One of the many attributes that I love about Congressman Grayson is that he is consistent in his messaging and has never wavered since joining Congress on his battle to ensure that those that were responsible for 'the financial meltdown' of our nation, will not and should not go unpunished.
$12 Trillion dollars represents 20 percent of our Nations accumulated wealth for the past two centuries. But that figure only represents a small portion of the 'real' cost to our country and its citizens to what Congressman Grayson calls a 'National Tragedy.'
And make no mistake about it, this 'financial meltdown,' is a National Tragedy that will not be wished away, minimalized by excuses or apologists of Wall Street, because the financial meltdown has caused a world wide domino effect that is just beginning, and because there has been 'no accountability or one simple act of real financial reform' Wall Street is still conducting nefarious 'looting' at will, and that poses a national security risk to our entire nation.
The human cost of suffering due to the 'Wizards of Wall Street' endless gambling casino are staggering:
The body count is still rising. For months on end, marked by bankruptcies, foreclosures, evictions, and layoffs, the economic meltdown has taken a heavy toll on Americans. In response, a range of extreme acts including suicide, self-inflicted injury, murder, and arson have hit the local news. By October 2008, an analysis of press reports nationwide indicated that an epidemic of tragedies spurred by the financial crisis had already spread from Pasadena, California, to Taunton, Massachusetts, from Roseville, Minnesota, to Ocala, Florida.
Across the United States, people have been reacting to dire circumstances with extreme acts, including murder, suicide and suicide attempts, self-inflicted injury, bank robberies, flights from the law, and arson, as well as resistance to eviction and armed self-defense. And yet, while various bailout schemes have been introduced and implemented for banks and giant corporations, no significant plans have been outlined or introduced into public debate, let alone implemented by Washington, to take strong measures to combat the dire circumstances affecting ordinary Americans.
There has been next to no talk of debt or mortgage forgiveness, or of an enhanced and massively bulked-up version of the Nixonian guaranteed income plan (which would pay stipends to the neediest), or of buying up and handing over the glut of homes on the market, with adequate fix-up funds, to the homeless, or of any significant gesture toward even the most modest redistributions of wealth. Until then, for many, hope will be nothing but a slogan, the body count will rise, and Americans will undoubtedly continue going to extremes.
I urge you to read the rest of this article, ( Meltdown Madness : The Human Costs Of The Economic Crisis - By Nick Turse, it is astounding:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
That is why I am so grateful to have a humane, yet fearless defender of the American people in Alan Grayson, the Blue America candidate whose background was representing whistle blowers against war profiteers, and Congressman Grayson sits on the Financial Services Committee where he has been relentless in his pursuit of holding those accountable for what has occurred in our country.
With his breath of knowledge in Economics and the key financial markets Alan Grayson has a deep understanding of what caused the financial meltdown and why it is essential for the health and well being our nation that we must, regardless of how difficult the circumstances hold those accountable who brought our country to where we find our selves: A second Great Depression.
Where Greed Takes Control
The idea for Wall Street's institutions was to "dance until the music stopped." They all knew they had engineered a housing bubble and that the insane appreciation rates on anything with a roof would eventually fall back to earth. By then, the big players expected they would have found a seat, leaving them to watch the other, less-nimble players stumble and take their lumps.
There was one problem. Wall Street institutions were way too greedy and far too cocky. They believed that they were safe: In their view, they'd either be able to unload their holdings of the junk they'd created, or they had been clever enough to hedge away their risk with their own credit-default-swap-insurance schemes.
Because Wall Street believed it was safe, the institutions didn't see what was really happening. They were all in the same boat ... and that boat was sinking. That boat happened to be the U.S. economy - and other top economies around the world. Because of their greed, banks actually made the boat and forced us into it. They sunk, along with us, but got bailed out while we were left to drown.
http://moneymorning.com/...
Yes, that is the fact: We were left to DROWN, like the victims of Katrina, while Wall Street and the Banks were allowed to 'loot' our national treasury with 'no strings attached.'
Other costs for Americans due to the 'controlled fraud' and 'cover up' of the financial meltdown in our government:
How Banks Are Worsening the Foreclosure Crisis
By Brian Grow, Keith Epstein and Robert Berner
The banking industry is undermining efforts to keep people in their houses. And nearly 6 million foreclosures are expected in the next four years.
The bad mortgages that got the current financial crisis started have produced a terrifying wave of home foreclosures. Unless the foreclosure surge eases, even the most extravagant federal stimulus spending won't spur an economic recovery.
http://www.spiegel.de/...
Losses in Home Equity:
When value falls and debt stays the same, equity gets crushed (See The Problem With Debt). If house prices end up falling more than 40% peak to trough, which seems likely, U.S. homeowner equity will drop more than 70% and as many as half of American mortgage holders will be underwater.
For most consumers, one's house is one's biggest source of wealth. Economists have demonstrated that a loss of wealth leads to cuts in spending--from psychology and necessity. A 50%+ drop in home equity is one whopping-big loss of wealth. And it will have a lasting impact on consumer spending.
http://www.businessinsider.com/...
Deutsche Bank, which is also one of the largest and most respected financial institutions in the world, recently made a prediction that by 2011, nearly half of all US homeowners with a mortgage will be "under water" by then. Under water (or underwater) is a financial term which indicates that a home is worth less than what is owed on the loan. Holders of these types of loans are considered "upside down" and would lose money if they were to sell their homes.
http://www.sayeducate.com/...
Loss of Retirement Funds:
The stock market lost 56 percent of its value between September 30, 2007, and March 6, 2009, a decline of about $13 trillion. These losses have reduced the retirement savings of older Americans.
How Much Have Retirement Accounts Fallen?
* Assets in retirement accounts (defined contribution plans and IRAs) reached $8.5 trillion on September 30, 2007 (expressed in constant 2009 dollars). About 70 percent of these assets were invested in stocks. As of March 6, 2009, retirement accounts have lost $3.4 trillion, 40 percent of their value (figure 1).
http://www.urban.org/...
No One Saw It Coming?
Bernanke Knew The Financial Crisis Was Coming
After hearing Bernanke’s AEA address three years ago, I wrote in this in the February 2007 issue of my investment newsletter, Forecasts and Strategies:
"Anyone reading between the lines could understand that Bernanke is worried about a financial storm ahead. In his speech, Bernanke used the terms ‘crisis,’ ‘panic,’ ‘threats,’ ’stress’ and similar words at least 36 times.
"Bernanke said the Fed has set up a ‘crisis center’ to handle potential global financial problems – to anticipate them and deal with them if they occur. What are the possibilities?
* A dollar crisis, like the one Paul Volcker suggested would happen in the next few years.
* A non-dollar currency crisis in Asia, Europe or Latin America (shades of the 1997 Asian currency crisis).
* A housing crash and foreclosure crisis.
* A major terrorist attack on a key financial center, such as New York, London or Tokyo.
* A sharp rise in inflation.
"I doubt the Fed will cut rates again unless there is an imminent financial crisis of some sort that will require more liquidity and lower rates."
Just one year later, of course, Bernanke’s fears became reality when the financial panic of 2008 forced the Fed to cut interest rates to nearly zero and inject billions of new money into the economy to prop up the financial system.
Bernanke has since admitted that the crisis was "the worst in modern history."
So what is Bernanke saying now?
Blowing Bubbles... Blowing Policy... And Blowing Smoke
http://www.investmentu.com/...
Here's Alan Grayson (FL-08):
String 'em up.
In the last two days, the U.S. stock market has gone up by $1 trillion. That's because of a $700 billion direct transfer from taxpayers to financial corporations like AIG and, I guess, the expectation that another $300 billion will find its way into the deal before it's over. So tax dollars are being used to prop up the stock market, something that never happened even in the deepest depths of the Great Depression. It's corporate communism. That's the context.
Here is more context. $700 billion is over $2000 for every man, woman and child in America. For a family of seven, like mine, it's over $15,000. Someone just took $15,000 from me and my family, and gave it to anonymous bondholders whom I've never met, who have done nothing for me, to whom I owe nothing and -- right now -- I really don't like.
More context: you could take one percent of that amount -- one percent! -- and pay off the delinquency on every home mortgage in arrears in America. And keep people from losing their homes. But ordinary people get nothing from this Administration except grief.
http://openleft.com/...
Congressman Alan Grayson is one of the few public servants that is still looking to hold those accountable for the financial meltdown. It is good to know that at least someone in our government is speaking power to the truth.
Don't let anyone tell you that 'this was an accident,'...don't let anyone tell you that 'we had to bail Wall Street out,'....don't let anyone tell you that no-one saw it coming....don't let anyone tell you that you as an American do not deserve the truth and reparation.
At this point, you might find yourself asking: So what? Most of the banks have repaid the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) money that they so desperately needed. Most are returning to profitability, and some are even reporting record profits and paying out record bonuses to executives. Yes, some banks have gotten bigger, a lot bigger. Yes, there are more profits to be shared, because a couple of swaggering laggards of the old investment-banking mold - namely The Bear Stearns Cos. and Lehman Brothers Holdings (OTC: LEHMQ) - are gone. Is that so wrong? Isn't that part of financial Darwinism in our capitalist democracy? The truth is not what it appears to be. Bear and Lehman were ruthlessly crushed by their competition so there would be more business to be had by fewer players.
It wasn't evolution. It was execution.
The bigger banks get, the more they rely on a de facto government guarantee. "Too big to fail" is a doctrine pushed by banks that want to be so big that they crush - or at least absorb - their smaller rivals. Banks want to be a cartel and to be able to raise fees and the cost of money for their greater profitability, at will. Big banks are making money because the government is keeping interest rates low. Big banks are buying a huge portion of the U.S. Treasuries the government needs to sell to finance the deficit. And that deficit has reached its current size because the money was used to bail out the banks and to mitigate the collateral economic damage that Wall Street caused. It's a financing game, another bubble to re-inflate bank balance sheets by allowing them to generate a virtually risk-free, high-net-interest margin.
The human costs for this 'National Tragedy' can never be repaid, but if we refuse to hold those accountable for what has occurred, then by all means, expect more of the same because that is exactly what you will get.
America's Founding Fathers were afraid of any concentration of power in the republic. They were particularly afraid that banking interests could hijack our fledgling democracy.
And yet today, 234 years later, our Founding Fathers' worst fears have come true. Wall Street's stranglehold on the economy threatens our very prosperity, and the future of a truly democratic republic.
It's high time we address the truth about Wall Street's tyranny and set a course for a more secure economic future - one that's anchored by a safe banking system, not a system rigged by banks.
http://moneymorning.com/...
Thanks Congressman Grayson, for never giving in or giving up to the 'business as usual crowd.' The American people deserve better than having to bail out and watch as Wall Street receives billions in bonuses for crashing our national economy. While 'others' in our government remain silent, Congressman Grayson tells it like it is, and I'm thankful that he's a Democrat!!!!