There's Only One Solution That Might Fix Our Corrupt Financial System

[bpcmxr]

From Les Leopold at Alternet:

"...Since then we’ve learned the hard way that in a modern complex global economy, large-scale private banking doesn’t work. Rather than bust them up into smaller privately owned pieces, I think it’s time to take them over and run them as public utilities, paying decent civil service salaries and no more. Rather than one big national bank, we should consider chartering many state banks (the number depending on the size of the state). North Dakota still has one and it runs just fine. Then our public-employee bankers could concentrate on moving savings into good investments rather than moving the chips around their rigged roulette wheels.

But won’t we be subject to bungling bureaucrats? Do you think public employees possibly could do worse than the mortgage brokers who lied and stole their way into the financial crisis? Would you really miss the shysters who sold dangerous adjustable mortgages to senior citizens who already had secure fixed mortgages? Will you pine for the days when bankers sold toxic assets to school districts and various municipalities all over the world? Are you worried that you’ll grow nostalgic for bankers who made billions on the upside and then stuck the taxpayers with the losses when things headed south?

And please don’t use Fannie and Freddie as counter-examples. Until they were nationalized after utter failure, those mortgage giants were run as private entities – complete with stockholders and highly paid executives – all backed with implicit government guarantees. They were the worst kind of public-private partnerships. We can do better.

Won’t we lose our banking talent by so drastically lowering the salaries? Yes we would, and thank goodness. There are thousands of very bright people who are drawn into banking because of the enormous financial rewards. Collectively, they are harming our economy. We would be much better off if that enormous talent pool flowed into medicine, science and education."

The rest

[Angry Dragon]

1. good post

[fasttense]

2. I have another solution

Lure all the uber rich psychopaths, banksters and CEOs of major corporations to the fantasy land of Galt and then leave them there.

You know it would be easy to lure them all away by offering gold and riches beyond their wildest dreams. Then once they are all in Galt, lock them up and throw away the keys.

Really, there are millions of solutions to our spiraling economic misery and political corruption but no political ability to implement anything that might help. All the politics has been bought out by the uber crazy rich corporate masters. Until you get rid of those people, maybe 300 of them, nothing is going to change.

[just1voice]

3. Rec'd, this article should be #1 on all American's list of priorities, but it won't be

They'll be looking at kitty cat pictures and gossiping on facebook as about 2/3rds of the American populace has been thoroughly brainwashed via a century of propaganda, so much so that most can't even tell the difference between actual information and a biased sales pitch.

The article is correct, the "best minds" need their greedy asses removed from the entire financial system.

[Herlong]

4. A better informed electorate

Well informed people voting on real issues. The ultimate outcome would be real solutions to real problems.