In the past week or so, I think I've spoken to all three of you who read this blog. Just thought I'd post an interesting article or two I've read recently, just for fun.
The Fourteen Trillion Dollar Value Drain
If you peek at this article, I urge you to make it to the bottom:
"When you bounce a ball from the height of 6 feet, and drop it normally without applying force, it rebounds back 50% to 3 feet. The law of gravity pulls the ball down, but the physical resistance of the floor intervenes, absorbs some of the impact; and obeying the law of conservation of energy, deflects the ball back up. When the ball is back up 3 feet the first time, we can say that it is momentarily in equilibrium after the bounce.
Similarly, from its all time highs (when Dow Jones went up to 14279) of 23 trillion dollars in market capitalization, the markets deflated to a low of 11 trillion dollars in market cap about seven weeks ago at the time of this writing. Now they are back up a little bit, but we are still losing 42% from the highs. 42% of 23 trillion dollars is roughly 10 trillion dollars. Suppose we gain back 50% of that, or 5 trillion dollars, and call that point to be the momentary equilibrium where everything is restored and we can start on a new footing (hopefully with less greed), we can assume that the other 5 trillion dollars got drained by Wall-Street traders."
And the conclusion:
"This looting, which we have calculated to be equivalent to $14 trillion in DRAINED VALUE, has been going on since the liar loan (sub-prime mortgage with zero down) days, and even before that, when the Gramm-Lichey-Bliley act deregulated the financial institutions completely. Wall-Street insiders have handsomely benefited from this Value Drain by paying themselves big bonus amounts even as their mis-managed derivatives related businesses were going bankrupt, and were saved by the Fed and the US Treasury TARP. In addition to the John Thains and the Finklesteins of the world, some powerful names of people who have enjoyed form the Valye Drain include Henry Paulson got $400 million from is Goldman Sachs stock, Alan Greenspan who got $8 million from his book royalties, Larry Summers who pocketed $7 million plus from his one day a week job for $5.2 million yearly compensation plus speaking engagements, etc. "
