Ike, It is a domino system. They all conspire to keep the losers in the game or the entire system craps out. Thus, when an LTC goes belly up, all the banks, brokers and the Fed get together to screw the public to make certain their friends don't die. They allow them to stay wounded, but not mortally so. That fiasco could easily have taken down the entire system. What we have seen is that if one player has a problem, the system's checks and balances work. Yes, they cost us a lot of money, but at least nobody gets his Rolls repossessed in Connecticut.
The real problem hits when more than one at a time ends up on the wrong side of the trade, big time. In other words, Citigroup cannot help bail out Morgan Stanley when Citi is also bleeding losses that threaten its existence. It is not a question of whether or not this will happen, though the names may be changed to protect the guilty. It is just a question of when they whack us. |
