Banks Crashed the Global Economy in 2008 — Every Single Executive Kept Their Bonus

[00:00:00]The 2008 financial crash wiped out 13 trillion in American wealth. Not one banker went to prison. For years, Wall Street banks were selling mortgages to people who couldn't afford them. Then packaging those loans as investments and selling them as safe. They knew they were worthless. They sold them anyway.

[00:00:17]When the bubble burst, Lehman Brothers collapsed overnight. The stock market lost 50% of its value. 8 million Americans lost their jobs. 10 million families lost their homes. Retirement savings wiped out in weeks. The government responded immediately. Not for the families, for the banks. $700 billion in taxpayer money handed to the institutions that caused the crash.

[00:00:40]Called the bailout. The same banks that destroyed the economy were deemed too big to fail. Too big to jail. The CEO of Lehman Brothers walked away with $480 million in compensation before the collapse. Goldman Sachs paid out $16 billion in bonuses the same year it received a government bailout. The Justice Department investigated. Settled for fines. Fines paid by shareholders, not executives. Nobody did a single day.

[00:01:07]A kid caught with drugs does years in prison. The men who destroyed the global economy retired to their yachts. That's not a glitch in the system. That's the system working exactly as designed.