Setting up the equivalent of living wills for corporations, that plan would require that they come up with their own procedure to be disentangled in the event of a crisis, a plan that administration officials say ought to be made public in advance ... "These changes will impose market discipline on the largest and most interconnected companies," said Michael S. Barr, assistant Treasury secretary for financial institutions. One of the biggest changes the plan would make, he said, is that instead of being controlled by creditors, the process is controlled by the government ... some regulators and economists in recent weeks have suggested that the administration’s plan does not go far enough. They say that the government should consider breaking up the biggest banks and investment firms long before they fail, or at least impose strict limits on their trading activities — steps that the administration continues to reject.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Barney Frank wants government bank seizures made easy
Within the last few days, we saw the 100th bank go toes up since the economy tanked a year ago.
Congressman Barney Frank said he will introduce legislation making it easier for the government to seize any banks considered "too big to fail." This is from the New York Times, by way of MSNBC:
Let's see. The federal government is in the car manufacturing business. It was in the auto-junking business with that "Cash For Clunkers" program. It's trying to get in the medical business. And the banking business.
These are the same guys who got into the insurance business (Social Security), mail delivery (the Postal Service), and trying to get the trains to run on time (AMTRAK). And ran each of these into the ground.
Busy, busy, busy ...
What is our government's legitimate business? Once you cut through all the chaff, you could write it on the back of a business card: Protecting our rights, mediating our disputes, and protecting us from foreign invasion. And at least two of these it's not doing very well.
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4 comments:
The game of Monopoly was based on actual principles of economics. Of course, its not just that simple. But its close enough. In fact, if you alter the rules slightly, print some money, grab a bucket of gravel from the driveway, and a simple game of skill like darts, you can simulate almost any element of the economy. Including economic growth, creativity, and ambition. You could even simulate world trade by playing 3 games at once jumping from one board to another. If you want the game to last indefinately, there must be some sort of limit placed on the individual accumulation of personal wealth. Otherwise, the game eventually ends with only one winner. There must be a limit. Nothing else will ever work. If you think you can prove me wrong, give it your best shot. Let me know how the game turns out. Just remember: Its fun to crush the other guy at the kitchen table with fake money, fake resources, and a fake economy. But in the real world, greed causes economic instability, actual hardship, suffering, misery, starvation, and death. Now, test your partisan theories and see if you can make them work. I'll say it in advance: Thats what I thought. Greed kills.
By the way, Albert Einstein felt the same way. Its not brain surgery. Its simple math.
This incredible mess is our own God damn fault. We have become a nation of blithering idiot celebrity-junkie credit card morons. We don't support our local economies well enough. We hardly support small business anymore. We don't supply our troops well enough. Support for legitimate charity is way down. The people of this country won't even get out of credit card debt for their own fucking good or the good of their families. They absolutely will not do the things necessary to revive our own economy or ensure some reasonable level of shared prosperity. But when another filthy-disgusting-rich over-paid celebrity pig in a $500 cowboy hat comes out of retirement because he wants to get even richer, the people of this country drop what they were doing and buy out his next 20 shows in 5 hours flat. Springsteen sells out. Miley sells out. U2 sells out. Madonna sells out. Timberlake sells out. Every seat. Every time. Last year, we spent $400,000,000 on a single fucking movie just to see a guy in a bat suit beat up a dead celebrity. In the last 5 years, we have handed over ANOTHER billion dollars of our money to a single God damned false heroe talk show host lying manipulating hypocrite pig. Everytime a celebrity farts in this country, the people are right there to pay for a whiff and charge it to their credit card. We fall for the most obvious big business, big celebrity, big profit, fake humanitarian, PR crap the world has ever seen and open our wallets every single time. We do all of this without the slightest regard for the OBSCENE concentration of wealth, the shrinking middle class, or the effect had on economic stability. God damn fucking blithering idiot morons. If we are going to be this fucking stupid as a society, then we deserve whatever we get for it. and we ain't seen nothing yet. These shallow signs of recovery absolutely will not last. Maybe another 2 years max. Then, we will sink right back into the worst depression this country has even seen. We are on borrowed (printed) time already. The people should use this brief window of opportunity to get out of debt and into some type of home they can afford to call their own. Something they can leave for their children. Instead, they spend whatever they have left on those filthy disgusting rich pigs who already have way too much. Concentrating the wealth even further. They may as well take food right out of the mouths of their own children. Because they will struggle, fight, live, and die in a shattered society with a shattered economy. God damn fucking blithering idiot morons. It didn't have to be this way.
To Anonymous' Oct. 28 comment:
Thanks, Anonymous, for your input and points there. I'll grant you, greed does exactly what you say it does. But there's nothing wrong with making money. I certainly don't mind it if I do, and I'm sure you're the same way. The difference, I think, is in a person's attitude about it. Money is a tool, and a powerful one at that. With it you can convert it into other resources, you can create opportunities, and you can even create time.
It's about attitude. You make money to live, not live to make money. If someone's whole being is defined by his bank balance, by his toys, then he has become the person you are describing.
Money is like manure. Keep it in a pile and it'll stink. Spread it around and it'll do some good. You can do a lot of good with money, but you have to take the initiative to do so, and it's your choice to determine what this good is. One person's idea of doing good may be feeding the hungry, while someone else's idea may be to teach someone to read. See?
If I think you're not doing enough for the common good (whatever that is) with your money, I can always stick a gun in your ribs, relieve you of said bankroll, then do what I think should be done with it. That makes me a looter; even worse than the greediest person with his money. Unfortunately, that's how our government works, except they're too civil to use a gun. They write laws instead, but the result is the same.
Again, thanks for raising those points. You've stimulated my own brain cells a bit anyway.
To Anonymous' Oct. 29 comment:
I don't know if you're the same Anonymous who wrote before (there can't be two people named that!), but I see what you mean. There's something bad wrong when, even with the economy in the tank, aging rock stars can command triple-digit prices to see them in concert. Something's seriously messed up when your favorite baseball team pays $90 million for a good-field-no-hit shortstop because some other ball team was willing to pay $85 million. Something's rotten when Britney or Paris or the Lohans get more attention than someone who's really making a difference.
Misplaced priorities? You bet. Something really stinks when someone can't afford to feed his kids but has an iPhone, iPod, and fancy rims on his tires.
In your diatribe you've described human nature. We live in a fallen world, and American society reminds me of the ancient Romans before they got their butts handed to them by the leaner, hungrier barbarians. Just give us our bread and circuses, and we can ignore what's going on in the real world. I don't know if people have their heads jammed so far up their TVs that they don't know what's going on in the real world, or if they do know what's going on and shove their heads in the TV to escape the truth. Probably both. And we will get what we ask for and, too late, find out the world we ask for is not the world we want.
I must ask you, though, to please tone down the language a bit. OK, a lot. I do believe in freedom of expression and all that, but you are in my house. That said, when I think of how our society has its priorities bass-ackward, then yeah, I sure do think those very same things, in words real similar to that.
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