May 19, 2011
I'm writing because past my family and friends, my country was greatly affected by the economic collapse of 2008. I watched "successful" family men go homeless, I've watched housewives turn the the streets to earn enough money to survive, and small business owners lose everything they had because of Wall Streets reckless game. This cannot happen again.
It is time for regulators to set up a way for shareholders to grab back ill-gotten gains from the people that caused the crash in the first place. Is it right for those that trusted them to live out in the streets while they pay themselves millions of dollars for essentially turning a blind eye to unethical trading practices.
These people have made a living off taking advantage of trusting investors. They concealed high risk investments in derivative trading and knew that when the bubble popped, the investors and the government would be picking up the bill.
It's time to reign in on this corruption and to take on one of our country's biggest threats. It's time to bring on economic stability, not just for our country's sake, but for the rest of the world that is part of this global economy.
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,
Garrett Wysocki