A simple message for those trying to skew the 99% and Occupy Wall Street movements.
The capitalists broke game. They bent the rules. They grabbed all the money. We are all paying the consequences of people taking advantages.
In order to move forward, we have to admit some truths as a country. “Denial ain’t just a reservoir in Egypt” - Ali G
62 Million Americans Have Zero Or Negative Net Worth
62 million Americans have zero or negative net worth. Wow. Think about that for a second.
These are hard working people. They made good decisions. They did not take massive risks. Deregulated markets were going to provide the ways and means, they were told.
But a decade of unparalleled financial thievery and corruption, of artificially inflated commodity prices, we now have millions displaced from their homes through a rotten and perverted mortgage market, all the worse because of the crimes of the modern financial elite.
Take your pick: from bribery and insider trading and market manipulation, to backroom dominance of government and the usurping of the regulatory structure from within, the 50-headed hydra of Wall Street corruption simply can’t be seen by the public or put on TV.
So what do people do? They pick on a myth. Are 62 million people lazy? Should they just “get a job” to make it better? When the real evil is clearly the banks, certain types vindictively want to pick on their fellow man, the 99%, and place blame on them. For not struggling enough? For not having 3 or 4 jobs which still are not enough?
The point is we should not all be struggling. The system played us all. It’s time to change the system.
$44 trillion in wealth was lost around the world in the financial and banking failures of 2007-08. That’s $44,000,000,000,000 Wall St gambled away.
Context [2006 data]:
* $64 trillion = world’s output, the collective GDP
* $119 trillion = total value of stock and bonds
* $473 trillion = derivatives market valuation
* [Additional perspective, derivatives climbed to $684 trillion (as of June 2008)]
Wall St has created such a massive market out of speculation, that it dwarfs actual GDPs of the world. It’s 10 times the size. So if you want to think they are not in control, then wake up.
Sub-prime mortgages:
Do you think banks created them to take advantage of new owners in order to bundle and leverage the debt obligations at ratios of 33:1, as well as, reap massive profits in the home building industry bubble?
Or
Do you think risky, jobless, asset-less new owners forced the mighty banks into creating sub-prime mortgages, and additionally, force the banks to loan the money to the developers to build all the homes, and the trillions in leveraged securitized mortgages was just a wee coincidence? Seriously.
