I won't dispute that bankers' privileged treatment in the 2008 crash merits populist scorn. But unfortunately, without a bank bailout, there probably would have been a worldwide depression.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
We need to think deeply about whether we can sustain banks that are not only too big to fail, but potentially too big to bail.
Let's be honest: It wasn't just the banks who messed up. There were a lot of people who tried to buy assets they couldn't afford. That's a reality.
As American citizens, if you believe all banks were bailed out, you would hate banks. I would, too.
The banking collapse was caused, more than anything, by bad government policy and the total failure of bad regulation, rather than by greed.
The Great Bailout is mostly over for the banks. But for those troubled behemoths of the nation's housing bust, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the lifeline from Washington just keeps getting longer.
Public anger over bank bailouts was as much about fairness as the billions of dollars spent.
I went to the bank and proposed that they lend money to the poor people. The bankers almost fell over.
When the banks grow to or when these financial institutions grow to such a size that they can't sustain themselves, or what have you, they have problems, economic problems, or financial problems, they shouldn't be able to look back to you and I, the taxpayer, to be bailed out.
The banks are not lending, at least from what I see. They were so wild and reckless back in the good times that they got burned terribly.
If anything, the bailouts actually hindered lending, as banks became more like house pets that grow fat and lazy on two guaranteed meals a day than wild animals that have to go out into the jungle and hunt for opportunities in order to eat.