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50 years ago banking was a very personal business. A business would work locally with their own bank. The bank knew the owners and since they banked with them
by larrydag 6y ago
50 years ago banking was a very personal business. A business would work locally with their own bank. The bank knew the owners and since they banked with them knew their cash flows. Now banks are national conglomerates. There is a lot of cost in banking and many of the large banks have moved to automated systems to reduce overhead and labor. This doesn't excuse the bank but they are permitting credit for all sorts of things they probably don't want on their books. It's a bit of a mess right now in the banking industry. You may ask are they knowingly allowing these loose standards? Perhaps, but I'm willing to bet it's more in the line of ignorance is bliss.
- zentiggr 6y agoHow about greed? How many decades of repeated patterns of cooking figures, "losing" paperwork, and outright fraud does it take to see that a sizeable percentage of people running the largest financial companies just want to rake in whatever they can. Since so many products are so arcane and/or never disclosed in detail, there's ample opportunity to mess with and profit from just about anything that isn't prima facie simple. I don't know how to rein in the seemingly endless stream of schemers... and the thought that "everybody does it" (think LIBOR), and that shining the proverbial sunlight into the back rooms will cripple what financial system we have just makes me want to burn it all down anyway. Lots of frustration, little action. No answers.
- rapind 6y agoThe first step is to stop bailing out all this fuckery. Look at your politicians stance on wall street bailouts.
- lotsofpulp 6y agoAnd then look at all the voters’ stances when they find out their 401k don’t look so great, or when their governments have to raise taxes to pay for pensions since the pension fund isn’t worth much.
- rapind 6y agoEasier to swallow if the bailout goes directly to these voters instead of this trickle down nonsense.
- lotsofpulp 6y agoIt’s hard to make a cash bailout that isn’t based on income/wealth due to the optics. By inflating asset values, it isn’t as discriminating against those on the upper end of the income/wealth scale, who also probably have major business interests in propping up asset values.
- eli_gottlieb 6y agoVoter here. It's not just that I'm willing to subsist on dog kibble in 35 years to see most of Wall Street go to jail. It's that I'm willing to make that trade this year. If you founded a political party whose platform was "fuck Wall Street in every way possible, and damn the consequences", I think most of my generation would vote for that.
- lotsofpulp 6y agoIt would be nice if people who thought that came out and voted (skewing towards younger population). Obviously, a larger portion of the older population who do have their wealth tied up are not going to be a fan, and they tend to be the ones with the funds and votes to dictate political discourse.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y agoMany of us do. But telling people to get out and vote when they've been disenfranchised, or will be fired, in essence, for voting is pretty tone deaf.
- eli_gottlieb 6y agoI took a post-deadline low-workload day to vote early in my state's primaries. You can guess who I voted for.
- marcus_holmes 6y agoWell, one thing we could do to rein in the seemingly endless stream of schemers is let them face the consequences of their actions. Stop bailing out Wall St and the Square Mile, and let them go bankrupt. The pain would be considerable. But we're used to that now, and it's like ripping a band-aid off: it hurts a lot more for a lot shorter time.
- zentiggr 6y agoWe just have to get their cronies in the SEC and DOJ to step up and chastize their former / future coworkers. Q.E.D.
- pnutjam 6y agoIsn't this the same crap everyone was criticizing Italy for last time the economy took a dump?