"After enduring years of insatiable greed by the slick-fingered hucksters who run these gambling houses; after watching in dismay as their ineptness and avarice drained more than $19 trillion from America's household wealth since 2007 and plunged our real economy into the worst financial crisis since the 1930s Depression; after witnessing their shameful demands for trillions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts to save their banks and their jobs; and now after seeing them return immediately to business as usual, including paying multimillion-dollar bonuses to themselves — we have to ask: Huh!?!"
The premise of Jim Hightower's article is simply that we really don't need big banks at all. Let the gamblers go to Las Vegas and play with themselves till their hearts content, without access to our money. For people who want to save and have checking accounts, a highly regulated computerized system can do the job just fine.
Credit cards and mortgages are more complex, but still can be reduced to their essence. For example, every American should be allowed one mortgage for home ownership, the amount of which based by the person/family's income and ability to repay, i.e. realistic but designed to help, not crush, families.
There's more to it, of course. But this is where we need to elect representatives with the knowledge and savvy to make things work for (not against) the people. This is just another reminder that we need election finance reform that shifts the power from Big Money to the people, where it belongs.
Bill
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