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 parents are retired and living off of SS and my father's 401K, which took a hard hit with the "crash." Fortunately they had the mortgage on the house paid off, or they would have lost it. But they and we have also had to help out a couple of my sibblings whose work hours were dramatically decreased with the ensuing recession. We are being told we can't count on SS and to make sure we stock away in IRA"S and 401K's, but with the way Wall street is acting, that plan is scary! They are getting rich off of our future, and don't care if they ruin the rest of us! It's all a big gambling GAME, and the average American can't afford to lose again, and then expect US to bail THEM out so they can stay in their mansions and yachts while we lose our jobs and houses!
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,
Cinthia Honeycutt