Prior to 1929, during the Roaring Twenties, everyone was speculating in the stock market, from wealthy New Yorkers to factory workers. Like today, the runaway speculation that triggered the 1929 crash was facilitated by banks and stockbrokers which promised quick riches. Like today, people were gambling with money they did not have. Banks then, like banks today, were massive speculators with depositors’ money.

                 Jesse Livermore, the famed speculator and stock trader was once one of richest people in the world. He died broke of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in November 1940 but summed it up best when it came to investing on Wall Street. "The game of speculation is the most uniformly fascinating game in the world. But it is not a game for the stupid, the mentally lazy, the person of inferior emotional balance, or the get-rich-quick adventurer--they will die poor…Wall Street never changes, the pockets change, the suckers change, the stocks change, but Wall Street never changes because human nature never changes." During this time, Al Capone, the notorious Chicago gangster and alcohol bootlegger and a reckless gambler at almost anything, shunned Wall Street and the stock market  saying, “It’s a racket, those stock market guys are crooked.” It is amazing how little changes.

                 During the Great Depression of the 1930s, as many as seven million Americans died from hunger and exposure to the elements. Many of these banks failed because they had lent large portions of their assets to speculators with margin debt, which multiplied losses with the stock market crash of 1929. In 1931 alone, more than 2,000 banks failed. By 1933, 4,000 banks closed. In the end, more than 9,000 banks failed, and the life savings of millions of Americans were wiped out by bank failures.

                 To prevent and stop this massive speculation, and help people preserve and enjoy their retirement and other savings, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to protect deposits savings. More importantly on June 16,1933 the Glass-Steagall Act effectively separated commercial banking from investment banking which helped insulate and protect Americans from the rapacious speculation which harmed millions for roughly 66 years.

However, in 1999, most consumer protection was destroyed when The Glass-Steagall Act was repealed with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act signed under then President William Jefferson Clinton. Since that time, there has been no separation of deposit based and investment banking. As a result, we have entered into an unprecedented era of casino capitalism that has become a nonstop financial orgy from Wall Street. The repeal of Glass-Steagall helped to foment the 2000 dot.com meltdown, the 2008 financial crisis, a plethora of stock market manias and riveting economic inequality.

                 The Retirement Ruse, the author’s fourth book, is an inside view how banks, corporate America, asset managers, the media, lawyers, insiders, Silicon Valley and Wall Street continue their lust for money with subterfuge, government bailouts and manipulation of the masses. This is a detailed insider look how retail savers have been duped and been taken advantage of through corporate stock buybacks, cryptocurrencies, unicorns and SPACs (special purpose acquisition companies). The wealth destruction has been cataclysmic.

If you really want to understand the latest electric vehicle and autonomous debacle which led to the bankruptcies of Fisker, Proterra, Lordstown Motors, and the billions spent by Apple and General Motors in vain, you need to read this book. With irrefutable evidence backed up by thousands of hours of research, Barry James Dyke lays all out in plain view how the 1% is getting ahead, while the middle class is being destroyed in broad daylight. An unprecedented wealth transfer scheme, much of this destruction is funded with money from your 401(k) and other retirement plans. If you really want to know what is going on with your retirement savings, and what to look out for to protect your financial future, you need to read The Retirement Ruse today. This book is the forerunner to his soon to be released book, The Pirates of Manhattan III: How Private Equity Titans Became the New Robber Barons.