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If we had a true capitalist market the banks wouldn't have been bailed out. In capitalism you are supposed to be responsible for your own lot with no bailouts or handouts given. What happened was the complete opposite.
I agree, Lehman was the government's finest moment. You fail, you implode. Arthur Andersen was another fine moment.
The D3 should have entered BK without any government funding at all. Same with Bank of America and all the other insolvent banks.
These industries would have survived, but many big names wouldn't. That would be capitalism, as it should be.
There was much more to that than just the bank run.
Bailouts are always a terrible idea. It enables more gambling.
True but there was much more failures with the bank in the Great Depression and I don't think politicians wanted to play that risk and I didn't blame them at all. Call me a RINO all you want, I don't want to see what this great recession would have looked like without any form of a bailout.
The problem with the way the government treated the banks was hypocritical to say the least.
The argument is that if we bailed out the banks that they would continue to lend but there are problems with this. First is that banks cannot simply lend to anyone anything otherwise it puts us back in the same area where we were.
So they also say for the banks to recapitalize. Exactly how? More fees? Less branches?
The interest rates have been so low for so long that there is no real incentive to produce.
When people shop or at least used to shop they would get say ads in a paper. Sale at xyz. Limited time..heck black friday is an example. But you know what..there's a time limit so people plan to buy and that's it
But if black friday was all the time then what exactly is the point? If things are on sale all the time then it doesn't matter when the cost of purchasing does not change. If all stores used layaway what would be the point of a credit card?
Some of our spending frankly is not helping. Cash for clunkers did not do anything for the economy, the money could have been spent in public transit.
I saw all this before, in the early 80's. Then all the bullcorn bubbles started and merely camouflaged the problem - for a time.
Further, the foreclosure problem hasn't magically gone away. The over-cost of housing in many depressed areas indicates the nation is sick and the prognosis is not good.
I still believe the single best thing that we can do to restore financial footing in this country is for interest rates to start increasing steadily, but in a controlled manner. I think it's possible, and it will help with returns for savings deposits, thereby not forcing people to take more risk in the stock market than they need to. This, in turn, doesn't allow markets to swell artificially, then fall in a huge swoon. I believe more stability causes better consumer confidence. So on and so on.
But this solution comes at a temporary cost. Bonds in the short term lose money. So do stocks. Spending slows on big ticket, interest rate sensitive purchases (read, HOMES). But all of this imaginary bubble stuff must cease in order to stabilize things.
And it's also political suicide to even speak of what I just spoke of.
If you really want people to have jobs, you gotta take hiring out of the hands of the employer and just let people obtain the jobs they are qualified for. Employers have lost the right to hire for their business and play games with applicants. Remove the human resources strangehold. But I know I'm the "evil bad guy" for saying that.
Right?
Right?
I'm the evil bad guy because I want the jobs filled instead of being reposted 99999999999999999999 times.
If you really want people to have jobs, you gotta take hiring out of the hands of the employer and just let people obtain the jobs they are qualified for. Employers have lost the right to hire for their business and play games with applicants. Remove the human resources strangehold. But I know I'm the "evil bad guy" for saying that.
Right?
Right?
I'm the evil bad guy because I want the jobs filled instead of being reposted 99999999999999999999 times.
No, you're right on the money.
That insane experience I had with a major aerospace company a few years back proved the point. There, the automated resume filters were set to reject everyone for the job. The engineering manager finally had enough and managed to force HR into allowing some interviews. Sadly, nobody was hired. How do I know? Because the job STILL sits on their website, 4 years after it was posted and about 2 years after I interviewed on-site for it... In the end, HR was able to restore their version of "order" and return to the business of rejecting everyone.
The above was only one example - I could fill a page with more... the HR department in the medical device company that skipped out on both phone interviews and then tried to blame it on me... the HR department at a local manufacturing company that set me up for an interview for a position that was apparently part of the upcoming layoffs?! And the list just keeps going...
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