Fed: Recession kicked median household wealth to 1992 level

Here is the article. This is not suprising but still sort of depressing. What they fail to mention is that a buck is worth considerably less today than back in 1992.

I look at who benefited from this, the classic cui bono if you will. It is pretty clear to me. Big bankers and financiers made a killing. Politicians did well on campaign contributions from those folks as well as using the money flowing into their coffers to buy votes. Personally they also made a killing on insider trading their consistently and consistently lucky investment choices. Some normal folks did well, if just for awhile. Nobody was complaining when their homes went up in value 20, 30 or even 40%. Nobody was complaining when the construction industry was booming.

I realized in writing this that I have sort of looked at bankers in the wrong way. I think a bit too locally. The assistant manager of West lake Trust in Peduke, Iowa population 50,000 didn't wreck out economy. That guy gives people loans they come to the bank looking for. Now the big bosses at Citibank, B of A, WAMU, etc all on the other hand had to knew what was really going on. That is why they got rid of these loans like a kid playing hot potato. They made money hand over fist for years. When the game was up they dumped all the junk onto the public in a variety of ways both above and below board. After that we loaned them cheap money which they used to buy up the competion which was slightly worse off or couldn't get easy money friend loans.

Between politicians making laws, setting conditions (keeping interest rates artificially low for years) and supporting their friends in banking and finance a lot of the blame goes to our wonderful elected officials. Banksters knowingly gave bad loans which they repackaged to unrecognizability then sold as rock solid. They bought politicians to do them favors and provide mafia like protection. These two groups royally screwed normal everyday Americans out of tons of money.

I cannot however totaly absolve people of the choices they made or the situations those choices caused. Lots of folks used electronic/ paper gains in their homes to finance vacations, new cars or home improvements and such. Some of them are mad now because they are "underwater" and have to pay back the money they so prudently cashed out during the boom. Lots of normal folks made poor choices thinking that somehow the good times would never end and ended up in a bad spot. Others tried to get in on the game and lost too, by the time normal folks get into the game the smart money is already on it's way out. Normal folks are standing when the music stops in the proverbial game of musical chairs.

Today I may be more disenchanted, with the establishment for lack of a better word, than I have been since the height of this mess in 2008 or so. Not exactly sure what if anything I will do about it.