Yes, we do need to find a Pecora again. Immense crimes have been committed and the perpetrators have to be punished. Until they are I don't believe that our financial systems will recover.

If the financial system is built on trust, but the folks running the system are the same ones that brought the system to its knees, then how can anyone trust?

Value is a human construct. We exchange pieces of printed paper to "buy" goods. No longer is gold or silver exchanged. Indeed it is becoming even more abstract. We cause our numbers to go down in our account and go up in the vendor's account when we agree to a transaction. It is based on trust and a common agreement about value.

If value cannot be determined or if we can not trust the vendor of whatever then it all breaks down. The system locks. Commerce stops.

That is what we are seeing today.

These guys were gaming the system. They'd become cynical. This was funny money in their eyes, but they could buy real houses, buy real cars, send their kids to real schools, and fuck real top hookers. But the money wasn't real and they knew it.

They were pulling it out as quickly as possible in bonuses and salary. They knew it wouldn't last. They were stealing from you and me and from the country.

They should go to jail.

My great uncle Charlie went to jail for bank fraud in the 30's because he did a favor for a friend and brought him cash during a bank run. Too bad a run started on Uncle Charlie's bank while he was taking the suitcase of cash to his friend's bank.

When the music stopped people lost everything. My uncle Charlie went to Federal prison for three years and then committed suicide when he got out. But there had been many suicides across town before he was even tried due to Uncle Charlie's bank failing. His depositors lost their money. They were ruined.

What these guys did is no different. They were playing with everyone's money and then the money came due and they had taken it out of the vault.

Punishment is due. They must pay with their fortunes and their freedom. Let the trials begin!

The Rudy Giuliani of the 1980's would the perfect guy. Too bad he turned into a total whore exploiting fear when running for office and selling "access" for his day job. God, was he really running for president less than 2 years ago. Rudy? Rudy?

Time tends to blur events. So much so that many today are as ignorant of Pecora and the Depression as if it had happened on Mars or on some remote star.

But, then, many were just as oblivious to the ways of Neo-liberalism and its consequences--- the homelessness it caused; the way it impoverished and brutalized the most vulnerable in our community, rigged the system in favour of the rich, and robbed the public. It's as if they had eaten Lotus, which induced forgetfulness.

Yes, they rage now. But, it wasn't that long ago that the middle class, and even low income earners, were enamored of the rich---basically because they wanted to be one of them, however absurd and futile such a longing actually was (they didn't abominate them back then when they bought gold toilets and had maids--in a democracy too!). And still some, mind you, go to bat for the wealthy and powerful if the deluded who posted letters in relation to the pirates are anything to go by.

Neo-liberal capitalism---(which is just capitalism without the regulation really. When republicans say they want small government what they really mean is that they want barely any democracy. But, of course, if they were to actually put it that way you wouldn't be so dumb to vote for them as some Americans have been doing, so they say they want minimal government instead; very cunning are they)---caused the greatest gap between the rich and poor not seen since the Gilded age, which bought senators helped bring about by manipulating laws so that they benefit the wealthy (which meant of course screwing the public). So who's surprised that Glass-Steagall was repealed; why a pesky law that protected the little people had no business interfering with rich folk being able to exploit those people (aaaaaaoh, but it wasn't put that way, was it?. They said instead it interfered with the market, which is to say with their attempt to accumulate capital for themselves which they could only do by lowering your wages and your rights and any laws which favoured you and not them. But they forgot to mention that part). That was par for the course.

The bankers and financiers did as they pleased because they were able to use the government as their instrument to get what they wanted. They lined the pockets of politicians and funded their campaigns for just that purpose after all; they used the media, which the rich own, to manufacture consent for their pillage, getting you to blame it on welfare recipients instead which is like blaming soldiers for wars rather than rulers). The result was staggering inequality, usually found in places like South Africa and South America.

To justify having, the haves try convince you that the poor are sub-human, who got that way because they're stupid or irresponsible, unlike you and me. Or they're lazy who just want to live off welfare and not work (just as women who have sex without procreating are sluts; same bigoted mentality). It's in the best interest of the haves to vilify the underclass so they can keep on accumulating obscene amounts of wealth, which alas can't be done without impoverishing others (hence why your wage is stagnating while executives get massive bonuses and mega-salaries which no amount of propaganda could ever justify). The last thing the economic elites want is for you to cotton on that the poor and downtrodden earn the place they have on the lower rungs of the class pyramid by the sheer accident of birth. That they're not given the same life opportunities as you because they were born in the slums or barrios or ghettos or projects rather than in the affluent suburbs of the cities of the world. Many of you also would prefer not to know it either because then you would not be able to feel more superior to the less fortunate and look down on them, pretending to yourself that you got where you did because of your superior intellect or drive or hard work when in fact it was the high place you occupy in the class pyramid that enabled you to get ahead or achieve. And as long as you do delude yourself in this way, and think class domination and discrimination and inequality and unfairness do not exist then things will remain as they are. Bankers need not be afraid. Wall street can rest in the knowledge that you can easily be duped and resume their predatory practices without blinking, or needing to watch their back.

Back when the church was dominant, it wasn't just Voltaire or the enlightenment which helped end their reign; it was the fact that people stopped believing their superstitious dogma. Once people stop believing the myths--such as, that the market is the best of all possible worlds, as if it functioned by itself and there were no agents; that the rich got that way not because they're the dominant class and able to manipulate laws to operate to their benefit, and the private sector is more efficient-- that is when the dominance of the wealthy will come to an end and their pillage will stop.

When people stop wanting to be wealthy (a chimera) and wanting everyone to be equal, true democracy will be born. How to stop the wealthy from pillaging us and gaming the system and causing economic collapse? More democracy. Democratize democracy. Prosecute tycoons and indeed put wealth--that is, capitalism--on trial.