Populist President goes after banks in 2009

Wi the Democrat President (probably not Obama or Clinton) Was outraged enough by the behaviour of the banks that a serious effort is made to Prosecute both senior executives and the insitututions.

I could picture some hundreds of former 'masters of the universe' facing long sentences. Plus fines could effectively allow the US government to 'Nationalize without compensation'

Would the US economy collapse?

Might things be changed a lot and for the better?
 
Attractive though the prospect of a number of arrogant investment bankers being sent to prison might be, the bankers are only responding to the growth of the money supply. The real "guilty men" are the U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and British Chancellor Gordon Brown (and assorted EU Finance Ministers) who are responsible for the same.
The bankers act as lightning rods to divert the blame away from the politicians who are really responsible for the credit crunch (and the unsustainable boom just prior) so a "populist" President unless incredibly politically naïve isn't likely to go after the bankers too hard. Certainly not if he is a Democrat. Too much damage would be done to his party if the U.S. Government seriously went after the "big fish" and details of Administration involvement/responsibility started to reach the popular media. Morally dubious and criminal behaviour on the fringes of the banking world, fine. This wasn't (directly) a by-product of the Treasury Department's bad decisions. Bankers getting less and less selective about where they loaned money, that was.
 
Attractive though the prospect of a number of arrogant investment bankers being sent to prison might be, the bankers are only responding to the growth of the money supply. The real "guilty men" are the U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and British Chancellor Gordon Brown (and assorted EU Finance Ministers) who are responsible for the same.
The bankers act as lightning rods to divert the blame away from the politicians who are really responsible for the credit crunch (and the unsustainable boom just prior) so a "populist" President unless incredibly politically naïve isn't likely to go after the bankers too hard. Certainly not if he is a Democrat. Too much damage would be done to his party if the U.S. Government seriously went after the "big fish" and details of Administration involvement/responsibility started to reach the popular media. Morally dubious and criminal behaviour on the fringes of the banking world, fine. This wasn't (directly) a by-product of the Treasury Department's bad decisions. Bankers getting less and less selective about where they loaned money, that was.

No the money supply had nothing to do with the banks making false statements to get repossession.

Actually increasing the money supply probably prevented a full scale depression
 
I was thinking more about issuing the loans that were subsequently repossessed in the first place, the asset inflation and, in particular, the "ninja" loans and the packaging and resale of debts. The increase in the money supply started in the late nineties not in 2009.
 
Wi the Democrat President (probably not Obama or Clinton) Was outraged enough by the behaviour of the banks that a serious effort is made to Prosecute both senior executives and the insitututions.

I could picture some hundreds of former 'masters of the universe' facing long sentences. Plus fines could effectively allow the US government to 'Nationalize without compensation'

Would the US economy collapse?

Might things be changed a lot and for the better?

That would be fiscally stupid. You'd see the economy fall into recession again in this case.
 
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