Sunday, November 30, 2008

Nationalize the banks

As part of the so-called "bailout," the first step has been taken toward nationalizing the banks, a proposal I introduced 48 years ago in The Californian. More than $200 billion of the taxpayers' money has been invested as shares in big banks. The heads of those banks have stated for publication and in tv interviews that the U.S. Government's investment is temporary and will be returned once the financial situation is stabilized, so that the banking industry once again will be privatized. If only the Mass Miscommunications Media (MMM) would educate the public in a simple principle, that the money deposited in banks belongs to the people who put it there and not to the banks, maybe an understanding would take hold leading to the notion that the citizens of the U.S. should collectively own the banks. That would free the banks from the present triple tiering of profits on shares that play a huge part in the present financial mess. Nationalized, the banks could offer loans of all kinds at very low interest rates, maybe as low as one or two percent, since the banks would be non-profit institutions. Also, Americans collectively would be free from control of their banks by foreign interests. The anti-socialism bugaboo that plagues the nation would be vaporized as awareness kicked in that there could hardly be any greater boon to American free enterprise than availability of loans at low interest rates.

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