If Wall Street were truly serious about convincing Main Street that we're all in this together, its top executives would have stepped before the cameras yesterday and promised not to cut lines of credits to long-standing business customers who have never missed a payment.Of course, we've yet to see any such steps like this from the recipients of our collective largesse.
They would have committed themselves not to foreclose on any homeowner who is willing and able to refinance into a new, government-guaranteed, fixed-rate mortgage set at 85 percent of the current value of the property.
They would have offered to suspend dividend payments until capital levels had been restored to pre-crisis levels.
They would have given us their solemn promise not to advise clients to hold on to their own investments while quietly dumping whatever they can from their own portfolios and shorting every security in sight.
[snip]
And the maharajas of finance could have set a wonderful example if they had all gotten together and agreed to work for a dollar a year until the crisis has passed.
And this headline suggests the only promise made by Wall Street was one assuring us they'd cash our check.
(H/t to TPM)
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