Skeptics Think Big Banks Should Not be Bailed Out

Let big banks fail, bailout skeptics say

The Obama administration must break up the biggest financial firms if the nation is to return to economic health, three prominent bailout skeptics told a congressional panel Tuesday. Columbia University professor Joseph Stiglitz and MIT professor Simon Johnson warned the Joint Economic Committee of Congress that the current government policy of propping up troubled financial giants could impede an economic recovery.

I must say this is the is how I feel, but I don’t have the time to research all the details – to know all the existing limitations for realistic solutions. But I can’t believe allowing huge, incredibly poorly run financial organizations to remain in place with the same bozos that have looted the treasuries of their companies and then taken huge handouts from the federal government, is good policy. It was a very bad idea to allow such anti-competitive large financial institutions to exist in the first place. Then the extremely bad behavior of thousands of people taking millions from those banks treasuries and imposing huge risks on the financial system certainly should result in government finally doing their job to prevent harm to the economic system.

Hoenig said authorities must set up a procedure that would allow big nonbank financial firms to be temporarily taken over by the government. Regulators would then replace management, wipe out shareholders and seek to sell the cleansed institution back into private ownership. Stiglitz, formerly an aide in the Clinton administration [and Economics Nobel Prize winner], said the process of briefly taking over banks then selling them back to investors would be much less costly for taxpayers.

This sounds like a much more sensible strategy to me. It is certainly much much better than increasing consolidation with moves like having huge financial firms buy other huge firms. Obviously I would not support the selling of pieces of the old broken institution to remaining large organizations. The anti-competitive market power must be sharply reduced.

Related: Treasury Now (1987) Favors Creation of Huge Banksposts on the credit crisisLeverage, Complex Deals and ManiaCanadian Banks Avoided Failures Common ElsewhereThere is No Invisible Hand

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