A new report says that Wall Street has only itself to blame for the misguided deregulation that led to the current deepening financial crisis.
Issued Wednesday by Essential Information and the Consumer Education Foundation, the report documents billions of dollars spent by the financial sector on what would eventually be their own downfall.
The 231-page report, "Sold Out: How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America," shows that the financial sector invested more than 5 billion dollars on purchasing political influence in Washington over the past decade, with as many as 3,000 lobbyists winning deregulation and other policy decisions that led directly to the current financial collapse.
"The report details, step-by-step, how Washington systematically sold out to Wall Street," said Harvey Rosenfield, president of the California-based non-profit organisation Consumer Education Foundation.
"Depression-era programmes that would have prevented the financial meltdown that began last year were dismantled, and the warnings of those who foresaw disaster were drowned in an ocean of political money," he said. "Americans were betrayed, and we are paying a high price - trillions of dollars - for that betrayal."
According to the report, government regulators, Congress and the executive branch have, on a bipartisan basis, spent the past three decades steadily eroding the regulatory system that restrained the financial sector from acting on its own worst tendencies.
CORRUPTION-US: How Wall Street Paid For Its Own Funeral
In a new report, Robert Weissman of Multinational Monitor points to twelve deregulatory steps that led to the financial meltdown. It also does an analysis of the amount of money Wall Street poured into Washington in campaign contributions and lobbying over the last ten years. Their answer? A staggering $5.1 billion over the past decade.
“Sold Out”: New Report Follows Lobbying Money Trail Behind Deregulation that Helped Cause Financial Crisis
Just so you have a short list of what's at stake if Washington DC doesn't change policy here and now (which means before the collapse in equities comes, which could start as soon as today, if the indicators I watch have any validity at all. For what its worth, those indicators are painting a picture of the Apocalypse that I simply can't believe, and they're showing it as an imminent event - like perhaps today imminent.)
What's Dead (Short Answer: All Of It)
CNBC Gives Financial Advice
CNBC's Rick Santelli is angry that those loser homeowners are going to get bailed out.
