@realjohnboy,
Good evening, rjb. I listened, and here's my take on Stiglitz. The segment begins with Geithner talking about our "economy growing, and building a foundation for growth." Stiglitz however criticizes the fact that Geithner's growth doesn't have sufficient job growth of 150,000 jobs every month which is determined as "normal." Stiglitz also says the government should be planning another stimulus plan, because under the current situation, all levels of government are losing tax revenue, and it will become more "marked" without it. They than talked about how the government is helping banks with low interest rates, but not the consumers. Stiglitz says the government is failing the American consumer with the emphasis in helping banks and not the home owners. His recommendation is to help restructure mortgage loans, and gave an example of a $300,000 loan. His recommendation is to help the home owner restructure the loan so that $100,000 portion will have a lower interest rate, say from 5 to 6% down to 2%. This will reduce the mortgage payment by 2/3ds for the home owner directly, because the banks aren't doing this. The reason Washington DC does more for banks is because banks and finance companies have five lobbyists for every congressman in Washington (and consumers have none).
The mortgage crisis was precepitated by predatory lending practices by banks who should have known better than the first time home buyer. Most believed that the banks knew what they were doing, but many of the first time home buyers didn't have a clue.
There's been many bank crisis both in the US and world wide. The S&Ls were saved when the government pumped some $100 billion into them to rescue them. Mexico, Thailand, Korea, Russia, and many other countries also had their governments intervene in their bank crisis, but when they had their crisis, our government told them not to rescue them, and to let them go bankrupt.
My comment: The term for that is "hypocrisy."
