[quote=joec]A lot of hate is directed towards the government because the government collects your tax dollars…

People don’t care if other private companies waste money or pay out big bonuses if they don’t feel they are funding that lifestyle or paying the bill…

Same reason people are annoyed with government bailing out homeowners who ATMed their house.[/quote]

I agree with you on the first two points, Joe. Gandalf is right, however, that the bailouts benefited the banks.

The interesting thing about the bailouts: The “government is the problem” crowd hates the bailouts because government intervened in the private markets to prop up failed businesses and believes the banks should have just failed.

The “government is not the problem” crowd hates the bailout because the banks took the taxpayers to the cleaners, claiming the government had to step in or the banks would have taken the taxpayers to the cleaners through resulting economic despair.

Either way, we were screwed.

Clearly, it is the combination of the banks’ incompetence and government putting the taxpayers in a position to be reliant on the banks’ solvency. The problem isn’t banks and it isn’t government. The problem is that they are no longer separate.

I still say the Federal Reserve and the ratings agency rules are at fault here. Everyone else – banks, realtors, mortgage brokers, and homeowners – was just responding to the market created by EZ credit and “cooked” ratings.

And if you look at the Federal Reserve, it is exactly this: an autocracy that looks like both a bank and a government entity.