Nationalize the banks?

[eridani]

http://www.truth-out.org/foreclosuregate-could-force-bank-nationalization64848
Nationalization Is Looking Better

David Sanger wrote in The New York Times in January 2009:

Mr. Obama's advisers say they are acutely aware that if the government is perceived as running the banks, the administration would come under enormous political pressure to halt foreclosures or lend money to ailing projects in cities or states with powerful constituencies, which could imperil the effort to steer the banks away from the cliff. "The nightmare scenarios are endless," one of the administration's senior officials said.

Today, that scenario is looking less like a nightmare and more like relief. Calls have been made for a national moratorium on foreclosures. If the banks were nationalized, the government could move to restructure the mortgages, perhaps at subsidized rates.

Lending money to ailing projects in cities and states is also sounding rather promising. Despite massive bailouts by the taxpayers and the Fed, the banks are still not lending to local governments, local businesses or consumers. Matthew Rothschild, writing in March 2009, quoted Robert Pollin, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst:
"Relative to a year ago, lending in the US economy is down an astonishing 90 percent. The government needs to take over the banks now, and force them to start lending."

When the private sector fails, the public sector needs to step in. Under public ownership, wrote Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz in January 2009, "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."

For a model, Congress can look to the nation's only state-owned bank, the Bank of North Dakota (BND). The 91-year-old BND has served its community well. As of March 2010, North Dakota was the only state boasting a budget surplus; it had the lowest default rate in the country; it had the lowest unemployment rate in the country; and it had received a 2009 dividend from the BND of $58.1 million, quite a large sum for a sparsely populated state.

[Scuba]

1. Just their losses. It's important to keep their profits private....

...besides, if they were nationalized, there would be a national outcry whenever some banker got a $2,000 bonus.

[Kolesar]

2. The "Federal Reserve" system has private banks controlling the money supply

It does not have to be that way. In other countries, the public, through the national government, controls the banking system.

There are millions of business school graduates in this country and scant skepticism of the people who are controlling ... us.

[RC]

3. I currently live in North Dakota and

the Morans living here think the pro business Republicans along with their anti-socialist mentality is the reason ND is 'doing so good'. They just cannot see the socialism all around them. Not the Bank of North Dakota and not the State Mill and Elevator.
And most certainly not even the municipal water and sewer most of our town have. They try to explain away all of it as not being socialism in any way, shape or form.

What is not mentioned is ND is a Right to Work, low wage state.

Most Morans here are so ignorant, they aren't sure if denial is even a river. (No fault of the school systems)

We also have coal (lignite), and oil feeding the coffers, keeping this Red State solvent. Without those, ND would make Mississippi look like a good place to live.
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Some examples of the 'thinking' up here: http://www.bismarcktribune.com/news/opinion/mailbag/article_18ff5160-e6dc-11df-9f66-001cc4c002e0.html?mode=comments

Dave92 said: "hey nightmare, did it ever occur to you that the majority of loans from BND are not government subsidized? Just thought you should know that before you tell people how wrong THEY are. And the small portion (such as Stafford Loans) that are subsidized are also subsidized in the exact same manner at any other bank. "
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free lunch said on: November 4, 2010, 11:55 am
Just because the government runs something soesn't make it socialism. That is by far too broad a brush. Socialist in nature perhaps but not socialism.
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nightmare and f'gores:

Logic flies by you like a rocket!

Everyone who can see lightening and hear thunder knows the history of the Bank of North Dakota. The discussion is about the difference between a financial transaction (borrowing and paying back with interest aka a loan) versus socialism (money TAKEN from "Peter and GIVEN to Paul aka socialism). If you can't understand that you are indeed beyond all help and my patience.

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terrier said: "Before I return to the tellie, nightmare.............You really are, with all due respect , dumber than bait. if the Bank of North Dakota were to GIVE Cashin' money that the bank STOLE from me.......that would be socialism but if the bank is due the money it loans plus interest that's merely a financial transaction. What planet do you live on?"



Some interestin' readin' there sometimes.

[billlll]

4. England n'ized banks about 1947

Thatcher likely destroyed that tho.

Thatcher the milk snatcher... Ended milk coupons for newborns. Grinch for sure.