[Aurornis]

The people angry about the 2008 bailout usually have little interest in the facts. I’ve had countless conversations where I’ve tried to tell people that the bailouts were a net positive or that people were, in fact, sent to jail. Outside of people familiar with finance, most people refuse to believe it.

A lot of people I’ve talked to about it weren’t even adults when the bailout happened. They weren’t watching the news and didn’t care at the time. They only know it through pop culture and from fiery speeches from politicians and influencers.

The idea of a bailout has become synonymous with the government handing hard-earned tax dollars over to banks, no strings attached. The facts don’t really matter.

[coryrc]

2008 was caused, in part, by the governments deciding many "banks" were "too big to fail".

The fix was for the government to pick some winners, coercively lend them money and force them to buy the failing banks.

Now we have fewer, bigger banks. People who were conservative with money, saved instead of over-leveraging, did not get to buy assets cheaply, because the government propped up asset prices with unlimited, cheap money.

And TARP did eventually produce weak positive returns. So I'm glad they didn't lose money, but I'm not happy I was prevented from buying fire sale assets. I'm also not happy residential housing prices are 2x what they were in 2010 (and still well over 1.5x the peak of the bubble).

[throw0101c]

> 2008 was caused, in part, by the governments deciding many "banks" were "too big to fail".

Perhaps worth noting that Ben Bernanke, who was the chair of the Fed at the time, was/is one of the most top experts on Great Depression (it's the work he later won the Nobel Prize for). So as bad as the GFC was, Bernanke thought it could get really bad and pushed for measures that he probably thought would prevent another 1930s scenario.

[coryrc]

So, the NPE isn't a real Nobel Prize :) but if the only allowable decisions are to concentrate wealth at the top, then we're just delaying and amplifying the collapse.

[Aurornis]

> but I'm not happy I was prevented from buying fire sale assets.

This is another common misconception about bailouts: That if the government hadn’t stepped in, individuals would have been better somehow or been able to take advantage of a collapsing economy for personal gain.

You wouldn’t be buying fire sale assets and getting great personal returns. That would have gone to corporations, family offices, and people in higher tax brackets.

[pjc50]

> I'm not happy I was prevented from buying fire sale assets

People who want a society-wide crisis so they can profit off it are far more morally reprehensible than people who said "we'll loosen the mortgage criteria a bit so people can buy houses, houses always go up in value right?"

[coryrc]

Uh, no, we're having a generational crisis because wages are flat and rent cost has been growing for decades. That's quite reprehensible. Unfortunately, in our push for home ownership, we now have a majority of people being homeowners and opposed to lowering prices, and a few companies who can make a profit lobbying to ensure prices only go up.

[momoschili]

None of the highest up were sent to jail. CEOs perfectly fine taking responsibility for the profits, but what happened to taking responsibility for the fraud they enabled?

[bandrami]

Literally dozens of CEOs went to jail, which is again why I think this may be the biggest ball-drop of the media this century (and there have been some pretty huge ones competing with it)

[x-complexity]

> None of the highest up were sent to jail. CEOs perfectly fine taking responsibility for the profits, but what happened to taking responsibility for the fraud they enabled?

> > Literally dozens of CEOs went to jail, which is again why I think this may be the biggest ball-drop of the media this century

The GP's remark is centered around the *sentiment* that none of the C-suite / execs in the Big Banks (Merrill, Goldman, BoA, Citi) were jailed for their involvement / excessive speculation in the 2008 crisis.

The keywords there being "Big Banks": If it's a national household name, OR if their positions are coveted by finance employees, it's a Big Bank. Otherwise, it's not a Big Bank.

> > > Your Google skills may need some work because this is the first result for "bank CEO jailed by TARP":

1) This is a goalpost shift from "bank CEOs jailed for causing / excessively speculating up to the 2008 crisis".

2) TARP was established as a result of the crisis (i.e. AFTER it happened), and therefore cannot be used to mark execs that were jailed for their involvement / excessive speculation in the 2008 crisis.

3) "TARP defraudment" is a different matter, and not "Causing the 2008 crisis" or "excessive speculation"

> > > https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/atlanta/press-releases/201...

The case cited only tangentially involves TARP, when the bulk of the case was about the President of FirstCity Bank & his associates defrauding the bank with loans that *they themselves had involvement in*.

[bandrami]

If you want to argue the wrong 200 bankers went to jail I think that would be a great discussion to have, but that's absolutely not where the public narrative is right now, which is that these convictions simply never happened

[x-complexity]

> but that's absolutely not where the public narrative is right now, which is that these convictions simply never happened

In terms of public sentiment, for the conviction to have happened, it has to happen to the Big Banks, and not anyone else. If it didn't happen to the Big Banks, then narrative-wise it didn't happen at all.

[deaux]

You're blaming the public for not caring about 200 irrelevant bankers going to jail for mostly other reasons (e.g. TARP fraud), when there's no reason for them to. There might as well have 0 bankers gone to jail. Getting pedantic about your definition of "bankers going to jail" being technically correct and the public's definition of "banker going to jail" being too specific, completely misses the point and serves nothing but to make you feel good. You well know what the public means, and that they're right about it.

This comment puts it well. [0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46898199

[momoschili]

yet you have failed to provide even a single name as of yet. It's easily google-able that all of the major players got off scott-free.

[rcxdude]

This seems to corroborate the story: https://www.steptoe.com/en/news-publications/borrower-beware...

Though it sounds like they're mainly talking about bankers jailed for fraud related to the TARP loans themselves, as opposed to the mortgage fraud that precipitated the crisis.

[momoschili]

looks like it's mostly lackeys

[bandrami]

There were examples of both. In most of the cases where they were jailed for fraud related to the TARP loans it was lying on the required audit about what their positions prior to the crash were.

[bandrami]

There was an entire damn database put out by TARP of the hundreds of people they jailed before DOGE killed it. All you people who claim you care about this intently never even bothered to read it. Which is why I don't actually think people cared; they just want an excuse to be mad.

[elliotec]

Where is this database? Say names. Literally even one. Who are the dozens of CEOs? Why would you make something like this up and spread misinformation? It's been 18 years, even if someone had big stake in the game I can't understand why they would lie about this so steadfastly. Look it up.

[bandrami]

I literally said "DOGE took it down" FFS it's like talking to goldfish whenever this particular topic comes up

[bandrami]

I didn't really expect people to lose the ability to Google this quickly:

https://www.housingwire.com/articles/38536-failed-bank-ceo-g... https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/former-president-and-ceo-...

https://oig.federalreserve.gov/releases/news-bekkedam-senten...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2015/09/02/b...

[bandrami]

Now if you want to argue that the wrong 250 bankers went to jail, I'm open to discussing that, but the simple fact is you thought the number was zero until five minutes ago and rather than being happy you were wrong, you're annoyed. It's the most puzzling part of this, to me.

[momoschili]

I started by saying nobody that mattered and specified the largest companies who were involved. I think it's pretty easy to conclude I mean the C-suite in charge of the largest organizations that enabled and perpetuated the fraud. I don't care if a bunch of Bernie Madoff's lackeys went to jail if Bernie Madoff gets off Scott-free. I don't understand why you continue to misrepresent, but I think at this point it is malicious intent.

[Semaphor]

FYI: All but the first of those 404

[bandrami]

Sorry, copy-paste error:

https://www.housingwire.com/articles/38536-failed-bank-ceo-g...

https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/former-president-and-ceo-...

https://oig.federalreserve.gov/releases/news-bekkedam-senten...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2015/09/02/b...

Again, literally just the first half of the first page of Google results. People can do this on their own, too, if they want to learn more about it

[samat]

Grok disagrees, chatGPT disagrees, freaking google disagrees. Could you provide names please?

[bandrami]

Your Google skills may need some work because this is the first result for "bank CEO jailed by TARP":

https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/atlanta/press-releases/201...

[bandrami]

https://www.housingwire.com/articles/38536-failed-bank-ceo-g...

https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/former-president-and-ceo-...

https://oig.federalreserve.gov/releases/news-bekkedam-senten...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2015/09/02/b...

[sublinear]

I think you just perfectly demonstrated why everyone hates AI summaries.

[afpx]

What about Pershing Square? in 2008 Bill Ackman gave a presentation on how to crash the housing market and profit from it. Looks like he's still out there destroying peoples' lives.

[tasuki]

I see it differently: the crash was coming anyway (the market was being irrational). He can't crash the housing market, unless there's a good reason for the housing prices to crash. Turns out there was a reason.

[Aurornis]

Do you have evidence that he committed a specific crime?

Jailing people is for crimes committed, not for punishing people you dislike.

[boxed]

Even more fun: people are mad about the bailout here in Sweden. But none of the Swedish banks took any bailouts! Not a single one.

[stefanfisk]

I can’t really remember hearing a Swede complain about bank bailouts in relation to the 2008 crisis. The 90s crisis and related bailouts are however often referenced when complaining about the banks making huge profits these days. Whether that’s reasonable or not is another question.

[api]

Most of the anger from regular folk comes from the reinflation of the housing bubble, continuing to price two generations out of home ownership.

If you want to see why people are mad look at what is actually causing them pain. For young people it’s mostly housing costs.

Many blame the bailouts. That may be wrong, but it’s a visible scapegoat.

[sdellis]

Anger also comes from many retirees whose retirement savings tanked. Everyday people lost a lot of money, many their homes, and no one bailed them out. It appears to many that those responsible were above the law. It's the same reason people are furious about the Epstein Files, where the only person in jail for what happened is a woman. We see our neighbors dragged out of their houses or cars without a warrant because they don't look "white" and may have committed the misdemeanor of not having proper documentation. And yet, not a single CEO was held accountable for far worse crimes committed -- in fact, they kept their bonuses! These people recklessly inflicted a huge amount of pain on the public, through lost investments, millions of people losing their homes, most young people not being able to buy homes, and creating an even greater divide between the 1% and the rest of us. It is truly weird to read comments that seem to defend them.

[BobbyTables2]

I was an adult and my anger is in the sense that banks and car companies got a safety net while the rest of us don’t!

Think of all the small businesses that would love to take particular risks if they knew they wouldn’t have to suffer the normal consequences associated with failure…

[snapcaster]

Who got access to credit and who was left to go bankrupt and have their lives destroyed? seriously crazy that you can't understand that