“The Wall Street collapse in 2008 and the ensuing financial crisis has cost the nation an estimated $12.8 trillion, according to a study released Wednesday by Better Markets, a Washington advocacy group that lobbies for financial reform and tighter regulations on Wall Street.

The financial downturn’s huge price tag, which Better Markets attempts to calculate by adding the estimated $7.6 trillion in lost gross domestic product from 2008 to 2018 and the estimated $5.2 trillion in government bailouts and incentives, doesn’t even include the more-difficult-to-quantify damage to the nation’s psyche, Dennis Kelleher, the group’s president and CEO said.”

“There’s a loss of belief in the American dream,” Mr. Kelleher told reporters in Washington, D.C. “That’s how bad things are.”

Read Tim Devaney’s full article here