There’s a line from the philosopher Seneca which, in English, goes like this: Fate leads the willing and drags the unwilling. And that seems like an apt description of where the consensus is heading on the possible takeover of some of the biggest national banks. Lindsey Graham says he’s for it. Yesterday, Alan Greenspan said he was for it. And this new article from the Financial Times says the Obama administration is moving toward embracing the so-called Swedish model.
With regards to Obama, this seems more like tea-leaf reading than anything concrete and specific. But it does seem pretty clear that this is where everything is trending. The issue isn’t whether people like the idea of ‘nationalization’. It’s better framed as whether you a) want the government to temporarily take over certain banks or b) want to continue giving away hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in an effort that probably isn’t even going to work. Especially for Republicans, you really can’t be anti-bailout and anti-nationalization. Those are the only options.
