Solutions? Next Steps?

Where does this leave the public? Left in the dark? Will there ever be reform that works or is that just the nature of Wall Street and the global financial system? In 2008, rating agencies that inaccurately rated mortgage backed securities(MBS) for fees from banks faced no repercussions, and 1 banker from credit Suisse went to jail out of everyone involved in the misbehavior surrounding practices of shorting(bet against) credit default swaps which was the underlying cause for the 2008 crisis. This Libor scandal occurred during the same time, as did the manipulation of FOREX markets. Over the past 10 years traders from JP. Morgan have spoken out saying they and other traders within the firm used wash trading tactics to manipulate various commodity prices, specifically gold. And if it’s not the banks running scams to increase profits, its untrustworthily brokers like Jordan Belfort who would push shit stocks to clients, hold rat holes with a majority of the shares, drive the price up and then dump his position at the top leaving his clients absolutely REKT. Or we have Bernie Madoff who created the biggest and most successful pyramid scheme in history. Justice seems to find these scandals, as both these individuals did jail time, but it seems at the point when the cover is finally blown on these scandals, tax payer money is lost, investors are left with nothing, and wealthy banks or people pay their fines and see no real repercussions, returning to various other mischievous behavior.

In essence, Wall Street has become a game that the average citizen just shouldn’t play. Like Libor, most banking scandals are identified, and “solved” but this only leaves banks and financial institutions to seek greed elsewhere. It seems as though banks have a total disregard for ethical standards.

In my opinion, there isn’t much to be done about this problem. The reason people try to invest, or gamble, or buy seminars, and webinars and courses claiming to teach them how to make money is because people have this subconscious idea that wealth is the goal, and they will be inherently happier and better off if that are rich. This same idea holds true for banks and is the reason they continuously do what they do. Granted they have shareholders to attest to and a bottom line to meet, its usually individuals within banks who know the bonuses and promotions they will receive, in-turn money they will make, if they are able to produce or show big profits for the bank. So, they decide to use scandalous and fraudulent ways in order to outperform their colleagues and help outperform other banks to get ahead. Wall street in a disgustingly competitive place and people lost trying to conquer it.

The media doesn’t have much influence on wall street. No matter what a bank does, they will never be honest with media outlets, so newsfeeds are left just reporting the nonsense the banks’ lawyers and spokespeople tell them. Artificial bullshit. Only until a bank in prosecuted, or a trader is arrested, does the media get good, more truthful information about a situation.

Unless the structure of shareholders and capitalism changes, and people lose the desire to outperform their competitors and make more money, I think there will always be people who chose to do it in unethical ways. If people can find ways to cheat the system, and they see riches on the other side, some will not resist their id and do exactly that. Then find any which way to justify their actions. It’s unfortunate because there are a lot of honest, good people who work in this field who would never ditch ethics for more money, yet the few who do consistently ruin it for everyone else, and give Wall Street a bad rap.