Many folks want blood. Others look to Obama to put banksters on the carpet. Most would like to see an overhaul by replacing failed financial leadership, preventing loose policies and invigorating a fair American Dream.
Six months ago, nobody believed that our banking system was well designed, functioning smoothly or properly regulated, so why then are we so desperately anxious to restore that model as the status quo?
Nearly every new program emanating these days from the Treasury Department — the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, the Public Private Investment Program, the “stress tests” of major banks — appears to have been designed to either paper over or to prop up a system that has clearly failed.
Why is so much effort being put into propping up those at the top of the economic pyramid — the money-center banks, the insurance companies, the hedge funds and so forth — when during a period of deflation like the one we are in, any recovery will come only by restoring the confidence of the people down at the bottom of the pyramid?
Confidence will return only when jobs can be found and mortgage payments are made.