GeminiAtlas

Next Up, an Ownership Share in Banks

bbzz24, totally agree.
The shareholders should be diluted for having these idiots as their captains. Then the gov't trust holding the equity can get first dibs on any stock buy-backs when the banks are well again in a few years (or decades!) But Paulson was just trying to help out his buddies by not decimating their equity stakes. But I guess that strikes at the deeper problem, rent seeking/lobbying of banks (or other corporations for that matter) of congress and regulatory capture. But of course, that then gets to a deeper problem (not talked about much problem) of congress continuously "tinkering" with the "free market" (I use that term loosely) necessitating the need of business interests to lobby congress to protect themselves from that very same congress, lest they be held at the mercy of overregulation and overtaxation. But the firms with better lobbying efforts and more congressfolk in their pockets get more subsidies and less taxes (i.e. unfair advantage) while the less politically connected get shafted. The distortions in the market propagate over the years until a often volitile "snap-back" occurs. So what does that mean? They should stick to the Constitution which means currency backed by gold or silver, and equal protection under the law, which also would imply equal treatment under the law i.e. no favortism to individuals or organizations (basically treat everyone the same in the tax code and ban subsidies, and clear rules of the market). This is a problem of both sides of the political spectrum. On the Left, more housing for the poor, coers..ahem, encouragment of the banks to make bad loans. On the Right, deregulation on an uneven playing field (which might be as bad as overregulation on an "even" playing field). So, the Right pushes for deregulation at the behest of the business interests. So these banks are not that dumb, they want these bad loans off their balance sheets. Enter stage right Wall street, "ok banks, we have a new thing called debt securitization." Wall street slices and dices these securities to a point where they are unrecognizable, which is not good for a market (keyword:transparency)... This set the stage for a positive feedback loop bubble and the rest is history currently being written.
Sorry for the lengthy rant, but there seems to be too much simplification in the mainstream media these days.