Wall Street is recording record profits and, as noted by The Daily Kos, is partying like it’s the Roaring 20’s but for many Banks and the Middle Class, the real world is collapsing — unemployment is through the roof, wages are shrinking and consumers are still leery of spending money — and, as noted by the New York Times (NYT), the contrast between the immense good fortune of a few and the continuing suffering of all too many bodes ill for the future due to the fraud that has run rampant for the past several decades.
America has once again become the victim of a major financial slump created on Wall Street that is still resulting in the loss of many jobs. As a result of America’s slump, Goldman Sachs is making record profits and paying record bonuses. Since Wall Street was ‘bailed out’ by American taxpayers, nothing has been done to insure that the financial crisis doesn’t happen again or to stop any new fraudulent activities.
According to the NYT, it’s not a simple case of flourishing banks versus ailing workers: banks that are actually in the business of lending as opposed to trading, are still in trouble. Citigroup and Bank of America (BofA) are just a couple examples of banks that are now reporting losses.
Goldman Sachs made a lot of money and benefited greatly from a questionable bailout that put large sums of public money at risk — money that was used to bailout AIG and money that was used to extend many of Goldman’s extremely questionable betting practices and bonds.