How soon we forget ... "Those who don't learn from History, are doomed to repeat it."
[Those TARP Figures are current as of October 31, 2009. Click here for an explanation of the abbreviations and programs in the chart.]
That little red dot in the bottom of the chart roughly represents the "Unsecured Obligations" that sent the City of Detroit, into an Emergency Manager "Fire-Sale" dictatorship.
The rest of the Chart is what the We-the-Taxpayers had to pony up, to Bailout the Greed-gamblers -- the last time they squandered all OUR capital (tied up in our Home-equity; tied up in our Pensions).
Something like that should have "broken the scales" (of Justice) ... sadly it didn't.
You would have thought this next "embarrassing lesson" in American Capitalism and Accountability, would have taught us that:
"Too Big to Fail, should really mean Too Big to Exist" ... sadly it didn't.
Talks Implode During a Day of Chaos; Fate of Bailout Plan Remains Unresolved
by David M. Herszenhorn, Carl Hulse, and Sheryl Gay Stolberg, nytimes.com -- Sept 25, 2008
[...]
Friday morning, on CBS’s “The Early Show,” Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the lead Democratic negotiator, said the bailout had been derailed by internal Republican politics.
“I didn’t know I was going to be the referee for an internal G.O.P. ideological civil war,” Mr. Frank said, according to The A.P.Thursday, in the Roosevelt Room after the session, the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., literally bent down on one knee as he pleaded with Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, not to “blow it up” by withdrawing her party’s support for the package over what Ms. Pelosi derided as a Republican betrayal.
[...]
You would have thought the more recent "painful lesson" in 'surviving' the Great American Recession, would have taught us this one thing:
"Never Again!"
Nope, to our nation's great shame, it didn't -- the Banksters still run the place ...
Critics Say Spending Bill Includes a Bonanza for Wall Street
by Erin McClam, nbcnews.com -- Dec 12, 2014
Tucked into a bill to keep the federal government open is a provision that opponents say amounts to a giveaway for the big banks that will raise the likelihood of a catastrophic replay of the 2008 financial crash.
[...]
One of the provisions of the law [Dodd Frank] says that if banks want to trade certain types of the risky, complex financial instruments known as derivatives, they must do so in a subsidiary that is not backed by federal deposit insurance.
As proponents of tighter financial regulation point out, repealing that provision makes it more likely that taxpayers will be on the hook for another bailout if the banks' risky bets on derivatives trigger big losses.
[...]
You know what they say
about History ... What Huh!? ... wait ...
History that's like 'stale news' for old people, dude. Get a Life.
Stop worrying. It's all good ...
{The preceding PSA -- paid for by UBAP: the Undisclosed Billionaires Association of Peasantisanica™.}