FWIW: I recently watched a thorough, careful and devastating documentary called The Con, which is about the 2008 crash precipitated by speculation in and derivativization of subprime mortgages. That crash not only tanked the economy, but also gutted the pensions of millions of Americans—even as millions lost their homes. Some even committed suicide.
Delivered in five one-hour segments, the documentary diligently goes through how the “con” worked from the very lowest levels (small banks, mortgage brokers, appraisers) all the way through to the highest levels of finance, accounting and government. It assigns blame also to many politicians both left and right who enabled, indulged or abetted the con.
This involved not just convincing ordinary Americans to unwisely take on unreasonable debt, but deliberate and undeniable fraud upon many of those people, many of them elderly—some of whom did not even know debt had been taken out on their property.
The documentary also shows beyond question that the end result (the collapse of the U.S. economy, including vast bailouts of the very people at the top who cause it) was completely predictable. Indeed, some of those most closely involved had been at the center of previous frauds and economic debacles.
And our politicians consciously removed the safeguards which allowed it to happen; they looked the other way as they were warned what was to happen; and they let virtually everyone responsible skate, pocketing bonuses often in the hundreds of millions each.
Why is this important to this topic today? Old news, right? No. Because almost nothing got fixed after 2008. And according to the filmmaker, it’s happening all over again. Not just with mortgages, but with student loans, credit card loans, and other forms of debt which are being packaged up into bogus, junk-laden securities including derivatives.
Meanwhile, the stock market (in which I am still heavily invested, against my better judgement) keeps rising and rising. Even as the pre-pandemic problems which were already arising have been made doubly or triply worse by COVID. We can now add to the greed and recklessness of Wall Street and other allied, predatory forces a widespread concern about mass evictions, bankruptcies, small business failures, and the likelihood of wave after wave of additional bailouts... Most of which will go to those who do not urgently need them, or need them at all.