on Free and Responsible Search: Join the Losers: Shame, Pride, and the 99%Doug Muderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04666144843949850394noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13399254.post-12118680525779899322012-02-03T07:58:32.976-05:002012-02-03T07:58:32.976-05:00Tom,
Bankers have been making substantial, if not...Tom, <br />Bankers have been making substantial, if not spectacular, profits from making bad loans all the way back to the Savings and Loans bailouts of the eighties; and I was just reading yesterday about a business whose owners took loans to pay themselves bonuses, and then killed both the company and the workers' pensions when the loans went bad. <br />http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-12/wasserstein-haunts-harry-david-in-buyout-doomed-to-bankruptcy.html<br /><br />So I incline to the view that the millions of dollars top bankers lost were ill-gotten gains in the first place, a rake-off of unproductive economic activity (to say nothing of the actual fraud still going on in the mortgage situation.)<br /><br />So much wealth in the hands of so few is simply not a healthy economy, or a just one.<br /><br />Thanks, Doug, for stating it so plainly.Cantahamsterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03776333924946242971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13399254.post-73648012819840798472012-02-01T19:09:16.297-05:002012-02-01T19:09:16.297-05:00Doug,
I find some of your statements disturbing. ...Doug,<br /><br />I find some of your statements disturbing. You claim that "bankers" were bailed out. This is not true. Top bankers, many of whom were paid in stock options made worthless by the 2008 crash, lost many millions of dollars. The owners of Citigroup collectively lost about $300 billion when their stock went from $50 to $1.50. In fact the crash has greatly _decreased_ inequality in America by hitting so many wealthy people so hard. That is presumably why you chose 2007, the year of the record high stock prices, as your reference year for demonstrating the rise of inequality. If you had chosen 2009 the numbers would be less impressive.<br /><br />I know that sounds like a nit-pick but it is part of an unpleasant conspiracy theory common among UUs. People want to believe that the drop in their house's value is the result of some evil plot, that some banker is making spectacular profits from having made so many bad loans. You imply that when private businesses went bankrupt in Wisconsin it was the result of an evil scheme to enrich their owners.<br /><br />This whole conspiracy theory reminds me of the way Germans in the 1930s convinced themselves that the Great Depression was a plot by the Jews to steal from everybody else.<br /><br />I seem to recall that you once read The Big Short. Surely you don't believe that the whole crash was the result of a conspiracy or that it somehow profited the rich?<br /><br />TomTomnoreply@blogger.com