Were They Really TBTF?

At the time Congress passed TARP in an emergency, I supported it.  I did not want to face the consequences.  That said  I never supported that way that the Bush Regime ignored TARP when dispensing half the funds, and that Timmy Geithner followed suit.  I’m starting to wonder what might have been, had we let the Banksters stew in their own criminal juices.

In the go-go years leading up to the financial crisis, Iceland’s banks were hugely irresponsible, luring foreign depositors with high interest rates and putting the money into risky loans. When Iceland’s big banks went under in 2008, they were 10 times as big as the country’s economy.

The government of Iceland failed to rein in bankers’ excesses. But its refusal to take on bank debts, forcing creditors to take losses and share in the pain, looks increasingly smart as Iceland’s economy begins to recover.

The European Union and the International Monetary Fund — their bailouts of Greece and Ireland were designed to make creditors whole — should learn from Iceland’s example. As they negotiate a rescue for Portugal, they should realize that taxpayers cannot bear the entire cost of the banks’ misdeeds.

The government of Iceland wasn’t intentionally daring or smarter than others. It couldn’t afford to bail out its banks, so it let them fail. It transferred domestic deposits and loans, at a discount, into new banks, with some $2 billion in money from taxpayers. And it left the banks’ foreign assets and foreign debts behind. Some foreign creditors could get as little as 27 cents on the euro… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>

I think we might have been better served to let the Banksters fail, while bailing out poor and middle class domestic creditors.  Now, I admit I’m not addressing the effects that letting them fail would have on foreign economies, and that could make a difference.

One thing is that is clear is that we have not learned our lesson, as this editorial by Joe Nocera clearly shows:

Judging by last week’s performance, it sure looks as though the country’s top bank regulator is back to its old tricks.

Though, to be honest, calling the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency a “regulator” is almost laughable. The Environmental Protection Agency is a regulator. The O.C.C. is a coddler, a protector, an outright enabler of the institutions it oversees.

Back during the subprime bubble, for instance, it was so eager to please its “clients” — yes, that’s how O.C.C. executives used to describe the banks — that it steamrolled anyone who tried to stop lending abuses. States and cities around the country would pass laws requiring consumer-friendly measures such as mandatory counseling for subprime borrowers, or the listing of the fees the banks were going to charge for the loan. The O.C.C. would then use its power to either block or roll back the legislation.

It relied on the doctrine of pre-emption, which holds, in essence, that federal rules pre-empt state laws. More than 20 times, states and municipalities passed laws aimed at making subprime loans less predatory; every time, the O.C.C. ruled that national banks were exempt. Which, of course, rendered the new laws moot.

You’d think the financial crisis would have knocked some sense into the agency, exposing the awful consequences of its regulatory negligence. But you would be wrong. Like the banks themselves, the O.C.C. seems to have forgotten that the financial crisis ever took place.

It has consistently defended the Too Big to Fail banks. It opposes lowering hidden interchange fees for debit cards, even though such a move is mandated by law, because the banks don’t want to take the financial hit. Its foot-dragging in implementing the new Dodd-Frank laws stands in sharp contrast to, say, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which is working diligently to create a regulatory framework for derivatives, despite Republican opposition. Like the banks, it views the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as the enemy… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>

Anyone who opposes the CFPB opposes America.  The next time that the Banksters collapse the economy, and I fear that time will come sooner that we would like to think, I’ll support bailouts for their Main Street victims, but for the Banksters, only free room and board at a place where the bars serve no drinks.