Here are a couple more from your link:

have hurt all, mostly the lower wage people. Those with great assets would have continued with their lives like normal. I was raised by parents who lived through the depression, it was very hard, having to worry when and if there would be another meal.

many would not have wanted in those who had mortgages would not have been able to continue paying and more homes would have been reprocessed if Obama had not have followed up with the mortgage reforms. You can be smart or keep your old thoughts, I would rather be smart. The roll out was terrible but still the right thing to do just as bailing out the auto industry was the smart thing to do.

to regulations and left the rest of us in our own personal Great Depressions. And it has not gotten any better since. That is exactly how I want this country to proceed.

TARP? Like all of the jobs bills was passed, like minimum wages has been increasing every year, you can't blame this on one issue, it involves all of them.

that would have prevented the collapse. What they got in the bailout was a pass. "oh, poor bankies you need help." But very little of that help ever reached the 99%.

The bailout was the least acceptable way to resolve that issue. nNot to mention, to this day, they continue to keep a second book on toxic assets.

Seize the company, sell off the assets, and pay the creditors a pittance while making depositors whole.

There was no reason that the bailout could not have strings attached.

would have happened. The rollout of TARP was terrible, the safety features which was placed with the auto industry did not occur in TARP, but now it is done we have to fix the problem, bitching about the bank bailouts has not gotten anything resolved except for people to blow off steam, it is the reforms which needs to happen.

The bank would not have to pay its creditors during this process. So the bank could continue to exist just fine until the process for that bank is complete.

That may have triggered more seized institutions when they did not get paid, but the same program would be available to those institutions. And a bank that can not manage risk can not be allowed to exist.

Except we are deciding on candidates for President now. What they did during the 2007 crisis is a rather important indicator on their political leanings, and how they would handle crises in general.

while countries around them are exploding in debt. See post below in sub-thread for the article, if interested .

On edit -- your last paragraph is key as TARP was passed in an election year with both McCain-Obama voting in favor of it.

I was talking about nationalizing as a solution to the problem -- I should of watched my use of "exactly" but the FDIC example is a form of nationalizing and I'm not sure what the differences are with the two countries but the response itself should have been some form of nationalizing which I added that Sweden post as an agreement to your point which is an example of successful way where the threat of it keeps the other businesses to shape up.

I think I hit a misunderstanding somewhere but I'm in agreement with the spirit of what you're saying.

Sweden didn't because they didn't have a banking crisis due to actually regulating their banks. Sweden is currently having economic issues because austerity fever caused them to raise interest rates.

Also, your post didn't include a link. Might be elsewhere, but I wasn't digging through the thread.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/business/worldbusiness/23sweden.html?pagewanted=all

I have two browsers and 4 or 5 tabs opened on both

The banking crisis hit them earlier in the 1990's, regulation or nationalizing was the response -- I came across it researching more information quickly on Europe overall (came across Finland who was hit right away following the Soviet breakup and the NY Times link came with the mention of Scandanavian countries doing well in response compared to recessions & depressions in a lot of European countries but I think it is fair to say they did have a banking crisis but wouldn't say it was due to regulating their banks since the nationalizing came in response which is probably the reason the avoiding actually having a banking crisis. From the link (I'll update post with it after this post)

--

With Sweden’s banks effectively bankrupt in the early 1990s, a center-right government pulled off a rapid recovery that led to taxpayers making money in the long run.

Former government officials in Sweden, many of whom come from the market-oriented end of the political spectrum, say the only way to solve the crisis in the United States is for the government to be prepared to temporarily take full ownership of the banks.

Sweden placed its banks with troubled assets into a so-called bad bank, where they could be held and then sold over time when market and economic conditions improved. In the meantime, it used taxpayer money to provide enough capital to allow banks to resume normal lending.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/business/worldbusiness/23sweden.html?pagewanted=all

The article was published several months before TARP and the "Too Big to Fail" ones came in the picture but there is more information available driving home the point I was trying to make with Sweden. The text box is more difficult to spot mistakes or things that don't fit or merged incorrectly with other information or forget things like links but the finished post (should take the time to time to preview instead of post my reply!) but I think there is a misunderstanding somewhere as I'm confused.

Swedish banking rescue
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Swedish banking rescue followed a housing bubble in Sweden that deflated during 1991 and 1992, and resulted in a severe credit crunch and widespread bank insolvency. The causes were similar to those of the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007–2008. In response, the government took the following actions:[1]

The government announced the state would guarantee all bank deposits and creditors of the nation’s 114 banks.
Sweden's government assumed bad bank debts, but banks had to write down losses and issue an ownership interest (common stock) to the government. Shareholders at the remaining large banks were diluted by private recapitalizations (meaning that they sold equity to new investors). Bondholders at all banks were protected.
Nordbanken and Götabanken were granted financial support and nationalized at a cost of 64 billion kronor.[2] The firms' bad debts were transferred to the asset-management companies Securum and Retriva which sold off the assets, mainly real estate, that the banks held as collateral for these debts.
When distressed assets were later sold, the proceeds flowed to the state, and the government was able to recoup more money later by selling its shares in the nationalized banks in public offerings.
Sweden formed the Bank Support Authority[3] to supervise institutions that needed recapitalization.

This bailout initially cost about 4% of Sweden's GDP, later lowered to between 0-2% of GDP depending on various assumptions due to the value of stock later sold when the nationalized banks were privatized.

In September 2008, economists Brad DeLong and Paul Krugman have proposed the Swedish experiment as a model for what should be done to solve the economic crisis currently affecting the United States.[4] Swedish leaders who played a role in devising the Swedish solution and have spoken about the implications for other countries include Urban Bäckström and Bo Lundgren.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_banking_rescue

On edit -- I did include a link but I see the "not digging through the thread" so I see where there might be an understanding but my initial reply to you was a suggestion to look down the sub-thread (not the whole thread) "if interested" so you don't have to but I'm confused by the argument (the "Iceland" really threw me off) but probably because I wasn't clear in my reply to you.

An employee whose company used the bank seized it would have been okay not have gotten paid. How many of the bank employees you would be without a job, the dominos would continue to fall. I thought there was some who thought socialism is good.

The bank keeps running. The bank stops having to pay debt. That means paychecks still go through and bank employees still have jobs. The bank even has to keep paying interest to depositors. Eventually those bank employees would have to find new work, but it will be over a long winding-down period instead of a sudden failure.

And I thought you were discussing this in good faith. My bad.

you know the answers. Explaining is not necessary.

That isn't an argument in good faith. There's been lots of FDIC seizures over the years.

You're grasping for any reason why it was OK to pass TARP instead of actually reforming the banks, and deliberately misstating the process in order to do so.

Look deeper, the answers are not on the surface.

If the company took out a loan for payroll, that loan still exists if the bank is seized.

Again, the bank does not have to make its own debt payments if it is seized. Everything else that was already in place keeps going.

The people not getting paid are bondholders. If you require bond payments in order to make your payroll, then first, you're a moron. Second, you're a financial institution that has the same remedy available. Seizure and an orderly wind-down.

Keep flailing. It's entertaining.

Yes, the "too big to fail" banks dominate the market, but they are not the only banks on the planet. You might also wanna look up these wacky places called "credit unions".

You are wasting your time.

Glad others finally see what a waste of time it is to try and have an honest discussion with certain posters here. They don't come here to discuss things in good faith.

They don't even come here to discuss anything, just stir the pot with their strawmen and false equivalency arguments.

I am glad cooler heads prevailed. BTW, it would not have been just a couple of banks failing, to would have been mass chaos. Did you forget some could have caused the pensions to have been picked up by tax payers, look into this aspect also. It has happened, I am glad there was enough votes to have passed TARP.

that still did happen anyway. Cause and effect.

Fed Says Growth Lifts the Affluent, Leaving Behind Everyone Else

WASHINGTON — Economic growth since the Great Recession has improved the fortunes of the most affluent Americans even as the incomes and wealth of most American families continue to decline, the Federal Reserve said Thursday.

For the most affluent 10 percent of American families, average incomes rose by 10 percent from 2010 to 2013. For the rest of the population, average incomes were flat or falling.

The least affluent families had the largest declines. Average incomes dropped by 8 percent for the bottom 20 percent of families, the Fed reported in its triennial Survey of Consumer Finances, one of the most comprehensive sources of data on the financial health of American families.

The new report, broadly consistent with other data on the aftermath of the Great Recession, underscores why so many Americans think the economy remains in poor health. While the pie has grown, most people are getting smaller slices.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/05/business/economy/least-affluent-families-incomes-are-declining-fed-survey-shows.html

Income inequality seems to be rising in more than 2 in 3 metro areas

Income inequality appears to have grown in more than 2 in 3 metropolitan areas from 2005 to 2012, according to one rough measure, a new study finds.

The study, released by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, explores how the Great Recession affected wages and income in hundreds of metropolitan statistical areas — population and economic hubs typically encompassing a large city or cities. Among the key findings is that the jobs gained in the recovery paid an average of 23 percent less than those lost. And in most metro areas, income inequality appears to have worsened.

“While the economy is picking up steam, income inequality and wage gaps are an alarming trend that must be addressed,” U.S. Conference of Mayors President Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson. The Monday release of the study, conducted by IHS Global Insight, was timed to coincide with the launch of the nonpartisan conference’s new Cities of Opportunity Task Force, meant to address problems arising from growing income inequality and economic immobility.

The report confirms what state-level data have consistently shown: the income divide is growing. (Relatedly, economic insecurity has spread like a virus through the nation over teh past several decades.) Nationally, the top fifth of earners have steadily accounted for a larger and larger slice of the income pie, as expressed in the chart below using data from the report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/08/11/income-inequality-seems-to-be-rising-in-more-than-2-in-3-metro-areas/

Middle class households' wealth fell 35 percent from 2005 to 2011

https://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/MPkBEazF4iClS8Vt_GDACR4YaUg=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/666844/Screen_Shot_2014-08-22_at_2.15.58_PM.0.png

That's one of many astounding facts in the report, which focuses on changes in household wealth. For example, it also found that the median net worth of the top 20 percent divided by the median of the second 20 percent was 39.8 in 2000. Today, it's 86.8.

In addition, the latter group lost nearly 56 percent of its wealth. And the overall wealth of the bottom 20 percent fell from -$915 to -$6,029. Or, put another way, the median American in that poorest group saw their debt increase more than 6 and a half fold.

While people in the top 40 percent lost a fair-sized chunk of assets in the downturn, they are currently above where they were in 2000. Meanwhile, the median household in the middle quintile is still worse off than they were then. In the second quintile, the median household only has half the wealth it did in 2000. And the bottom quintile's median household is far deeper in debt.

http://www.vox.com/2014/8/23/6057467/middle-class-households-wealth-fell-35-percent-from-2005-to-2011

The argument was a better one before the bailout but now there is too much history debunking the myth but regulatory responses are better able to handle the crisis which the somewhat weak Dodd-Frank bill was about the only thing to address it but the bailout was about giving big business another fix (page 106 of The Shock Doctrine)

https://books.google.com/books?id=PwHUAq5LPOQC&pg=PA106&lpg=PA106&dq=naomi+klein+junkie+another+fix&source=bl&ots=IlFvyG9EBB&sig=awHjqPraShc6-lEOhAmgac-TFss&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_n1sVf3dGcHEogTuuIM4&ved=0CE0Q6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=naomi%20klein%20junkie%20another%20fix&f=false

This 'sky is falling' talk was coming from the Bush administration and the banks themselves. I'm not saying the weren't or still are real problems but the support from pundits & the mainstream politicians (in an election year no-less) were based on guessing games & gut feelings. I'm saying that wasn't the best plan.

The comparisons to the "great recession" as if without the bailouts there would be breadlines tomorrow are really off the mark for many reasons. One is the banks failed when people withdraw all their money, only a few "too big to fail" banks failed but the same problem wouldn't occur with their money insured by the FDIC. Little reason to collectively withdraw their money from banks hurting mostly the lower wage people but what doomed it was the under-consumption so there were jobs problems, safety nets (which many still exist that probably had more to do with preventing 'the alternative'), farm subsidies were a big part of it which these days are mostly unnecessary and there wasn't a 1930s dust bowl. Many things that could be detailed but it is the lower wage people that were left hurting that still lost their homes (my family one of them but things like food stamps, government funded services, and Section 8 of the 1937 Housing Act got us out of the recession but overall there wasn't an improvement for the lower wage people and we're still seeing a Roaring 20's economy).

There are global examples as well, typically when a domestic based economy transitions into the global economy -- the first major one was with the Ottoman Empire but recently the post-cold war Europe has countless. Finland went into a "great depression" following the breakup and there are Greece, Ukraine, Russia, Iceland, all of them really but especially the 'Eastern bloc' -- the rest of the world is in a recession except for the US economy. (High oil prices cripples the US economy as a top importer so now the oil prices are low due to oversupply which lower prices tend to cripple economies that depend on oil production and the US is now exporting a lot of oil as well when they weren't even on the list of top oil exporting countries not long ago)

The Scandanavian countries out of all them have had the best recovery -- US wasn't alone in the 2008-2009 financial crisis

Sweden’s Fix for Banks: Nationalize Them

By CARTER DOUGHERTY
Published: January 22, 2009

Officials in Washington are trying to figure out how to shore up American banks that once ruled the financial world but now seem to weaken by the day, despite receiving hundreds of billions of dollars in government aid.

With Sweden’s banks effectively bankrupt in the early 1990s, a center-right government pulled off a rapid recovery that led to taxpayers making money in the long run.

Former government officials in Sweden, many of whom come from the market-oriented end of the political spectrum, say the only way to solve the crisis in the United States is for the government to be prepared to temporarily take full ownership of the banks.

Sweden placed its banks with troubled assets into a so-called bad bank, where they could be held and then sold over time when market and economic conditions improved. In the meantime, it used taxpayer money to provide enough capital to allow banks to resume normal lending.

In the process, Sweden wiped out existing shareholders.

By contrast, the United States government, so far, has bailed out banks without receiving large equity stakes in return, said Bo Lundgren, Sweden’s minister of fiscal and financial affairs during the Swedish bank takeover.

“For me, that is a problem,” said Mr. Lundgren, who called himself more of a free marketer than some Republicans. “If you go in with capital, you should have full voting rights.”

<snip>

Fears of bank nationalization are diverse — skeptics worry that nationalization would cost too much, the government would not run banks effectively or nationalization would be too complicated. Mr. Lundgren, the former minister of financial affairs, said the costs of nationalization have to be measured against the perils a hobbled banking system creates for an economy.

Moreover, he said the mere threat of nationalization nudged some Swedish bankers to find creative solutions to their problems in the 1990s.

SEB, the bank controlled by the Wallenbergs, the first family of Swedish business, engineered a private recapitalization to plug the hole in its balance sheet. Distressed assets were then placed in a bad bank of its own, freeing management to run the sound parts of the business.

Nordbanken, a Swedish bank that had expanded in the go-go years of the late 1980s, fell entirely under the control of the government because its losses were so great. It is now Nordea, a banking giant in the Baltic Sea region, and still partly government-owned.

Securum was capitalized with 24 billion kronor ($2.88 billion), a sum equal to the country’s military budget at the time. (The total United States military budget is less than the $700 billion allocated to TARP.)

A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland concluded that Securum eventually returned about 58 percent of that upfront cost to the Swedish treasury, though in depreciated krona.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/business/worldbusiness/23sweden.html?pagewanted=all

To summarize there is a bubble waiting to burst just around the corner with "shock therapy" to treat the symptoms. The idea was to get banks to keep lending but it was drug money that helped the banks more than the bailout itself.

--

At the height of the 2008 banking crisis, Antonio Maria Costa, then head of the United Nations office on drugs and crime, said he had evidence to suggest the proceeds from drugs and crime were "the only liquid investment capital" available to banks on the brink of collapse. "Inter-bank loans were funded by money that originated from the drugs trade," he said. "There were signs that some banks were rescued that way."

Wachovia was acquired by Wells Fargo during the 2008 crash, just as Wells Fargo became a beneficiary of $25bn in taxpayers' money. Wachovia's prosecutors were clear, however, that there was no suggestion Wells Fargo had behaved improperly; it had co-operated fully with the investigation. Mexico is the US's third largest international trading partner and Wachovia was understandably interested in this volume of legitimate trade

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs

Quite some friendly prosecutors there, anyway -- Wachovia bought Wells Fargo for $28 B, the government cut them a $28 billion tax break for "bailing out" Wells Fargo -- were officially caught 3 years after the UN Official told us this for laundering $278 billion and were slapped with a $70 million dollar fine. The bailout was certainly good for the banks but I fail to see what it does to help the rest of this -- especially with the oversupply of housing market being the cause. Cheap homes available in Mesa -- a suburb of the Phoenix metropolitan area one of the top ten hardest hurt areas in the housing markets. So many homeless you can tell how the bailout saved them.

A waste of time trying to discuss anything with them, all they care about it themselves. There was NEVER going to be another Great Depression. The people that buy that are sad and myopic.

This has happened, what has not happened is reform. Since 2008 not much has happened, I dont see a lot happening. All the crying, ranting and wailing is going to change TARP and its rollout. Tight now I would not even hold Bernie's lack of support against but of all Congressional members one would have thought a declared socialist would have voted differently for good of the people, guess that thought is not important.

where the bailout plan was rejected by Congress the first time around. I remember Marcy Kaptur very well (she was against). Bernie Sanders was famous for "Too Big To Fail Banks Are Too Big To Exist” -- trust me the quote was originally used back then IIRC Republicans voted against it 2 to 1 but the Republican leader blamed Pelosi for the bill failing for her "partisan speech" it was so ridiculous Shepard Smith airing live video of Pelosi giving a statement cut it saying the stock market was falling because of the Democrats giving a statement so his theory was end the live feed to save the stocks or something -- it was BS anyway. The 24/7 news was really one sided and McCain made a show of "suspending his campaign" while Obama gave a speech on the Senate floor urging the passage based on the sky is falling theory. The stocks did plunge but there was so much promoting of the sky is falling and Bush “help keep the crisis in our financial system from spreading throughout our economy.” The financial system was saved but the rest of the economy wasn't. Anyway, I remember a lot of debates -- most here at DU seemed to support a better bill rather than the "sky is falling bill".

On climate change, the non believers are just the ones duped by the propaganda (there is a similarity with the example you used -- just not in the way you intended). Most of the elected officials on the Republican side promote this because any nationwide acceptance would inevitable lead to regulations the leading cause of CO2 Emissions -- the oil & gas industry who Republicans receive over 80% of their contributions. Just smoke and mirrors but for those that actually believe (and there is a lot in North America with where it sits on the Earth's tilted axis confuses them) it is a very tiny minority with Sweden with a helpful suggestion of what to do in January several months before the October bailout package.


Nothing is going to change the fact TARP was passed but I addressed your comment specifically on Bernie Sanders was wrong for not voting for it which you're doubling down with "socialist" and "good of the people" -- I think "good for the people" is why Democrats such as himself or Marcy Kaptur were voting against it but here is his statement anyway. Don't know why you're implying someone who favors "Scandinavian-style social democracy" (who ironically did the right thing in response to a crisis remarkable similar to ours) felt differently for the good of the people.

Here is a statement from Bernie Sanders at the time with his counter-offer following


Wall Street Bailout
The Senate approved a $700 billion Wall Street bailout. Senator Bernie Sanders voted against the bill that would put Wall Street's burden on the backs of the American middle class. "The bailout package is far better than the absurd proposal originally presented to us by the Bush administration, but is still short of where we should be," Sanders said. "If a bailout is needed, if taxpayer money must be placed at risk, if we are going to bail out Wall Street, it should be those people who have cau
Wednesday, October 1, 2008

The Senate approved a $700 billion Wall Street bailout. Senator Bernie Sanders voted against the bill that would put Wall Street's burden on the backs of the American middle class. "The bailout package is far better than the absurd proposal originally presented to us by the Bush administration, but is still short of where we should be," Sanders said. "If a bailout is needed, if taxpayer money must be placed at risk, if we are going to bail out Wall Street, it should be those people who have caused the problem, those people who have benefited from President Bush's tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, those people who have taken advantage of deregulation who should pick up the tab, not ordinary working people."

Sanders proposed a five-year, 10 percent surtax on families with incomes of more than $1 million year and individuals earning over $500,00 to raise $300 billion to help bankroll the bailout. Senators, however, set aside the amendment on a voice vote.

In a Senate floor speech, Sanders elaborated on the bailout bill's flaws:

"This country faces many serious problems in the financial market, in the stock market, in our economy. We must act, but we must act in a way that improves the situation. We can do better than the legislation now before Congress.

"This bill does not effectively address the issue of what the taxpayers of our country will actually own after they invest hundreds of billions of dollars in toxic assets. This bill does not effectively address the issue of oversight because the oversight board members have all been hand picked by the Bush administration. This bill does not effectively deal with the issue of foreclosures and addressing that very serious issue, which is impacting millions of low- and moderate-income Americans in the aggressive, effective way that we should be. This bill does not effectively deal with the issue of executive compensation and golden parachutes. Under this bill, the CEOs and the Wall Street insiders will still, with a little bit of imagination, continue to make out like bandits.

"This bill does not deal at all with how we got into this crisis in the first place and the need to undo the deregulatory fervor which created trillions of dollars in complicated and unregulated financial instruments such as credit default swaps and hedge funds. This bill does not address the issue that has taken us to where we are today, the concept of too big to fail. In fact, within the last several weeks we have sat idly by and watched gigantic financial institutions like the Bank of America swallow up other gigantic financial institutions like Countrywide and Merrill Lynch. Well, who is going to bail out the Bank of America if it begins to fail? There is not one word about the issue of too big to fail in this legislation at a time when that problem is in fact becoming even more serious.

"This bill does not deal with the absurdity of having the fox guarding the hen house. Maybe I'm the only person in America who thinks so, but I have a hard time understanding why we are giving $700 billion to the Secretary of the Treasury, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, who along with other financial institutions, actually got us into this problem. Now, maybe I'm the only person in America who thinks that's a little bit weird, but that is what I think.

"This bill does not address the major economic crisis we face: growing unemployment, low wages, the need to create decent-paying jobs, rebuilding our infrastructure and moving us to energy efficiency and sustainable energy.

"There is one issue that is even more profound and more basic than everything else that I have mentioned, and that is if a bailout is needed, if taxpayer money must be placed at risk, whose money should it be? In other words, who should be paying for this bailout which has been caused by the greed and recklessness of Wall Street operatives who have made billions in recent years?

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2008/10/01/wall-street-bailout


Too Big to Fail - Too Big to Exist
Friday, November 6, 2009

Senator Bernie Sanders introduced legislation that would break up financial institutions that are too big to fail. "If an institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist," Sanders said. "We should break them up so they are no longer in a position to bring down the entire economy. We should end the concentration of ownership that has resulted in just four huge financial institutions holding half the mortgages in America, controlling two-thirds of the credit cards, and amassing 40 percent of all deposits." Sanders' legislation would give Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner 90 days to compile a list of commercial banks, investment banks, hedge funds and insurance companies that he deems too big to fail. The affected financial institutions would include "any entity that has grown so large that its failure would have a catastrophic effect on the stability of either the financial system or the United States economy without substantial Government assistance." Within one year after the legislation became law, the Treasury Department would be required to break up those banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions.

The perilous condition of financial institutions deemed too big to fail played a major role last year in undermining the American economy and driving the country into a severe recession. As Wall Street cratered, taxpayers were put on the hook for a $700 billion bank bailout. Teetering banks also were propped up by at least $2 trillion more from the Federal Reserve in secret loans at virtually no interest.

Since the bailouts and the resulting shakeout on Wall Street, the four largest banks in America (JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup) now have strengthened their domination of the home mortgage and credit care industries. Just five American banks (JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley) own a staggering 95 percent of the $290 trillion in risky derivatives held at commercial banks. (Derivatives are the risky side bets made by Wall Street gamblers that led to the $182 billion bailout of AIG, the $29 billion bailout that allowed JP Morgan Chase to acquire Bear Stearns, and forced the collapse of Lehman Brothers.)

One result of the burgeoning concentration of ownership has been outrageously high bank fees and interest rates for credit cards, mortgages and other financial products.

"No single financial institution should be so large that its failure would cause catastrophic risk to millions of American jobs or to our nation's economic wellbeing. No single financial institution should have holdings so extensive that its failure could send the world economy into crisis," Sanders said. "We need to break up these institutions because they have done just tremendous damage to our economy."

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/too-big-to-fail-too-big-to-exist

TARP just proves him correct and funny you don't even "hold it against him"

Better if they did not make a statement, the cover up is worse than the deed. In this case bringing out his voTe on TARP trying to show he made a good decision and Hillary made a bad decision voting for TARP was not smart. It was over with and some body brought this up and now he will probably be ask over and over about this. Give it up, you may like his vote, many others knows the situation and recognized action was required.

shows to me he recognized the situation far more than most & proposed action.

I guess there is a sucker born every minute. Sigh.

service and experience. Hillary First Lady for 8 years, Bernie ....
Hillary Senator, Bernie Senator
Hillary presidential candidate in 2008, Bernie ....
Hillary Secretary of Sate, Bernie ....

government operates across the country in some significant ways.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026759398

He was also a U.S. Rep for over 15 years. Funny how you omitted that information, loopa.

And that Ukraine thing...

As a candidate in 2008, she lost.

back is never going to promote and sell him as a president.

I just smacked at a specious argument.

done, show his experience, show his record, putting down Hillary does not do any of this. That's why I say he can not ride Hillary's back to victory.

Meanwhile, I'm expressing reasons why I want her, and her ilk, out of the square.

It was where "I just smacked at a specious argument."

That's not OK?

Sticking to the issues would probably help you more. Surely there are points you can make regarding her positions that you think are better than Bernie Sanders.

You forgot Bernie serving as Mayor and his time in the house of representatives. I suppose that sort of ruins your parallel argument as to experience. Also, having experience as a candidate for an office is hardly proof of experience of anything other than having run for office.

Burlington Vermont. After the House came the Senate.

The rule is if your business fails ...it fails and you go bankrupt and or file for reorganization. Exceptions are not part of the equation.

There was another option that was presented, but quickly pushed aside as too "socialist".

The too big to fails would be allowed to fail. Afterwards, the government would take receivership of those banks.

The next step would be to divide up accounts, mortgages and other loans by geographical region.

Next, local banks would be allowed to bid on those loans and mortgages, perhaps for pennies on the dollar, but none the less reverting back to the community where everyone has an interest in their success.

Finally, those banks would be required to renegotiate those mortgages for no more than the current market value.

Example: you buy a house in 2005 for $300k with no money down mortgaged thru citi.

In 2008 your property value falls to $200k.

Citi goes bankrupt, the goverent takes control of Citi.

Mayberry community trust bids and wins buying mortgages in your area for 50cents on the dollar- effectively buying your mortgage for $150k.

You refinance shortly thereafter and bring your loan down to $200k.

Full win: you get a lower mortgage, the bank makes an additional 50k on top of what they make on interest, and too big to fail has disipitated to hundreds of midsize banks versus single digit giant.

There would have been lots of homeless people if the combination of TARP and HARP not occurred. Just like the bailout of the auto industry helped.
Where in the hell are the socialist on this, I thought it was a sharing group, guess it is only important on some issues.

Into being more manageable if a bank or three fell.

bank reform bills after TARP? This is where the failure lies.

Problem that still exists. If the plan in #10 had been implemented, there would have been little need, if any, for further reform.

Most of the things that put us in the meltdown are practices that are not allowed by smaller banks because of their limited capital.

It is like your electricity is being disconnected and you say well I will install solar, but what do you do until you get the solar installed? I am not happy bank bailouts but I realize the need for this to have happened. We have to get past TARP, we have to work towards reforms. Bitching about TARP is not getting the reforms in place. We need to look at the forest and see the trees.

their homes.

who could not afford the homes they was purchasing. By the time TARP was passed the sins of purchasers and mortgage companies had already happened. The real estate market started crashing, wage increases did not occur. People could not afford the mortgage payment when they got the mortgage and it did not get better for them. Who helped with HARP? It did not change the fact we would have been in a deep depression with out TARP. The reform bills should have followed, where are the bills and why did they not pass reform?

I was taking care of my disabled daughter and my mother who had Alzheimer the banks used their income to determine what they could lend me. My own income was much less than $500 a month. That was always my total worth.

They would have borrowed me a huge amount of money based on someone else's money. But that was never my money. In fact when my mother was placed in the nursing home it was gone. But the banks did not adjust their estimate of my worth. Likewise when I got old enough that I could no longer take care of my daughter.

Nothing changed for the 99% - the banks still do that shit. Those things were never addressed in the bailout.

As to what I think. Well I have been through one Great Depression and if you think those of us on the bottom are not in another great depression - think again. The only difference between then and now for many of us is that we have FDR's safety net. And that is not all that safe anymore.

you could not continue to pay for 30 years. As consumers we have to know our limitations also, you have to blame both the mortgage companies and the ones requesting a mortgage. Times are hard but to go out and get a mortgage when the funds are not there is bad. Also, the real estate market went down, the homes could not sold even close to the purchase price. I have seen the market go and down, purchased homes when the market was down and this was before 2008.

Reforms is what is needed now. we had to make a big move and swiftly. I don't like the way Hank Paulson rolled out TARP but the importance of preventing a depression was most urgent.

The incentives were for the bank to start the TARP process, and then reject the application. That kept the house off the "foreclosed" books for a while.

As an added bonus, homeowners paid the "new" mortgage payment while the application was pending. So when the bank rejected the application they were now 6 months behind on payments. That's the main reason TARP had money left over. The banks, shockingly enough, acted in bad faith.

TARP/HARP were not the only option. A far better option is similar to what the FDIC does when it seizes a bank. It sells the assets off, makes the depositors whole, and gives whatever is left to the remaining creditors.

Add in a required renegotiation of the mortgage, and you have a program that actually punishes the people who did wrong, removes them from business since they've demonstrated they can not manage risk, and you have thrown less people out of their houses than TARP.