by John ColeThis just gets better and better (via):
The federal agency that insures bank deposits, which is asking for emergency powers to borrow up to $500 billion to take over failed banks, is facing a potential major shortfall in part because it collected no insurance premiums from most banks from 1996 to 2006.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insures deposits up to $250,000, tried for years to get congressional authority to collect the premiums in case of a looming crisis. But Congress believed that the fund was so well-capitalized – and that bank failures were so infrequent – that there was no need to collect the premiums for a decade, according to banking officials and analysts.
I’d like to get some car, health, and homeowners insurance like that. I mean, I never have had cancer, have never wrecked my car, and my house has never burned down. Why are they still collecting premiums from me.
In other words, banks gave away a lot of money in the form of bad loans to people who had nonexistent means to pay them back, then lost their asses in the derivatives market in which they gambled on all the bad loans they and others had made, all the while earning money on fees and pretending nothing could go awry. But that is ok, because they are covered by FDIC and the premiums they don’t pay.
I eagerly await learning how this is Obama’s fault.
No it definitely isn't Obama's fault, just Bill Clinton's. This really isn't about blaming one person because all of the Government officials which we have elected are corrupt (Dick Cheney) or just idiots (Chris Dodd).
ReplyDeleteThere should be term limits in place for the House and Senate which would alleviate the Lobbyists from getting their claws into these elected officials. And yes the system may be complex but if my memory serves me correctly, our forefathers didn't sit in office for their whole life and they did a pretty good job.
There is just way to much self serving attitudes in Washington and we need to see the rise of some new political parties to challenge the Demorcrat and Republican ways of thinking (far left and far right).
With that said I do believe that we the citizens have to shoulder some of the blame by having the attitude/mindset of "trying to keep up with the Jones" and thinking that we can spend forever. I think that our standard of living is going to decrease just as it did during the Great Depression and this will take a while to come out of this deep hole that has been dug. Only through fiscal responsibility and hard work will we be able to come out of this financial mess. This is a more simple way to live but don't we always say "The simpler the better"? Maybe we should all live by that cread including myself.
p.s. The U.S.A is still the greatest country on Earth and I wouldn't want to live anywhere else.
Awesome post - Yes, the DINO Clinton sold out and sold us up the river...
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