If Liz were Queen

QUEEN’S COMMENTS: In a recent and thorough article that appeared in THE NATION, Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winner for economics, explains a bank bailout that works.  Of course, however, as President Obama recently said, he is not  interested in the “simplistic” solutions of Economics Nobel Prize Winners like Joseph Stiglitz.  Obama aparently prefers the “wisdom” of Geithner, a protege of Henry Paulson, and Donal Kohn, a condescending effete jackass who thinks that transparency showing how the banks use taxpayer money is not necessary.

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Here are a few tidbits from Mr. Stiglitz’s article:   “  .   .   . The problem with America’s banks is not just one of liquidity. Years of reckless behavior, including bad lending and gambling with derivatives, have left them, in effect, bankrupt. If our government were playing by the rules–which require shutting down banks with inadequate capital–many, if not most, banks would go out of business.

But because faulty accounting practices [which are due to deregulation, one of the conservatives cornerstones to their economic ideology] don’t force banks to mark down all their assets to current market prices, they may nominally meet capital requirements–at least for a while. No one knows for sure how big the hole is . . .”

No, but I think we can guess for some of them just by looking at their stock prices:  Citigroup hovering at one dollar and Bank of America coming in at under $5.00 a share.  I don’t think it takes too many brain cells to make a few educated guesses on those two.

GO HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE.  IF YOU DO, YOU’LL LIKELY BE SMARTER THAN SOME OF THE PEOPLE WHO ARE ADVISING OBAMA.   MORE