I start with the premise that I do not pretend to understand the complexities of what is happening. As economists around the world struggle to come up with answers, we sit here and wait for the ANSWER. What we appear to be getting today is old garbage in a new package.
First, do we really have to make nice with the financial managers who are being asked to participate with our money in this purchase of toxic assets? Those we have skewered for their obscene compensation packages now must now apparently be assured that they will not be scrutinized if they deem it worthy of their time to once again profit from our past errors in judgment. We beg so they will play in the game. Gimme a break.
Further, can the best solution be that we have to create this facade and buy up the bad decisions at bad prices to make these banks unfreeze the billions and billions of dollars we have already given them? Here is some more of our money, that's all we have, now give some of it back to us if you would. We seem to always be one step behind the bad guys. It is a continuing saga of someone pointing their finger and saying "they went that a way".
There has to be a way in which all the criminals are rounded up and brought before the judge. Like Ricky says to Luci, "you got some splaining to do". It seems like this is just another day when we are not holding anyone accountable, and are not in control of our own destiny.
Let's find a way to be our own masters. Let's not rely on the largesse of those we don't trust to do the right thing. Let's not beg or ask for a way out. Let's make sure that the public participates, if that is what is needed, without kissing up to the fund managers. Let's tell them they should be happy they are not being run out of town for their past misdeeds. Let's tell the financial institutions that we will pump them up but they must no longer stand idle while counting our money. If we buy, you lend. You lose your discretion. We own you and you play by our rules now. If you don't like it, there's the door. Enough.
4 comments:
"Let's tell the financial institutions that we will pump them up but they must no longer stand idle while counting our money. If we buy, you lend. You lose your discretion. We own you and you play by our rules now. If you don't like it, there's the door".
To late. It's like telling your children your never going to help them again if they don't behave, but you have already givin them their trust fund. Now their richer then we are and we're asking them for help.
That's assuming it's an irrevocable trust (which is the way everyone seems to be acting these days).
Let's make it a revocable trust. It is our money, not yours, and we can reclaim its ownership. If we could only reach that threshold, we might be able to open the vaults.
This isn't giving the kids the trust-fund, this is giving the kids the keys to the Ferrari (It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.), letting them drive away, then calling them and saying, come back here! Please. They have our keys. What's 160 million dollars if just one of these guys' walking away blows a billion-dollar agreement? This isn't just anyone - these are the point-guys for trillions of dollars in high-trust deals. This isn't another guy giving you a hair-cut, it's another guy giving you a prostate exam - he walks, I walk. And if just one of them does, a few million-dollar bonuses are going to start looking like loose shingles on a house floating down the river. Man up, populists, and fight the right fight - we have a bunch of stupid kids who are going to grow up to piddle around in the shallow graves we're digging for our major export industries, and until we create a few more Henry Fords (minus the anti-semitism) and a few fewer [every other] Fords, that house floating down the river will be the last thing we cling to before the inevitable monetary collapse. We need better schools, more regulation, and major technological initiatives. And a rowboat - if you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.
Now that is an opinion.
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