Forum Post: Nationalize the Banks!
Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 7, 2011, 4:43 p.m. EST by leftistperson
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“For the moment, there’s no choice,” says Robert Pollin, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. “Relative to a year ago, lending in the U.S. economy is down an astonishing 90 percent. The government needs to take over the banks now, and force them to start lending.”
Truly nationalized banks, run by the government for the people, would help out the economy as a whole. As Stiglitz put it, under private ownership, there’s a “huge gap between private rewards and social returns.” Under public ownership, “the incentives of the banks can be aligned better with those of the country. And it is in the national interest that prudent lending be restarted.”
We could reap other social returns from nationalization, as well. “If the banks were nationalized, the government could declare a moratorium on foreclosures for the properties it controls, and move to restructure mortgages—perhaps at subsidized rates—for homeowners,” writes Joshua Holland of AlterNet.
Read the rest of this article here: http://www.progressive.org/mag/wx021109.html
If the Occupy Wall Street Movement is to have continuity, credibility and proactive results, we need to propose viable alternatives to Wall St and Corporate monopolies.
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2009/03/how-nation%E2%80%99s-only-state-owned-bank-became-envy-wall-street
Statistics on State Bank of North Dakota http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/112420/why-north-dakota-may-be-best-state-in-country-to-live-in
U.S. States That Are Considering Starting Their own Banks
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=51277
http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-06-10/report-public-banking-can-democratize-economy
http://www.shareable.net/blog/reviving-main-street-a-call-for-public-banks
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2011/05/20/what-a-public-bank-could-mean-for-california
Financial Permaculture http://appleseedpermaculture.com/8-forms-of-capital/
Time Banking http://timebanks.org/about
Barter http://www.u-exchange.com/barter-system
Banks should be Nationalized and the private accounts of Wallstreet should be garnished. The money should be removed from the Swiss banks and transferred to American National Banks.
Banks should be Nationlaized and the private accounts of Wallstreet should be garnished. The money should be removed from the Swiss banks and transferred to American National Banks.
If the private banks don't want to help, and they are sitting on piles of cash at present, then something has to be done. If we have to take the bull by the horns, then so be it. http://sibob.org/wordpress/
What's wrong with keeping it under the mattress?
I think we should take the banks and split them into 200 equal sized entities, each worth .5% of the current total market value.
This will increase competition, which will drive down prices. It will also create a lot of jobs, because instead of having one secretary for one CEO of one company that is worth 7% of the market value, you'll have 14 CEO's with 14 secretary's and so on and so forth. When companies consolidate they eliminate redundant jobs. So when they break up the redundant jobs will be re-created. Simple economics.
This has already happened. Remember "Too Big to Fail"? We already 'own' all the banks (well, we own their liability!), and all their debt now. All nationalizing does is gets the bankers off the hook and sticks 'we the people' with the paycheck.
You want real reform? Take away the ways they have gamed us out of our money for years!
The change will come fast, and the pain of this will be much shorter than the alternative which is headed our way like a freight train.
And if I were a BAC (BoA) customer, I'd be taking my money out today, and putting it in a safe, in gold, in silver, and in my local bank. They are going under, as will MS in the next few weeks / months... That has nothing to do with OWS, but with the oncoming sovereign debt crises all around the world.
a modest proposal: Whereas • The top banks of the United States are reportedly undercapitalized and technically insolvent, • The current financial regulators are seemingly unable to perform their regulatory responsibilities in curtailing the excesses of these banks; • The banks Continuing operations in a mode that threatens the national security of the Unites States and the welfare of its entire citizenry;
We are resolved that the United States should:
Or you could just keep your money under the mattress.
a modest proposal: Whereas • The top banks of the United States are reportedly undercapitalized and technically insolvent, • The current financial regulators are seemingly unable to perform their regulatory responsibilities in curtailing the excesses of these banks; • The banks Continuing operations in a mode that threatens the national security of the Unites States and the welfare of its entire citizenry;
We are resolved that the United States should:
Or You Could Just Keep Your Money Under Your Mattress! I'm not going to tell you again.
The banks are exposed to trillions in derivatives! You want that cancer????
Sure why not, lets give the govt something else they can get into to make a bad problem worse.....haven't you figured it out yet that the feds fuck up everything they touch?
It is not going to help. You have to learn history which is the best teacher to intelligent people.
its more than that tho, if you want to be sucessfull in what ever you do you must first become self sufficant
well why not have 51% banks in the country nationalised, while still leaving the free market in place
No. This should be done completely separate from the US government. It should be a voluntary non profit bank. Nonpolitical.
So you're saying more big government is the solution? We are doomed.
Right on Comrade!
And it should be completely nonpolitical.
The nationalization of the big banks is the only solution. The article cited above was published in March 2009. By that time, many analysts were starting to agree that nationalization would be the only solution. But the government, pressured by the powerful private bankers, refused to do it. And the result we know: a long standing economic crisis, that persists until now. If the banks were nationalized at that time, maybe this crisis was to be gone already. Brazil has government-owned banks and used it to recover from the crisis in 2009. In 2010, Brazil's GDP grew an impressive 7.5%. Meanwhile, in the USA, the government refuses to nationalize the banks, and the crisis continues...
"the only solution" ???? huhhhhhh?
So completely non-political, free market banks that could go bankrupt if they were mis-managed isn't even an option? We can't even talk or consider it?
1) Splitting Commercial and Investment Banks solves this in an easier fashion. You can protect depositors with regulation and allow the Investment Banks to gamble with their own money and possibly fail. Also regulate derivates, which has the possibility of becoming an even bigger problem. 2) Can't compare Brazil and America. Brazil is a production economy. America's economy is 70% consumption. People cannot consume because their biggest asset is under water (house). We can’t get housing prices to rise until we clear foreclosed homes from the market. There is a multitude of issues, loss of jobs, housing, and too much debt. The Japanese suffered a very similar crisis throughout the 90’s. The principal solution is to reduce our leverage. This takes a long time and is difficult but is the real solution and not a temporary band aid solution. 3) In reference to the article which was written in early 09, when banking industry balance sheets were still recovering, banks today are still having difficulty lending principally because they cannot assess if people will pay them back. Individual credit scores were tarnished during the crisis and it creates an impediment to lending. Banks are in the business to lend. Deposits are a liability on a banks balance sheet because they have to pay us “depositors’" interest and it has to be retuned to us if we go the teller and withdraw all our money from our accounts. If they lend, they will make more money. It is in there interest. 4) Also the Stiglitz Quote was taken out of context by the author of the article. Stiglitz is referencing compensation structure, where the majority of one’s income is paid in bonuses based on current year profits. Stiglitz was not referencing private ownership. He was referring to a structure that advocates for bonuses paid on long term profitability versus annual profitability. Also the author points out that the banks are to be returned to the private sector after they are heavily regulated. You could just do that now without nationalizing.
5) I am just as upset as you but we need to hone our frustration on the root of the problems and focus on real solutions and not reflect on these demagogic writings.
Yes! Yes! Yes! We should withdraw money from Wall Street and invest in our own non profit bank. A national credit union, of the people and for the people.
This could restore power to the people and make our money work for us instead of against us.
Not all at once I hope!