That’s right and we should have let AIG fail — oops, that’s right, the government allowed them to grow to the point they were too big to fail... that is where my issue is, this business of letting companies suck up companies and more companies until they all tumble or we have to bail them out... look at BofA buying Countrywide and more... till they, like Citi all needed a bailout of their own.
I never would have agreed with your point five or eight years ago, but I was wrong. And, this is where the GOP has some culpability in this whole mess. As I said in an earlier post, we let American banks get too big and let them stick their fingers in too many pies.
Deregulation had MANY, MANY great benefits. Unfortunately, we are now seeing some of the unintended consequences. But, as Greenburg has pointed out a lot this past week, we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Some reforms, serious reforms, need to be taken, but if we embrace a French-type of banking system (as I believe Obama and others ultimately want to get to) we are sunk as a nation for a generation or longer.