Bottom line: We are allowing these outdated and overly large banks to take control of our government and change the rules so that they are protected (communist-style) from the natural competition and reward systems that have created so many innovations in our country. By this means we are allowing them to not only steal from the citizens (communist-style) on behalf of the least worthy, but also to doom our citizenry by trapping and tying up the very capital that could have otherwise been used to generate new innovation and highly productive jobs -- just like in the old USSR!
Do we want to continue to allow our government to be commandeered by those in our banking system who have failed and been passed over by technological advancements, and innovation, to the point that they've run their businesses into the ground and have had to be bailed out by a federal government that they have to some very significant extent infiltrated? Well that's the kind of government we now have! Alumni from Goldman Sachs now hold many key positions in key government agencies. Most recently we learned that the SEC has hired a former Goldman hand as its chief operating officer in its enforcement unit. What a perfect example of appointing the fox to guard the henhouse. Wake up America.
The government's job should be to restore the rules of investment, not indulge those who want to unfairly sustain and even multiply their wealth and power at our nation's expense.
What we want is a Wall Street that will attract men and women who will seek to be the next Warren Buffett, or great venture capitalist -- men and women fairly competing to analyze the countless ideas of our best and brightest, and who will invest not in devious schemes to defraud millions of their fellow Americans, but rather invest in the talented people who will best be able to bring their innovations to America and the world.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33327368/ns/msnbc_tv-morning_meeting/
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William K. Black is a professor of economics and was the senior regulator during the S&L crisis. He recently wrote an article titled, How the Servant Became a Predator: Finance's Five Fatal Flaws. Here's an excerpt:
What exactly is the function of the financial sector in our society? Simply this: Its sole function is supplying capital efficiently to aid the real economy. The financial sector is a tool to help those that make real tools, not an end in itself. But five fatal flaws in the financial sector's current structure have created a monster that drains the real economy, promotes fraud and corruption, threatens democracy, and causes recurrent, intensifying crises.
1. The financial sector now harms the real economy.
2. The financial sector now produces recurrent, intensifying economic crises here and abroad.
3. The financial sector's predation is so extraordinary that it now allows the upper one percent of our nation's income receivers to capture an unprecedented and ever more hugely disproportionate share of our nation's total income.
http://www.newdeal20.org/?p=5330
Black also says that that the government's entire strategy now -- just as during the S&L crisis -- is to cover up how bad things are ("the entire strategy is to keep people from getting the facts").
Example: 7 out of the 8 giant, money center banks went bankrupt in the 1980's during the "Latin American Crisis," and the government's response was to cover up their insolvency.
Black continues:
There has been no honest examination of the crisis because it would embarrass CEOs and politicians . . .
