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by marincounty
4191 days ago
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Yea, now we can't stomp around and espouse how Capitalism
doesn't need government oversite--Period! Personally, there's a
part of me that wanted the banks to fail; and see what arose
from the ashes, but that's another story. (Some banks like
Jamie Dimon's bank didn't need or want the money). I think
what bothered me about the whole process is the
economy is better for some people--people who have assets, or have skills that are currently in vogue. The average dude just getting by, and relying on interest from their cd(because they can't afford to speculate anywhere in life)
was not given a party gift in this recovery. There were a
lot of smaller banks who weren't in trouble. They weren't
in trouble because they were located in the right communities, and were very consertative. Meaning they only
lent to people with a lot of equity(sure bets), gave very little interest on any financial instrument, always charged fees for eveything, counted on the fact that a lot of people
just drop their money in the bank and never touch it, but
are Very nice, and remember your birthday--Hello Bank of Marin. I think Obama foresaw the future and figured the only lasting gift he could give to the middle class and the poor was access to the health care system--even though they
(the Republicicans) insisted on bringing in private Insurance companies? |
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It would have been possible to restore confidence in other ways. Traditionally, good assets are collected into good banks, and bad assets are dumped into bad banks. The bad banks get thrown under a bus, and the good banks get full government backing until trust is restored. It's a tried and tested formula that has worked in other countries.
What TARP didn't solve was the endemic corruption and criminality that caused 2008. (Remember how some banks launched foreclosure farms that rubber-stamped property seizures - and sometimes stole property that didn't even have an outstanding loan?)
Unfortunately the corruption goes all the way to the Fed and the Congress, so a full restoration of Glass-Steagall, and jail time for the main perps, was never going to happen.
A few billion in 'profit' sounds like a lot, but it's a drop in the ocean compared to the incredible destruction and loss of economic potential caused by the persistent fraud, aversion to adult supervision, and deep-seated social irresponsibility endemic at all levels of the financial industries.