Congratulations, Bankers -- You're Rich Again

This great piece from Stein is for everyone that likes to complain about single mothers on welfare and food stamp families. Granted I understand your frustration with the system. However, just remember the suited robbers that can take more government welfare in the name of economic progress in a matter of minutes than any group of poor people can do in their lifetime. I know the poor momma with her benefit card buying chips and soda pisses you off, but leave her alone and get mad at the real crooks stealing your money. Also, don't forget the thieves that find it so easy to give your money away.

Just in case your blood pressure is not high enough today, here are a few
news bulletins on how the world works. Generally, these bulletins all come under
the heading of, "The Golden Rule: He Who Has the Gold, Makes the Rules."You will
recall that a few years ago the banks and investment banks of this great land
were making money hand over fist by making loans that, even at the time, gave
off the powerful aroma of danger and recklessness. The fees for those loans were
immense though, and so the banks made them -- for mortgages, for private equity
deals, for mergers, for refinancings, for anything where they could employ the
vast pools of liquidity Uncle Sugar was throwing onto their laps.As bank profits
skyrocketed, the pay of bankers reached unbelievably high levels, with immense
percentages of the national wealth being paid to a few thousand bankers in New
York City.Then, as happens with Towers of Babel, it got so high it simply fell
down with a resounding crash. Since the major banks had borrowed many times
their equity capital, pretty much all of them -- with a few exceptions -- were
in danger of failing. The government allowed one of them, Lehman Brothers, to
fail, and the results were catastrophic in terms of lending and consumer and
business confidence.So, the government decided to take heroic measures to keep
any other big banks from failing. The government bought immense amounts of stock
in the banks. That raised their levels of equity capital. The government
guaranteed the banks' borrowings. That allowed the banks to stay afloat. The
government greatly lowered the banks' cost of borrowing by lending directly to
the banks at levels far less than normal, levels approaching zero percent.All of
this was done in the name of creating a far sounder national banking system and
one that would resume lending, especially to consumers and home buyers, to "hit
the reset button" as President Obama likes to say, on previous obscenely selfish
behavior by bankers. The bankers promised they would be a whole new kind of
banker and would act in the unselfish public interest.The government completed
the circle of bank rescue by not only letting the banks borrow at almost zero,
but then by allowing the banks to invest the money they borrowed in totally risk
free Treasuries at roughly 3.6 percent. It was shooting fish in a barrel for the
banks and for the investment banks, which were allowed to call themselves
banks.The very predictable result: The banks started making staggering profits
again. With free money furnished to them by the Federal Reserve, and the
taxpayers paying them hefty interest on the money they got for free, how could
the banks lose?