Financial Reform???

[MrGiz]

Originally Posted by tkdbf

That sums it up pretty good Giz.

And.... before the usual Lefties come out with it.... I believe much the same about GWB's Administration! Just a slightly different chapter of the same global scheme.

[I B Hankering]

There is nothing fair about bailing these banks out. I too am fundamentally opposed to giving them any money, but the lessons of history teach that a failed financial system and poor financial policies are too fraught with peril: see Weimar Republic post WW I.

These “too large to fail banks” are government supported monopolies that are setting exorbitant fee levels and charges for bank services and credit cards that were previously extended as normal courtesy to bank customers: all in the name of profit. These banks are the one’s with the CEOs being paid millions of dollars to make bad decisions which can destroy the U.S. economy. Yet these arrogant bastards have the gall to ask to be bailed out by the very public they extort.

Of note, even as smaller banks are failing and going out of business, their assets and operations are being bought up by a hand full of “too large to fail banks”. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.—with Fed assistance—benefitted directly from the collapse of Bears and Stearns and Lehman Brothers banks; hence, Chase is even larger—“too large to fail”—now than when the financial crisis started. Neither Congress nor the courts have stopped this metastasis. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120569598608739825.html &
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/how-the-fed-reached-out-to-lehman/

Our public servants in DC have helped create this monstrosity, and they have looped it around the public’s neck like a boat anchor tied to a drowning man. If the banks do go under, they will surely destroy the economy. So these banks must be saved from going under: this time.

Then, as part of the financial reform, these banks must under go a divestiture similar to that experienced by AT&T in 1974. A few, greedy and very powerful bank CEOs would replaced by many, greedy and considerably less powerful CEOs. At least then, if any of these less powerful CEOs make poor decisions, they will suffer the consequences and fail, and their failing will not ruin the American free market system.

Having a greater number of banks should also lead to more job opportunities for CEOs, tellers and clerks; plus, lower fees for bank customers as there will be more genuine competition for customers between a greater number of banks. However, I imagine this is but a pipe dream. Such change will not, and possibly cannot, happen in today’s new global market system. Smaller and weaker U.S. banks would eventually succumb to metastasizing Asian and European financial institutions, and then matters would be worse.

[guest051312]

TK. Sorry I couldn't respond sooner. No I don't think the Gov should tell companies what they can pay thier execs, never. What my point was, they shouldn't get huge salaries and bonus's if they caused the company to lose money. What ever happened to performance pay.
Jhende. The banks don't like the bailouts because then the gov can tell them to do.

[tkdbf]

Originally Posted by rpmsouth

TK. Sorry I couldn't respond sooner. No I don't think the Gov should tell companies what they can pay thier execs, never. What my point was, they shouldn't get huge salaries and bonus's if they caused the company to lose money. What ever happened to performance pay.
Jhende. The banks don't like the bailouts because then the gov can tell them to do.

I agree, they shouldn't be getting huge salaries and bonuses if their performance is less than par. The companies should have cut bonuses and salaries, or possibly even jobs, long before things got to where they are now.

[Blazer57]

I may be wrong, but is not the "rich" the people that employ the poor ? I have never had a job from a poor person. Rich is what is percieved by someone who has less. I think most people will allways be rich by someone else's standard. Hard work or investment should be rewarded.

[BIG C]

Originally Posted by Blazer57

Hard work or investment should be rewarded.

No one can seriously argue that point.....But the problem is that incompetence and failures and bad judgment is being rewarded and is being done so at the expense of everyone else (read as the average joe, you and me).....That's the main problem I have with the bailouts (and no, I didn't like it when the bailed out the auto industry, and don't care for the proposed bailout of the banking industry).....

[tkdbf]

Originally Posted by Blazer57

I may be wrong, but is not the "rich" the people that employ the poor ? I have never had a job from a poor person. Rich is what is percieved by someone who has less. I think most people will allways be rich by someone else's standard. Hard work or investment should be rewarded.

Not sure I see how that fits into what we were saying. The point was that if a person's job performance is lacking (making poor decisions that add to the economy collapsing) then why are they still getting paid huge salaries while the companies they work for are being bailed out by tax money (paid from both the "rich" man and "poor" man)?

[I B Hankering]

Regarding profit and greed on Wall Street: “The flaws in human nature are such that we cannot change [regulate] them, it doesn't work.” Alan Greenspan speaking to David Faber during the CNBC documentary 'House of Cards.' Before there was a Madoff or a Standford there was a Milken and a Boesky, and 100 years ago there was a guy named Charles Ponzi. In twenty years, there will be a ‘new game’ that will panic the markets, and because it’s a ‘new game’—it won’t be regulated.

[dilbert firestorm]

Originally Posted by MrGiz

I think I know where you're going with that statement.... tell me if I'm wrong.

I don't believe Obama is sharp enough to have cooked-up his administration's policies from within himself.... very few, if any Presidents are that economically adept! I am not a classic conspiracy believer.... but I believe Obama is a Puppet, being manipulated by a much larger and more organized , global machine.... along with some Old School Chicago Strong Arm tactics, used to intimidate and bully! It's not so much "Him" I don't like.... it's his "handlers" that are behind the purposeful destruction!

Giz's $.02

turtle on a post, going nowhere

[juan2fork]

This one "leftist's" view.

1. No business should be "to big to fail", unfortunately deregulation has allowed certain business to grow to a level where their failure would cause economic catastrophe.

2. Regulations of business such as the Glass-Steagall Act & the Sherman Anti-Trust Act were working fine until the Reagan Administration & their successors decided regulation was bad for business. Those ststutes should be returned to their 1980 status and then we can discuss amendments.

3. Any lender, including the government, has the right to restrict the behavior of the borrower as a condition of the loan. The government setting salaries as a condition of a loan is no different from a mortgage holder requiring homeowners' insurance.

4. Had the bailouts not occurred in 2008-2009 our country would be looking like 1930 revisited.

[docdavid49]

Originally Posted by juan2fork

4. Had the bailouts not occurred in 2008-2009 our country would be looking like 1930 revisited.

My fear is not for "now" but for the future. With the amount of debt that we, both as a nation and as a people, are carrying I believe that the 1930's will appear as boom times by comparison.

Other points were well made but I doubt if anyone is interested in middle ground anymore. It appears to be all or nothing with both left and right.

[I B Hankering]

Juan, I agree with everything you say, except it was under Clinton that the Glass Steagall Act was neutered and banking mergers began to create “banks too large too fail”. I will grant you it was a Republican Congress, but Clinton put pen to paper, endorsing these laws and subsequently he reaped the political rewards for reigning during the associated period of American prosperity that had only just begun under Reagan and Bush I.

[Blazer57]

Originally Posted by tkdbf

Not sure I see how that fits into what we were saying. The point was that if a person's job performance is lacking (making poor decisions that add to the economy collapsing) then why are they still getting paid huge salaries while the companies they work for are being bailed out by tax money (paid from both the "rich" man and "poor" man)?

tkdbf Somehow the posts have gotten out of order.When I posted that I was referencing and supporting what MrGiz had posted back on the first page.Seeing where it ended up I agree it doesn't fit.

[dilbert firestorm]

Originally Posted by juan2fork

The government setting salaries as a condition of a loan is no different from a mortgage holder requiring homeowners' insurance.

what did you mean by that?

[MrGiz]

Originally Posted by dilbert firestorm

what did you mean by that?

Yeah , Juan.... I think I'm gonna need a little explanation on that one too!

Giz