[Red Badger]

No business, regardless of the industry, should be allowed to become SO big that government is FORCED to bail them out or risk a global financial catastrophe.

BIG was not the problem, meddling in market forces by dems in Congress was. These so called BIG companies were forced under penalty of law to make loans to people who they knew could not re-pay. The house of cards finally fell when Freddie and Fannie, both controlled by dems, were so over filled with bad loans that they could not sell them off over seas any more.................The sewer backed up and the toilet overflowed.................

[Richard Kimball]

That's true, but there were other factors involved. Changes in banking regulations allowed banks to make bad beds, package these bets into securities, sell the securities and then continue servicing the debt. This meant they were able to sell off their risk and encouraged activities designed to increase fees. Tightening of the bankruptcy laws made it more difficult for people to get out of bad debt, which encouraged techniques such as increasing interest rates by 30 to 40% on one late payment, charging $40 late fees, and on and on. Banks also use techniques that are intended to create more late fees, such as making a payment due on the Sunday of a holiday weekend, meaning the actual due date is four days earlier, sending out payment notices as late as possible, changing the due date by a few days in hopes that an automatic payment will come in late, and spiking the payment by enough to make a standard payment a little bit short.