Those Thieving Banks

From the economist Dean Baker:

These executives bankrupted their banks and brought the economy down with them. They belong in an unemployment line not collecting multi-million dollar paychecks in their designer office suites.

Dean has a great article called “The Banks Have Stolen Enough; It’s Time to Take Them Over” where he suggests that….that banks should be taken over. A couple of sample paragraphs:

In this plan, the taxpayers just do the banks the great favor of paying above market prices for their junk so that we can relieve them of the burden of their past mistakes. The taxpayers get to eat the losses and the bank executives and their shareholders go on their merry way.

and

It’s too bad that the Republicans’ anger over giving tax breaks to workers who did not pay income taxes does not extend to giving tax dollars to Wall Street banks who have wrecked our economy. Where are the anti-government conservatives when we need them?