I fully expected both belly and live hog futures to skyrocket as the demand from Washington to feed a pork starved system exploded. It was nice being a superpower during my entire lifetime to date.
Cynical? Yeah, a little. And I am 100% behind the President but when he says the bill is imperfect I agree.
I have heard all sorts of ways to jump start the economy including taking the TARP money and distributing it to every adult man and woman citizen. It would come out to several thousand apiece and I know that would ease my pain. Imagine how that would feel to someone without a job.
My thought was to create the Bank of the USA and lend directly to homebuyers and businesses to keep capital flowing. Let the stupid banks and brokers that poisoned us go under and all of their innocent employees can work for the BofUSA. Guess who would have direct control for executive salaries that way? And to get good managers give them options in the new companey
And when all is well, take the bank public and sell all government shares. If successful, the managers would make a killing.
Just a thought. Why do we continue to prop up failed institutions buy funding failed managers?
Capitalism, wherefore art thou?
2 comments:
I have wondered many times about these: nationalize the banks and lend directly to the people and businesses (by Govt.). If Govt lent directly, it would essentially wipe out the banks' lending business, so the only thing left is to guard the deposits, which the Govt can do as well. The only problem is that it would leave a bad taste in people's minds about the feasibility of banks as companies and the free market principles of letting the "market" determine asset prices. It would be a blow to capitalism all over the world.
I already hear many saying "well, the people already have a negative outlook towards these companies". But, the Govt taking over the aforementioned functions would be the last nail on the coffin. And I doubt if the govt would want to do that.
The Govt can now allow the people to hate the banks even more in the hope of cutting a better deal with the banks when it comes to TARP money (it hasn't happened, but there is hope), rather than buy them up and become a much larger govt, which will be squarely blamed for its size eventually by the same people. As it is, Newsweek is claiming "welcome to Socialism" - why make it official by taking over bank functions...
In other words, trying to get the banks to work has short term pain, but probably long term benefits.
I disagree. The banks that are not poison remain in business. The banks that are poison can be left to fail - pure capitalism.
The government makes up the difference between the remaining banks and the needs of the economy. And only as long as needed before they turn the whole thing back over to the private sector by selling off their operations.
The short-term pain is the cleansing of garbage companies form the system. The only reason to involve the government is that innocent people and businesses became victims of the poison they did not take.
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