<p>I would wage considerable amount of my reputation that the majority of bank employees would like to see some type of regulation that, performersmom, states. Many of these employees lost Millions of retirement, personal accounts, deferred compensation, and options. Some lost their jobs or will lose their jobs, because some CEO screwed up in search of higher still higher profits. </p>
<p>BTW: Banks and Insurance Companies are mandated to make a profit, and have special laws and accounting rules that allow them to make a guarantee profit. And in return we are entitled …</p>
<p>I agree, LongPrime.
Bank stocks are trading at very low prices. No one knows what that are “truly” worth, due to off balance sheet “permission”, bail-outs, being in so many businesses with such different risk profiles.
Bank employees would now be happy to “stick to their knitting!”</p>
<p>These Big Baaaaaanks are not just banks. They are huge, and we depend on too few of them way too much for basic stability.
In some ways banks and the financial industry are running the government, and also, banks are starting to feel like utilities in some ways. The inter-connection between banks and the government is so incredibly strong right now that no one can breathe. The banks have gotten so powerful and important that the government MUST watch them AND preserve them- a conflict of interest. And the government likes being in cahoots with the power of the finance industry and all the wealth it brings…
And government is so big and politician are so entitled, they depend on the big banks, hedge funds and PE funds to lobby them…
There is too much potential for self-dealing with the power in so few hands.</p>
<p>Anyway, given that the majority of citizens and economists would support them, it is interesting that these sorts of changes are not being discussed seriously…</p>
<p>It’s kinda funny how the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae officials charged with fraud yesterday may at the worst be penalized with some fines, while Martha Stewart ended up in federal prison for lying about a stock sale. </p>
<p>You are being disingenuous. I know MANY people who bought houses they KNEW they could not afford, but figured that the house would go up in value, and that then they would refinance. Instead, prices went down. Such people were little different than speculators whose real estate purchases were not their primary residence.</p>
<p>Now such people are being foreclosed on, which hurts all of us. </p>
<p>These loans had a name at the time: “liar loans”</p>
<p>So obviously, it was well known to many people that this was going on.</p>
<p>Barney Frank and Chris Dodd had plenty of blame for this.</p>
<p>As did we ALL, because we all knew this was going on, and no one demanded that the government put a stop to it. Actually, some people did, but Frank and Dodd resisted any changes.</p>