I always tend to see the news (and politics) polarize around this issue as if this is the primary, core, dual-prong dialectic.
However, is it really a false dialectic? Both Sides - SMBC Theater - YouTube (SMBC video making fun of the common use of false dialectic in the news. May be NSFW)
Or are both stances here actually valid in their content? Which side deserves more “blame”? Are there other problems at hand here that contribute a greater impact to economic problems overall? Is it a meaningless question? What are your thoughts?
How about Big Corporations? Interlocking boards of directors, giving each other million dollar bonuses even for fiscal years where the companies lose money; short-sighted investment strategies; companies that dismantle their entire R&D departments to save money on this month’s financial bottom line; etc.
Banks are only one variety of major corporations which are practicing really bad citizenship.
The problem is that post Citizens United big donors (people who own the corporations or manage them) have so much power via checkbook that they for all practical purposes own both political parties and two out of the three branches of government. The Supreme Court is not beholden to the wealthy, being tenured for life, but of course, they are the one who created the situation in the first place.
First: The more important questions about Government are not whether it should be Big or Small, but whether it should be Smart or Stupid, and whether it should be By, Of, and For the People, or By, Of, and For the Rich. (I just rewatched Sicko last night. Regardless of what one thinks of France or Michael Moore, please watch this film if you haven’t, noting especially the pride the French take in a system they have called “democracy.” I think post-rational America would do well to try democracy, but it may be too late.)
Some Americans seem to believe that Dog-Eat-Dog laissez-faire capitalism was proven optimal by the Fall of the Berlin Wall. (Nevermind that this is gibberish; recent national U.S. political events prove that Logic Doesn’t Matter.)
In the Dog-Eat-Dog model which America has so eagerly embraced, there is a strong tendency for businesses to concentrate into larger and larger forms, eventually even into monopolies. Adam Smith himself, the Prophet of the Dog-Eat-Dog philosophy, warned against monopolies. These warnings are ignored by the American Dog-Eaters whose agenda is not the benefits to society of Dog-Eat-Dog, but their own personal greed.
Does this answer OP’s questions? There are obvious reasons why big unregulated banks work against the public interest. Government in its role of regulator is the solution not the problem. The problem in the U.S.A. is not whether Government is “too big” or “not big enough.” The problem is that U.S.A. lacks the effective democracy needed for government to be For the People.
(Someone may counter that if sheep get their fingers purpled after punching a ballot the way the TV told them to, that that fulfills the definition of “democracy” in Webster’s dictionary. Whatever.)
Do you think repealing Glass-Steagall was a huge contributor to this?
Post-rationally speaking, anything French is Muslim-flavored surrender cheese, smoked in the burning tires of civil unrest and aged over a prolonged general strike.
And now you’ve called democracy French. Don’t deny it; using France as an example, however fuzzy, is all we need to read.
Psst, France is not a democracy. We gots us a Republic. Fifth one’s the charm !