The 2008 Global Economic Crisis: How Institutionalized Fraud Widened the Gap Between Rich and Poor | Global Research

The 2008 Global Economic Crisis: How Institutionalized Fraud Widened the Gap Between Rich and Poor | Global Research

“What’s the Primary Cause of Wealth Inequality?”, Charles Hugh Smith asks. It’s financialization, which he describes as “the
mass commodification of debt and debt-based financial instruments
collaterized by previously low-risk assets, a pyramiding of risk and
speculative gains that is only possible in a massive expansion of
low-cost credit and leverage”.

Wealth inequalities have been rising since the early 80’s, when
financialisation began. Unlike the aftermath of the Great Depression of
1929, in which the bottom 90% saw their incomes rise, the 2008 economic
crisis brought lower revenues for the same group, Smith writes.

Meanwhile: “The top 1 percent of Americans raked in 95 cents out of
every dollar of increased income from 2009, when the Great Recession
officially ended, through 2012. Almost a third of the entire national
increase went to just 16,000 households, the top 1 percent of the top 1
percent…”