This quote says it all: "The people at the top were not willing to pay people at the bottom wages.." [View all]

[Richardo]

Last edited Tue Jan 31, 2012, 10:26 AM - Edit history (1)

... but they were willing to lend them money."

Heard on NPR's Marketplace last evening:

Kai Ryssdal: There's reassuring news on the macro-economic personal finance front today. We learned this morning personal income rose in December by the biggest amount in nine months. And here comes the good part -- Americans saved almost all the extra money they brought home. That's no mean thing in a country where debt is all too familiar. Debt is, in fact, and has been, an American way of life. Louis Hyman is the author of a new book called "Borrow: The American Way of Debt." Thanks for being here.

<snip>

Ryssdal: Yeah, which gets us to, writ very large, the banking industry. Right? Depending on who you talk to, banks are either directly responsible for the freeflow of capitalism, and thus the economic glory that is America. Or it is a vampire squid on the face of humanity. (OP's comment: )

Hyman: Yeah. Either way it's a monster and it's impersonal, and it's treated as if it were something we can't control. ...

<snip>

The question is why do we let them have all our money to play with? Certianly in the last year -- with the rise of Occupy Wall Street -- you have an increased sense of, oh, people are concerned again about inequality. For me the essential question is: How did inequality produce indebtedness? And in the book I talk about how the people at the top were not willing to pay people at the bottom wages, but they were willing to lend them money.

<snip>

Audio here: http://www.marketplace.org/topics/economy/big-book/history-american-borrowing

That boils the entire economic crash down to one sentence like I've never heard. The 1% literally owns and recirculates the money - 99% are NOT paid, they're LOANED to. Amazing.