Reply #5: The BailOuts, in some form, might have been necessary.

[truedelphi]

But as Issa and Kucinich have both pointed out, when it became clear that these rat bastards didn't know an economy from a hole in the ground (though the rat bastards were capable of running our economy into a hole in the ground) then the government had an obligation to We the People to take over the banks. Then to take the amount of money needed for a Bailout and put it into regional, state-chartered banks. With regs in place that the monies HAD to be used to loan out money to consumers. (BTW - Geithner was lying through his teeth to Congress whenever he has said that what happened last fall HAD TO HAPPEN THE WAY it did, due to there not being laws on the books to structure the Bailout arrangements. In saying that, Mr Geithner deliberately FORGOT about the laws that Issa and Kucinich's suggestions entail - laws enacted ALREADY during the Savings and Loans Restructurings during the 1980's. And Laws that were proven to work. But did he forget - or was it just better fo r his career and maybe whatever secret "Thank You's" he may get for helping the banking industry help themselves to unlimited capital from Main Street?... The perhaps as much as nine trillion bucks that serve as Guarantees to Wall Street, and are under Bernanke The Magician's mystical purview, mean that not only are We the Taxpayers screwed, but so are our kids and their kids.)

The reason that it was very wrong to keep the Big Boy Banksters operating is because as long as their operations continued, -- AND THIS IS KEY -- then the hideous Trillions owed on the Credit Default Swaps were contractually owed. So the money that was used as "Bailout" went to pay the banksters for their losses vis a vis the CDS stuff. And according to contractual law, it had to! And these amounts, if Brooksley Born is to believed, can be an amount over 600 trillion dollars (At that point there is not even enough money in the world to pay that off - there are literally not enough plant material to make paper to create up the payoff for those those amounts.) As far as I am concerned -- The Obama Adminsitration had a duty to correct the wicked maneuvers that took place last fall. And to close down the "Too Big To Fail" crowd, and put the regional banks in place.

So that no matter how much money in Bailouts are offered to the banks, they have the Contractual Obligation in place that allows them to keep it all. (Until we are at the end of the 600 trillion bucks -- which is never.) This is why the economy is so suck-y, with the only pockets of relief on a grand scale being within Wall Street. This is why businesses are going under while they simply cannot find their next payroll loan. Consumers, even those with clean credit, are denied the new fridge or new car etc. With each credit denial, another manufacturere suffers. And then the workforce is cut back.