Even though I'm generally pretty liberal, I tend to agree. If we'd made it abundantly clear at every step of deregulation that the market is on its own and there would be nothing beyond 100k of FDIC insurance, I doubt we'd be in the mess we are now. Now that we're in this mess, though, there's not much that can be done but start regulating. Once things have a couple of years (decades?) of stability, then we can hopefully move to a more rational structure without implicit bailout promises or onerous regulation. (Although I think some amount of regulation will always be necessary.)
No, but if you went to Vegas and played craps with everyone in the country's retirement funds and a sizeable chunk of the global GDP I would want you bailed out. Bailed out with some chum filled bucket into shark infested waters that is. Totally agree with your way above statement about us not having Capitalism in this country. I also agree with whomever said that the global elite HATE capitalism. I think this might be because some little people get rich and SOME of those little people even have consciences! Imagine that.
...nine of the nation's biggest banks, which are receiving billions of dollars in federal bailout aid, paid individual bonuses of $1 million or more to nearly 5,000 employees. For those of you on drugs, that's $5 Billion of your tax dollars being converted into "Hush Money" to keep employees from toppling the tower when questioned in the upcoming thousands of criminal fraud probes the FBI is conducting in these same firms. The notion that there are 5,000 bank employees on Wall St who are each worth over a million a year has to be the most ludicrous thing I've ever heard.
You're right. There are at least 10 times that many. The beauty of Wall Street is that the calculation is naked--you can directly tie your contribution to the bottom line. For example, when you have your annual review, you just point to the deals you brought in or where you found the angle to make it work. It's a pretty easy calculation. And for the record, I find it ironic that a residential realtor--the biggest externality I can think of--is complaining about people not adding value to a transaction.
