That, uh, catastrophic crashes lead to very, very, very bad political systems? Anyone else done much reading of 1930’s literature? Looked at Europe? Roosevelt saved us a LOT of trouble.

These morons still haven’t figured out that the problem is 30 years of GDP gains swallowed up by the top .01 percent. That’s what caused the crash, and that’s what will lead to a destructive, raging populism. 10% unemployment means that a LOT of people who didn’t much care about private jets are now starting to figure out that this ain’t trickle down: this is negative growth with a zero sum game.

It’s not Marxism to say hey, for an economy to function need money going to consumption, to taxes, and to private investment. When you give too much money to Wall Street, the system collapses. This isn’t rocket science. We’ve got to fix this balance so we can restore real, sustainable growth. Without it, we will have economic stagnation and a political collapse.

I for one, am relieved the banks aren’t increasing lending. Our public and private sectors are carrying overwhelming debt loads. When the banks begin lending, not only will our debt loads increase, but we will be faced with increasing inflation. I believe the banks refusal to lend is one of the few things they have done to benefit this nation (albeit selfishly). It is part of the incompetence in government that is fueling Obama and congress to insist that banks increase lending. We are a consumption addicted society and are in the process of cleansing that addiction. Unfortunately, the political powers that be (who are largely influenced by private concerns) are not able to tolerate the pain that will come with losing the addiction to overconsumption. Consequently, it is my belief that unless this paradigm shifts, we as a nation are destined for further destruction of the freedoms we have taken for granted.

IMO, the banks should not have been nationalized, which would have put too much control in the hands of a bumbling federal government and devious federal reserve. Rather, they should have been allowed to fail, with well managed and well capitalized financial institutions allowed to bid for their assets, and those assets going to the highest bidder with no gevernment assitance. We would likely have had several years of contracting economic production, but we would have come out on the other end as a more cautious, ethical, and strong nation with reasonable fiscal practices.

People seem to be willing to do anything to avoid recession, and god forbid, depression. In my mind this is the elixir that will drive us to devastating consequences. A nation cannot live the life of excess without having to feel the pain of contraction a t some point. The longer we delay contraction in our economy, using stimulus measures that are in my mind a symptom of a weak, spoiled governing body and general populous, the greater will be the eventual financial reckoning.

Mitch Block

We are governed by tools. They do the bidding of narrow interests like financial firms at the expense of the country. They aren’t stupid, they are being highly paid to ignore facts and ethics.

The bigger fools are the idiots who vote for them, voting against their own interests, easily distracted by shiny objects like religious showboating, culture-war bullshit and who they’d “like to have a beer with”.

GM granted those things because the unions had representation, the unions whole arguement for twenty years had been, Mr. CEO and others if your doing so well and the company is doing so well you grant yourself 5 million dollar paychecks and bonueses on lower sales, well, we won’t are piece also, and rightly so……………..ross perot got out quick when he saw how they ran the bizzz, when you have a legacy product that is worth x dollars no matter what, parts etc., plus you have X share there is always a case for working things out……………..since michael morres movie came out over 20 years ago GM and the union fought in public, i guaranteee you for every positive article about a GM product there were 30 negative one, like price and time, publicity and time also works, there main buyers got older and were now saving for retirement versus buying a new car every 3-5 years, and the younguns didn’t find them hip, although, in china buick is king, lol……….perception, context……………

ever since Nixon, politicians say, I know the problem, I have the answer, elect me, and what do we get, we have little trust in government, it has been created over time, i’m not a fan of clinton at all, but he did save money for a rainey day, and then dumped glass stegal, arghhhhhhhhh

This IMO is a great way to force banks to compete and reduce those spreads and stop ripping off borrowers and savers.

Long term, one has to realise where interest comes from. It doesn’t come from the tooth fairy, it comes from borrowers, and if enough new borrowers can’t be found (like more than before) then depositors can’t earn interest unless the government plans to print it. Likewise, if we’re going into a gentle deflation (best case scenario), and loans are being wound up then by definition some depositors are going to have to take a hike.

Raising rates simply increases the gap between where rates want to be due to supply and demand for money (much lower) and where they are. It’s called a liquidity trap, when risk premium totally dominates supply/demand for money and that is a one way street to uttercollapseville.

Because politicians are not paid what bankers are.

Who in their right mind would want to go into politics? Maybe one way to fix the government is to pay politicians more so that it becomes an attractive career path for someone with a brain.