Buffalo Boy's Blog
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Wall Street Mess Goes Back 20+ Years
This Wall Street mess goes back a lot further than most of us would like to know about. As far back as the mid 1980's the same coorporate insanity was taking place. This latest meltdown is the end of a process that started over 20+ years ago.
Author Michael Lewis writes about it in the above article and in his book "Liar's Poker" that tells about his time working and being hired in the mid-80's with absolutely no experience and being paid a six figure salary to play with other peoples money. He left after three years because he figured that the money train would end and people would be wiser to what was going on. Little did he know that he could have gotten away with so much more for 20 more years before the shit really hit the fan."I thought I was writing a period piece about the 1980s in America. Not for a moment did I suspect that the financial 1980s would last two full decades longer or that the difference in degree between Wall Street and ordinary life would swell into a difference in kind. I expected readers of the future to be outraged that back in 1986, the C.E.O. of Salomon Brothers, John Gutfreund, was paid $3.1 million; I expected them to gape in horror when I reported that one of our traders, Howie Rubin, had moved to Merrill Lynch, where he lost $250 million; I assumed they’d be shocked to learn that a Wall Street C.E.O. had only the vaguest idea of the risks his traders were running. What I didn’t expect was that any future reader would look on my experience and say, “How quaint.”
Check ou the rest of the article its a mind blowing read from someone who was on the inside and give you an idea of how much crap was really going on and for a lot longer than anyone would have thought. If this article and his book doesn't speak for more regulation of the markets and the financial sector by the federal government I don't know what does.
People on the right argue for smaller government. Yes, thats fine, smaller is good in the right places, but when it comes to regulating these financial institutions, bigger is better.
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