Charlie Griefer wrote: > By the exact same standard, shouldn't the banks be held accountable for > their decisions? They decided to grant these risky loans (in many cases > they aggressively tried to "sell" them) in order to make money.
Yes, they should be accountable for giving those loans. Normally that comes in the form of having to foreclose and be straddled with a bunch of properties that now need to be auctioned off for less than what is owed on them, so the bank loses out too. If they lose out too much, they would have no profit and go out of business. The situation we're in now is more complex because mortgages get bought and sold all the time between banks and other financial sector businesses, so the bank that sold the loan initially might be left sitting pretty while some other loan conglomerate gets left holding the bad debt. Normally bad choices get punished by the market, but over the last several years so many companies made bad choices that nearly all of them deserve to go under from a free market standpoint. Unfortunately that would disrupt our way of life to an unacceptable degree so we have to come up with bailout plans and stimulus packages to keep it all propped up. Everyone has to pay for the mistakes of one industry. It sucks ass, but that's life I suppose. So much for "rational economic man." -Justin ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:289318 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
