frank miller

[Joseph Tracy]

On Nov 20, 2011, at 12:23 PM, Michael F wrote:

> As for blaming the banks, like us, they are economic free-agents,
> willing to do what they like with their money.
Actually they are not free agents in the same way as an individual with his or her own money. They are handling other people's money. There are many reasonable restrictions to avoid such things as money laundering for criminals, investing or participating in fraudulent activities, and keeping certain balances of available of  cash etc. Regulations are not directions about how to manage or invest but reasonable prohibitions against abuse of depositors trust.  The New Deal era Glass Steagall act was designed to prevent high risk speculation by banks. Its repeal in 1999 led directly to the massive fraud which caused the crash of 2008 causing the loss of billions in retirement investments and trillions in taxpayer bailouts, bailouts opposed by 80% of citizens. 
>  In a democracy should
> a gov't regulate their behavior?  We get mad when they regulate our
> behavior.  Banks can do what they want, I just get angry when the
> gov't plays ball with them, favoring them rather than with "us".
> There should be a balance and this is lacking.  When I say "playing
> ball" with us, I don't mean the gov't forcing the banks to lower our
> mortagages or write of our debt.
I'm not supporting the government paying off peoples mortgages but if they had paid off every mortgage involved in the mortgage part of the scam it would have cost about 1/4 of the bailout money paid out. Most of that money is going to cover the leveraging of the CDOs by the investment devices. As for the mortgages that were pushed. the FBI( not exactly a bastion of lefties) said they were dangerous and warned they would produce a financial catastrophe. 

Have you seen the movie Inside Job? It really explains it pretty well.



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