Ya know, maybe it's just me, but 50
BILLION sounds like a lot of '
scarole 
I honestly can't figure out why it is that the American people are standing idly by while this crap is going on. Dude, where's the outrage? It seems every story is worse than the last.
The immediate answer is it's all part of the current atmosphere in the United States - people are so shell-shocked by this stuff that it's like playing whack-a-mole trying to stop this kind of robbery. In essence, they are all getting away without major consequences.
You have to blame the SEC to begin with and then go up the chain of command to the very top.
It passed brazen a long time ago - I really have a tough time coming up with a suitable analogy, but it's really white-collar looting and it's been winked at since Bush stole the election the first time around...I think at that point it was abundantly clear that they could get away with anything without fear of consequence and that set the stage.
I had an interesting chat about this with a retired top FBI man I've met who ran some very well known criminal investigations and Wall St. Ponzi scheme investment fraud was among them - he explained to me in detail how it was done and how they were busted. His opinion on this bunco artist was the same - complete lack of due diligence by the appropriate agencies whose job it is to enforce regulations.
To my mind, their lack of action constitutes tacit approval. Reminds me of a story regarding the dismissal of the general manager of a very exclusive local private club over a scam by the assistant GM to skim money off the waiters tips.
They told the GM that he was either implicated in the theft or it simply went on without his knowledge due to his lack of diligence. Either way, he was to consider himself fired. Same sort of thing.
The bottom line is that an obscene amount of money has evaporated and most of it will take years of forensic accounting to locate if ever at all.
Ultimately, the most disconcerting thing for me is that I just can't figure out when it was that the moral compass of this nation got completely dismantled, although I have a couple of good guesses.
I was just given a copy of Al Gore's
The Assault on Reason and it touches precisely on this point.
Regardless of what you think of Gore, pro or con, it's brilliantly written and speaks to this very issue. I've just begun the book and I highly recommend that you read it - it will connect the dots for you, I guarantee.
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