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October 11, 2008 5:27:13 AM CDT

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Public Silence Greets Wall St. Blunders

Posted Jul 19, 08 3:10 PM CDT in Politics,  Opinion,  Business 

(Newser) – America's financiers have driven the country into crisis with stunning recklessness, James Grant writes in the Wall Street Journal, but public anger seems strangely dormant. Populist politicians railed against Wall Street during past financial crises, Grant notes, but today's politicians appear largely uninterested in taking aim at the easy target.

They may be silent because past protests have already secured government-directed credit, Grant says, but that does not fully explain the lack of fury directed at those who have made a hash of high finance. "One might infer from the lack of popular anger that the credit crisis was God's fault," he observes, "rather than the doing of the bankers and the rating agencies and the government's snoozing watchdogs."

Source Wall Street Journal

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A Wall Street street sign hangs near the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, June 6, 2008 in New York.   (AP Photo/Jin Lee)
Angry crowds protested against the financial blunders of the Great Depression, but such public outrage is absent today despite Wall Street's recklessness.   ((c) pingnews.com)
Pedestrians walk pass the facade of the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, June 6, 2008 in New York.   (AP Photo/Jin Lee)
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Financial Crisis  • Federal Reserve  • credit crisis  • Wall Street  • subprime crisis  • credit market  • finance  • subprime mortgage crisis  • financial markets  • financial institutions


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