Reply #12: why would the banks starting lending?

[Bluesbreaker]

Unlike any other business, banks and insurance companies are the only companies that do business with the wealth of others. Banks are also the only business granted a list of special privileges and responsibilities. This was done to encourage banks to take the savings of others and lend it out to American businesses and individuals, with the goal of helping grow new ideas and businesses that serve the current and future needs of society and, in the process, create jobs that help fulfill those needs.

But our banks haven't been serving the interests of the broader economy for quite some time. Instead of being incentivized by the government to lend money to all the innovators, investors and workers in this country, our banks are either hoarding cash, playing the spread between low interest government loans and higher yields or just flat-out gambling through the giant and ongoing insurance fraud that is the derivatives market.

Nothing in the recently passed House "financial reform" bill will change this. Do we really think the banksters are going to change their ways, just because their buddy Larry Summers and the president ask them?