May 19, 2011
I’m writing because my family and I were affected by the economic collapse of 2008, and we don’t want it to happen again.
In California, we have seen our bond situation deteriorate and have suffered a massive stealing of state money through fraud and mismanagement of pension investments at the state and local level by large banks and earlier through fraud by Enron. This continues to affect the state's credit rating, need to borrow and overall debt. We did not cause this economic disaster. The banks and Wall street did.
Wall Street greed and outrageous pay practices were a major cause of the collapse. One way to change the incentives so they don’t collapse our economy again would be to delay the bonuses for three, five or more years. That way, we’ll know if the loans they made in year one remain good. In the bad days, bankers paid themselves on the volume of loans (mortgages) they generated, not on their quality.
Thank you for considering my comment,
Matthew Swyers