We Are All Equal, But Some More Than Others
The BBC reports that US banks make shock status switch
The last two major investment banks in the US have changed their status to become bank holding companies, allowing them to take deposits from investors.
The changes should enable Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to raise more funds by opening commercial banks.
The move – part of a huge restructuring effort on Wall Street – will also give them access to Federal Reserve support.
…Analysts speculated that both institutions would be acquired by commercial banks, whose ability to take deposits would give them a stable source of funding.
Instead, the banks filed requests with the Federal Reserve to change their status.
And late on Sunday, the Fed said in a statement it had granted the requests.
Regular people have to wait until Monday if they have a problem after 5PM Friday, but these guys get decisions from the Federal Reserve on Sundays. Now we have to protect the FDIC in addition to all of the other problems.
4 comments
Speaking of banks and the BBC… This all reminds me of an episode of Yes, Prime Minister. Particularly an episode in Season 2 (Episode 4) called ‘A conflict of interest’ 🙂
If you haven’t seen it, the entire episode is on YouTube (in 4 parts). You’ll see what I mean. 😉
A Conflict of Interest(part 1)
A Conflict of Interest(part 2)
A Conflict of Interest(part 3)
A Conflict of Interest(part 4)
Hmmmm. Seems eerily… familiar for some reason. 😉 LOL
BTW, If you want to save any YouTube vid’s, use an excellent open source (free) download manager that also allows you to download embedded multimedia, Orbit Downloader. It integrates into Firefox, IE, Opera etc. 🙂
Oh… And it seems that it’s not just the growing US public’s annoyance about this. 🙂 The UK public seems fairly annoyed with their leader also. Here’s an example in the Telegraph. 🙂
The sub-prime minister has led us beyond boom and bust. LOL
Everyone sees the “profit potential” but very few people take the risk seriously. They all seem shocked when the bill comes due.
They ran the Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister series on Public Broadcasting stations in the US. I loved them, although I admit that most Americans “don’t get” the humor.
There were certainly a lot of creative “interpretations” of reality on Wall Street under de-regulation.
Yes, it was a brilliant program. I have the DVD’s of both Yes Minister, and Yes, Prime Minister. 🙂 Some say it was ahead of it’s time, I think it’s more accurately, timeless.
It first aired in the UK while Maggy Thatcher was PM. She tried to have it stopped! Many years later, an interviewer asked her why she had tried to have the program stopped. She replied that it was too close to the truth. Then she said that it did make her laugh at the irony. LOL
Another part I love of the above episode ‘A conflict of interest’, is when they are discussing the newspapers and who reads them! LOL Too funny, and accurate! 😉 I am sure you can find parallels to the US press and it’s readership. 😉
The Opinion pages in US newspapers are written for opinion writers who have their own fantasy world. In general the US media is in the tank because they stopped reporting the news and went with celebrity gossip, even for murder trials.
The real irony of Yes, Prime Minister was how close it tracked to the Reagan administration and now the current administration, although, Black Adder is also a front runner.
Actually, I envy the parliamentary system’s permanent civil service and readily changeable governments. It beats our impeachment process all to hell.