EQ4: BB≠FAIL, 37=4, 1%=37%

Dear Friends,

It has been well documented that the big banks are too big to fail, but there is much more to that story.  What used to be 37 banks are now just four big banks - CitiGroup, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo.  These four banks have received over $93 billion in bailout funds from the United States government and yet have never had a high level executive go to jail for the misdeeds of the banks.  There has been an incredible consolidation of assets and power in these few banks.  They buy the government, and the government lets them not just be too big to fail but to get even bigger and does not hold them accountable for breaking the law or the economy.

There has also been an incredible increase in the concentration of wealth in the hands of the richest Americans.  There are many catchy statistics to demonstrate this alarming fact - the top 1% of the richest families own over 37% of the wealth in the United States which is more wealth than the entire bottom 90%.  

I recommend a couple of articles to give you a more complete picture.  First one by David Gershon at "The Daily KOS" (here) and the second from Timothy Pilgrim formerly at Western Washington University (here).

The Tea Party talks about taking back their country.  We need to save our democracy which will require many things including a fairer distribution of wealth and power.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal