The financial, legal and court systems in this country are all crime scenes. This dramatic and devastating statement of fact is not internet conspiracy fiction nor is it overstated hyperbole by a fanatic partisan. This is just reality and the facts are no longer in dispute.
Now we’re in the next phase where we must all confront the reality that no one is going to do anything about it. Americans and America will continue to suffer, but the architects of the crimes and the collapse just move right along as if nothing at all has happened. And with no punishment and no consequences, nothing really has happened….from their perspective at least. But what has this country become? Who are we as a people when widespread wanton lawlessness reigns all across this land?
Is there a price to pay for the failure of the rule of law? Is there a price to pay for the diminution, disregard and destruction of our legal system? If our courts and our laws no longer serve to restrain then is not our whole perception of stability and security a fiction?
I enjoy watching war documentaries and especially histories of World War II. I marvel at the courage and bravery of our soldiers who served in battle. At that point in time, this country was a country of honor and courage and leadership. Compare the leadership and valor of these men with the cowardice, the evil, the corruption that rules our country today. Is what’s happening in Wall Street and Main Street what these men fought for?
Think about that as you read the report just released by Congress:
In the fall of 2008, America suffered a devastating economic collapse. Once valuable
securities lost most or all of their value, debt markets froze, stock markets plunged, and storied
financial firms went under. Millions of Americans lost their jobs; millions of families lost their
homes; and good businesses shut down. These events cast the United States into an economic
recession so deep that the country has yet to fully recover.
This Report is the product of a two-year, bipartisan investigation by the U.S. Senate
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations into the origins of the 2008 financial crisis. The
goals of this investigation were to construct a public record of the facts in order to deepen the
understanding of what happened; identify some of the root causes of the crisis; and provide a
factual foundation for the ongoing effort to fortify the country against the recurrence of a similar
crisis in the future.
Using internal documents, communications, and interviews, the Report attempts to
provide the clearest picture yet of what took place inside the walls of some of the financial
institutions and regulatory agencies that contributed to the crisis. The investigation found that
the crisis was not a natural disaster, but the result of high risk, complex financial products;
undisclosed conflicts of interest; and the failure of regulators, the credit rating agencies, and the
market itself to rein in the excesses of Wall Street.
While this Report does not attempt to examine every key moment, or analyze every
important cause of the crisis, it provides new, detailed, and compelling evidence of what
happened. In so doing, we hope the Report leads to solutions that prevent it from happening
again.
