raymallen wrote:Look at it like this, most of the "evil 1%" you guys always discuss, work in finance . These "evil" people allow those who choose not to work to collect food stamps and SS because they can afford to pay taxes. the top 20% of the country own 80%. Let the banks fail, you wipe out all financial wealth, the markets crash, you do not have enough tax revenue to pay debt obligations, then you are no long FDIC insured. I'd love to see you prove this point wrong, it has happened before...
The markets tanked anyway, and we ALREADY don't have enough tax revenue to pay debt obligations. And on top of it, the big banks basically took their handouts and kept doing exactly the same stuff they were doing before. Right after PNC got 7 billion in bailout money, what did they do? Start making loans again? No, they took that money and bought another bank (National City) for a steal. Bank of America spent billions of their bailout money buying a bigger share of a CHINESE bank. US Bancorp bought several smaller lenders with their bailout money. The vast majority of the holding companies that got bailout funds barely used any of their handouts to "recapitalize" their subsidiaries. And there was no accountability either. JP Morgan Chase got 25 billion in bailout money and flat out refused to say what it was used for. And don't forget that the Federal Reserve gave 3.3 TRILLION dollars to FOREIGN banks.
Most of our economic problems have been created by excessive credit, excessive debt, and a fiat currency, so trying to "fix" it by extending even MORE credit and creating even MORE debt and creating even MORE money out of thin air only makes things worse in the long run. Look at how the dollar is performing. All the bailouts did was weaken the dollar and allow (help) big fish swallow some smaller fish. Kick the can down the road. Within 5 years we will be paying $6 for a gallon of gas and $5 for a loaf of white bread.
Compare a list of the biggest bailout recipents with a list of who spent the most on lobbying. Then look at Obama's cabinet and see how many of his top advisors are Wall St. goons. Tim Geitner (Goldman Sachs), Lawrence Summers (Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JP Morgan), Michael Froman (Citigroup). The whole thing was textbook crony capitalism.