Save the Banks and Kill the Economy (credit, company, interest)

[Grandpa Pipes]

"Meanwhile, also with the intention of saving the largest banks, regulators began pressing the banks to raise capital asset ratios and to shrink their risk assets. The Bernanke Fed went so far as to lend money to the largest banks at zero interest rate, while paying interest on the excess reserves the banks kept at the Fed, a practice that resulted in an outright gift to the banks.

All these policies have resulted in tightening credit availability and in provoking the largest plunge in the M3 money supply since the Great Depression. As long as this condition endures, there won't be any substantial economic recovery in the United States.

The biggest mistake that President Barack Obama seems to have made, at the beginning of his mandate, was to not disassociate himself more clearly from the previous Bush administration. Now, it's too late, and unfortunately for him and the divided Democrats, they are poised to suffer the wrath of an enraged and disillusioned electorate."

Save the Banks and Kill the Economy

[Des-Lab]

Anyone who believes that the bailouts and the concept of "privatizing profits while socializing losses" are coming to an end anytime soon is living in a fantasy la-la land.

Of course the plutocracy will continue to receive virtually unlimited funds at our expense. Much of that will in fact go straight into the pockets of those people to use as they see fit: mansions in the Hamptons, private jets, other toys, and the like.

Since they own all three branches of the government and are the ones really dictating the shots, there is no reason to think otherwise.

YOUR "reward" and "bailout" (if you want to call it that) is that you still get to watch "Dancing With The Stars", enjoy your little shopping trips to Target and Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and argue over whether or not enough Minority Women are serving on various City Counsels.

There may be some "populist outrage" out there. But it seems to be largely confined to the harmless hallways of message forum rhetoric and saber-rattling. The reality is that out on the street, most people are just too damn jaded, indifferent, and unable to bond together to fight a common grifting to really give a damn. Unless voter turnout starts exceeding 90%, let's not fool ourselves into believing that we are serious. That in spite of a "good" turnout being maybe 30% indicates to me that we STILL aren't really serious and are all talk and no action. Everyone always seems to have an excuse on why they "just can't make it to the polls". So it STILL isn't important enough yet. Little Johnnys Soccer game and that dentist appointment or episode of "Bones" are obviously more pressing priorities.

-That no one has yet to be imprisoned over this mess (Whitacre? Bernanke? Blankfein?) or that GM has not been shut down and be force-liquidated pretty much seems to confirm this. If there was ever an arrogant cuss of a company that deserved to die, it is GM. And how exactly was Whitacre able to claim that the bailouts were "paid in full" when 1) they were so desperately in need of a bailout in the first place in light of this economy and 2) things got worse since the bailouts?

Nothing is going to change. This country SHOULD have been overripe and exquisitely primed for mass implosion and housecleaning from top-to bottom at all corporate and government levels for the last two years. If it hasn't happened by now, it isn't going to. Our idea of "banding together" is pretty much limited to blogs and superficial acts such as candle light vigils and placing flowers on a crash site.

But these posts do make for some entertaining reading anyway when I need a break from equally imaginative Disney movies.