Submitted by Jesse via Jesse's Cafe Americain blog,

"Give a small number of people the power to enrich themselves beyond everyone's wildest dreams, a philosophical rationale to explain all the damage they're causing, and they will not stop until they've run the world economy off a cliff." Philipp Meyer "Wall Street is not being made a scapegoat for this crisis: they really did this." Michael Lewis "My daughter asked me when she came home from school, “What’s the financial crisis?” and I said, it’s something that happens every five to seven years." Jamie Dimon "The greatest tragedy would be to accept the refrain that no one could have seen this coming, and thus nothing could have been done. If we accept this notion, it will happen again." Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (2009–2011)

The US has been in a cycle of bubbles, busts, and crashes since at least 1995, and more likely since Alan Greenspan became the Chairman of the Federal Reserve in August, 1987.



The cycle is the same, only the depth and duration seems to change in a continuing 'wash and rinse' of the public money and the real economy.



It has become a machine for transferring income, wealth, ownership, and power to the very top.



This is not 'the new normal.' This is financial corruption and the erosion of systemic integrity.

Are there any markets that have not been shown to have been systematically manipulated, for years?



This is just institutionalized looting.