Special offer

Time to Break the Banks

By
Real Estate Broker/Owner with Vintage Homes Realty BK3121917

In far off Davos, Switzerland Reuters is reporting the financial titans have gathered for their annual talks.  The financial money masters, particularly Wall Street's largest banks have tried to forge a  common front to fight politicians who are calling for tough measures to regulate the financial industry following the financial crisis these same institution ignited.

Apparently these poor suffering souls are feeling misunderstood. "One top banker who attended the financiers' meeting said much frustration was expressed by executives who thought they had changed a lot in the past year but that politicians just were not listening."  Really?  American and European governments with hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars just socialized their losses and basically saved their asses to advert a global DEPRESSION.  For that they feel misunderstood.

The Reuters article quotes Brian Moynihan, the CEO of Bank of America Corp. as saying: "What we are trying to achieve is to engage in a good dialogue with all the relevant parties, the regulators and the political side."

Who finds Bank of America being concerned a tad bit disingenuous? 

They just don't want to be held accountable.  Here is a novel idea.  Not only do they need greater regulation but it is time that we return to the wisdom of the Glass-Steagall Act.   Ten years (the date was November 4, 1999), Senator Byron Dorgan warned that banks would become "too big to fail" and was one of 8 senators who voted against the repeal which was called 'The Financial Modernization Act.'  He said then that Congress would "look back ten years time and say we should not have done this."

Amen!  FDR and his Depression Era brain trust had got it right.  Unfortunately that was at best a dim memory among the politicians of either party or the Clinton administration.  They took out the safeguards that had kept us from teetering over the financial abyss that the greedy bankers have brought us to.

It is time for Congress to break-up the banks. No bank should be allowed to reach beyond a region or half dozen states.  The next time they screw up they will not be to big to fail.  They if they fail we the taxpayers will not bail them out.  We will nationalize them until we the taxpayers are completely reimbursed.

It may be nice that they have paid back the bailout money but that does not begin to repay the damage they have done to the public treasury.  Our government borrowed the money to bail out the banks, so there is interest; the economy contracted because of their actions that drove up unemployment payments, public assistance payment, etc.  They should be taxed until the public purse has been adequately reimbursed.  And if they want to give out bonuses, it is time that they be taxed at rates up to 70%.

I don't know about everyone else but I am tired of socializing the losses of corporate America but being told it is wrong to reasonably tax their profits.  These financial titans brought the global economy to the brink of collapse and they want to return to business as usual?

Comments (1)

Don Wixom
RE/MAX Executives Nampa, ID - Nampa, ID
"Looking out for your next move..."tm

Interesting Read, Rick! How long would this take, if it worked? I like the concept!

Jan 30, 2010 01:01 PM