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See the original image at telegraph.co.uk

Fed eyes Nordic-style nationalisation of US banks

telegraph.co.uk — The US Federal Reserve is examining the Nordic bank nationalizations of the 1990s as a possible interim solution to the US financial crisis.

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  • these3remain, on 04/01/2008, -11/+29Talk about providing a reason for runs on banks! There have already been tremendous lay-offs in the banking industry and more to follow, judging from this article. Never should have departed from the gold standard. The Fed Reserve should be abolished and replaced with private enterprise currency backed by gold/silver instead of nothing.
    • truthliesverbs, on 04/01/2008, -6/+18dugg for one statement you made: "Never should have departed from the gold standard."
  • blinkerbug, on 04/01/2008, -5/+31WTF? .. the bankers got the US into this mess.. the bankers are profiting from it.. and we're going to do what? .. umm.. turn MORE control of our economy over to the bankers where they have no "check or balance" system in place for the people to control them. Nice. The banks control our government, our government controls us.
    • kemp34, on 04/01/2008, -4/+9Fed should be abolished immediately.
    • colincornaby, on 04/01/2008, -3/+6Er, you've got that reversed. The banks would be turned over to the government, not the government to the banks.
      • muckemuck, on 04/01/2008, -1/+6I think the article was saying the banks would be turned over to Fed control. Fed = Federal Reserve.. which is not exactly "the government". The Fed is part private entity and part government.... .but mostly under the control of the large international banks and has the power to control the economy of the US. The Fed lacks the "checks and balances" that allow the people to control it.. and since it can control the economy it can effectively control the government.
      • teichenauer, on 04/01/2008, -0/+1I think nationalisation as used in the title of the article is inaccurate.

        If a bank or financial firm is insolvent it should can be liquidated. If the firm is a FDIC covered bank the regulatory authorities can sell it to another bank (such as happened with Coutrywide bank). Why the Federal Reserve should be making loans to Chase bank to allow it to buy Bear Stearns is beyond me. Why I should have to care about the Federal Reserve is beyond me (save that it operates under a government monopoly to issue US currency).
        http://www.nolanchart.com/article1302.html
  • hotcoffeeburns, on 04/01/2008, -1/+8What is "Nordic-style"?
  • TJATL, on 04/01/2008, -17/+11Great, more government control...Hillary and Obama are happy I'm sure...
    • theNazz, on 04/01/2008, -3/+11They will be trying to fix 8 years of GOP fiscal responsibility...
      • wonderchemist, on 04/01/2008, -8/+4Just imagine how high the deficit would be if a big government big spender president like Al Gore was elected!
        • MisterFreeze, on 04/01/2008, -2/+6A lot lower than it is now.
        • 3tcp, on 04/01/2008, -1/+8He probably would not have gone so nuts with the homeland security spending and wouldn't spent all that money in Iraq. We'd still be sitting around bitching about how much he spent on social programs, completely unaware of how bad it really could have been.
    • nblsavage, on 04/01/2008, -1/+8So tell me, what party does the current President belong to again?
      • TJATL, on 04/01/2008, -1/+3When does party affiliation mean anything anymore? It's been forever and a day since Republicans have been Conservatives.
    • MisterFreeze, on 04/01/2008, -2/+7Idiot.
    • jdh24, on 04/01/2008, -1/+6You mean everyone in the government is happy.
    • airwalkery2k, on 04/01/2008, -5/+1I'd believe that only the Democrats are happy, but last I checked, Ron Paul is not the GOP presidential candidate.
      • 3tcp, on 04/01/2008, -0/+5Everyone in government would be primarily made up of the entire bureaucratic structure, not just the few elected officials.
  • juankovo, on 04/01/2008, -5/+16It's so sad to watch my country melt before my eyes.
  • jlhoben, on 04/01/2008, -1/+18Boss: Johnson you made an enormous ***** up and destroyed our company. After very careful consideraton, because of that today I'm giving you a raise and a promotion.
  • PATSCRU, on 04/01/2008, -5/+15While Nordic economies are thriving and quality of life amongst the highest in the world, i would not trust the fed to succeed with the same task of nationalisation.
    • LukasSmith, on 04/01/2008, -0/+2Except Norway is swimming in oil. So kinda hard not to have the highest quality of life there. Norway = Saudi Arabia without a king who pockets billions for himself.
  • kemp34, on 04/01/2008, -3/+16The (privately owned) Fed should be abolished. Immediately.
    • khail250, on 04/01/2008, -1/+5fed kicks ass. everytime there is a prediction of rate cuts just watch what the market does. you can work 6 days a year and make good money off this
    • teichenauer, on 04/01/2008, -0/+1Shoulda wooda coulda - what are *you* going to do about it?
      Have you contacted your congressman and asked him about HR 2755, the Federal Reserve Abolition Act?
      I have and AZ-5 Harry Mitchell's staff hasn't heard much about it - I'll bet your's hasn't either unless you call them and ask.
      http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110 ...
  • martinherrera, on 04/01/2008, -0/+2i guess they don't like the letter Z in Norway
    • MisterFreeze, on 04/01/2008, -1/+0Or in English-speaking countries.
  • swrostmore, on 04/01/2008, -0/+5If it works I say go for it, but I'll be taking my paychecks in cash from now on...
  • 3tcp, on 04/01/2008, -2/+3Its really starting to look like the quest for a solution has blinded everyone to the principals that were supposed to guide the economy. The reforms to the oversight and regulation structure for the financial firms is an expansion of government power with no good argument that it will actually be able to do what its meant to. If banks with billions of dollars to lose sometimes make mistakes and fail then why should some government official be able to do better? What happens when our entire financial sector makes the same big mistake at the same time because now the fed is running the show?

    This country REALLY needs to get away from this hyper-sensitive, pussyfied attitude that its taken since 9/11 where it now needs to overreact to everything without consideration of the consequence. This is going to be a minor recession, we don't need to overhaul the entire financial sector. This is ridiculous, it's like everyone with a public career lost their balls on 9/11 and now they run for cover at the first sign of a threat with tears streaming down their faces and a load in their pants
    • dpazar2, on 04/01/2008, -0/+1There isnt going to be a big overhaul...we got ourselves into this mess by having regular ***** people...possibly diggers who lied on loan applications to get big loans to do things from purchasing a house and buying luxourious goods that they couldnt afford. Of course, it doesnt help when bankers too increase FICO scores and dont bother to check the applicants actual income. Story to tell here is that it was not only the banks who got us into this but many regular citizens who are now bitching out the banks so they dont have to blame themselves. If we want to get out of the downward spiral, home prices need to stop falling...so if you have a loan, pay it off...all of it. Dont bitch out and walk away from it, it will come back to bite you in the ass. Its not the fed who got us into this mess, its a mix of everyone.
  • Hetman, on 04/01/2008, -6/+3If this is not the end of the country I do not know what is. Seriously we live in a free market. As soon as the Gov controls the banks the free market is over. I dunno have all the real republicans gone. I guess over to the libertarian party because they are the only ones that sound close to making any sense at all.
    • dpazar2, on 04/01/2008, -0/+1and we dont live in a free market, we never have, we live in a mixed economy. Some free market, some gov. control. So, the country youre living in has been over for quite some while.
  • erkokite, on 04/01/2008, -0/+6Please correct me if I am wrong. I did RTFA, but I didn't catch this detail.
    Are they suggesting that banks be nationalized, or that they are controlled by the Fed? The Fed is currently a private entity. It cannot nationalize anything. However the fed and other banks could themselves be nationalized.

    Hey. I would rather have the government in control of the banks (not all, more specifically the fed itself) than private corporations. You do all realize that the fed itself is currently a private entity. At least this way we will have oversight. After all, doesn't the constitution grant power specifically to the federal government and not the Fed to create money?
  • usgovterrorists, on 04/01/2008, -5/+3The Federal Reserve is the enemy, who prints money out of thin air backed by nothing, and charges the United States Government interest.

    FED pull the stings on the puppets called politicians.

    United States Government are terrorists, war criminals, and horrific liars.

    9-11 was an inside job! What happened to building 7?

    Depleted uranium is a weapon of mass destruction!

    Play Wall Street like a PONZI SCHEME!
  • sexydarin, on 04/01/2008, -4/+1you won't have more oversight. everything the government controls ***** up drastically. They couldn't even run a lemonade stand. leftist group acorn had the government change the laws in the 1990's so that it forced lenders to lend to non-credit worthy people, under threats of lawsuits. Blame the government, not the lenders. The lenders were only doing what the ***** up government coerced them to do.
    • usgovterrorists, on 04/01/2008, -1/+1If bankers had an ounce of ethics, it would stop Wall Street & Housing Bubbles!

      Bankers are supposed to be ethical.
      • teichenauer, on 04/01/2008, -0/+2Bankers will be as ethical as the government requires them to be.
  • shawnanigans, on 04/01/2008, -0/+6Isn't the Federal Reserve technically a private entity? So technically this wouldn't be nationalization it would be a corporate takeover.
  • TsuruchiBrian, on 04/01/2008, -0/+7So the Fed...
    1. Takes control over our economy
    2. ***** up our economy
    3. Makes a bunch of money
    4. Gives control of our economy back to us.
    5. Tells us our economy is ***** up and now WE need to fix it.
  • gkiltz, on 04/01/2008, -2/+0Just keep one thing in mind here: In a democracy, when all is said and done, there's a whole lot more said than done!
  • narrolibertas, on 04/01/2008, -0/+3There is already a bill in congress to end the Federal Reserve, make sure your Representatives vote for it.
    http://narrolibertas.wordpress.com/2008/03/12/hr-2 ...
    • teichenauer, on 04/01/2008, -0/+1Yes, it is named the "Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act". HR 2755.
  • Warptaco, on 04/01/2008, -0/+2The Nordic style nationalization was essentially a wealth transfer from the broke business men to the banks. Also, businessmen were victimized by the Nordic states as the sole guilty party of the late 80es boom, when in fact it was the banks that were literally giving money in plastic bags to potential loan takers. I repeat, business men were thrown to jail while all bank managers walked free. But I guess it makes sense since "good brothers" tend to look for each others backs.. This victimization was made very easy by portraying the businessmen as bad guys on the tabloids to the blue collar workers.

    I think America would be much better off if the banks would go through their clients and give the government bail out package directly to the businesses (IE shaving off the inflated value of real estate and then giving a new loan for a realistic value of the same real estate). Instead of the ***** victimization of the businesses and wealth transfer to the banks.

    Because the fact is. All this "disappeared value", will most likely come back just like it did here in Nordic states. It might be 10 - 15 years, it might be 20, but eventually the now foreclosed, bank owned real estate will regain a lot of its value. Unless if the end of the world is going to happen.

    Ill give you one reason alone why this should be done:

    Massive banks do not give a ***** about the real estate. If you are going to have super massive fed "trash bank", do you really think they are going to be able to look after all that real estate and try to make it productive? No, just like here in Finland, it is going to lay dormant for years, while owned by the government, a large percentage of the real estate is going to lose a lot of its value because there will be no one to look after it.

    Meanwhile, if businesses were allowed to own the same real estate. They would at least try to
    make some money out of it. Rent it for the lowest bidder. And definitely not let it rot. Like the fed trash bank will. (At least if it is going to be anything like the Finnish trash banks were.)

    Also this way a lot of honest businesses could be kept from becoming bankrupt and thus contributing even more to the recession.

    But by God! Lets fix this boom and bust cycle! So that this will never happen again. (Banks should never be allowed to inflate real estate prices by giving loans to people who can not realistically pay them)
    • Dush, on 04/01/2008, -0/+0But that's the thing, the way they were structuring the loans they could pay them...for a while.
      And it was the government asking lenders to come up with these new "innovative" products to get more people into houses.
  • mhmdkhamis, on 07/04/2008, -0/+0you won't have more oversight. everything the government controls ***** up drastically. They couldn't even run a lemonade stand. leftist group acorn had the government change the laws in the 1990's so that it forced lenders to lend to non-credit worthy people, under threats of lawsuits. Blame the government, not the lenders. The lenders were only doing what the ***** up government coerced them to do.
    http://xn--pgbn7coj.xn----ymcae0df5a6fo.com
    http://xn--ugb6bax.xn----ymcae0df5a6fo.com
    http://xn--ugbe7cuai.xn----ymcae0df5a6fo.com
    http://xn--wgb8aq.xn----ymcae0df5a6fo.com
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