"These guys at these companies were on a Sherman's March through their companies financed by our 410ks and all the incentives of their companies were for short term profit. They burned the fucking house down with our money and walked away rich as hell and you guys knew that that was going on." --Jon Stewart, The Daily Show, March 12, 2009. http://consumerist.com/5169419/daily-show-vs-cnbc-they-burned-the-f+ing-house-down-with-our-money-and-walked-away-rich-as-hell
20 years of working at this stoopid job with abusive managers, and I have nothing to show for it. Nothing at all. And I don't blame the people who got mortgages they couldn't afford, I don't even blame the brokers and banks that deceived them into thinking they could afford those mortgages. Speculative construction? Well that was based on the success of the first two, so even that is not entirely at fault. I 100% blame those day traders, derivatives dealers, commercial paper participants who gambled money they didn't have and ran away with the profits--which turned out to be funded by our retirements and savings--and left us with nothing for all our years of hard work.
Of course I could blame myself for putting my money in the stock market to begin with, but mutual funds were supposed to be a low risk investment, what you're "supposed to do." Everyone knows that, mutual funds are safe. That's why they have the lower returns, because we can trust in their safety. These day traders abused our trust. And nobody's even thinking about going after them.
For a pretty good description and discussion about what *really* caused the market crash, listen here: http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/10/01/confusion/
Where is our bailout for the robbery of our retirement accounts? Why is it just the corporate thieves and greedy CEOs that get bailed out? Why is it just the people that bought houses they couldn't afford and spent more money than they had that get protected? Why is my future ignored? Why am I supposed to give all to my bad-behaving neighbor and sit by and get nothing for my good behavior?
Man, do I wish I had listened to that person who told me to just take that money and pay off my mortgage (because even without the collapse of the market, my return would've been only 2-3% lower). Then I could have fulfilled my dream of quitting this insane place to go work for Blockbuster. And to think that I once thought I was doin' pretty okay for a gov't trout.
"CNBC could be an incredibly powerful tool of illumination for people that believe that there are two markets: One that has been sold to us as long term. Put your money in 401ks. Put your money in pensions and just leave it there. Don't worry about it. It's all doing fine. Then, there's this other market; this real market that is occurring in the back room. Where giant piles of money are going in and out and people are trading them and it's transactional and it's fast. But it's dangerous, it's ethically dubious and it hurts that long term market. So what it feels like to us--and I'm talking purely as a layman--it feels like we are capitalizing your adventure by our pension and our hard earned money."
I'd like to see a tax imposed on anybody who made a greater than, say, 15% return on any hedge-related investment in the past 10 years. Put this tax in a fund and use it to repay any of these supposedly "secure" investments we were told to make. So that we can have our futures back.
The irony (or perhaps one of many) is that the smallest of the $3 billion in bonuses paid to Merrill Lynch employees as a reward for losing $15.8 billion in 2008 would be enough to replace all of my life's savings and 401k/retirement money. Having worked hard for all these years, paid my taxes and all my bills on time, saved my pennies, and lived frugally, driving a 15 year old 30mpg car, don't I at least deserve that much?
