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September 18, 2008

HAROLD MEYERSON--WALL STREET DESERVES TO DIE

By Jim Freeman

At the risk of speaking ill of the dead, what good was Lehman Brothers, anyway? And if Merrill Lynch was so bullish on America, why is it that, despite the torrent of foreign investment that flowed in to Lehman, Merrill and their Wall Street peers over the past half-decade, so few jobs were created in America during that period of "recovery"?

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At the risk of speaking ill of the dead, what good was Lehman Brothers, anyway? And if Merrill Lynch was so bullish on America, why is it that, despite the torrent of foreign investment that flowed in to Lehman, Merrill and their Wall Street peers over the past half-decade, so few jobs were created in America during that period of "recovery"?

Authors Website: http://www.jim-freeman.com

Authors Bio:
Jim Freeman's op-ed pieces and commentaries have appeared in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, International Herald-Tribune, CNN, The New York Review, The Jon Stewart Daily Show and a number of magazines. His thirteen published books are available at Amazon.

Websites at www.Jim-Freeman.com and www.dark-side-of-the-moon.com

I am politically left of center, tempered by respect for some of the thought on the right. It's the partisan intransigence I have opposition to and always try to frame my commentary from a thoughtful rather than outraged point of view. God knows there is enough to be outraged about, but that doesn't serve a useful purpose. We need coming together, not further distance.

I'm not young, having lived in portions of eight decades, but it gives me a sense of perspective, having experienced a goodly part of our history. I was there before TV, there when Wall Street gave sound advice, there when we knew our neighbors and banks were local. Many of my readers were alive and working before the internet, Wal-Mart and McDonalds--but damned few personally remember FDR, Truman and Eisenhower.

It's been a wonderful experience, but I have never had reason to fear for the future of my nation and I'm very deeply concerned at the moment. Essentially a novelist, I felt the Clinton impeachment and Bush administration left me little choice but to set aside fiction and speak out publicly. That's not a choice I regret, but I am sad for the circumstances that require it.

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