18 Comments so far ↓

• NutellaonToast // Mar 7, 2009 at 1:43 pm

  Are you guys libertarians, or is there some other form of mental deficiency that thinks that nationalization could possibly be worse than what has already happened?

  Also, most people argue for a nationalization that will only be a stop-gap during a period of breaking up banks into small pieces and selling them off. The government is going to start running shit. There’s discussion of TEMPORARY nationalization.

  Seriously, what the fuck is this video talking about?

• NutellaonToast // Mar 7, 2009 at 1:50 pm

  er, “makes you think” not “thinks”

  and also, the government “isn’t” going to start running shit…

  Too early…

• Roger Moore // Mar 7, 2009 at 1:56 pm

  I can’t agree enough with NutellaonToast. They complain about the lines at the DMV, but remember that the banks are the ones who started charging a special fee for talking to a teller. It’s hard to imagine that the government could possibly do a worse job of running Citi than Bandit has.

• alyx // Mar 7, 2009 at 2:04 pm

  Looking at our nationalization track record so far, we’ve got Fannie, Freddie and the black hole that is still AIG on the dole, and have only successfully chewed up and spat back out IndyMac, at a cost to taxpayers of $11bn (TIME says half of this was spent on “day to day operations” while it was nationalized).

  It’s a far far cry from the “hey, this could work, Sweden did this and made a profit!” calls for nationalization in the early stages of the banking crisis. (Fortunately, that argument has pretty much been dropped.)

  I’m sure we’re going to end up nationalizing C, and it’s just a matter of time, so I guess we’ll see how well it works. I agree that it is quite possible it will not be as dumb as what we have already been doing, but that doesn’t mean I am going to celebrate it.

• NutellaonToast // Mar 7, 2009 at 2:11 pm

  AIG hasn’t been nationalized, it’s been giving a crapload of money.

  Frannie and Freddy are ENTIRELY based on mortgages. They will not be coming back anytime soon even if GOD is the CEO. Plus, they were quasi public to begin with.

  There is no comparison. It hasn’t happened in America yet.

• Jason // Mar 7, 2009 at 5:02 pm

  Wait, did you call me a libertarian? Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?

• NutellaonToast // Mar 7, 2009 at 5:04 pm

  I’m only asking. I wouldn’t assume anyone would be so horrible without VERY convincing evidence .

• RobT // Mar 7, 2009 at 7:26 pm

  Honestly, at this point I don’t care if all of the banks are nationalized. Banks or government – doesn’t matter. Even a select committee of rabid monkeys and feral hamsters could do a better job than Bandit and congress combined.

• LoLo, ESQ // Mar 7, 2009 at 8:30 pm

  lol i read libertarian as librarian and was like what

• RobT // Mar 7, 2009 at 9:27 pm

  Bandit or Barney, no matter. Exchanging one greedy bastard for another will not improve our situation.

  How about everyone defaults on their credit cards and mortgages, and refuses to pay taxes?

  Let’s finalize this meltdown!

• alyx // Mar 7, 2009 at 9:35 pm

  See, people? At least RobT is trying to hit bottom.

• TonyS // Mar 8, 2009 at 11:55 am

  I’m going to have to go with RobT here… we don’t need no water, let the motherf***er burn.

  Regan famously said that Americans’ standard of living was not negotiable. Well, we refused to negotiate small back then, so we’re going to negotiate wholesale now.

• NutellaonToast // Mar 8, 2009 at 3:44 pm

  You can burn shit down in a controlled fashion, too. Yeah, it’s not as fun and there’s no catchy slogan, but you still end up with ashes.

  I mean, unless you still wanna act like you’re 13. In that case, yeah, BURN! FIRE! COOL! HEH HEH HEH!

• TonyS // Mar 8, 2009 at 10:04 pm

  Toast, I completely agree… but alas, I don’t know who we have who’s trustworthy to orchestrate the controlled demolition. Certainly not the crooks who orchestrated this mess in the first place, or the government who oversaw the beginning of the mess, then intervened to make it even worse.

  I take absolutely no pleasure in seeing the system that has kept me living indoors in a climate controlled environment and talking to you on the Internet (luxuries that the vast majority of the world doesn’t have) burn down.

  But some assholes fucked it up for everybody, and assholes in general have a vested interest in being in charge of the demolition, so they can get in on the ground floor of the next round of evil to make money. As soon as I hear a credible plan to fix this or control its demolition, I will endorse that, but so far all I’m hearing is “Blah blah blah bail out the architects of this mess (again) blah blah they get to keep their jobs and our money blah blah there went the last lingering shreds of my faith in democracy in America.”

• 'mouse // Mar 9, 2009 at 10:43 am

  What particularly bothers me about Citibank is I remember the time, long before Travellers or CDO’s and orgies of greed.

  *That* Citibank had an intelligent person who was my small businesses “relationship manager” who would, over the phone and without any paperwork, create a new account for my when I needed to escrow a couple hundred grand of client funds. Then she’d stop by on her way home from work and pick up the check. Every year I received tickets to the Cal-Stanford game. Tellers stayed for years and were not rejects fired from McDonalds. And they fucking money. Lots of it.

  Too big to fail? Let them fail. Someone else will come along who can correctly price products and risk.

  Letting these purported adults suckle at the government teat because they’re hungry and hungover is just gross.

• 'mouse // Mar 9, 2009 at 10:45 am

  That’s “made money… lots of it.” I edited to try to remove the profanity and “money” was the word that disappeared.

• alyx // Mar 9, 2009 at 10:48 am

  It’s a post about Citibank so I am not surprised the part about making money disappeared and the f***ing remained.

• Tony // Mar 9, 2009 at 11:15 am

  “And they fucking money. Lots of it.”

  LOL you know, that really explains a lot…