the economic meltdown?
It”s now been over a year since the economy collapsed in a sudden and shocking way. We were told many of our banking institutions were “too big to fail” and as such the government, using our borrowed tax dollars, stepped up to make good on the bets that were placed under the name of “derivatives.” Most of us have no idea what a derivative is or why we should care, nor do we know how all of these companies became too big to fail.
After the last Great Depression in the 1930s, new laws were enacted to protect our banking system, stock markets and economy from being gamed. This system worked flawlessly for over 40 years, until in 1980 when our government was taken over by the thinking that “government is not the solution, it is the problem!” Suddenly all these rules that kept us safe from unbridled greed were no longer helping us, but somehow were seen as hurting, instead. The dismantling of the banking laws began. The results soon followed.
In the 1980s we had the savings and loan scandals. They seem quaint now in their scope and scale in that only $1.4 trillion was stolen. Even the Bush family got into the act, with never to be spoken of brother, Neil Bush, up to his eyeballs in the Silverado Savings and Loan scam. Jeb Bush defaulted on a $4.5 million loan with Broward Federal Savings that turned out to only have $500,000 collateral, the taxpayers swallo
