TARP watchdog (and newly minted populist hero) Elizabeth Warren does
it in just one paragraph:
“The financial industry wrote rules that allowed it to act recklessly.
The industry captured agencies that were supposed to regulate it,
taking cops off the beat and funneling enormous resources into the
political process to make sure there wouldn’t be any new cops. Then,
with no laws to hold them back, the banks made hundreds of billions of
dollars on the sales of deceptive products. That went on for years,
and the industry’s tricks-and-traps pricing got more and more out of
control. Eventually, the sale and re-sale of deceptive mortgages and
other dangerous products made trillions of dollars for Wall Street
while bringing down the American economy. When the industry’s
recklessness brought the biggest banks to the brink of collapse, Wall
Street turned to the taxpayers for bailouts and guarantees, which put
it right back into big profits and big bonuses.”