May 24, 2011
I’m writing because I am one of the lucky Americans now retired from a career that has provided me with a retirement that I believe will continue for the rest of my life.
I chose government service rather than searching for wealth, knowing that part of the contract would be a secure retirement. Others are not so lucky. Many expected secure retirements and those retirements are either reduced or gone. Others have only Social Security and certain legislators would like to privatize that program so it can go the way of Wall Street. And we have all seen what Wall Street values! It's certainly not the American people!
Wall Street must be regulated. Regulations dropped over the years should be reinstated given current realities. Unchecked Wall Street will continue to behave as it did leading to the crisis and as it is now in reaping huge profits and giving huge bonuses to those who got us into this mess - all the while complaining about paying a fair share of taxes and giving up unneeded subsidies.. The idea that Wall Street could be expected to regulate itself is absurd! There is no morality in Wall Street (nor multinational corporations); greed dominates and profits are used to justify actions that are often criminal!
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 comments,
Susan Selbin