I have been reading much of the detail of our financial meltdown and the "evil empire" we have heard about that fed Wall Street. I've sent you many Mat Taibbi journalism exposes on Goldman Sachs and the role they play, but other forces are at stake. When I tell you you will shake your head even more, knowing our nation was run for 20 years by games of Wall Street and we built a wealth on "nothing".
What I've learned?
Far from manipulating their firms books, many could not understand them. The Economist says "Citigroup's boss reportedly learned of its $43 billion of toxic assets only in Sept. 2007, but was told the losses were unlikely.
There is no doubt many of these Bank CEO's (7 of the top 10 banks CEO's are gone) were stupid, bought $87,000 rugs, had planes, built offices, and were generally jackasses.
But the difference may be that these false numbers stretched so far back, involved the customers they do business with, and were built on such new "vehicles" like CMO's and derivatives that it is true when they say only a few men (all men, by the way) brought down Wall St. Others were complicit, many benefited, but I believe the false numbers were so false that many at the top were not smart enough to know what they had done.
So we say we must never let this happen again, but it will. Somewhere, somehow.
I own a company that for 30 years has done consulting with family busineses, from 2 million to 800 million, and have seen my fine partners analyze books away to show the owners of the small businesses what they have or have not done. Fully 80% of those that hire us, even in bankruptcy, have no "understanding of what they have wrought".
Understand this as you watch the nation fight. There is no quick solution, and the problems have mounted and are so entwined that undoing the knot is half of the game.
