OP here. Given the current story re HSBC's misbehaviour, I thought it worth reminding everyone of the scale of the theft that took place during the bank bailout.
Not to mention that the Fed made available and lent up to $7T to banks (without telling Congress) right before TARP was rushed through.
Smoke some weed, go to jail.
Do it three times, go to jail for life in CA. MANDATORY. Especially if you're black.
If these and other ongoing similar "crimes" don't convince you that we're living in an oligarchy, and our precious democracy/republic is a farce at best, well, I don't know what will.
Our drug and sentencing laws are the result of democracy, not oligarchy.
If a democracy and majority rule were the true rule of the land, we may still have segregation, slavery, illegal mixed-race marriages, and so on, and so on...
Now look at what class our electorate is largely made up of. Mix that with a little Citizens United and it becomes clear again that money controls government (and now rather blatantly) and it's not often that decisions are made that benefit the weakest among us - drug policy and the war on drugs being just one example.
That has nothing to do with what agenda is moved forward by the oligarchy.
Please.
The majority is rarely well educated about anything. Pretending their support on the war on drugs is somehow more informed than on bank bailouts is silly.
Unedited previous comment:
---------------------------------------------------------------
I don't understand your comment, friend. I said nothing about the 'war on drugs'. Uninformed participants in a political or economic system should not be making decisions that affect others in any way. Random citizen John Smith will, out of a sense of righteous indignation, decide against any useful regulation for banks because he is upset that they get recapitalized while his mortgage terms do not get favorably renegotiated, irrespective of the intellectual value of his decision.
Banking and financial activities are fundamental to a healthy and growing economy and everything from home mortgages to credit cards to IPOs are driven by a bank's ability to extend credit and deliver banking services to the citizenry of a country. Bonuses are generally speaking a direct function of a bank's PROFITABILITY, not its ability to cater to every individual's whims and desires to become some rockstar 'rich person' or even the populace's desire to remain middle class. Services are provided, and profits are distributed accordingly.
If affecting political policy is beneficial to shareholders, decisions like Citizens United are logical and the exact type of decisions I'd want my board of directors to make, as an investor, and if that contributes to maximal economic growth then it is optimal for human society, with the exception of environmental concerns which need to be taken more seriously then they have been in our immediate past.
So what was the right rate of return? If it was 10%, that's 2% marginal rate not captured. How long was the term of the loans? 5 years? That works out to roughly $70B over 5 years.
I'm not claiming that's a small number (!) but if we are calling it theft, we should qualify the theft more concretely.
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/economicsunbound/arch...