Killer Zombies
Zombies defined, by The Big Picture:
A Zombie Bank is a financial institution whose liabilities outweighs it assets, making its net worth “less than zero.” ZBs continue to operate because of the implicit or explicit government guarantee — along with truckloads of taxpayer monies.
Consider the two biggest Zombie banks — Citigroup, and Bank of America.They have each received $45 billion in capital from the US government — far more than either bank is worth. Additionally, the US had guaranteed up to 90% of the bad assets each zombie is holding — $250 billion and $306 billion respectively.
The term comes from Japan’s lost decade following their real estate bubble. The Japanese kept their zombie banks alive, delaying the eventual recovery by a decade.
The reason I favor nationalization is that I hope we here in the US avoid a lost Japan-like decade from September 08 forward. Keeping these banks propped up with more and more taxpayer monies — the Obama Administration has proposed another $750 billion more in bank-rescue aid — is not the way out of this mess.
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Aha! Just another zombie story! And we all know from reading our sci/fi-fantasy that the way to get rid of zombies is to blast them from the earth! They must be DESTROYED (although in this case, left to themselves, they are doing a bang-up job of whithering).
Let’s also remember from our zombie lore that zombies eat human brains for sustenance– right now they are after our wallets, but that is just a ploy. Once we are fully weakened by having no money, they’ll go after our brains for lunch!
Comment by Maria — 2/26/2009 @ 8:22 am
When failure is not allowed, the outcome is only delayed and made worse.
Comment by Randal — 2/26/2009 @ 9:50 am