Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee
And jpold, the people you work with might not be the same people that have caused America's issues, but rest assured they are similar. The financial industry, banks, the greed, it's all exactly what is wrong with the world today and the reason for this recession. There is no solution now. I know you might not want to believe it because you're probably a good, honest guy and you chose that career path but how can you deny the fact that the financial sector has basically doomed America?
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Holy generalization. Have you ever met any of the people I work with? Let alone anyone who works in the investment banking industry? I’m not going to sit here and tell you that they are all saints, they aren’t, but to point a single profession or industry and lay all the blame is missing the point. The financial sector played a large role in a system that was unsustainable and eventually popped, but they weren’t the only cause. You have to look at the big picture, which is the lifestyle of the western world. The reality is the middle class didn’t start disappearing in 2008 after the bailouts, it started disappearing in the early 1970’s when the rest of the world opened up and middle class American jobs could be outsourced to workers in third world countries for pennies on the dollar. But you couldn’t see the ramifications of those actions in the everyday lifestyle of middle America, even though the jobs where disappearing and the wages weren’t increasing everyone seemed to be doing well, why? Now it’s clear the answer was runaway debt. When the bubble popped in 2008 the level of household debt to income was 127%, whose fault is that? The banks for creating such an enormous supply of crappy loans? Yes, but the average consumer can’t be absolved from any blame either. If you signed up for a credit card and maxed it out and couldn’t pay it back is it entirely the credit card companies fault for lending you the money, or do you have some responsibility to live within your means as well? At the end of the day people are looking for someone to blame, and bankers/Wall Street are and easy target because of the bailouts. But at the end of the day all Wall Street does is help prop up a system that is broken on more levels than just a financial one.