"This isn't a crisis in banking. Banking is the crisis. "

[WhiskeyGirl]

This isn't a crisis in banking. Banking is the crisis. The problem is systemic in the real sense. The investment bankers attempted to abolish the risk of default among borrowers. Instead, they amplified the threat until it became global, parasitic and ubiquitous. In a sense, they attempted to redefine the nature of money for their own gain. The lunatics mortgaged the asylum. Now the sole aim of governments is to grant them another chance to fail less badly.

This mutating flu attacks the body politic, and it will be back before long. It will return for the simple reason that none of the assumptions that led to the crash has been challenged in any coherent way. No doubt there is a behavioural economist out there who can explain why madness is the new sanity.

read the rest here - http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/features/display.var.2524426.0.This_isnt_a_crisis_in_banking_Banking_is_the_crisis_the_lunatics_mortgaged_the_asylum.php

The big banks seem to get everything free from Washington, lots of fees and perks for selling off AIG, big bonuses...

Taxpayers get the bill.  Generations of debt.

Nothing for Main Street.  Nothing for the little people that have to pay all this MONSTER debt back.

[WhiskeyGirl]

I think this would have made a better title for this thread -

Something Is Rotten In The State Of Wall Street

Robert Lenzner, 08.07.09, 03:00 PM EDT

It's time to fix an appalling compensation system that lavishly rewards the losers who got into trouble and shafts the savior.

It doesn't seem fair, does it? The government saved Wall Street by backing troubled financial institutions with trillions of loans, investments and guarantees. It took a modest, non-usurious fee in buying the preferred stock of several troubled financial institutions and took warrants for common stock in them as well. This saved the banks so they could return to business as usual and get back to the business of overcompensating many of their employees who brought us to the precipice of disaster.

Thanks to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo--not Congress, not the White House--we have learned that Merrill Lynch, now a part of Bank of America ( BAC - news - people ), and Citigroup ( C - news - people ), a zombie still propped up by the government, both lost more than $27 billion in 2008, but paid $9 billion in executive bonuses last year. Goldman Sachs ( GS - news - people ), Morgan Stanley ( MS - news - people ) and JPMorgan Chase ( JPM - news - people ) each paid bonuses larger than their profits and appear to be steering for the same mode of compensation for the indefinite future.

...

It's time to do something bold. One of the failures of capitalism is the pathetic lack of responsibility taken by the owners of American business and finance, who have sat idly by getting free cheese from Uncle Sam.

read more here - http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/07/citigroup-goldman-sachs-personal-finance-investing-ideas-bank-america.html

Nothing for Main Street.

[WhiskeyGirl]

Q: Why will growth be so weak when the economy recovers this fall, as many analysts expect?

A: One key reason is that this recession had its roots in the financial sector. Growth will be hobbled because of the deep damage banks suffered during the financial meltdown last fall, which will make them less likely to lend money and fuel the economic recovery, said Chris Varvares, president of the National Association for Business Economics.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jdLS34SouNQrW8AdcTLijDbDZ7NAD9A07F6G0

Why does the government keep shoveling money at the banks that caused the problems?  Why do the same people in Congress that failed to address the problem with the bank years ago, why are they still in charge?

When will American Government work for Main Street and not for Wall Street and big business?