Collapse Of Wall Street Foreseen But Defended By Many

October 5, 2008

The Facts

Two years ago Gary Weiss published a book entitled “Wall Street Versus America: The Rampant Greed and Dishonesty That Imperil Your Investments“. With the events of the past four months, you can easily imagine what the book is about. According to this article, Weiss changed the name of the book last year and republished it in paper back. The new name is “Wall Street Versus America: A Muckraking Look at the Thieves, Fakers, and Charlatans Who Are Ripping You Off”.

My View

I well remember Gary Weiss book from two years ago; I read it. And I also remember what I thought; “if this is true, a fall so big is coming that we’ll be wishing for 1929 again and that ensuing depression”. But what I remember the most now is all the critics of that book and how they tried, and succeeded in some cases, to make Weiss look like an idiot. Of course, that’s the rule of our society today; attack the messenger if you don’t have any facts to support your point.

CNBC and their guest at the time were the greatest defenders of Wall Street, and the biggest attackers on Weiss. Like today, it was those defenders who had the most to loose if Weiss was right, therefore, it’s no wonder they were taking a defensive posture. I recall many who belong to that same group spouting off about how solid Wall Street was just days before Bear Stearns collapsed. And most of them kept that up until the official announcement was made that Wall Street needed a bailout.

We’re a country of reaction instead of a country of proaction. (Aren’t we glad our forefathers weren’t like us?) We remain in denial until it’s too late; then we try to lay blame someplace else rather than at the feet of the real cause. It’s the only way we can “save face”. But when we do that, the problem is never solved. It will always come back to haunt us.

I’ve already written a post addressing the root cause of the Wall Street failure. In that post I, too, said it was greed that brought Wall Street to the place it is today. And only because Wall Street now needs our tax dollars to survive is greed even being mentioned by a few of those previous defenders. They do this only to make us working stiffs feel better about keeping the rich & powerful intact. But nothing has changed to prevent this from happening again. The bailout serves as nothing more than to confirm to those with uncontrollable greed that they will always have friends in high places who will steal from the poor in order to keep them rich.