Here is the movie, narrated by Tom Hanks, that reminds us how far we have come from the disaster unfolding before President Obama took office to the current state of recovery. The current state could be better, but we know for sure that it could be a lot worse.

It would be such a shame to stop the policy of recovery and return to the policy of disaster that all the Republican Presidential candidates are prescribing.

If we need to go through another disaster for the American voters to really understand what the Republican policies are all about, the United States will not come out of it with anywhere near its current standing in the world.

Historically, all eras where one nation leads the world do eventually come to an end. Frequently the citizens of that nation bring about their own downfall. I really would not like that to happen in this country while I am still around.

Bank of America: Too Crooked to Fail by Matt Taibbi is another one for the records.

The bank has defrauded everyone from investors and insurers to homeowners and the unemployed. So why does the government keep bailing it out?

I admit to only having read the first 3 pages of this 5 page article.  How many pages of a career criminal’s rap sheet do you have to read to get the picture?

The first 3 pages were enough to get to the explanation of why bank regulation was introduced and why revoking it has led to exactly the abuses that the regulations were invented to prevent.

For a time, this ridiculous rivalry between two strutting Southern peacocks was restrained by the law – specifically, the McFadden-Pepper Act of 1927 and the Douglas Amendment to the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956. These two federal statutes, which made it illegal for a bank holding company to own and operate banks in more than one state, were effectively designed to prevent exactly the Too Big to Fail problem we now find ourselves faced with. The goal, as Sen. Paul Douglas explained at the time, was “to prevent an undue concentration of banking and financial power, and instead keep the private control of credit diffused as much as possible.”

Since the 1980s we have decided that “undue concentration of banking and financial power” was now due.  It shouldn’t be a surprise that stealing money is easier than earning it, especially if you own the police force.

The propaganda machine rolls on, making people more afraid of the people protesting the robbery than they are afraid of the robbers.

People seem to be saying, “Go ahead and steal my money.  Anything is better than being a socialist.”

I just couldn’t resist, so I read The New York Times piece Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs by Greg Smith.

How did we get here? The firm changed the way it thought about leadership. Leadership used to be about ideas, setting an example and doing the right thing. Today, if you make enough money for the firm (and are not currently an ax murderer) you will be promoted into a position of influence.

I have no pithy nor even snide comments to make.  I have nothing to add, either.  I really don’t even have a reason to think this might be memorable and so worth recording on my blog.