Greedy Plaintiffs and Their Lawyers

The propaganda machine for the insurance industry and the Chamber of Commerce have convinced many Americans that the real reason for their personal financial difficulties is greedy plaintiffs lawyers and greedy plaintiffs milking a broken civil justice system for jackpots. This is, of course, a lie.

In this morning's Star Tribune there was an article reporting that the average Wall Street pay has gone up by 16.6% in the last two years and (worse yet) 48% of Wall Street employees expected their bonuses this year will be higher than in 2011.

The reasons for the financial collapse, the reduction in home values across this country, and the reduction in your personal stock fund (if you have one) are (1) Wall Street greed and (2) greed on the part of the banks. Once the Wall Street types found a way to bundle home mortgages as securities, the need for more mortgages to bundle became insatiable and the banks were encouraged to lend money to anyone and everyone who came in the door. This in turn caused an unrealistic spike in home prices because the banks were willing to give everyone a mortgage. Supply and demand. Eventually the bubble burst and we all got burned, except, of course, for the greed heads on Wall Street and at the big banks.

No one can say that this was caused by juries making irresponsible parties for personal injuries inflicted on other human beings.