> RoMunn wrote: > No. People already own the banking system through ownership of shares. > All this would do is divide up the ownership of shares in companies > that the government bails
What freddie and fannie do is provide shareholders confidence that they've got a good bet because the shareholders know the government is backing their debt. That means lenders (banks) have a quality source of capital to lend. That means companies have a quality source of leverage to invest. Which means investors get their chance to invest in companies and everyone is happy. And all of that confidence comes from the fact that everyone knows that the government is backing $10 trillion in loans. What regulation did was ensure that banks didn't take the quality source of capital and lend it recklessly - regulation did this by requiring the banks to have a certain threshold of assets vs. loans. All was well until 2 things happened: 1.) De-regulation. slowly but surely that capital limit was no lowered. 2.) Shadow Banking. Hedge funds and other unregulated entities showed and grew bigger than the banking system. Net-net the entire underpinning of economy became unregulate. Greed took over. Banks made riskier and risker loans and became more and more leveraged. The bets got bigger and the risks grew. Wall Street profited, but on top of a house of cards or risk. Now a winds blowing and the whole system is about to implode. Sounds a lot like social security huh? The bottom line is, if you don't regulate you risk destroying the economy. If you regulate you risk hampering profit. The trick is to get the mix right. And giving tax payers shares of some bank won't do shit to guarantee the bank doesn't take stupid risks and threaten yet another economic collapse. Like it or not, regulation is needed, desired, and here to stay. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;203748912;27390454;j Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:264827 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
