DGDevin wrote:

Lobbyists are good. Do you really want the electorate to decide the
railway tariff for unrendered yak-fat? Or do you want the railroads
and the yak wranglers to have input?

I don't want the final decision to rest on how much the yak-fat cartel
contributs to the campaign funds of key legislators, which is often
the way it is now. The banking industry spend three hundred million
lobbying for deregulation in the mid-90s, they got what they wanted
and then indulged in an orgy of greed and incompetence which has put
all of us in trouble. Lobbyists need to be kept on a short leash, and
fat chance of either party ever agreeing to that.

Uh, no. That's not what happened. The banking industry is probably the most
regulated in the country. What happened was a 1995 amendment to the
Community Redevelopment Act that mandated a certain percentage of loans be
made to "disadvantaged" communities. Absence of sufficient loans in these
communities would cause government regulators to not be happy with banks and
morgtage companies.

To meet this goal, banks had to loan money to non-credit worthy people. This
worked as long as housing prices continued to rise. When the balloon payment
came due, the homeowner simply re-financed the appreciated value. This Ponzi
scheme collapsed when everybody who could draw two consecutive breaths owned
a home.

Drive around the most ****ed-up neighborhood in your town. In a typical
shopping center you'll see a bodega, a pawn shop, hookers on the corner, and
crack dealers in the alleys. And there, like a gold coin in a pile of dung,
a Washington Mutual, Bank of America, or Wells Fargo branch. Do you think
those banks WANTED to put a store-front in the middle of that crap?