
The ongoing bailout list of the financial system - oblib
https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/list
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dredmorbius
In case hugged to death:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20181001000000*/https://projects...](https://web.archive.org/web/20181001000000*/https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/list)

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acjohnson55
Just wow. I don't really know what to make of this other than that the bailout
seems like a project of pretty incredible proportions. As far as I can tell,
it looks to have gone reasonably well.

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humhumhum
> it looks to have gone reasonably well.

Look at it this way: this is $627b that have not been spent on schools,
education, health or infrastructure. What could have been the return on those?

It is $627b that have been spent to disrupt and hinder potentially flourishing
competition. It's $627b spent to foster centralised industries and strengthen
companies that already have a pretty high market share.

The bailout program is massive and it is an absolute disaster and one of the
most undemocratic acts that western nations have done in the recent decades...
I mean they gave free money to Goldman Sachs! That is Goldman Sachs, the
company that probably has the highest number of alumnis amongst presidents of
countries and leaders of the most powerful state/international instituitions.
And a company that keeps running at a pretty decent profit margin...

Why should these organisations get free money when the rest is told to work
for it?

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talltimtom
> they gave free money to Goldman Sachs!

Well the facts are that they gave loans which are paying off when you look at
the list. So the real “injustice” here is that the government went into the
lending business and “stole profits” that otherwise would have stayed in the
financial sector. Yet they only did so because the entire financial sector was
devoid of liquidity to fix the situation. As for “what about schools!” And
similar, well the investments in the financial sector which are now paying out
can be used in these areas. Not going through with the bailout, putting all
the money into the education system and watching as the entire country goes
into a recession would not have procided eventual payouts that could be
reinvested into the financial system down the line. When your house is on
fire, you don’t gain anything from renovating the facade.

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humhumhum
The problem with this view is twofold:

\- what was the agreed rate of return at the time the loan was given?

\- To maintain your image: why was the house on fire? Was it perhaps because
of the enormous centralization of the financial market in the previous
decades, combined with a massive deregulation, starting in the 80s? (your
facade comment rings odd given the Grenfell Tower disaster)

The loans were given because the large financial institutions weren't able to
make the profits they promised to their shareholders. The money which, no
matter how you look at it, was free at the time, was an intervention in order
to mediate the profit issue. That now ten years after the fact some of this
money came back (of course shareholder returns were always prioritized during
these years), is not a success by any means neither in terms of ROI nor in any
others I could come up with.

Indicating that opportunity costs that are related to central government tasks
in a democracy (education, health, infrastructure) are some form of luxury,
only normalizes oligarchic structures.

