The lack of trust is the biggest obstacle to recovery?

[kentuck]

We hear everyday of how many tens and hundreds of billions of dollars we are giving to the banks and the financial system. But we don't know what they do with the money?? There is no accounting and no transparency.

I suppose they expect us to trust them to do the right thing? Trust but don't verify? Until we know what is happening with this money, the people will continue to distrust the bankers and the Treasury Department. They especially do not trust anything or anyone associated with Goldman-Sachs, including the former Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, or the present Secreatry, Tim Geithner. They have not proven themselves trustworthy.

As when the other day, they gave another $30-50 billion to AIG. What for? Who gets the money? Does it go to European bankers? How does it help Americans? These are questions that people are asking. With all the talk about transparency, where is the transparency with these criminal banks? The economy will never recover if this trust is not restored.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

1. "Trusting" bankers, or politicians, is like trusting the guy selling you the Rolex in the alley.

[TahitiNut]

3. According to most analysts, it's the bankers who trust bankers the least.

Hard to argue with that assessment. :shrug:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. A lot of folks "trusted" bankers when they were blowing up that bubble.

I can't imagine why so many are feeling a tad cynical about bankers now.

[TahitiNut]

5. One of the assumptions I find interesting in all this is that a 'recovery' ...

... is somehow defined as a return to the state of INFLATION that existed before the collapse of the most recent bubble. Nowhere do I hear any articulation of an intelligently-derived description of a 'healthy' state ... i.e. where we 'should' be if all elements of the economy were somehow rational and in balance, reflecting some just reality.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. To paraphrase Springsteen: Those days are gone, boys, and they ain't comin' back.

From what I've been reading, the best the politicians can do is hope to ease the pain of the financial collapse.

We're, literally, living on borrowed time purchased with borrowed money. The Chinese are smart shoppers. They're propping up the dollar so they can buy up mineral, oil, and property rights all over the world with a "strong" dollar at rock bottom prices.

The best we can do is keep the economy afloat by borrowing more.

I'm far from a financial wizard, but I have an inkling that this arrangement isn't going to work out all that well.

On the bright side, after the dust settles, the government, may see the wisdom of instituting health care reform, investment in infrastructure and abandonment of the concept keeping the lost empire together through force.

Economies, like nature, tend to self correct. Often in very unpleasant ways.

[CJCRANE]

2. It's the big cash out

that the conspiracy theorists predicted.