Wall Street - a raw deal for the 100 percent

December 29, 2011, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)

Jon Corzine (center), a former governor of New Jersey and Goldman Sachs chairman, destroyed MF Global.

The stunning reality is that five years into the financial meltdown, it's business as usual on Wall Street - outlandish rewards for insiders with downside for almost everyone else. Occupy Wall Street protesters are right - something is wrong - but they're not sure what. Let's revisit the latest debacle - the implosion of yet another Wall Street darling, MF Global. The fallout of its bad bets on European bonds is hitting home hard, even in rural America, where many of its agricultural customers work. As the eighth-largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history, MF Global represents just about everything that is wrong on Wall Street. 

1. The cult of a Wall Street superstar. 

2. Gambling disguised as investing. 

3. The bail-me-out syndrome. 

4. Enormous conflicts of interest. 

5. Leverage on a grand scale. 

6. Failure of regulators and the reform law. 

7. Misappropriation of client funds. 

8. Worthless rating agencies. 

9. Golden parachutes soaring high. 

10. Breakdown of morality.  

Wall Street will keep sucking huge sums out of our economy and putting 100 percent of us at risk unless the rules change. Most important, we must stop gambling and start investing again to build valuable companies. The next crisis will make 2008 look like a warm-up. Imagine how big the Occupy camps will be if that happens.

Note: For a treasure trove of reports from reliable sources which provide detailed information on all the problematic dimensions of Wall Street's operations described in the article above, click here.