The forced acceleration in restructuring through the European commission will hit them with a negative 3.5 Billion impact in Q2.
The following article has a lot of "kind" words about the act http://articles.moneycentral.msn.co...cles/blame-reagan-for-our-financial-mess.aspx "The seeds of this bubble were sown way back in 1980 when Congress passed the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act, calling for the phasing out of Regulation Q, which allowed financial institutions to compete with money market funds. A piece of that legislation was financial cancer: raising the insured deposit maximum to $100,000. That's because the excessive increase became an incentive for depositors to be less disciplined regarding the health of their depository institutions. That seemingly innocuous change (thank you, Fernand St. Germain) spawned "brokered deposits," the primary driver of the reckless lending practices of the 1980s. Money sought out the highest bidder with no regard as to how it might be used. As a result, we witnessed the funding of overleveraged LBOs and the overbuilding of real estate long after the 1986 Tax Act made it uneconomical to speculate in property. It is hard to overstate the significance of this legislation in creating the excesses of the 1980s, which set the stage for the even greater excesses of the 1990s. "
It sure looks like the American public has no real say in what the monetary system of the country does. Seems they are more like cattle - to be led most of the time, slaughtered when it's time to feast. Why does Bernanke no longer say "Americans don't save enough"? Maybe because the artificially low interest rates created by the Fed for so long has made saving a non-issue. So the cattle are driven to invest to try and stay at least apace with inflation, since the middle-class wages have not improved. And what happens? Yes - slaughter time.
The kind of do have a choice when they vote for politicians who approve financial deregulation. It's not an anonymous group of reclusive bankers, it's teh congress who voted for repeal of Glass-Steagall act and for allowing banks into the money market and even for the creation of Fed itself. If anyone is unhappy with the current system they can can always start voting for the politicians who believe that credit should be expensive and difficult to get.
And what kind of politician advocating that would get financing contributions from the lobby groups? Seems people can't think in terms of 1-degree of separation. Why doesn't a Mafia boss do his own dirty work?...
First, you don't need that much money to join the race for Congress or even Senate. It's the actual campaign that is expensive. So, it's again up to the voters. Do they favour someone on the basis of the candidate's views and track record? Or do they vote for someone who sent the most leaflets and got the most endorsements from talking heads on the telly? Second, corporations and the super-rich are not the only sources of campaign money. I hear Obama gots most of his election fund from small contributions.
Joining the race is nothing. Campaigning is everything. If money wasn't so important in the process, why does everyone running for office fight tooth and nail against a "public-funds only" approach? Remember when Obama said he would use only public funds? That didn't last long, did it? So lots of money is a requirement until everybody has to play on the same field to get their slogans out. It would be really funny, since money is fungible, if some bank bailout money went to fund campaign contributions. I guess that would be using "public money" in a way.....