Large banks are in need of a financial bailout from the government. Not just one bank needs help, either. Many leading banks need the help of the government, a “bailout” as it’s called. How and when did this happen? It seems as if spontaneously, many banks are in need of money from the government to save them, and the media announced that the economy is in trouble.
I’ve misplaced money before. I’ve even forgot to click “no” after being asked by an ATM machine if I wanted to make another transaction, after a withdrawal. I financially survived that situation. But you can’t get yourself billions of dollars in debt overnight. Not just one bank is in a dangerous financial position. Several are.
There is a progression that leads up to the financial problems that a lot of banks are in. It wasn’t just one bad choice made by several different banks, in my opinion. The reason being given for the financial crises that the banks are in is the money granted for home loans. After the first few loans didn’t work out, why did several of the banks continue to make the loans? Granted there are things I don’t understand about home loans. I thought that if you notice that you’re losing money, repeatedly, you would be motivated to cease the practice that’s causing you to lose money. In the case with the banks, the loan managers could recommend to slow down the frequency of granting home loans, because the monetary returns and profits don’t equal or exceed what is being loaned. Again, I’m not an expert in the area. I’m using my personal budgeting experience as a guide for what the banks could have done and noticed sooner. Maybe there’s no comparison.
Why is it acceptable for the banks to make such big mistakes? Again, not one bank is in trouble, but several. The banks hired learned people to make important decisions with large sums of money. Several banks failed in a major way. Look at the amounts of money needed to “bail them out.” The banks aren’t receiving small sums of money but will be infused with quantities of money designed to regenerate the life in the banks. Why didn’t the government take a similar approach with poor people? Why are poor people expected to permanently solve their problems with a lot fewer resources than what the banks will be given? Why is it acceptable for the banks to “beg” the government? The banks that are being financially saved had large sums of money, and made mistakes that could have been avoided and discussed. Why aren’t the bank money managers frowned upon in a way similar to how poor beggars are frowned upon by some people? There appears to be a double standard. The double standard looks like this: If you’re poor, you’re given next to nothing and expected to excel and escape poverty, after being given next to nothing. If you have a good education and are responsible for large sums of money, you can make big mistakes and it will be ok, no one will look down at you or look upon you with scorn.
It appears that the truth about the financial health of some of the banks was concealed, due to the depths of their financial problems. In my opinion, you don’t get billions of dollars into debt without it being apparent and without indications that there are problems.
I’m not saying I’m better than the bank money managers and home loan lenders. I’m saying that I would have alerted my superior after the first account that I was responsible for showed me that there was a problem. But to accumulate billions of dollars worth of problems gives me the impression that some accounts were troubled early on, early enough to possibly correct, at the least address the problem before it grew out of proportion.
Now, back to poor people. Some expect poor people to be financial geniuses and make no financial mistakes, and if poor people make financial mistakes, some people use those mistakes as justification to remove food stamps and other benefits set aside for the poor. Imagine if the government issued the banks the equivalent of food stamp amounts and placed the bank officials in the projects and said: “solve all your problems.” Could that be done? Why are poor people expected to solve all their problems with food stamps and section eight vouchers as their economic stimulus? Imagine government representatives saying to the bank managers that they are to receive food stamps as their only economic stimulus. Would that solve the problems that the banks are in or create new problems?