Op-Ed: What Happened to the American Dream?-Minyanville

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Op-Ed: What Happened to the American Dream?

Minyanville Staff Dec 30, 2008 11:15 am

Op-Ed: What Happened to the American Dream?


		Founded on the merits of hard work and intellect, in many instances it's been reduced to one of materialism and greed.

CEO Steve Roth of Vernado, mentioned earlier, raked in $71.8 million last year in compensation. His company rode the wave of cheap debt for the last 8 years. He doubled the debt of his company from $6.2 billion in 2005 to $12.9 billion in 2007. Their leverage ratio exploded from 54% to 68%. He made deals that didn’t make sense from a cash-flow standpoint. His business plan was based on the “greater fool” theory - but he’s the fool. His stock price has plummeted 46%. No bank is willing to lend a commercial developer a dime and the commercial development Ponzi scheme will collapse next year.

But, not to worry. Roth and his fellow incompetent gamblers will screw the US taxpayer again by having them bail the company out. The wealthy, ruling elite will retain their place in the social order as the government makes the taxpayers the greatest fools.

Thomas Friedman, in a recent New York Times article, correctly assesses the corrupt financial system we are stuck with:

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"I have no sympathy for Madoff. But the fact is his alleged Ponzi scheme was only slightly more outrageous than the 'legal' scheme that Wall Street was running, fueled by cheap credit, low standards and high greed. What do you call giving a worker who makes only $14,000 a year a nothing-down and nothing-to-pay-for-two-years mortgage to buy a $750,000 home, and then bundling that mortgage with 100 others into bonds, which Moody's or Standard & Poor's rate AAA, and then selling them to banks and pension funds the world over? That is what our financial industry was doing. If that isn't a pyramid scheme, what is?"

The dice are loaded and the fight is fixed. Those who played by the rules, lived within their means, went to work every day, didn’t flip condos or use home equity to lease a Mercedes, will pay for those who lied, cheated, and cut corners. This is how the American Dream has turned into the American Nightmare.

American Dream Redux – Patriots Needed

Below is an email I received this week from a woman named Cindy regarding my last article about Bernie Madoff:

Mr. Quinn... I just completed reading your article and could not agree with you more... Possibly a word of advice will ease my pain...I am a single mother with 3 children, 23, 19, 16... I am 52, self made, and worked my entire life to achieve a comfortable level of success for my family...For years I ran side by side accounts with Paine Webber, Merrill Lynch and Bernie Madoff. Amazingly, I met an associate of Madoff's at a Church in Fort Lauderdale and entrusted him with $10,000 16 yrs ago... Nothing posh..Simply good... In the last 5 yrs Madoff out performed all, so naturally I moved my accounts and fed my Madoff feeder...Now, $1.7M later I am destitute... I will begin foreclosure on 3 of my investment properties and loose my primary home for I can no longer afford it....Why should a little guy like me have to suffer the consequences of an SEC over site...OHHH...I’m sorry, we will do better next time??? Why is it OK for Madoff to sit in his $10M apartment out on bail, watching TV and playing on the Internet?...


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Comments (14)

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David Gondek

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12-31-2008, 11:24 am
Which begs the question... if all of this is so obvious then why do we seem powerless to do anything about it? I believe the majority of the people in this country are in favor of most of the policies that Ron Paul es Read More

William Phillips

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12-31-2008, 5:17 pm
We need to Re-industrialise. We did it during WWII we can do it again. Get rid of the scuflaws and bring in a the new Era. Read More

Dan Conine

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12-31-2008, 5:18 pm
Don't disagree or agree. I think people are no different than the animals, living by tooth and claw, but when we separate ourselves from the animals with imagined 'honor' or 'virtue' that doesn't come from hard mai Read More

Dan Conine

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12-31-2008, 6:02 pm
I don't know about Sumeria, but the Greeks did write about the perils of Democracy, and how only the bullies win. Anyone trying to be honest or nice is not trusted by the public. Read More

William Sinacori

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12-31-2008, 11:25 pm
"My father's now crossing the threshold into the final stages of his ten-year battle with Alzheimer's disease â�� a battle he will ultimately lose. And I can't help but contrast the compassion, care, empathy and love he's Read More


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