Latest Newsweek Poll: 56% Favor Bank Nationalization!

[Better Believe It]

"A somewhat surprising majority (56 percent) supports nationalizing large banks at risk of failing—a policy the Obama administration has shied away from."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/188002/page/1

[polichick]

1. Good, because giving more and more money to crooks is insane.

[Abq_Sarah]

2. I wonder what percentage

Of that 56% understands what nationalization entails.

[Jackpine Radical]

3. That's exacrtly what I was thinking, but

another way of looking at that number is as an index of the popularity of radical (dare I say socialist?) reforms in America. They may not know what the nationalization of a bank would mean, but they sure as hell know they're fed up with capitalist greed merchants.

[Better Believe It]

5. Do you really want to know? Read the fricken poll question!

Question #11

Temporary nationalization is another way for the federal government to deal with large banks in danger of failing.
This is where the government takes over a failing bank, cleans its balance sheets, and then quickly sells it off. In
general, which do YOU think is the better way to deal with failing banks... (READ)

29 Government financial aid WITHOUT any government control of the bank, OR
56 Nationalization, where the government takes temporary control?
11 Neither/Other (VOL.)
4 (DO NOT READ) Don’t know
100

Now I really hope that you don't believe that only a few really smart people like yourself understand what a government takeover of banks means, while the great majority of us are way too ignorant and can't grasp this difficult concept.

Why do some liberals believe they are so smart and the masses of working people are ignorant uneducated idiots?

Here's the link to the actual pool in pdf format:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/188005?tid=relatedcl

[PBS Poll-435]

6. The shareholders get wiped out, and the gov't gets an IPO!

The potential for abuse in the scenario is quite scary.

[Better Believe It]

10. The shareholders have already been wiped out!

What's Citi now, about a buck a share?

[PBS Poll-435]

12. That buck

represents nearly 6 billion dollars that would be wiped out if the gov't took over.

[Better Believe It]

13. So what? Do you own millions of shares?

The shareholders have already lost about 98% of their investment. 2% more won't even be noticed for the small shareholder.

Trillions have been lost in 401K investments held by working people. Now I care about them!

[PBS Poll-435]

14. LOL

Good lord no. But the institutional investors do. Municipal/State/(and larger) retirement plans would suffer needlessly if the gov't just took over.

[Better Believe It]

18. So how much more money can they lose with nationalization? About 2%

Hardly a piss in the ocean. Pretty small potatoes compared to what they have already lost with privitization.

The retirement plans can reinvest in and recover much of their loses after the nationalized banks become solvent.

They will not recover and will lose what little money they have left in the major banks if nationalization is delayed for much longer.

[PBS Poll-435]

25. What banks do you think need nationalization? nt

[LittleBlue]

22. How about we just pay them $6 billion for their common?- problem solved

And at far less than the trillions we've wasted so far.

[PBS Poll-435]

24. Start purchasing the common stock, and the price will rise.

The Market Cap for Citi (C), as of Friday is 5.74 billion dollars with 5.48 billion shares outstanding. On a normal trading day, purchasing just 5% of the shares outstanding would cause the asking price of the stock to skyrocket.

[LittleBlue]

26. So what? If we doubled the price- a 100% premium

then it would be $2 per share.

Acquisitions happen all the time for a premium, this would be no different. We could pay a 1,000% premium and it would be far more cost-effective than sustaining failed banks on trillions in futile life support.

[Abq_Sarah]

7. It would have been better if they had asked the respondents

If they thought seizing banks and wiping out common shareholders was a good idea.

Or, if they believe private investors should be prohibited from investing in banks and perhaps, keeping them afloat.

[Better Believe It]

15. They've already been wiped out.

If the big banks are nationalized they can be sold to private investors after they are solvent.

Right now the major banks are bankrupt, they are not solvent and will never been solvent if they remain private.

How many trillions of dollars do you want to throw at zombie banks just to "protect" a few rich shareholders?

[Telly Savalas]

19. I know I'm excited that my tax dollars are being used to prop up insolvent banks

so that people who are stupid enough to hold stock in them don't lose more money than they already have.

[LiberalFighter]

11. Whichever one draws the short straw for the bank gets shot.

[PBS Poll-435]

4. And 54% of Americans Do Not Believe in Evolution!

http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=581

[Better Believe It]

8. Deleted duplicate

Duplicate

[Better Believe It]

9. And most of them do not support Rush Limbaugh or the Wall Street crooks and banksters.

So what's your point?

And unlike you, the masses of ordinary working people are ignorant?

Now that's elitism and it has no place in a genuine progressive movement.

[PBS Poll-435]

16. Actually, my point was...

That phrase a poll question the way you want, and you will get the answers you want.

[TahitiNut]

17. "Under New Management" is what's desired. It's NOT the low level employees that're the problem.

"Nationalization" is, for me at least, the closest thing to a wholesale beheading of the corporation - wholesale firing of every executive.

Separate the executives from the business ... save the business and discard the corrupt, inept bastards that created the mess.

[RagAss]

20. Let's do it now while we have the muscle !!!!!!

[LittleBlue]

21. Obama being left behind by his own country

Because he won't admit that nationalization is the right way to go.

It's sad, really, that we suffer unnecessarily to appease right-wing capitalist ideology.

[vaberella]

23. This is inevitable...it's going to happen sooner than later.

To me the slow collapsing of AIG is a perfect example. Little by little we'll take control. I'm waiting for BoA to call for help and Citigroup...then it's all over.