Big Bank Failures Caused Current Crisis — Not Government Largesse
Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the IMF writes of The Ruinous Fiscal Impact of Big Banks:
Public deficits and debt relative to gross domestic product have ballooned in the last three years for one simple reason – the big banks at the heart of our financial system blew themselves up. On this point, the conclusions of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which appeared last week, are very clear and utterly compelling.
No one forced the banks to take on so much risk. Top bankers lobbied long and hard for the rules that allowed them to behave recklessly. And these same people effectively captured the hearts, minds and, some would say, pocketbooks of the regulators – in the sense that a well-regarded regulator can and often does go work for a bank afterward.
And he shows how the big boys are working at gaming the system again, to their advantage, and of course, against ours….
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February 3rd, 2011 @ 2:02 pm
oy veh. Yes the financial industry brought us down….BUT….this was all made possible by the repeal of the Glass Steagall Act in 1999. In other words when we killed off financial industry regulation. And this deregualtion was made possible by the votes of our mostly Republican, corporate shills, in congress and signed into being by Bill Clinton at the urging of Greenspan.
Greenspan later said something to the effect that he didn’t realize that they would abuse it. DUH Of course ND Democrat Senator Dorgan was able to accurately predict EXACTLY what came to be… for some strange reason.
We live in a world where the US is being gamed, preyed upon by HUGE conglomerates who have bought at least half of our legislators in some form or fashion. Citizen’s United will allow them to preselect future electorates with even more freedom.
We have allowed the sellout of our Democracy to the new Global Corporate Kings.