Is this insane, or just so smart you blink?

[xmtpedprl]

The "run on the banks" thing could just as easily happen today...

Dave...

 

[chicago guy]

Sounds like a fine theory to teach at a liberal college. Unfortunately it has no relevance to reality. It would not work and would never happen.
Kind of reminds me of a political history class about socialism.
"In theory socialism is the finest form of government, in reality it has never and will never work."

 

[Elliott]

AA,
Yeah it 'could' happen, but it doesn't happen for 70 years. If you'd
like to withdraw your money, your free to do so, maybe you should
buy gold.

 

[xmtpedprl]

I presented the article only because it was intriguing, not because I agreed with it 100%.

I do agree, however, that these banks are, in effect, criminals, having engaged in criminal - or at the very least, criminal-like - activity. Certainly allowing their fate to fit the crime isn't unreasonable. Or is it?

I admit I am harboring anger here, which is why my 'Christian Conservative libertarian Constitutionalist' thinking is blurred, but at least I am being honest.

I think bad behavior should rewarded with bad consequences to those having initiated it. That's all. Letting these bozos go under doesn't really seem all that bad to me, and if even one of you here believes "the market" will correct itself, and that INDEPENDENTLY of outside influence (read, bailout leading to further inflation), then you're just kidding yourselves.

The market shall correct nothing here. It will be aided, and heavily so. The only question then arising is how the shall we be effected...?

Dave...

 

[toddmallard]

Mark, No politics here in this section. Specialy your type. Lets keep the pubs in office and watch the whole country go down.

 

[Mike Boyd]

This is a gross over-simplification. On the surface it says, "let the punishment fit the crime." In practicality, it would cause world wide economic chaos, and, perhaps WWIII.

Sounds to me like republican propaganda to scare the he!! out of otherwise democatic voters.

 

[c w d]

We've already done the bank failure thing, run on the bank panics from 1819 to 1934.
Since there is FDIC insurance, all that would be accomplished is another debt for
the US Treasury, except you'd have no confidence in bonds, banks, or mortgages,
let alone confidence in stocks. The value and influence of the dollar would be gone
for decades. Ask any struggling small country how easy it is to lift yourself
up by your boot straps with no capital assets. We'd soon be totally owned by
Japan, Europe, China, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Dubai, so we all better start
learning a second language.

Yeah, real smart idea.

*sarcasm on* But Elliott, the market will take care of it. And if the market says we need to learn a second, third or fourth language depending on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th job we're working that day then that's what we need to do. Even though we won't have any native industry because of lack of financing options the market will sort everything out in the long run. *sarcasm off*

 

[Mark K]

Mark, No politics here in this section. Specialy your type. Lets keep the pubs in office and watch the whole country go down.

Sorry. We should bring back Jimmy Carter, he can fix this mess.

BTW, have you Florida people figured out those punch cards yet? November isn't that far off.

 

[xmtpedprl]

"Republican propaganda?" Please.

Either there is accountability, or there isn't. Democracy isn't the question here.

Dave...

 

[Riick]

I say we take HIS house (or more probably rent-controlled apartment) and auction it off. Oh, and give the money to the grasshopper, not the ant!

1901 VERSION
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

2008 VERSION
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed
to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving. CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering
grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper
is allowed to suffer so? Kermit the Frog appears on prime time with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing,
It’s Not Easy Being Green.

Others exclaim in interviews that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper and call for an immediate
tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, there is drafted the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.
The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to
pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.

A law firm represents the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of judges.
The ant loses the case.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in,
which just happens to be the ant’s old house, crumbles around him because he doesn’t maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow. The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house,
now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.
.
.