<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/a8eeda3e-c09a-4903-94c7-e0a02fea3637/B9D88899-2031-45EA-AE01-16CF8BDEB9CD/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.newgeography.com/content/00704-burnin%E2%80%99-down-house-part-two-wall-street-has-a-weenie-roast-with-your-401k" href="http://www.newgeography.com/content/00704-burnin%E2%80%99-down-house-part-two-wall-street-has-a-weenie-roast-with-your-401k" style="font-size: 11px;">www.newgeography.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.newgeography.com/content/00704-burnin%E2%80%99-down-house-part-two-wall-street-has-a-weenie-roast-with-your-401k">That’s when Wall Street staged a weenie-roast over the blazing fire of your 401k plan. They were making so much money in fees and trading profits that they decided to extend the scheme to car loans, credit card debt, and anything else they could package and sell off in capital markets around the world. When new money stopped flowing in and when the value of the underlying assets began the decline, the whole mess came falling down over their – and our – heads. </blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.newgeography.com/content/00704-burnin%E2%80%99-down-house-part-two-wall-street-has-a-weenie-roast-with-your-401k">In case after case, there are more derivatives than their underlying assets. Here’s an example of just how absurd this is: The market value of Bank of America (BofA) is $32 billion; the contracts that payoff if BofA fails are worth $119 billion. This isn’t rocket science math. It’s worth a lot more to someone to see BofA fail than it is to see them succeed</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.newgeography.com/content/00704-burnin%E2%80%99-down-house-part-two-wall-street-has-a-weenie-roast-with-your-401k">government has to</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.newgeography.com/content/00704-burnin%E2%80%99-down-house-part-two-wall-street-has-a-weenie-roast-with-your-401k">bailout these</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.newgeography.com/content/00704-burnin%E2%80%99-down-house-part-two-wall-street-has-a-weenie-roast-with-your-401k">entities that will have to pay off the bets if the other companies fail.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.newgeography.com/content/00704-burnin%E2%80%99-down-house-part-two-wall-street-has-a-weenie-roast-with-your-401k">The reason is</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.newgeography.com/content/00704-burnin%E2%80%99-down-house-part-two-wall-street-has-a-weenie-roast-with-your-401k">our 401k plans</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.newgeography.com/content/00704-burnin%E2%80%99-down-house-part-two-wall-street-has-a-weenie-roast-with-your-401k">pension plans</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.newgeography.com/content/00704-burnin%E2%80%99-down-house-part-two-wall-street-has-a-weenie-roast-with-your-401k">retirement benefits</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/B9D88899-2031-45EA-AE01-16CF8BDEB9CD/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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