Wall Street's greatest deception is the claim that they're
brave risk takers who put their money into enterprises that create America's
economic growth.
What amazing
alchemists Wall Street bankers are! They can turn failure into gold and reform
into business as usual.
These sorcerers have
pulled off both tricks right in front of us since their 2007 collapse. They
turned that gross failure into an ongoing multi-trillion-dollar bailout by us
taxpayers to restore them to even-grosser profit levels.
Then, while the public
howled for lawmakers to shackle their greed, these bewitching bankers reached
into their magic hat and pulled out the massive Dodd-Frank reform law that —
hocus pocus — adds up to the status quo.
As a West Texas farmer
once told me, status quo is Latin for “the mess we’re in.”
Wall Street’s greatest
deception is the claim that they’re brave risk takers who put their money into
enterprises that create America’s economic growth.
Bovine excrement. One,
as we’ve seen, they’re not investing in job-creating businesses — they’re
frittering away America’s savings on ridiculous, get-rich-quick gambling
schemes. Second, they’re not risking their money or that of their shareholders,
but ours.
When we deposit money
with Chase, Bank of America, etc., we make a practically-zero-interest loan to
them that they take to global gambling tables. Of the $2.4 trillion held by JPMorgan Chase, for example, $2.2
trillion is borrowed from us. It’s our cash they’re risking. And when
their convoluted gambles fail, as in 2007, everything collapses…and they’ll run
to Washington again demanding a bailout.
So the reform that
matters is to make them put, say, half of their own money into each roll of the
dice, rather than piling 90 percent of each risk on our backs. But does the
Dodd-Frank “reform” law do that? No — it allows these “too-big-to-fail” banks
to stack 95 percent of their risks on us.
That is Wall Street’s
dirtiest trick yet.
OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is
a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. He’s also editor of the
populist newsletter, The Hightower
Lowdown. OtherWords.org
