In hindsight, I think the biggest failing in 2008 was not allowing the banks to go down in flames, ala Lehman.
The bank frauds wanted to panic everyone that the world would end if they ended. But the Lehman case shows that the world kept spinning around the Sun without Lehman.
Would a bunch of large banks failing been disruptive? Yes.
Could we have gotten by? Yes.
The problem here is that the backstops and prop-up jobs don’t teach the bank frauds a lesson other than “crime pays.” They’ve learned that the party who likes to talk about a “free market” is just talking, and that the party who talks about being on the side of “the little guy” will very happily rob said “little guy” to hand anything found in the pockets or purses of “the little guy” over to the fat cats at the banks.
No matter how bad the failings would have been in 2008, all that has been accomplished is that the (delayed) inevitable result will be much more painful.
You don't think they already knew that? They run both parties. It's organized crime. A crime boss isn't surprised when a crooked cop on his payroll does as he's told. That's business as usual.
We should let our national government fail of its own weight while we’re at it.
It wasn’t a failing in hindsight for many of us.
TARP was opposed by Republican voters on the scale of 100:1 and they let their Congressional delegations know it ... to no avail ... Congress passed it anyway against HUGE popular opposition.
And it seems they’re planning to do so again.
Well said.