But, it feels like there were attempts by government to regulate and penalize bad actors. Watered down and neutered by lobbyists, of course. FINRA and Rohit Chopra and Lina Khan had some power in the last administration.
But, this seems like the top down government is actively engineering a looting of the treasury for private interests.
Am I wrong that this feels at a totally different scale and audacity?
I believe the difference is that now it is really "in your face" because the internet is dominant.
The world of money/finance/banking always had a lot of money and the best thing they can buy are the people in charge. There are plenty of books explaining it decades ago and and I read a lot of them. 2008 was when it started to become mainstream for the first time, now it is free to read on substack.
The difference is also today we have an open battle between an old guard and the tech/crypto challengers, and it seems the newcomers have outbid the old guard in the current administration.
Should you side with WellsFargo/Visa/Mastercard or Circle/Tether/Strip ?