“And the rich man in his summer home, singing just leave well enough alone…” – the Grateful Dead
On the imminent sale of Wachovia’s operations to Citigroup, the New York Times reports:
Given their size and reach, the institutions would probably come under greater scrutiny from federal regulators.
Yeah, because that’s worked so well in the past. Even now, when the government should be addressing the problems that arose when they didn’t regulate — and with $700 billion on the line — they’re still essentially handing Wall Street a blank check:
Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it.
Financial firms were lobbying to have all manner of troubled investments covered, not just those related to mortgages.
At the same time, investment firms were jockeying to oversee all the assets that Treasury plans to take off the books of financial institutions, a role that could earn them hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fees.
Nobody wants to be left out of Treasury’s proposal to buy up bad assets of financial institutions.
The bill coming up for a vote now is better than the Bush administration’s original “let’s think up a big number and give them that, no questions asked” plan, but not by much. Not by enough.
So make no mistake, you financial fat cats, you barons of Wall Street: if you screw over the American people, if you throw our financial institutions into disarray, our representatives will find you. They will hunt you down. And they will throw lots and lots of money at you.