By 'the government' I mean Congress and all the relevant regulators such as the SEC and the Fed...
...and please don't imagine to the temptation that the world is not the way you want it because of the lack of a leader, or something. This stuff is heavily politicized and very complicated, and part of that complication is because of the generations of regulators who said 'something must be done'.
All I see is Obama's top team being very cozy with the big banks, and the Republicans would let BofA institute gas chambers as long as it was "free market". Where's 'the government wanting to break them up' in that?
Assuming you're not going on common Internet Wisdom and have some knowledge of this, I'd be interested to know in what ways Obama's top team is cozy with banks. I'm not being facetious--well, maybe a little--but I find this stuff fascinating.
"Evil" is a silly term. Robert Rubin (citi), Henry Paulson (goldman), Tim Geithner (ny fed), these names aren't ringing a bell?
The impression I've gotten is that the financial world is convinced that Obama is out to get them, so of course it's "common knowledge" that he has a plan to break up the banks. But what's he actually done? The settlement with the big banks a couple months ago was a slap on the wrist at best, and removed a huge liability.
Hey, sorry, I edited my post after you responded, but I didn't say and never said that it's "common knowledge" that Obama wants to break up banks.
What I said is that the financial industry, as of recently, has had an antagonistic relationship with the government, and that this is common knowledge in the industry. That's how they see it, anyway. There's a lot of tiptoeing the government has to do, because they're still counting on commercial banks to clear the housing market, to have their back on distressed bank mergers, etc.
Anyway, I'd rather see top bankers in those positions than top politicians. Obama's a moderate and a technocrat; so your thesis isn't distinguishable from the null hypothesis.
> "Evil" is a silly term. Robert Rubin (citi), Henry Paulson (goldman), Tim Geithner (ny fed), these names aren't ringing a bell?
My brain parses that as: people whose roles will require experience and insight in dealing with huge sums of money and complex economic effects at the national level TURN OUT to also be the kind of people you'd want to hire for other roles that benefit from applying experience and insight in dealing with huge sums of money and complex economic effects at the national level.
Now, if they're corrupt, that would be a bad thing. But having prior relevant experience? A good thing.
I understand that generations of regulators that wanted to maintain the status quo followed the logic:
Something must be done!
This is something we can all agree on.
This must be done!
I also think an insightful leader can propose actions that disrupt the status quo and leave the world a better place.
I posit that the internet would not have been able to take-off the way it did if the DOJ had not successfully broken up AT&T. Remember there used to be exactly one company who owned the phone lines running into your house and across the country. Since they owned the wires they decided what equipment you could hook onto their wires - which happened to be only equipment they sold and installed.
...and please don't imagine to the temptation that the world is not the way you want it because of the lack of a leader, or something. This stuff is heavily politicized and very complicated, and part of that complication is because of the generations of regulators who said 'something must be done'.