May 20, 2011
I’m writing because my family and I were affected by the economic collapse of 2008, and we don’t want it to happen again.
My wife and I have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars from our retirement accounts, plus we can no longer look forward to any raises in our pay in the foreseeable future. Is that fair when the Banksters are getting ridiculously corrupt bonuses based on money that people like me paid in taxes to the government?
Wall Street greed and outrageous pay practices were a major cause of the collapse. One way to change the incentives so they don’t collapse our economy again would be to abolish the bonuses. That way, we’ll know if the loans they made in year one remain good. In the bad days, bankers paid themselves on the volume of loans (mortgages) they generated, not on their quality.
We need to reinstate some solid regulation, like the Glass-Stiegal Act, to reign in the criminal activities of Wall Street and the big banks. In addition, hedge fund managers should pay income tax at the regular rate, not the capital gains rate of 15%.
Thank you for considering my comment,
Lee Baker