“Last month, the nonpartisan financial reform organization Better Markets put out a report claiming that the total cost for the 2008 financial crisis and resulting recession reached $20 trillion. The number comes from an estimate of how much of a toll the crash put on the gross domestic product with high unemployment/underemployment and the hollowing out of the middle class through foreclosures, deferred education, and bankruptcies.

“The report draws parallels between the 2008 crash and the the crash of 1929 and Great Depression, noting that both were the result of an out of control Wall Street. After the 1929 crash, Congress put in place reforms such as Glass-Steagall Act to keep the banking sector from melting down again. Those reforms appear to have largely succeeded until their repeal in the 1990s by the Clinton Administration after lobbying by, among others on Wall Street, Citibank and Travelers Group (which would become Citigroup).”

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Read the full Shadow Proof article by Dan Wright here.