Don't Worry - the Men Who Stole the American Dream Are Doing Just Fine

I decided to take a look at executives involved in the 2008 financial crisis, which crushed the American dream for millions of families, only to find out, most of them are thriving in Trump's America

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When I set out to learn why so many Americans went MAGA — unaware they’d fallen prey to a Russian op — I was saddened to learn that some had turned bitter after the devastation of the 2008 mortgage meltdown.

I interviewed a series of people who were attracted to Trump’s promises, because they said they felt let down after the financial crisis and the loss of their homes.

During the actual recession, I produced a broadcast news series - a toolkit of sorts - to help people stay in their homes after being conned by predatory lenders. I had firsthand experience trying to save a home from a Big Evil Bank, which I wrote about here:

Things In Trees — A Christmas Story of Hope

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Creeps In Trump’s Orbit

So many creeps in Trump’s orbit profited off the devastation of human loss — Tom Barrack and Sean Hannity come to mind.

Trump pal Barrack profited off the US housing crisis by buying distressed assets, mostly single family homes, and transforming them into rental units, earning him the label of slumlord after the Better Business Bureau reported a pattern of complaints over bad repairs, high fees, and poor maintenance.

Reports from 2018 revealed Hannity was linked to shell companies that purchased hundreds of distressed homes across the US following the mortgage crisis — 870 homes in seven states. This news broke when the world learned that Hannity was one of only three clients of Trump’s private attorney, Michael Cohen. His first client was a convicted sex felon, his third client, Elliot Broidy, pleaded guilty to violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

The Devastation of the American Dream

Just a reminder: the 2008 financial crisis severely damaged the world, prompting a global recession and the devastation of the American dream.

Everyone was dirty — the banks, the brokers, and Wall Street for funding the entire operation. Admittedly, I have sympathy for the borrowers, because yeah, they should have known better, but like me, were often too trusting.

Loud Talker

So there I was at a cafe the other night, trying not to listen to a Loud Talker, four tables over, but that proved impossible.

He was telling the young audience imprisoned at his table, that NO ONE ON WALL STREET DID ANYTHING ILLEGAL. Being an investigative reporter, I quickly figured out who he was, but that’s not the point of this report.

Reflecting back on that devastating era, I thought to myself: “That degree of greed should have been illegal. That degree of stupidity is criminal."

Predators, all, I thought.

And then, as if to psychically counter his obnoxiousness, I thought to myself, where are they now?

What happened to the men who crushed the American Dream with their greed and predatory behavior?

Well, it turns out, they’re all doing fine.

Thanks to the leadership of George W. Bush, the banks — with the exception Lehman Brothers — were bailed out by the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Among the largest recipients of TARP funds were Bank of America, Wells Fargo, AIG, JPMorgan Chase, General Motors, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley.

Not bailed out, however, were the six to eight million people who lost their homes to foreclosure during the peak of the crisis, with estimates reaching up to 10 million between the years 2007 to 2014.

So Where Are They Now

• Richard Fuld, the last CEO of Lehman Brothers, a major driver in mortgage-backed securities, led the company when it filed for bankruptcy in 2008 to the tune of $613 billion. Fuld went off the grid until 2016, when he became the CEO of Matrix Private Capital Group, managing assets for wealthy clients. His net worth is unknown but reportedly in the $100 million range.

• Jamie Dimon is the CEO and chairman of JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in TARP funds. As of December 2025, Forbes lists his net worth at three billion dollars. In 2023, he testified under oath in multiple lawsuits accusing the bank of serving convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein from 1998 to 2013, despite repeated warnings. In 2023, JPMorgan Chase paid $75 million to settle a lawsuit with the US Virgin Islands, which accused the bank of facilitating Epstein’s sex trafficking operations. The bank also settled with Epstein victims for $290 million. In January of 2025, Dimon said he supported Trump’s tariff policies.

• John J. Mack was the CEO of Morgan Stanley, which was saved from collapse by a government bailout — $10 billion of TARP funds and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, which injected it with $9 billion dollars. Among the boards he sat on before his retirement was Glencore, which had a hefty stake in Russian oil. While CEO at Morgan Stanley, he earned a total compensation of $41 million, and his net worth is listed in the $200 million range.

• Lloyd Blankfein was the CEO of Goldman Sachs, which received a $10 billion government bailout. He remained at Goldman Sachs until 2018. He is releasing his memoir, Streetwise: Getting to and Through Goldman Sachs, next month. As of February 2026, Forbes lists his net worth as $2.3 billion. In 2022, he said, the US economy feels “growthier” since Trump.

• Ken Lewis was the CEO of Bank of America during the financial crisis and oversaw the purchase of Merrill Lynch and Countrywide Financial. Lewis paid a $10 million dollar settlement, after being sued for misleading shareholders. Shareholders acrimoniously attempted to force him out, and he retired in 2009. Reports of his estimated net worth fluctuate wildly, but he is estimated to own about 1.6 million shares in Bank of America stock, valued at $94 million.

• John Stumpf was the chairman and CEO of Wells Fargo during the 2008 crisis, and served until 2016, when he was forced to resign after a fraud scandal revealing employees creating millions of fake accounts to meet sales targets. He was barred from the banking industry. Although he had to forfeit $69 million in compensation, in 2020, the Los Angeles Times reported he’ll never have to work again — citing stock valued at $80 million when he walked away, as well as a pension worth $22.7 million.

• Former Countrywide Financial executives. You might recall that Countrywide made predatory loans to tens of thousands of Americans, which helped ignite the global catastrophe. In 2009, about a dozen Countrywide executives began buying delinquent home mortgages that the US government took from other failed banks, sometimes for pennies on the dollar. And they got very rich.

I had the massive displeasure of a phone conversation in 2007 with a Countrywide executive. I can’t swear to which one it was, but our mutual was from the well-heeled hills of Calabasas, California. I was put on the phone with the exec because he supposedly was interested in nightlife and potentially getting into the nightclub world, and I had been a nightlife columnist for the Los Angeles Times since 1992 and knew everyone. Always happy to help.

For about ten grating minutes, I listened to the person on the other end of the phone talk, and talk over me, and keep on talking. It was like listening to a coked up businessman, addicted to the sound of his own voice.

I couldn’t get a word in edgewise and frankly, I stopped trying.

I was glad when Countrywide exploded, saddened by all the harm they caused. Today as I write this report, I am equally saddened to learn everything turned out just fine for their C-team.

It’s true, that their former CEO died of natural causes, and their former president died of Covid and brain cancer. But while they were alive, they had luxurious post-bubble lives.

Only one US banker went to prison for the entire preventable nightmare. His name has long been forgotten — Kareem Serageldin. The former executive for Credit Suisse was sentence to prison in 2013, after pleading guilty to conspiracy to falsify books and records. He admitted to marking down losses to inflate the value of securities. He was released from the Moshannon Valley Correctional Center in Pennsylvania a decade ago, in March of 2016.

He was it — the only US executive to do prison time for the 2008 mortgage meltdown, which brought millions of families to ruin and the entire world to its knees.

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According to the unnamed exec at the cafe, the loud talker who ruined everyone’s night within earshot, “they did nothing illegal.”

These guys full well knew they were hawking balloon payment-third mortgages from financially crippled Americans as AAA securities.

I’ve met cocaine dealers with better morals.

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More info about Bette Dangerous - This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter/producer, author, and veteran music and nightlife columnist. She is the cohost of RADICALIZED Truth Survives, an investigative show about disinformation and is part of the Byline Media team. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism.

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