It was 7 years ago this month that then Senator Obama urged the Senate to bail out the banks

[brentspeak]

Seven years later, now President Obama has directed his administration's lawyers to prevent a 65 year man from obtaining relief from a crushing student loan debt.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-14/obama-administration-hits-back-at-student-debtors-seeking-relief

[msongs]

1. no man was ever a better friend to wall street and banks nt

[Warpy]

2. Clinton was.

The wimpy consumer protection package would likely not have been signed by Clinton, given his support of things like the abolition of Glass-Steagall.

Perhaps next time (and there will be one, and soon, thanks to Congressional inaction), we'll have a president and congress that will do the right thing and nationalize the bastards, eliminate the corrupt upper management structure, pass regulations with teeth in them, and not let them go back to the private sphere until they've learned their lessons, at least temporarily. Jailing the architects of the disaster would be nice, too.

[LanternWaste]

3. You've reached a different conclusion based on editorials and talk shows. Good for you.

I've read the objective and rational analyses* of what would have happened had TARP not been forced onto the banks. No doubt, you've reached a different conclusion based on... editorials and talk shows. Good for you. Bumper stickers are often the best many can do.




*
Misunderstanding Financial Crises, by Gary Gorton
To the Edge, by Philip Wallach
The Great Recession. by Robert Hetzel

[brentspeak]

4. Dean Baker: Better No Bailout, Than the One We Got

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/05/20/did-the-bank-bailout-do-enough-for-the-country/better-no-bailout-than-the-one-we-got

Better No Bailout, Than the One We Got

MAY 20, 2014

by Dean Baker

There were three ways to deal with the financial crisis facing the country in the fall of 2008: A bailout with very stringent conditions, letting the market run its course and picking up the pieces afterwards, or a bailout that largely left the financial industry intact.

Unfortunately, we got the last option, which has left us with an economy that still suffers from massive unemployment and a badly bloated financial sector.

...Saying we’d face a second Great Depression if we didn't save the hides of the Wall Street crew would mean our political system is so dysfunctional that Congress and the president would just sit on their hands as the country saw unemployment soar into the double digits.

The Second Great Depression myth was invented by the Wall Street crew to justify saving them from their own recklessness. As a result we got the worst of all possible outcomes.