For Immediate Release
Media Contact: Jessica Ault
Tel: 202-618-6430
Washington D.C., — GAO Reports that the Losses from the Financial Crisis “Could Exceed $13 Trillion”
“GAO released a Report today on the ‘Financial Crisis Losses and Potential Impacts of the Dodd-Frank Act,’ which states that those ‘losses could exceed $13 trillion.’ The Report is a welcome and long overdue analysis of what the Wall Street caused financial crisis has cost the country,” said Dennis Kelleher, President and CEO of Better Markets, Inc., an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes the public interest in the financial markets.
“There is a nonstop drumbeat from Wall Street and its many allies baselessly complaining about the cost to them of the laws and rules passed to protect the American people from another financial crisis. They never mention that it was Wall Street’s reckless investments and trading that caused the biggest financial collapse since the Great Crash of 1929 or the trillions of dollars in costs they inflicted on our country, giving us the worst economy since the Great Depression. That economic wreckage can still be seen from coast to coast in unemployment, foreclosed and underwater homes, lost retirements and educations and so much more,” Mr. Kelleher said.
“The GAO’s Report that losses to the country from the financial crisis could exceed $13 trillion is consistent with a report issued by Better Markets September 15, 2012, on the fourth anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, showing that the cost of the crisis will be more than $12.8 trillion. Officeholders, policy makers, rule makers and the executive branch have to put strong and effective financial reform into place as fast as possible to make sure that Wall Street can never do this to our country again. Those massive financial and human losses and costs are what is at stake in financial reform,” said Mr. Kelleher
The GAO Report can be found here: http://www.gao.gov/assets/660/651322.pdf
The Better Markets Report on the “Cost of the Crisis” can be found here: https://bettermarkets.org/sites/default/files/Cost%20Of%20The%20Crisis.pdf
