I am sure all those who saw their 401k’s dive off the cliff will feel better now, knowing how dynamic the Wall Street guys are.
parsy, who says we should maybe make the work on Wall Street a whole lot easier for them, by banning hedge funds, most derivatives, and imposing the transaction tax
Folks watching their 401Ks should notice what happened to those savings over the last 20 years --- and thank those dynamic guys that made it happened. I am not even talking about the alternatives: chronic unemployment in France and Spain (now 18%), etc. Hamper Wall Street and you will get the same "paradise" they have in Europe.
Most importantly, parsy, why do you assume that 401K decreased in value because of Wall Street rathet than government? It's actually the government that MANDATED to issue bad loans, at a specified and increasing rate from 1998 through 2007. Home ownership increased from 65%, where is had stayed for a long time, to 69%. These 4% of the entire American population (12M people) could not buy a house for decades, no matter what Wall Street and other markets did. Now, the government DECREED that these people should be able to get a house (bad loans).
Wall Street and other markets do not create demand --- they satisfy it. Government's demand for bad loans was accommodated, but it is that demand that decreased your 401K.