May 19, 2011
I’m writing because I am disgusted with and ashamed of the fact that our government, even after enacting banking "reforms" which impress me as being a poor joke, has (a) done almost nothing to penalize the perpetrators of fraud who ran these banks and (b) done nothing to stop the banks from being "too big to fail." As a retired physician and professor who has saved much more money in accounts that provide me with more required minimum distributions than I expect ever to use, I have not been hurt much; however, OUR NATION HAS BEEN HARMED VERY SERIOUSLY. IF AN INDIVIDUAL CAUSED A SMALL AMOUNT OF THE HARM THAT THESE BANKS HAVE CAUSED, HE OR SHE WOULD BE IN JAIL. OUR BANKERS JUST KEEP CONTRIBUTING TO POLITICAL CAUSES AND LOBBYISTS, AND OUR GOVERNMENT HAS NOT HAD (A) THE COURAGE AND (B) THE MORAL INTEGRITY TO PROTECT THE MAN ON MAIN STREET.
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 delay the bonuses for three, five or more years. 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.
Thank you for considering my comment,
Thomas (Tom) Pretlow