Ebbie, I don't believe in calling these "paper losses". These losses were real money that folks earned by investing in financial products that they had a reasonable expectation that they were being managed in a prudent way. That is the essence of fiduciary responsibility. In my world, had I mismanaged the assets of a pension fund in the way that these robber barons have mismanaged the funds of their investors, as a union official I the right wing would have had me in jail. These losses are very much a real money loss in that folks were planning their lives on them. Even those that moved them into so-called "safe investment" vehicles are getting wiped.

In some countries, betrayal of the trust placed in you on this scale would result in a death sentence. I am not looking for that, but a large number of folks need to never see the light of day again for what they have done to working families in this country.

Mick