It is not that I want the banks to fail for revenge; it is that the failure of the banks will be the best market-oriented solution, and will discourage similar speculation for another dozen years or so (How long ago did that hedge fund started by the Nobel laureate economists go under?)
The problems are NOT that of the hapless homeowners, but the worldwide liquidity crisis spawned by banks not lending to one another and each bank being afraid to be the first to "mark to market" instead of "mark to model" -- thereby making it all the more likely that the stampede will be devastating when it comes. That, and the risks involved in the tens or hundreds of trillion dollars in derivatives based upon gaming the movement in securities prices.
And the CEO's who masterminded this, and who have received tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in severance -- one of them fired an underling who suggested their company was to exposed to the derivatives -- should be (to paraphrase humorist Dave Barry) : "hanged, shot, drawn and quartered, disemboweled, burned at the stake and then really hurt."
Cheers!
If you kill a man because his investments go bad, what, do you think you have provided an incentive to only make sound investments? Nobody can tell before hand where the line is. They have to take risks. It is just other people's freedom, and nobody deserves violence done to them for how it turns out.
Conservatives once knew this. The present breed of bloodthirsty populist screaming for the blood of the capitalists, on the other hand, can go straight to hell. It is where they are headed because it is where the belong.