the problem is when QE is permanent. hence rules must be set. QE was never suppose to be forever. it was an emergency bailoutt so banks didn't become insolvent and go bankrupt. it was never for banks to increase earnings or make more profit.
You think '08 was the first financial panic in the history of the market? There is no "maybe" about it. The US suffered tens of such panics before 1900 and made it through fine. Ignorance of economic law doesn't justify nationalization, under any circumstance. The "we didn't know what would happen" argument is pure bullshit. I suggest you bone up on some economic history and read what happened (over and over again) under just such circumstances. The fear-mongering loses it's appeal after that point. And btw, note who does most of the fear-mongering: the very same banks who stand to lose the most from a collapse!
Oh come on, achilles... We've had this discussion before. I am not a banker, so I am not fear-mongering 'cause it suits me. However, I think it was the right thing to do (but, unfortunately, done at the wrong price). Doing nothing at the time would have been a perfect example of cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. At the very least, admit that it isn't obvious and a foregone conclusion that we'd be better off without the measures taken during the crisis, like you say. Fine, arguing counterfactuals is rather pointless, but that means that, at the very least, your argument is just as speculative as mine.
That's exactly right. Anybody else on here that insists they 'know' what would have happened if not for the bailouts...I just don't know who you are trying to fool, but you're not fooling me...at all
Therein lies the rub. Ron Paul has alluded to it on numerous occasions, to paraphrase..the arsonist and the firefighter are one in the same. Of course, it seems logical that we should bailout, prop up, stimulate the economy when given one dire alternative. But we never ask the question of how we got to that point, wherein our economy has become a grotesque fiasco.
Of course the question has been asked... My fav take on the matter is the excellent article by Simon Johnson, "The Quiet Coup". You can find it here: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the-quiet-coup/7364/ However, as usual, talk is cheap and it seems like nothing's gonna get done.
Yes, the question has been asked, and I have the same question(s). 'how did it get to this point' and 'how can we prevent this from happening again'. The fact that we had to bailout the banks freakin sucks. No doubt. I also hate the fact that these Wall Street bankers are set to get their huge freakin bonuses again, after we bailed their asses out. I'll say it again though, I think the bailouts were a 'necessary evil'. At the time of the crisis I think it was the right course...at least better than doing nothing. Martinghoul, I'll have to check out that article
i still think that the bailouts covered a massive scheme where offshore lack of laws and inspections allowed the same bundled mortgage packages to be sold multiple times and the existence of the paperwork on those mortgages remains mysteriously buried, if this had come to light ,the U S credibility would have taken a massive hit . the lack of investigation assures me of a cover up, why investigate what you already know
o.k., I'll play along with the idea that the banks should have been bailed out. I'm actually not so unreasonable to assume that liquidity measures were necessary at the time as trading between counter-parties completely dried up 2 years ago. The failure of the intervention was the simple fact that there were not enough restrictions attached to the rescue and/or the institutions themselves should have been divested, split apart, broken up as a means of de-centralizing all of these separate financial centers collectively leveraged under one roof. In essence, at that time, and as a condition of the rescue packages, we should have turned back the clock to the mid-1990's and returned to a hard line between commercial banking and retail banking commingled with investment banking. i.e. repeal the repeal of Glass-Steagall. Then again, I realize that it would be near impossible to actually divest entities that were sitting on billions in fraudulent loans that would have to be accounted for. Instead, the decision was made to paper over all of the bad "paper" and try to re-capitalize extremely leveraged banking entities that were for all practical purposes finished.