It's time to Nationalize Bank of America and all others too big to fail.nm

[rhett o rick]

[Nye Bevan]

1. That would cost billions of taxpayers' money (nt)

[rhett o rick]

3. If we dont it will cost trillions. $53 trillion for Bank of America alone. nm

[Nuclear Unicorn]

9. Um. If we buy the bank we assume its liabilities

That guarantees we would be on the hook.

And if people decide they don't want to bank with the government (who could blame them, really?) then the run on deposits could be catastrophic.

[rhett o rick]

11. First of all we nationalize Band of America and leave Merrill Lynch swinging in the breeze.

Second your "could be catastrophic" is better than the current direction which will be catastrophic.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

13. If BoA goes under some of the damage will bleed over to the financial sector as a whole

But it will mostly be contained with BoA.

If we buy their toxic assets we essentially own them anyway but that's the very thing we need to NOT allow. If we seize BoA not much is going to change management-wise. GM and the 1st round of bailouts proved that. Heck, the WH is slopping over with Goldman-Sachs employees.

Worse, owning their toxic assets weakens the government as a whole, not just one corporation.

Let them fail.

Don't bail them out.

Their assets will be bought at pennies on the dollar by private investors but they will be bought and re-sold and those sales will be revenue for the government. I'd rather earn taxes off of $10 trillion than be left holding $73 trillion in bad assets. The government is too broke anyway.

[rhett o rick]

19. Looks like FDIC is going to be stuck with $53 trillion of their debt anyway. nm

[Yupster]

22. BOA has probably more corporate bonds out there

than any other corporation.

Every large bank and insurance company owns temns of billions of them. Every teacher pension fund, union pension fund owns billions.

If they go bankrupt they take the whole system with them. It will be worse than Lehman Brothers in 2008 and the death spiral will be on again.

[Goldstein1984]

2. Too late...

...the big banks have already corporatized the government.

Besides, I don't think it's possible for the dummy to take control of the ventriloquist.

[rhett o rick]

4. Not saying you are wrong. Just saying we must fight. nm

[Goldstein1984]

18. Yes we do...

My ability to be out on the lines is limited by my employment (I'd lose my job if any of the execs drove by), but I do support our local Occupy group financially, and I picked up ten copies of Stephane Hessels little pamphlet, "Time for Outrage," and dropped them off in coffee shops with a note to read and pass along.

[occupyeverywhere]

7. Haven't you ever seen the Twilight Zone?

[Goldstein1984]

17. Yes...creepy.

[JDPriestly]

5. If one bank were nationalized and its shareholders paid the true

market worth of their stocks at the time of the nationalization, you would see all the banks suddenly shape up. It would seem miraculous.

Wealthy people would sell certain of their assets just to inject cash into the banks in which they now own stock. They would do anything to prevent further nationalizations in the current economy in which the banks' assets appear to be worth very little.

Anyway, that is my opinion.

The wealthy investors are just playing a children's game with the American people.

It's like kids refusing to eat their vegetables because they think their parents will finally relent and, rather than letting the kids go hungry, will fill their plates with cake and ice cream. That is the mentality of the super-rich today.

They are "investing" their money in extremely risky markets like Korea and China rather than in the US because they don't like American environmental and other regulation. They want the sugar high they get when they are "free" to pollute the environment and cheat the poor.

Little do they realize that their money is far less safe and far more likely to be lost or simply confiscated in countries that have long histories of social misery, oppression, discontent followed by intrigue and revolution.

These "investors" are not valuing the political and social stability that we enjoy in the US. They mistake the current lack of resistance in some of the developing countries for willing obedience.

They do not see the righteous anger that is necessarily seething under the calm surface in some of the societies in which they are exploiting the working class at the moment.

[rhett o rick]

6. Self kick. I would like to see some comments. nm

[TheKentuckian]

8. They at the very least need to be broken up.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

10. Good luck

The government forced BoA to buy Countrywide, thus consolidating the market.

[rhett o rick]

15. We need to convince the government to act in our best interest. Go OWS. nm

[TheKentuckian]

16. I know. There is a huge chasm between what needs doing and what is done.

[Terry in Austin]

12. Public banking would actually save a lot of taxpayers' money

The German Sparkessen are a long-standing example of public banking that we could learn a thing or two from.

South Dakota's state bank is fairly well-known, and the state is in very good economic shape. A political candidate in Florida recently proposed a state bank. http://www.examiner.com/la-county-nonpartisan-in-los-angeles/florida-political-leaders-consider-state-bank-2-mortgages-6-credit-cards-no-state-debt-costs">This article details some of the advantages of public banking:

One of the immediate benefits of a state-owned bank is ending interest payments on existing debt. If California created its own bank, they could issue 0% credit to themselves to buy existing debt and save $5 billion every year that they pay in interest. To put that number in perspective, California has 20,000 laid-off teachers. All could be rehired at $70,000/year and California would still have $3.4 billion of their saved money left-over. Retiring the national debt would be different, but just as easy; saving Americans $450 billion every year in interest costs.

Perhaps a better outcome than directly nationalizing Bank of America would be to liquidate it, put it through bankruptcy proceedings and incorporate any leftovers into a new public bank.

[rhett o rick]

14. What can we do about their $53 trillion dollar derivitives debt? nm

[banned from Kos]

25. there is no such thing - they are just derivatives (not debt)

take an accounting class some day. Double entry is your friend.

[slackmaster]

20. What part of the Constution would allow such an action by the federal government?

And which branch?

[banned from Kos]

23. The Fifth Amendment and the takings clause - just compensation required

So that make this a stupid idea given the $200 billion or so it would cost taxpayers.

Of course, the derivatives are a phony "issue" that the media ignores for good reason.

[rdking647]

21. you cant just "nationalize" it

you can buy it out which would cost 80-90b to do.. but you cant just take it..

[banned from Kos]

24. right - but $90 billion would just cover the equity side

the bond/debt side would have to be bought too.

[rhett o rick]

26. So we let them file bankruptcy? nm

[banned from Kos]

27. ever hear of Dodd-Frank? It has Liquidation Authority if capital falls too low.

Far moreso than the FDIC's normal power.

[rhett o rick]

28. I am way out of my league here, but if BoA transfers $53 trillion debt

from Merrill Lynch to BoA, wouldnt that constitute low capital?