>License suspension after multiple moving violations works well.
>
>You mean you'd confiscate their license? Shock horror! Seizure! The ends justify the means! ;-)

A license is not private property. There is a wide difference between rights and privileges.

>Your proposal differs only in the target of confiscation- in this case a certification system ironically implemented by government to protect the greater good. Whether a tyrannical selfish person is motivated by possible or actual loss of license is debatable. Certainly the Courts regularly host people who lose their license because of selfishness and (surprise, surprise) selfishly continue driving without a license. The risk of loss of car is more compelling to this sort of person and to those who might lend them a car so they can continue to breach.

The risk of prison or even death is more compelling to that sort of person. Why not impose the death penalty? If its for the greater good why stop with running red lights? Smoking in public?

>Completely false and it's not even close.
>
>Completely and demonstrably true. Even responsible banks with (say) 7% capital ratio could not survive a bank run or other breach of lending covenant, which historically is what happens when a financial sector faces a liquidity crisis. Some banks may not have participated in the foolish behavior but they were completely exposed to what comes next. If we accept that government is not a fairy godmother, being rescued creates an obligation whether you caused the crisis or not.

There were many banks with plenty of liquidity to survive even the worst credit crunch. They are well capitalized and so conservatively run that even during the height of the hysteria there was no noticeable change in their customers' withdrawl patterns. Even the Great Depression didn't crush all banks and the "vacation" settled people's nerves without hurling indefinite capital at the largest offenders.

>BofA is coming forward with allegations that not only did the State "encourage" the takeover of Merril...
>
>Until this moment we were talking about government taking shares in exchange for injecting liquidity to prevent a run. Now there is a separate allegation that government may have overstepped the mark along the way. As always there are two sides to every story with the truth somewhere in between, but if the truth is that government has overstepped the mark wrt Merril then I'll join you in disapproval of that particular behavior. But that does not extrapolate to the overall position that government had to intervene to protect the people from financial red-light-runners and *must* claim something in return on behalf of the taxpayer.

"Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and former Treasury secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. threatened to remove the management and board of Bank of America if it backed out of its deal to acquire ailing investment house Merrill Lynch late last year, according to documents released yesterday by New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/23/AR2009042302461.html

Until this moment I've been discussing government overstepping it's Constitutionally mandated authority in regards to private entities.
This development merely adds further evidence to the building case of the State's interference and fits perfectly into our discussion.

>The government is full of selfish and incompetent people who will put us in danger again. Now you want them in charge of financial institutions?
>
>First, government is not the sole repository of incompetent people.

They're the most dangerous.

Incompetent people + power = California.

>Second, we're talking about government taking shares in exchange for its rescue. That's not the same as being in charge unless the bank has breached FDIC rules or requires a rescue of such magnitude that it is effectively insolvent. Obviously the rescuing party is expected to take control in such a case. If government is a minority shareholder it should behave like one. I can tell you that in the private sector, minority shareholders who inject $ often create a new class of shares to give themselves additional powers and rights.
So far government seems mild in this respect.

Forced takeover is mild? What's hot?

>Seems to me there is too much focus on fixing the blame rather than the problem. Can we at least agree that government is incompetent if it does not achieve a return for taxpayers who have had to inject trillions to protect the people,

I have no interest in the return for taxpayers as I see the government's seizure of the banks as a Constitutional violation.

>and incompetent if it does not alter laws and provide serious deterrents to prevent recurrence no matter who we choose to blame.

On this we agree. Of course I already find the State incompetent for imposing mandates and removing existing laws which would've prevented the current situation.