Free marketeer admits regulation is key

[Care4all]

We need to keep any of these Banks, from becoming too big to fail....

Glass/steagall act prevented them from becoming to big to fail...this was repealed in 1999 and it is time to reenact it imho.

 

[Neubarth]

The simple fact of the matter was that regulatory failure contributed to the numerous bubbles. Sadly, the regulators did not have enough enabling legislation to stop the bubbles in most cases.

 

[Neubarth]

Our stock market is a CASINO....holy crud, get out of Dodge NOW! (Note to self)

I carried a long position into the weekend. I may regret it Monday morning. I debated selling all on Friday afternoon but decided that Goldman would probably come in and drive the market up in the last few minutes. They did and I made a few more pennies. I think I will take another short position on Monday morning.

The massive crash should be coming soon.

 

[The Rabbi]

We need to keep any of these Banks, from becoming too big to fail....

Glass/steagall act prevented them from becoming to big to fail...this was repealed in 1999 and it is time to reenact it imho.

SO the S&L crisis and the Latin American Debt crisis of the 1980s were avoided because of Glass-Steagel?
No.
It shoudl have been repealed. It was an archaic piece of legislation. The economy has experienced booms and busts from the very beginning. You cannot outlaw that kind of behavior.
But you can encourage it by things like guaranteeing bank deposits, making fiscal conservativism irrelevant.

 

[antagon]

you really are a kook. no deposit insurance; right.

 

[antagon]

We need to keep any of these Banks, from becoming too big to fail....

Glass/steagall act prevented them from becoming to big to fail...this was repealed in 1999 and it is time to reenact it imho.

i think that the repeal was reasonable. we dont have a nimble pig-tax or regulation system, we have to wait until the debris from a crash is anylized before we put something in place.

there is no way to have a flat economy. we could moderate it, and that is certainly neccessary, but excesses in that direction would likely screw things up, too.

the senate is considering the house's proposal to approach the 'too big' issue with a monopoly-style break-up.

 

[The Rabbi]

you really are a kook. no deposit insurance; right.

I realize that might be too radical for your brain. But in fact guarantees have encouraged banks to play fast and loose with depositors' money at taxpayer expense. There is no reason the government should pay for this.

 

[Care4all]

you really are a kook. no deposit insurance; right.

I realize that might be too radical for your brain. But in fact guarantees have encouraged banks to play fast and loose with depositors' money at taxpayer expense. There is no reason the government should pay for this.

They don't pay for it, or at least they have NOT paid for it....the banks pay in to a gvt fund that pays for it....they sort of insure themselves, with the fee to gvt kept in a "kitty" for this...

 

[The Rabbi]

you really are a kook. no deposit insurance; right.

I realize that might be too radical for your brain. But in fact guarantees have encouraged banks to play fast and loose with depositors' money at taxpayer expense. There is no reason the government should pay for this.

They don't pay for it, or at least they have NOT paid for it....the banks pay in to a gvt fund that pays for it....they sort of insure themselves, with the fee to gvt kept in a "kitty" for this...

A March 2008 memorandum to the FDIC Board of Directors shows a 2007 year-end Deposit Insurance Fund balance of about $52.4 billion, which represented a reserve ratio of 1.22% of its exposure to insured deposits totaling about $4.29 trillion. The 2008 year-end insured deposits were projected to reach about $4.42 trillion with the reserve growing to $55.2 billion, a ratio of 1.25%.[19] As of June 2008, the DIF had a balance of $45.2 billion.[20] However, 9 months later, in March, 2009, the DIF fell to $13 billion.[21] That was the lowest total since September, 1993[21] and represented a reserve ratio of 0.27% of its exposure to insured deposits totaling about $4.83 trillion.[22] In the second quarter of 2009, the FDIC imposed an emergency fee aimed at raising $5.6 billion to replenish the DIF.[23] However, Saxo Bank Research reported that after Aug 7th further bank failures had reduced the DIF balance to $648.1 million.[24] FDIC-estimated costs of assuming additional failed banks on Aug 14th exceeded that amount.[citation needed] The FDIC announced its intent, on September 29, 2009 to asses the banks in advance for three years of premiums in an effort to avoid DIF insolvency. The FDIC revised its estimated costs of bank failures to about $100 billion over the next four years, an increase of $30 billion from the $70 billion estimate of earlier in 2009. The FDIC board voted to require insured banks to prepay $45 billion in premiums to replenish the fund. News media reported that the prepayment move would be inadequate to assure the financial stabiity of the FDIC insurance fund. The FDIC elected to request the prepayment so that the banks could recognize the expense over three years, instead of drawing down banks' statutory capital abruptly, at the time of the assessment.[25] The fund is mandated by law to keep a balance equivalent to 1.15 percent of insured deposits.[25] As of June 30, 2008, the insured banks held approximately $7,025 billion in total deposits, though not all of those are insured.[26]

The DIF's reserves are not the only cash resources available to the FDIC: in addition to the $10 billion in the DIF as of August, 2009; the FDIC has $22 billion of cash and U.S. Treasury securities held as of June 30, 2009 and has the ability to borrow up to $500 billion from the Treasury. The FDIC can also demand special assessments from banks as it did in the second quarter of 2009.[27][28]
[edit] "Full Faith and Credit"

In light of apparent systemic risks facing the banking system, the adequacy of FDIC's financial backing has come into question. Beyond the funds in the Deposit Insurance Fund above and the FDIC's power to charge insurance premia, FDIC insurance is additionally assured by the Federal government. According to the FDIC.gov website (as of January 2009), "FDIC deposit insurance is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government". This means that the resources of the United States government stand behind FDIC-insured depositors."[29] The statutory basis for this claim is less than clear. Congress, in 1987, passed a non-binding resolution to this effect [30], but there appear to be no laws strictly binding the government to make good on any insurance liabilities unmet by the FDIC.

As we saw from FNMA, when the Fed guarantees something, it invariably ends up paying out that guarantee. The federal guarantee provides a subsidy to the rates the banks pay. If they had to buy that insurance through a private market it would cost more, presumably. So it is not free in any sense.

 

[The Rabbi]

At last an economist points out the many fallacies of Bernanke's speech. Care4all, this one's for you:
Taylor: Federal Reserve Monetary and the Financial Crisis: A Reply to Chairman Ben Bernanke - WSJ.com

By JOHN B. TAYLOR

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke spent most of his speech to the American Economic Association on Jan. 3 responding to the critique that easy monetary policy during 2002-2005 contributed to the housing boom, to excessive risk taking, and thereby to the financial crisis.

Many have expressed the view that monetary policy was too easy during this period. They include editorial writers in this newspaper, former Fed policy makers such as Timothy Geithner (now the secretary of the Treasury), and academics such as business-cycle analyst Robert J. Gordon of Northwestern. But Mr. Bernanke focused most of his time on my research, especially on a well-known policy benchmark commonly known as the Taylor rule.

This rule calls for central banks to increase interest rates by a certain amount when price inflation rises and to decrease interest rates by a certain amount when the economy goes into a recession. My critique, which I presented at the annual Jackson Hole conference for central bankers in the summer of 2007, is based on the simple observation that the Fed's target for the federal-funds interest rate was well below what the Taylor rule would call for in 2002-2005. By this measure the interest rate was too low for too long, reducing borrowing costs and accelerating the housing boom. The deviation from the Taylor rule, which had characterized good monetary policy during the previous two decades, was the largest since the turbulent 1970s.


In his speech, Mr. Bernanke's main response to this critique was to propose alternatives to the standard Taylor rule—and then to use the alternatives to rationalize the Fed's policy in 2002-2005.

In one alternative, which addresses what he describes as his "most significant concern regarding the use of the standard Taylor rule," he put the Fed's forecasts of future inflation into the Taylor rule rather than actual measured inflation. Because the Fed's inflation forecasts were lower than current inflation during this period, this alternative obviously gives a lower target interest rate and seems to justify the Fed's decisions at the time.

There are several problems with this procedure. First, the Fed's forecasts of inflation were too low. Inflation increased rather than decreased in 2002-2005. Second, as shown by economists Athanasios Orphanides and Volker Wieland, who previously served on the Federal Reserve Board staff, if one uses the average of private sector inflation forecasts rather than the Fed's forecasts, the interest rate would still have been judged as too low for too long.

More at the source.

 

[Care4all]

I realize that might be too radical for your brain. But in fact guarantees have encouraged banks to play fast and loose with depositors' money at taxpayer expense. There is no reason the government should pay for this.

They don't pay for it, or at least they have NOT paid for it....the banks pay in to a gvt fund that pays for it....they sort of insure themselves, with the fee to gvt kept in a "kitty" for this...

A March 2008 memorandum to the FDIC Board of Directors shows a 2007 year-end Deposit Insurance Fund balance of about $52.4 billion, which represented a reserve ratio of 1.22% of its exposure to insured deposits totaling about $4.29 trillion. The 2008 year-end insured deposits were projected to reach about $4.42 trillion with the reserve growing to $55.2 billion, a ratio of 1.25%.[19] As of June 2008, the DIF had a balance of $45.2 billion.[20] However, 9 months later, in March, 2009, the DIF fell to $13 billion.[21] That was the lowest total since September, 1993[21] and represented a reserve ratio of 0.27% of its exposure to insured deposits totaling about $4.83 trillion.[22] In the second quarter of 2009, the FDIC imposed an emergency fee aimed at raising $5.6 billion to replenish the DIF.[23] However, Saxo Bank Research reported that after Aug 7th further bank failures had reduced the DIF balance to $648.1 million.[24] FDIC-estimated costs of assuming additional failed banks on Aug 14th exceeded that amount.[citation needed] The FDIC announced its intent, on September 29, 2009 to asses the banks in advance for three years of premiums in an effort to avoid DIF insolvency. The FDIC revised its estimated costs of bank failures to about $100 billion over the next four years, an increase of $30 billion from the $70 billion estimate of earlier in 2009. The FDIC board voted to require insured banks to prepay $45 billion in premiums to replenish the fund. News media reported that the prepayment move would be inadequate to assure the financial stabiity of the FDIC insurance fund. The FDIC elected to request the prepayment so that the banks could recognize the expense over three years, instead of drawing down banks' statutory capital abruptly, at the time of the assessment.[25] The fund is mandated by law to keep a balance equivalent to 1.15 percent of insured deposits.[25] As of June 30, 2008, the insured banks held approximately $7,025 billion in total deposits, though not all of those are insured.[26]

The DIF's reserves are not the only cash resources available to the FDIC: in addition to the $10 billion in the DIF as of August, 2009; the FDIC has $22 billion of cash and U.S. Treasury securities held as of June 30, 2009 and has the ability to borrow up to $500 billion from the Treasury. The FDIC can also demand special assessments from banks as it did in the second quarter of 2009.[27][28]
[edit] "Full Faith and Credit"

In light of apparent systemic risks facing the banking system, the adequacy of FDIC's financial backing has come into question. Beyond the funds in the Deposit Insurance Fund above and the FDIC's power to charge insurance premia, FDIC insurance is additionally assured by the Federal government. According to the FDIC.gov website (as of January 2009), "FDIC deposit insurance is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government". This means that the resources of the United States government stand behind FDIC-insured depositors."[29] The statutory basis for this claim is less than clear. Congress, in 1987, passed a non-binding resolution to this effect [30], but there appear to be no laws strictly binding the government to make good on any insurance liabilities unmet by the FDIC.

As we saw from FNMA, when the Fed guarantees something, it invariably ends up paying out that guarantee. The federal guarantee provides a subsidy to the rates the banks pay. If they had to buy that insurance through a private market it would cost more, presumably. So it is not free in any sense.

So, have they or have they not, had to dip in to our tax monies for the bailouts so far?

 

[The Rabbi]

It depends.
The FDIC has money on deposit from the Federal Gov't in case, so the answer is yes. The banks have paid lower rates on their insurance due to the implicit (actually explicit) Federal guarantee. But no tax money has actually been paid out.
SO the answer is pretty much yes. With more to come.

 

[Care4all]

At last an economist points out the many fallacies of Bernanke's speech. Care4all, this one's for you:
Taylor: Federal Reserve Monetary and the Financial Crisis: A Reply to Chairman Ben Bernanke - WSJ.com

By JOHN B. TAYLOR

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke spent most of his speech to the American Economic Association on Jan. 3 responding to the critique that easy monetary policy during 2002-2005 contributed to the housing boom, to excessive risk taking, and thereby to the financial crisis.

Many have expressed the view that monetary policy was too easy during this period. They include editorial writers in this newspaper, former Fed policy makers such as Timothy Geithner (now the secretary of the Treasury), and academics such as business-cycle analyst Robert J. Gordon of Northwestern. But Mr. Bernanke focused most of his time on my research, especially on a well-known policy benchmark commonly known as the Taylor rule.

This rule calls for central banks to increase interest rates by a certain amount when price inflation rises and to decrease interest rates by a certain amount when the economy goes into a recession. My critique, which I presented at the annual Jackson Hole conference for central bankers in the summer of 2007, is based on the simple observation that the Fed's target for the federal-funds interest rate was well below what the Taylor rule would call for in 2002-2005. By this measure the interest rate was too low for too long, reducing borrowing costs and accelerating the housing boom. The deviation from the Taylor rule, which had characterized good monetary policy during the previous two decades, was the largest since the turbulent 1970s.


In his speech, Mr. Bernanke's main response to this critique was to propose alternatives to the standard Taylor rule—and then to use the alternatives to rationalize the Fed's policy in 2002-2005.

In one alternative, which addresses what he describes as his "most significant concern regarding the use of the standard Taylor rule," he put the Fed's forecasts of future inflation into the Taylor rule rather than actual measured inflation. Because the Fed's inflation forecasts were lower than current inflation during this period, this alternative obviously gives a lower target interest rate and seems to justify the Fed's decisions at the time.

There are several problems with this procedure. First, the Fed's forecasts of inflation were too low. Inflation increased rather than decreased in 2002-2005. Second, as shown by economists Athanasios Orphanides and Volker Wieland, who previously served on the Federal Reserve Board staff, if one uses the average of private sector inflation forecasts rather than the Fed's forecasts, the interest rate would still have been judged as too low for too long.

More at the source.

makes sense....

but the charts he showed the past month that I saw on c-span, showed a trend that did not correlate? Let me see if I can find them, when I get the time...

 

[antagon]

you really are a kook. no deposit insurance; right.

I realize that might be too radical for your brain. But in fact guarantees have encouraged banks to play fast and loose with depositors' money at taxpayer expense. There is no reason the government should pay for this.

the FDIC is one of the more important reg tools in commercial banking. your brain has only digested the part of it where the government has to back up deposits, however, there is plenty more to it that makes insured banks a safer bet for depositors, the taxpayer and the economy. the regulations and deposit requirements allow government to oversee the balance sheets banks run and the ratios they operate.

the deposit mechanism is an important part of our monetary policy, too. you posted a wiki on the deposit ratios, and i propose that in response to the impending inflation, that they simply increase deposit requirements, at once taking cash off the streets and securing the deposits more sanely.

you think that it cuts banks loose with irresponsible behavior, however, most banks neither source most of their investment capital from deposits, nor value the security of their investors/depositors over the probability of profit. insurance makes no difference in that equation. the function of the insurance to depositors is to maintain a sector of low-risk banking, one of the reasons the US is a leading commercial banking environment.

you free-the-market, slash-the-regs folks think that our financial system is strong by coincidence, and consistently propose ways to weaken its effectiveness: kook-mode

 

[The Rabbi]

At last an economist points out the many fallacies of Bernanke's speech. Care4all, this one's for you:
Taylor: Federal Reserve Monetary and the Financial Crisis: A Reply to Chairman Ben Bernanke - WSJ.com

By JOHN B. TAYLOR

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke spent most of his speech to the American Economic Association on Jan. 3 responding to the critique that easy monetary policy during 2002-2005 contributed to the housing boom, to excessive risk taking, and thereby to the financial crisis.

Many have expressed the view that monetary policy was too easy during this period. They include editorial writers in this newspaper, former Fed policy makers such as Timothy Geithner (now the secretary of the Treasury), and academics such as business-cycle analyst Robert J. Gordon of Northwestern. But Mr. Bernanke focused most of his time on my research, especially on a well-known policy benchmark commonly known as the Taylor rule.

This rule calls for central banks to increase interest rates by a certain amount when price inflation rises and to decrease interest rates by a certain amount when the economy goes into a recession. My critique, which I presented at the annual Jackson Hole conference for central bankers in the summer of 2007, is based on the simple observation that the Fed's target for the federal-funds interest rate was well below what the Taylor rule would call for in 2002-2005. By this measure the interest rate was too low for too long, reducing borrowing costs and accelerating the housing boom. The deviation from the Taylor rule, which had characterized good monetary policy during the previous two decades, was the largest since the turbulent 1970s.


In his speech, Mr. Bernanke's main response to this critique was to propose alternatives to the standard Taylor rule—and then to use the alternatives to rationalize the Fed's policy in 2002-2005.

In one alternative, which addresses what he describes as his "most significant concern regarding the use of the standard Taylor rule," he put the Fed's forecasts of future inflation into the Taylor rule rather than actual measured inflation. Because the Fed's inflation forecasts were lower than current inflation during this period, this alternative obviously gives a lower target interest rate and seems to justify the Fed's decisions at the time.

There are several problems with this procedure. First, the Fed's forecasts of inflation were too low. Inflation increased rather than decreased in 2002-2005. Second, as shown by economists Athanasios Orphanides and Volker Wieland, who previously served on the Federal Reserve Board staff, if one uses the average of private sector inflation forecasts rather than the Fed's forecasts, the interest rate would still have been judged as too low for too long.

More at the source.

makes sense....

but the charts he showed the past month that I saw on c-span, showed a trend that did not correlate? Let me see if I can find them, when I get the time...

But first read the whole article. I posted only about a third of it.

 

[The Rabbi]

you really are a kook. no deposit insurance; right.

I realize that might be too radical for your brain. But in fact guarantees have encouraged banks to play fast and loose with depositors' money at taxpayer expense. There is no reason the government should pay for this.

the FDIC is one of the more important reg tools in commercial banking. your brain has only digested the part of it where the government has to back up deposits, however, there is plenty more to it that makes insured banks a safer bet for depositors, the taxpayer and the economy. the regulations and deposit requirements allow government to oversee the balance sheets banks run and the ratios they operate.

the deposit mechanism is an important part of our monetary policy, too. you posted a wiki on the deposit ratios, and i propose that in response to the impending inflation, that they simply increase deposit requirements, at once taking cash off the streets and securing the deposits more sanely.

you think that it cuts banks loose with irresponsible behavior, however, most banks neither source most of their investment capital from deposits, nor value the security of their investors/depositors over the probability of profit. insurance makes no difference in that equation. the function of the insurance to depositors is to maintain a sector of low-risk banking, one of the reasons the US is a leading commercial banking environment.

you free-the-market, slash-the-regs folks think that our financial system is strong by coincidence, and consistently propose ways to weaken its effectiveness: kook-mode

Enjoying sucking on that straw,man?
ANd your post is self-contradictory, maintaining both that deposits aren't that important AND that the same deposits are important enough to make our banking system a leading commercial environment.

 

[antagon]

I realize that might be too radical for your brain. But in fact guarantees have encouraged banks to play fast and loose with depositors' money at taxpayer expense. There is no reason the government should pay for this.

the FDIC is one of the more important reg tools in commercial banking. your brain has only digested the part of it where the government has to back up deposits, however, there is plenty more to it that makes insured banks a safer bet for depositors, the taxpayer and the economy. the regulations and deposit requirements allow government to oversee the balance sheets banks run and the ratios they operate.

the deposit mechanism is an important part of our monetary policy, too. you posted a wiki on the deposit ratios, and i propose that in response to the impending inflation, that they simply increase deposit requirements, at once taking cash off the streets and securing the deposits more sanely.

you think that it cuts banks loose with irresponsible behavior, however, most banks neither source most of their investment capital from deposits, nor value the security of their investors/depositors over the probability of profit. insurance makes no difference in that equation. the function of the insurance to depositors is to maintain a sector of low-risk banking, one of the reasons the US is a leading commercial banking environment.

you free-the-market, slash-the-regs folks think that our financial system is strong by coincidence, and consistently propose ways to weaken its effectiveness: kook-mode

Enjoying sucking on that straw,man?
ANd your post is self-contradictory, maintaining both that deposits aren't that important AND that the same deposits are important enough to make our banking system a leading commercial environment.

deposit insurance leverages regulation on banks, however, deposits are not the main source of investment capital that most banks use. commercial banking is strongest in the US because of our population, wealth and the security of low-risk.
clear?
all truisms. im sure if you gather all your brainpower, you could understand how they play.

 

[The Rabbi]

You can't write a single declarative sentence that is clear. How can you possibly expect to think clearly?
And your explanation of why commercial banking is strong is at odds with your statements about deposit insurance.
But I don't rteally expect consistency from you at this point.

 

[antagon]

They don't pay for it, or at least they have NOT paid for it....the banks pay in to a gvt fund that pays for it....they sort of insure themselves, with the fee to gvt kept in a "kitty" for this...

A March 2008 memorandum to the FDIC Board of Directors shows a 2007 year-end Deposit Insurance Fund balance of about $52.4 billion, which represented a reserve ratio of 1.22% of its exposure to insured deposits totaling about $4.29 trillion. The 2008 year-end insured deposits were projected to reach about $4.42 trillion with the reserve growing to $55.2 billion, a ratio of 1.25%.[19] As of June 2008, the DIF had a balance of $45.2 billion.[20] However, 9 months later, in March, 2009, the DIF fell to $13 billion.[21] That was the lowest total since September, 1993[21] and represented a reserve ratio of 0.27% of its exposure to insured deposits totaling about $4.83 trillion.[22] In the second quarter of 2009, the FDIC imposed an emergency fee aimed at raising $5.6 billion to replenish the DIF.[23] However, Saxo Bank Research reported that after Aug 7th further bank failures had reduced the DIF balance to $648.1 million.[24] FDIC-estimated costs of assuming additional failed banks on Aug 14th exceeded that amount.[citation needed] The FDIC announced its intent, on September 29, 2009 to asses the banks in advance for three years of premiums in an effort to avoid DIF insolvency. The FDIC revised its estimated costs of bank failures to about $100 billion over the next four years, an increase of $30 billion from the $70 billion estimate of earlier in 2009. The FDIC board voted to require insured banks to prepay $45 billion in premiums to replenish the fund. News media reported that the prepayment move would be inadequate to assure the financial stabiity of the FDIC insurance fund. The FDIC elected to request the prepayment so that the banks could recognize the expense over three years, instead of drawing down banks' statutory capital abruptly, at the time of the assessment.[25] The fund is mandated by law to keep a balance equivalent to 1.15 percent of insured deposits.[25] As of June 30, 2008, the insured banks held approximately $7,025 billion in total deposits, though not all of those are insured.[26]

The DIF's reserves are not the only cash resources available to the FDIC: in addition to the $10 billion in the DIF as of August, 2009; the FDIC has $22 billion of cash and U.S. Treasury securities held as of June 30, 2009 and has the ability to borrow up to $500 billion from the Treasury. The FDIC can also demand special assessments from banks as it did in the second quarter of 2009.[27][28]
[edit] "Full Faith and Credit"

In light of apparent systemic risks facing the banking system, the adequacy of FDIC's financial backing has come into question. Beyond the funds in the Deposit Insurance Fund above and the FDIC's power to charge insurance premia, FDIC insurance is additionally assured by the Federal government. According to the FDIC.gov website (as of January 2009), "FDIC deposit insurance is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government". This means that the resources of the United States government stand behind FDIC-insured depositors."[29] The statutory basis for this claim is less than clear. Congress, in 1987, passed a non-binding resolution to this effect [30], but there appear to be no laws strictly binding the government to make good on any insurance liabilities unmet by the FDIC.

As we saw from FNMA, when the Fed guarantees something, it invariably ends up paying out that guarantee. The federal guarantee provides a subsidy to the rates the banks pay. If they had to buy that insurance through a private market it would cost more, presumably. So it is not free in any sense.

So, have they or have they not, had to dip in to our tax monies for the bailouts so far?

the money comes off a printing press, more than anything, tax is just some costly busywork which doesnt factor in the bigger picture that well. looking at the fed balance sheet expansion as a cofactor to the bailout, you can appreciate that taxpayers and congress had little to do with most of the action, about $2,000,000,000,000 in 3-4 months!

 

[antagon]

You can't write a single declarative sentence that is clear. How can you possibly expect to think clearly?
And your explanation of why commercial banking is strong is at odds with your statements about deposit insurance.
But I don't rteally expect consistency from you at this point.

nah. issue is in your free-market simplex whereby you cant see any good in regulation. so when i declared the fact that the fdic leverages regs on banks you.. thought(?) derrr... regs: bad. and when i continued by pointing out the consequent strength in our bankng system, you seen a contradiction.

its ok, man. i know the way the real world works is so vastly different from your libertarian pundit mantras, and that could raise such doubts and expectations from the simple rabbi.

the free-marketeer is certainly the piggy that rebuilt the straw house after the wolf incident.