Originally Posted by u-Bob

They seem to be angry and that's a good start.

But let's hope they actually try to understand what's going on. Question is "how is 'Wall street' able to gamble with other people's money?".

If I go to a casino and gamble away my own money, that does not affect my neighbor or his kids or the small business owner down the street. Then why is it that when the banks gamble away their money, it affects the entire population? Because of government intervention.

The free market (as opposed to the current Corporatist (or politicalcapitalist) system we've got now) is a system of checks and balances. It punishes bad behavior and rewards good behavior. It's a system of profit and loss. Those who produce or deliver goods and services other people value and are willing to give something in exchange for, make a profit. Those who act irresponsibly and invest their resources in producing or delivering goods and services no one values and no one is willing to pay for lose their money.

For over a 100 years we haven't had anything that comes even remotely close to a true free market. Big banks are backed by the government. The government picks up their tab when they can't pay. The government bails them out when they are in trouble. The government uses money it takes from the people (tax dollars) and money it borrows (a loan that later has to paid back with interest (by the people)) and uses that to cover the losses made by the big banks.

The solution is not to have more government intervention. The solution is not to 'nationalize' banks (which would amount to transferring even more of the banks' costs onto the people).

The solution is to let the irresponsible banks fail. It's time to tell them: "Hey, if you act irresponsibly, you'll pay the price. You take a loss! No more bailouts!".

If a small business owner acts irresponsibly with his resources, he goes out of business. Time to bring this basic economic truth back to the big banks and big corporations. If they are falling, let them crash and burn instead of trying to catch them with government issued safety nets made out of tax dollars and the wealth of population.