Here's my two big problems with regulations and nationization:

1.  There's no guarantee that the lawmakers are going to be any less corrupt than the individual institutions (aka congress for letting this happen in the first place).  In fact by giving them more power, you are making washington a more attractive place for those individuals who are corrupt.  Basically you are begging for more corrupt people to run for congress and more lobbiests in washington.

2.  There's no guarantee that whoever is running the institutions are going to be competent (a la the initial botched Katrina recovery).  I mean is anyone on the finance or banking committees trained as bankers or economists?  If they aren't who's giving them their info on which they base their decisions, the people at fanny mae?  The people who need to run these companies are people who know how to manage wisely in that field.  If you put it in the hands of politicians, the banks will be run by politics, lobbiests, and just as much greed as before.

There's one other thing that really scares me about the US government taking over banks.  If I remember right, in the past 40 or so years congress has repeated raided social security and has left somewhere in the ballpark of 5 trillion dollars in IOUs.  So if they take over the banks, what'll happen if they need more money for whatever useless thing they are working on? Instead of $1,000 in the bank your average Joe goes to his atm and sees an IOU for $1,000 and can't take out any money.  If the government owns the bank, realistically they can do anything they want with the money you have stored there.  They'll just claim they needed it for the Crisis of the Month (CotM) and promise to send you a check back in 90 days.  And you can't take it up with anyone because the only people you can complain to is the government who raided your bank account.

If you are a democrat, would you trust a republican congress with your life savings?
If you are a republican, would you trust a democrat congress with your life savings?
If you are an independant, would you trust either congress with your life savings?

See where I'm coming from?

Anyways I think those institutions were a public menance but where was congress when they needed to be kept from growing too large or kept from putting so many assets in risky mortgages?  They certainly needed some form of regulations, but they didn't do it and the government hasn't done it so who are we the people supposed to turn to?

Quote - 1.  There's no guarantee that the lawmakers are going to be any less corrupt than the individual institutions (aka congress for letting this happen in the first place).  In fact by giving them more power, you are making washington a more attractive place for those individuals who are corrupt.  Basically you are begging for more corrupt people to run for congress and more lobbiests in washington.

2.  There's no guarantee that whoever is running the institutions are going to be competent (a la the initial botched Katrina recovery).  I mean is anyone on the finance or banking committees trained as bankers or economists?  If they aren't who's giving them their info on which they base their decisions, the people at fanny mae?  The people who need to run these companies are people who know how to manage wisely in that field.  If you put it in the hands of politicians, the banks will be run by politics, lobbiests, and just as much greed as before.

Excuse me, but what are you saying?

There's no guarantee that the wealthiest, most powerful, and most ruthless won't rob you blind and enslave you without lawmakers, government, and corrupt institutions either.

There are no guarantees in life. Period. So what? Welcome to reality. There are no perfect solutions to anything. Nothing can be guaranteed. Ever. But it's hardly an argument for or against doing anything.

The whole point of regulation is to keep a balance between competing power-grabbing interests, i.e., keep them occupied and at each other's throats most of the time instead of focusing 100% of their attention on cutting yours. The whole point of trying to have and maintain a somewhat representative government with a little regulatory muscle is that at least there's the possibility you can vote the bums out of power. That's the whole point of government establishing and enforcing guidelines by which business should be conducted instead of the other way around, i.e., at least you might be able to vote the politicians out of power when you don't like the way they are doing things. Just try voting the billionaires on the boards of directors of the international bankers and corporations out of power sometime. Just go ahead and try.

It's all about balance, and things are waaay out of balance. Or hadn't you noticed?

As for Xeno's claim that what is happening has no connection whatsoever to the policies of Ronald Reagan, the current credit crunch is just the latest in a long series of mostly conservative policies that have proven mostly disastrous for all but the wealthy -- and even some of them.

Reagan started the repeal of the usury laws, which in turn have had the effect of encouraging lenders to lend at high interest rates to high-risk debtors, encouraging ever increasing levels of unsupported consumer debt. He began the trend that has led to the wholesale repeal of various corporate regulations, which in turn have had the effect of ever increasing corporate corruption (e.g., Savings and Loans, Enron, dot.com tech stock manipulations, aka 'irrational exuberance', etc.) and ever decreasing corporate accountability. He began a systematic assault on labor unions, which in turn has had the effect of reducing the bargaining position of many American workers in an economic environment increasingly unfriendly to the average American worker. His administration began the privatization of the military, putting more and more taxpayers' money into the hands of corporate contractors with less and less government oversight. He began the right's flirtation with theocracy, ergo, cronyism and guaranteed government incompetence. He implemented huge tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest when more investment in our country's failing infrastructure was what was was truly needed and would likely have benefited everyone in the long run, including the richest of the rich. His policies, and those that have followed, have funneled (er, "trickled down") a lot of American investors' wealth into Asia and much of the rest of the world, creating lots of jobs and industry for them, but not so many jobs or industry for American workers, who now have to increasingly compete against such workers, many living under brutal dictatorial regimes, and many of whom have never successfully fought for, nor have ever won the rights and benefits American workers have (or once did).

And most of that, while having not much of anything direct to do with the current credit crunch, certainly did set many of the current balls in motion, and that in turn very likely will have an impact on how hard we all fall, how much it hurts, and on the speed and robostness of our recovery.

So, yeah, Xeno is right. No connection whatsoever. Unless you are inclined to look at the big picture.

I mostly agree with donquixote.

Time-line-wise from what I saw: Ronald Reagan repealed the usury laws. Usury is where the rich can use their power of money to charge higher interest raise to the poor and (legally) helpless.

George Bush implemented most of Reagan's laws and took the country further in the same direction. He got tripped up in one of the re-election debates for not showing empathy for the country's pain. Slick Willy Clinton ran up points with the famous utterance of,"I feel your pain."

Bill Clinton, with the soul of a used car salesmen, sold the country further down the river and took his piece of the action. Then, after two terms of looting America, the present chowder head took over after promising no more of the same old economic looting.  SO George W Bush did a new and different looting of America and invaded a country to finish his daddy's unfinished business.

Well....Since Nixon, the paranoid pycho, got into office, the country's been on a down-ward slide. Almost every president since then either a bad joke, or as criminal as they can get away with. like part of a Mafia family. The so called political dynasties are one of the most dangerous things to come out of recent history,IMO because they lead to political inbreeding and more 'organized crime'-like activity. What I mean by that, is consistent limited points of focus on activities that are sometimes frivilous and treated like serious and more likely to harm innocents. Lack of transparency and consistent lying to hide motives and redirect oversight (if any! LOLOL) are symptoms of this political inbreeding.

Strangely--this election is a change to take America into a possible new direction ,IMO. McCain can  actually remember how the country ran, and experienced first hand, the failings of Nixon administration. Barak Obama isn't entrenched in the current political mire that Washington has become.  Unfortunately McCain hasn't been very successful to seperate himself from the workings of Washington. I don't think I would have voted for him after almost thirty years in Washington, IMO I believe he's a good, strong man, but not quite Presidential

If a really strong (and NOT crazy) third party candidate was running, I'd vote for him or her.  We NEED some de-entrenching of the present partisan Republican vs Democrat deadlocked "Mutual Assured Destruction" of both parties  Attitude that has held on for the past several administrations.

I'm an independant, and just wants the political system to work on level as directed by the original  founders more than "broken".:sad: