http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04032009/transcript1.html

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Well, certainly in the financial sphere, I am. I think, first, the policies are substantively bad. Second, I think they completely lack integrity. Third, they violate the rule of law. This is being done just like Secretary Paulson did it. In violation of the law. We adopted a law after the Savings and Loan crisis, called the Prompt Corrective Action Law. And it requires them to close these institutions. And they're refusing to obey the law. BILL MOYERS: In other words, they could have closed these banks without nationalizing them?
WILLIAM K. BLACK: Well, you do a receivership. No one -- Ronald Reagan did receiverships. Nobody called it nationalization.
BILL MOYERS: And that's a law?
WILLIAM K. BLACK: That's the law.
BILL MOYERS: So, Paulson could have done this? Geithner could do this?
WILLIAM K. BLACK: Not could. Was mandated—
BILL MOYERS: By the law.
WILLIAM K. BLACK: By the law.


SNIP


WILLIAM K. BLACK: In the Savings and Loan debacle, we developed excellent ways for dealing with the frauds, and for dealing with the failed institutions. And for 15 years after the Savings and Loan crisis, didn't matter which party was in power, the U.S. Treasury Secretary would fly over to Tokyo and tell the Japanese, "You ought to do things the way we did in the Savings and Loan crisis, because it worked really well. Instead you're covering up the bank losses, because you know, you say you need confidence. And so, we have to lie to the people to create confidence. And it doesn't work. You will cause your recession to continue and continue." And the Japanese call it the lost decade. That was the result. So, now we get in trouble, and what do we do? We adopt the Japanese approach of lying about the assets. And you know what? It's working just as well as it did in Japan.
BILL MOYERS: Yeah. Are you saying that Timothy Geithner, the Secretary of the Treasury, and others in the administration, with the banks, are engaged in a cover up to keep us from knowing what went wrong?
WILLIAM K. BLACK: Absolutely.
BILL MOYERS: You are.
WILLIAM K. BLACK: Absolutely, because they are scared to death. All right? They're scared to death of a collapse. They're afraid that if they admit the truth, that many of the large banks are insolvent. They think Americans are a bunch of cowards, and that we'll run screaming to the exits. And we won't rely on deposit insurance. And, by the way, you can rely on deposit insurance. And it's foolishness. All right? Now, it may be worse than that. You can impute more cynical motives. But I think they are sincerely just panicked about, "We just can't let the big banks fail." That's wrong.


http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/uscode12/usc_sec_12_00001831---o000-.html


veddddyyyyy interesting.

I say again...let them fail like any other business. I saw a very good discussion group on CNBC late one night and in that group was the CEO of a community bank in NJ. He pointed out (my numbers are from memory so excuse them) that in the US there are something like 8500 banks and out of them 8450 are solid solvent banks and not one of them was invited to the "how to solve this" meetings, to say the least he was pissed.

This whole combining of Banks, insurance companies and trading houses is the most retarded idea and can't possibly work, it hasn't yet.

People DO need to get their pitchforks, this political thing is not working for the people...it is way to weighted in corporate greed.

There were a couple of very good interviews with Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize winning economist and former chief economist of the World Bank (who also served as Clinton's economic adviser), in Der Spiegel and the NYT this week - it'll take me some digging for the NYT one, which was the better of the two, but the Der Spiegel interview can be read here:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,616743,00.html

Basically, he says we're all getting scammed, the bailout as it is currently structured will accomplish nothing but allow the major banks and investment firms to continuing looting, because in effect it's a a 'heads I win, tails you lose scenario' - we are continuing to allow them to take their gains, but subsidize their losses, and to do so without having *control* over the entities is throwing money down the toilet.

And interestingly, while Lawrence Summers, Obama's top economic adviser, was instrumental in getting Stiglitz removed from his position in the Clinton administration, he is today being investigated (article in today's NYT here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/04/us/politics )

for having been paid millions of dollars last year by some of the very companies whose fate he now holds in his hands.

On April 3rd, 2009 Summers came under renewed criticism after it was disclosed that he was paid millions of dollars the previous year by companies which he now has influence over as a public servant. He earned $5 million from the hedge fund D. E. Shaw, and collected $2.7 million in speaking fees from Wall Street companies that received government bailout money.

We have the tools to deal with this mess, and FDIC insurance protection was raised not long ago to 250,000, which will completely cover the vast majority of taxpayers - at this point, we have to ask, who are the incremental bailouts *really* serving, or more appropriately, protecting?

Regards,
Nydia

Don't forget the other hilariously funny part of the long existing law:


(4) Senior executive officers’ compensation restricted
(A) In general
The insured depository institution shall not do any of the following without the prior written approval of the appropriate Federal banking agency:
(i) Pay any bonus to any senior executive officer.
(ii) Provide compensation to any senior executive officer at a rate exceeding that officer’s average rate of compensation (excluding bonuses, stock options, and profit-sharing) during the 12 calendar months preceding the calendar month in which the institution became undercapitalized.


Keeping in mind these places all became undercapitalilized in what, 1998?