This link was forwarded to me by my daughter who just finished her master's degree in marketing. It's a rather long and complex article, but is worth reading, both because of where it is published and what it says.
The New York Times has published an article showing how Charles Schumer blocked regulatory legislation in the financial industry on a number of occasions. He supported the bank bailout and received at one point $135,000 in campaign donations from financial executives when he promised that the Democrats would guide the country through the financial crises. During his time in the Senate, he succeeded in limiting efforts to regulate credit-rating agencies, sponsored legislation that cut fees paid by Wall Street firms to finance government oversight, pushed to allow banks to have lower capital reserves and called for the revision of regulations to make corporations' balance sheets more transparent.
According to the article:
""He is serving the parochial interest of a very small group of financial people, bankers, investment bankers, fund managers, private equity firms, rather than serving the general public," said John C. Bogle, the founder and former chairman of the Vanguard Group, the giant mutual fund house. "It has hurt the American investor first and the average American taxpayer.""
It's a little late to worry about who is to blame for this mess, but we need to remember not to let the people who caused it try to fix it. They will probably make the same mistakes and make a bigger mess!
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