Posted on 02/23/2009 2:54:07 AM PST by Scanian
You've got to love their timing - almost as if they got an order from the Democrats to do an editorial on why it will be necessary to nationalize the banks.
Why nationalize, asks the New York Times? Because they're (you guessed it) TOO BIG TO FAIL!
Rescue measures have so far prevented a system-wide meltdown, but they have not reversed the downward slide or revived bank lending. That will not happen until investors have a firm grasp of the losses that everyone knows are on banks' books - but that the banks are loath to acknowledge.
Done right, a takeover would be a once-and-for-all fix. The government would examine the banks' holdings to get a realistic assessment of the toxic assets that are crippling the banks - and how much capital each bank needs, not only to survive but to begin lending again.
Institutions that are healthy enough to raise the needed capital from private investors would remain in shareholders' hands. Those that are too weak would be taken over by the government and recapitalized with taxpayer money. The government would be in charge of restructuring those banks' finances and operations. Current management would be fired - an appropriate end for executives whose failures have brought their companies and the country to this dark and dangerous point. Because taxpayers would be the owners, they would benefit from the gains to be had when the banks recover.
First the banks. Then, when the next spike in oil prices occurs, it will be energy companies. After that, we're going to have to "save" IBM, HP, and Dell. Pretty soon, there won't be a "Standard and Poors 500" but rather a "US Government 500."
That's okay. Obama is so brilliant that by himself he could run our entire economy as smoothly as all the Soviet central planners put together.
This is apparently what the people want. They have voted for these kinds of policies repeatedly over the years by continuing to send the likes of Pelosi, Reid, Kennedy, Kerry, Durbin, Frank, Hoyer, Waxman, Shays, Dodd, etc., back to Washington term after term. They scream about and buy into Big Oil, Big Pharma, Wall Street vs. Main Street, rich get richer, living wage, global warming, terrorists are being tortured and deserve Constitutional protections, the NSA taps phones, and healthcare is a right.
While we're talking about industries being nationalized today, they'll be talking about the Oscars. Tomorrow when we're talking about how the Justice Department signaled they're going after conservative churches by Holder's comment that we're segregated on weekends, they'll be talking about how they "make out great" when they get a big tax refund, refusing to understand that they're only celebrating what was taken from them in the first place.
It is against this backdrop that the transformation of our capitalist system and government is moving at high speed, aided and abetted by a complicit media. Tragically, aid also comes from a foolish and naive opposition that mostly thinks what's going on is the result of it being the Ted Mack Amateur Hour in DC instead of a coordinated and deliberate plan to do what Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia failed to do.
The Goverment 500 or DC 1000 isn't going to bother enough people without strong leadership in the opposition and a fundamental shift in what people believe about how the US government and economy are supposed to be. So long as the opposition acts like it's a policy dispute instead of a war on our system and way of life, and so long as the people think government is the answer to all problems, the Government 500 is as certain as death and taxes.
Years ago, the bank my wife and I used was bought up by another bank, over the years that banks was bought up by a new bank, I have never moved my money ,but I have had to change my checks 5 times in the 45 years of our lives as larger banks bought out the smaller ones.
I tol my wife years ago it was bad for the country. If a small bank goes under it isnt too hard to bail out that small bank with FDIC, but when a large bank defaults it takes a lot more money to bail it out.
I certainly am no financial wizard,but I could see this coming 20 years ago.
It won’t be that much longer before that sodding rat warren, the NYTs, is empty and the wrecking balls are tearing that stink rags building, down to rubble.
When the government controls the capital, that’s called fascism, the government controlling the capital leads to them controlling every thing else!
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