I am furious over these bailout bandaids.
Each bandaid is rationalized... the spin to "accept it" flows from every corner... and intelligent free-market, capitalism participants, are buying the "too big to fail" jargon.
None of this is about the public welfare. None of this is about protecting the population, pensions, or any other spin that the Federal reserve can place on it.
It is ALL about overpriced derivatives, bank-to-bank bad bets, exotic financial instruments between brokerages, banks, and foreign governments. The derivative/exotic financing was NOT regulated... Greenspan hailed the instruments & further encouraged the "no regulation" enviroment. Here we, the populus, sit beneath overhead financially destructive clouds (derivatives) which are darkening the skies with each passing day.
The derivative market was overpriced. Leverages went (on a percentage basis) into orbit. Executives booked profits that brought commissions & bonuses into the millions. The government allowed it to be unregulated and now, with the bets going bad, our Federal Reserve has nationalized (can you believe it???) an insurance company.
Sooo.. spin has it that Lehman had time to unwind. Okay... they can go bankrupt. But oooooooooooopsss.... AIG had time to unwind but we should ignore that fact & spin that they are "too big to fail". We should, by the way, bring the biggest failures of the American capitalistic economy into the loving arms of the taxpayers who, by the way, never got bonuses for bad behavior, never took commissions for super risky bets, and who made the silly mistake of either investing in the stock (puff!!) or giving the deposits to those jokers in the first place.
If we, as a country, don't turn to Bernanke & Paulson and ask the obvious question "What are you doing to us?????", then shame on us.
