Be Patriotic: Nationalize the Banks

Where’s the bottom? Where’s the bottom? Where the hell is the bottom? I’m new to recessions. I’m actually relatively new to this planet – all things considered, 22 isn’t much.

I’m not an economist, but I don’t need to be to understand that we are confronting serious economic problems in our country. The obvious hint comes by watching all of the bailouts roll out billions of dollars. The nation that hails privatized business – business removed from government oversight – is submitting to the harsh grip of a crippling banking system and is now allowing government intervention. No, it’s not allowing government intervention – it’s begging for it.

The banks have been crying for help. To me it looks like: “Help me. Bail me out. I made bad loans to people who couldn’t afford to pay them off. I worked with imaginary money. I love leveraging things with no collateral. I contributed to getting us into this mess. Excuse me, Uncle Sam, can I have some more porridge?”

We’ve been handing over the money: truckloads, boatloads. A lot of money. “OK,” I thought. “The bailouts will work. They probably won’t ask for more. I can bite the bullet once.”

Well, they asked for more. And now Americans are biting the bullet, not once, but twice and thrice. For Citigroup, we’ll be rounding third base.

Is it OK to talk about nationalization in America, or is that something limited to Hugo Chavez – el presidente de Venezuela? Nationalization? I’m scared. Does that make me a communist? Does it make me a socialist? No it does not. In this case, it makes you an American. All hands on deck – stop the recession’s bleed. Nationalize the banks? Yes, please.

Paul Krugman of the New York Times wrote, “When the F.D.I.C. seizes a bank, it takes over the bank’s bad assets, pays off some of its debt, and resells the cleaned-up institution to private investors. And that’s exactly what advocates of temporary nationalization want to see happen, not just to the small banks the F.D.I.C. has been seizing, but to major banks that are similarly insolvent.”

In other nations nationalization can be permanent, but in America, it’s temporary. We have economists throughout the nation offering a viable solution to the problem – people who make their lives out of reading and interpreting numbers. Yet, we don’t listen. We continue to throw good money at a bad, burning money pit.

Nationalization isn’t socialism. Socialism isn’t nationalization; it isn’t even nationalism. With all of these ism’s and tion's you must have gotten confused. But of course, you’re an American – you should be.

-Alex Tandy