Dean Baker: Any corporate bailouts should wipe out shareholders first

[marmar]

(MarketWatch) It looks like we are seeing an effort to do a replay of 2008 where we were told that we had to give all the money to the banks or the world would end. Today the story is that we have to bail out the airline, cruise, hotel, and restaurant industries or tens of millions of workers will lose their jobs. Well, the disaster threats were not true in 2008 and they deserve even less credence today.

The story in 2008 was that all our major banks had effectively made themselves insolvent through their own greed and bad judgment. They had made hundreds of billions of dollars worth of mortgage and mortgage-related loans that suddenly went bad when the housing bubble burst.

If we let the market work its magic, they would have all gone bankrupt. ........(more)

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/any-corporate-bailouts-should-wipe-out-shareholders-first-2020-03-18?mod=home-page

[Phoenix61]

1. Totally agree. If businesses want my money

I have a responsibility to ensure it is well spent.

[ret5hd]

2. In 2008 the story was that all those crafty...

evil, no good, uneducated, scheming poor people had outwitted those saintly, intelligent, diligent bankers... literally robbing them with pen and paper!

But at least history, in this particular instance, is being rewritten with truth.

[bluedigger]

3. Investors are owners.

Let them use their assets as collateral for loans from the banks.