The great recession, or so the period has been called, has had a price tag. It equates to the loss of about ten years economic progress for the working classes. They've lost ground, and it will take about a decade to break even, more or less, for those who have the time and income available. The poor lost more.
Not everybody lost out, though. The rich actually continued to increase in annual income, further widening the gap between the wealthy and everyone else.
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Prince Bandar Bin Sultan sells his luxurious
Aspen, Colorado estate to Hedge Fund billionaire
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Then there are the heavy hitters in hedge-fund and private equity businesses. Along with the
investment bankers, these are the very people who have been blamed for
the current financial woe’s of the world. Of the world! These very few people have become super rich, and while the global
economy is in turmoil around us, they get to sail off into the sunset with bulging pockets, to lay back and wait for the next set of
opportunities that will come along.
There are men and women in the finance industry who have made millions or hundreds of millions while delivering a deadly blow to the world. They did so knowingly without conscience or remorse, as best we've been able to determine. None have even begun to acknowledge the losses for which they are responsible. Or the deaths.
In Africa, the number of chronically hungry people rose by 1 million a year in
2000-05 and by more than 6 million a year beginning in 2007-12. That doesn't mean they're hungry because they missed a meal; it means they are starving. With most of family income spent on corn meal, when prices doubled in 07, 400,000 deaths are attributable to Wall Street for the first recession year in eastern Africa alone.
Karma is only a killer if you are, someone said, intending to be humorous. You wonder though, what it will be like for the greed-players after living a life of wealth and luxury, to realize that they are among the most loathsome of all of mankind, that they were selfish and brutal beyond measure, that their arrogance and hubris were visible through it all, and that they were the deceivers and murderers of innocent children and families.
We hope for better.
Not everybody lost out, though. The rich actually continued to increase in annual income, further widening the gap between the wealthy and everyone else.
There are men and women in the finance industry who have made millions or hundreds of millions while delivering a deadly blow to the world. They did so knowingly without conscience or remorse, as best we've been able to determine. None have even begun to acknowledge the losses for which they are responsible. Or the deaths.