Con games are very prosperous, except to those who are being conned. Like any other pyramid scheme, Wall Street relies on an endless supply of new suckers to fe

Con games are very prosperous, except to those who are being conned. Like any other pyramid scheme, Wall Street relies on an endless supply of new suckers to feed it from the bottom. The deregulation of the 90's opened the flood gates to suckerdom (retail investors and 401k) and the new suckers came pouring in. In the meantime Wall Street invented new carnival games such as mortgage backed securities and derivatives to pull in large foreign investors. But like any pyramid scheme, as soon as the promised return on investment fails to materialize, the suckers wise up and walk away, the bottom falls out. The government then shuts down the carnival, but investors forget these painful lessons after about 20 years or so after which the market is ripe for another boom, and then the carnival comes back to town.