G.O.P. Senators Say Some Big Banks Can Be Allowed to Fail

[Frank Booth]

Source: NY Times

John McCain and Richard C. Shelby, two high-profile Republican senators, said on Sunday that the government should allow a number of the biggest American banks to fail.

“Close them down, get them out of business,” Mr. Shelby, the senior Republican on the Banking Committee, told ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.” “If they’re dead, they ought to be buried.”

While the Alabama senator did not say which banks to shutter, he suggested that Citigroup might be on that list, saying the bank has “always been a problem child.”

Mr. McCain, appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” echoed that sentiment without identifying any banks. Mr. McCain, who lost the presidential election last November, also accused the Treasury Department of avoiding the “hard decision” to let “these banks fail.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/us/politics/09talkshows.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&src=ig

[FreakinDJ]

1. as long as it is under a Dem President

we all saw the plan Bush put forward

[scytherius]

17. EXACTLY!

Republicans would then just let a small handful of banks monopolize everything and bleed us dry, just like they have done with everything else the past 8 years. Ever since Reagan stopped enforcing the Sherman Antitrust Act this Nation has headed straight down the toilet.

[PM Martin]

22. And watch another depression occur

in which Dixie Shelby and Vietcong John McCain will then blame Obama for.

[FreakinDJ]

23. That is what they are hopeing for

Thats why all the noise out of the GOP about Obama's failed policies.

Shit the guy hasn't even been in office 2 months.

They want to stall off any sort of recovery as to give them a change to regain some seats in 2010. For that they will gladly risk the financial health and security of ALL Americans

Why do you think they call them RATpubliCONs

[JDPriestly]

28. Excellent point, FreakinDJ

Now that the Republicans have stated openly that they want Obama to fail, why in the world should we listen to their advice or comments. If they want Obama to fail, they would be motivated to give bad advice.

Obviously everything that the Republicans say at this point is, by their own admission, in bad faith. If Obama fails, so do we, so does America. The Republicans, therefore, must be ignored if we want to succeed, if we want America to succeed.

[liberal N proud]

30. That and it's not their cronies banks

They wouldn't want to let banks fail of those who lobby and support them (Them being the GOP).

[Skink]

2. If Mccain had gotten in I shudder to think what he would do.

:scared:

[Frank Booth]

8. I don't think he would have allowed them to fail.

I think he's saying this now because he knows it's not going to actually happen, but he thinks he can score some populist political points by saying it.

[w4rma]

3. Good. (nt)

[rollingrock]

4. Why naturally

only they should have been screaming the same thing months ago.

I guess they know how to put their finger in the air and take advantage of the popular public sentiment.

[jwirr]

5. Isn't that what President Obama's stress tests are all about?

[Skink]

9. Republicans are pissed off because the stress tests might uncover something bad.

something that letting the banks fail probably wouldn't. Like how extensive the black market peso exchange actually is and who is benefitting.

[JDPriestly]

29. And the extent to which the Republican mafia and gambling

have undermined American economic strength. It's really bad and most people have no clue as to how bad it is and how bad it will become. Some of my friends have already fallen off the financial cliff. Some are on the precipice. Most don't know just how close they are to the edge. It's really strange.

People confide in me a lot. I know who is where in the scheme of things. Those who know just how much trouble they are in kind of disappear and lay low. It's really sad.

[Xipe Totec]

6. GOP; the party that says it's okay to be a failure n/t

[Rosa Luxemburg]

7. No, because these banks have too far reaching effects not only in this country but world wide

McCain doesn't understand the economy!

[Lucky Luciano]

10. Yes, the Herbert Hoover approach was shown to be ineffective. nt

[rollingrock]

11. These banks are nothing but giant parasites sucking up the public treasury

let them die and better, more efficiently run banks will step in to fill the void.

the only thing will happen letting them go under is a bunch of overpaid, incompetent fat cat executives will lose their jobs.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

12. Letting the banks fry should have been the policy from the start

This is the ultimate in moral hazard - the message to Wall Street is clear be as corrupt, incompetent and reckless as possible, give out all the bonuses you like and uncle sam will bail you out.

Nothing would have scared wall street straight quite like a couple of dead banks

[Frank Booth]

15. That's a great plan, Walter. That's fucking ingenious, if I understand it correctly.

It's a Swiss fucking watch.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

16. Fuck it, Dude, let's go bowling.

[Kablooie]

26. Ooh. I want one of those. A Swiss Fucking Watch.

[Tex-Slim]

33. Ah, so someone else here "gets it"

Very correct & courageous post. Goes against the PC CW but true nonetheless.

[No Elephants]

35. You've done the stress test analysis? If not, on what are you basing your statement?

[Tex-Slim]

38. ON one simple fact

Never, ever throw good money after bad.

If a house is burning, use water, not money, to put it out.

There is a point after which efforts to resuscitate are futile.

[On the Road]

13. Oh, Yes, by All Means

let's repeat the Lehman fiasco many times over.

I can forgive Paulsen for allowing Lehman to go bankrupt because he was under political pressure, it would have been expensive, and no one knew the extent of the consequences. But the panic the following day leading to the $2T in loans by the Fed should have been a wake-up call. Anyone who understands what went on knows that allowing similar banks to fail is asking for catastrophe.

I can't get over how the Republicans have not only learned nothing, but perversely adopted the absolutely worst economic proposals it is possible to have. Thank God McCain isn't president right now.

[truthisfreedom]

14. rethug lip-flapping is just that.

rethug lip-flapping. Take away their power, they keep on flappin', but they can't do any damage.

[The Stranger]

18. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 revoked the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which

prevented American banks from speculating in the financial markets. The Glass-Steagall Act was the product of the Great Depression, and revoking it brought back the Great Depression today.

Once Phil Gramm had the big banks doing exactly that, they were burned in derivatives, collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps, and other complicated frauds.

[No Elephants]

37. Yep, and Gramm was the McCain campaign's top financial advisor, openly at first, then

behind the scenes, after Gramm called Americans whiners.

No matter how bad it gets folks, remember that it would have been worse under McPain-Failin.

[regnaD kciN]

19. I guess we'll soon learn which big banks...

...haven't been paying the Republicans their kickbacks protection money campaign contributions.

[Endangered Specie]

20. hah I wonder how many checks from Bank CEOs they will lose over this!

[struggle4progress]

21. Oh, yeah. That's just what we need: a megabank failure. That'll do wonders

for the US economy

Republican slimeballs ... they really do hate America

[Mr. Hyde]

24. I guess it looks better if you can say you made the choice but

I'm not sure there's really a choice at this point. There are no good painless options at this point.

[Kablooie]

25. I thought so too but since some repubs think so, it must not be a good idea.

[wellst0nev0ter]

27. All Right, Nationalize Them Already

I wonder what the big holdup is? Putting these banks on taxpayer life-support clearly isn't working, and letting them fail would bring on a Super Depression or something, so let's just nationalize them, clean out the garbage, and re-sell them into smaller packages so that they will never be "too big to fail" ever again.

[rucky]

31. As more corruption is exposed in these institutions...

this opinion will become more and more popular.

Dismiss it at your own peril.

[Tex-Slim]

32. Too Bad

Too bad Bush didn't have the balls to admit this, eh?

We can continue to mortgage our future, and that of our children, and their children, and their... well you get it...

Or we can face the facts, stop throwing good money after bad, and let companies (banks, auto, whatever) which are rotten to the core go ahead and implode and then build newer, better ones from the ashes.

Isn't that the CW with regards to what we need to do with the country and, if so, why not also with banks, businesses, etc?

There, I said it. Hopefully someone else was honest and brave enough to do so as well.

[Myrina]

34. John McCain? Mr. Keating Five?

And he wants to tell anyone anything about the banking industry's effect on the economy?


Wow. :wtf:

[No Elephants]

36. If the media were not such lap dogs, they would insist on names of banks and specific

reasons. Letting these jerks bloviate without specifics is even purer bs than Shelby and McCain are trying to spread.

Your day has gone, McCain. About 20 years ago, at least. Talk about a zombie.