Blaming Each Other for the Financial Crisis
According to a recent survey by myFi, a financial service of Citi, Americans are largely blaming one another for the financial crisis. Among the 5,000 people polled, 72 percent blame the crisis on excessive spending by American consumers; 64 percent blame Wall Street; 62 percent blame excesssive borrowing by homeowners; and 59 percent blame the federal government.
I think there’s plenty of blame to go around, which I laid out in this Yahoo!Finance column. The one issue I failed to mention was that on Capitol Hill, almost no one is looking out for the common man’s finances – only for the people who provide campaign contributions. Hedge Fund manager Andrew Lahde discusses that problem pretty eloquently in his farewell missive to the shareholders of his hedge fund, which he closed after just one year — in which he earned an 866% return betting against the subprime collapse. CNBC posted Lahde’s letter on its website.
It’s worth pointing out that there are still a few elected officials pushing legislation to protect the consumer:
-Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Barney Frank have introduced a bill to limit aggregious practices by credit card companies.
-Reps. Herb Kohl and Tom Harkin have advocated for better fee disclosure from 401(k) plan providers, so you can see if your plan provider is gobbling up a good chunk of your investment return. Kohl has also introduced legislation to partially address the issue of banks illegally freezing the social security funds of senior citizens.
-Reps. Russ Feingold and Hank Johnson sponsored a bill to address unfair mandatory binding arbitration agreements, which are now in virtually every consumer contract you sign.
- Maloney, Frank and Rep. Julia Carson have sponsored legislation to protect consumers from unfair bank overdraft practices.
Who do you blame for the economic crisis?
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