May 26, 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.
Forty years of plans, responsibility and a successful life that should have led to a comfortable retirement were stolen from us by the lack of responsible behavior by financial institutions. I don't feel we, individually or as a nation, owe these people anything. It is they who owe us, yet we are told they are too big to fail and their employees too valuable not to reward beyond conscience or good sense. The edict of business has been, for years now, that no one is irreplaceable. Apparently, it doesn't imply when you can steal your pay raise from someone else.
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,
Georgia Jones
Sonora, CA