Haim, you have obviously not heard that there has been a big decline in the price of houses. <the money they play with is shareholders money or money deposited in trust . wonder where the over $350 billion went that where entrusted to lehman by small savers People bought houses. They used money. The money they used was borrowed from companies like Lehman Brothers. The money that companies like Fannie, Freddie, Leman and Wells Fargo loaned was loaned to Lehman by small savers and big savers such as sovereign funds who had been paid $billions by oil buyers.
The people who bought the houses gave the sellers twice as much money as the houses were worth.
The price went down.
When the houses were subsequently sold to defray expenses, only half as much money was paid.
The mortgagees [that is the people who loaned the money, namely Leman and co] were out of luck, and money. They went broke.
The people who thought they were $millionaires through their jumbo mortgages learned that they were not.
Those deadbeat borrowers who were clueless about the value of houses and did not repay their loans should be thrown in debtors prison or shot or otherwise punished. If they go and cause trouble on Wall Street, they should be rounded up and shipped as slaves to Africa.
So, to answer your question. The $350 billion went to the people who sold the houses at high prices. But it went to them in various ways as the likes of Lehman did tricky financial engineering to offload the loans to gullible others but the counter-parties to the various transactions turned out to be as reliable as the buyers of the high-priced houses so Lehman and others missed out on those financial engineering moves.
Of that $350 billion, much of it was taxed so about $100 billion went to Big Brother to help keep evil-doers like General Dostum in power in Afghanistan. If you thought Saddam Hussein was bad, you should see what his evil twin Dostum gets up to. The tax from that $350 billion is backing Dostum.
The problem is the Mindless Zombie electorate who will soon vote to perpetuate the process. Those people who went broke borrowed money which ended up in General Dostum's pocket, It was probably not their intention to go bankrupt, losing their small amount of savings, which was transferred to General Dostum. But that's what they voted for and they did choose to pay too much for a house, so that's what happened.
Rioting on Wall Street is barking up the wrong tree. First, they should take a look in the mirror.
Mqurice |
