Quote:
Originally Posted by lazycash
Agreed, I'm sure letting some fail would have a severe short term impact to some, but this notion of throwing money at everything to keep it afloat is going to have a much greater impact in the long run.
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i think this is something Americans just can't understand. They've never seen actual financial crisis. Actual crisis where they wake up one day and their currency is worthless. I lived through the transition in Russia. The Soviet Union was so backwards that in spite of all its efforts to make everything fair and equal for all and reach the final goal of communism... they had in fact created the worlds largest commodities exchange where everyone bartered goods and services rather than using cash. After the Soviet Union crashed.. there was basically no legal system, no sensible tax law, no functioning banking system, no local and regional government etc etc etc to help an economy run and protect peoples rights and property. In spite of that, a "black economy" quickly grew and outgrew the white economy. Just as people were starting to trust banks, just as retail banking was being developed, Yeltsin devalued the Ruble the DAY after saying he wouldn't. I had a shitload of money in a Russian bank at the time. No way to get it out. THEN they started yanking the licenses of 1000s of banks and shutting them down for money laundering etc with clients losing their money or being forced to transfer DOLLARS to Sberbank (state bank) which had to be deposited in Rubles at a massively discounted exchange rate.
What i mean is that i've personally seen a lot of shit go totally sideways in an economy that are MANY TIMES more devastating than the consequences of letting these fucked up companies die. And guess what? against all odds, a free market rebounds quickly and strongly. The idea that we need to print trillions of dollars we don't have, spend more money than any country ever has in the history of the planet to solve the very problem of irresponsible spending and irresponsible borrowing is literally the height of insanity.
Step back... the weak die.. let the strong survive and let the new "Citi Banks" or "AIG's" grow from the ashes.
but really.. it doesn't matter. we can't even agree as a nation or world to stop a genocide... much less on how to deal with financial crisis. we're really doomed to fail. maybe not this time, but eventually. Its the nature of man to fuck up a good thing and to stray from what works and to fix what isn't broken until it's finally broken for good.