Is Anyone Against Nationalizing Banks?

There must be something about this in the Book of Revelations.

Rep. Maxine Waters was lambasted as a left-wing radical last year when she raised the idea of nationalizing the oil industry. But on a Sunday morning talk show, a Republican senator came off even more supportive than her of nationalizing banks.

“I would not take off the idea of nationalizing the banks,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), said on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”

Graham, a confidant of former Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), said that the problems in the economy and the financial sector are so severe that U.S. policy makers may have to start thinking about things once labeled unthinkable.

“This idea of nationalizing banks is not comfortable,” said Graham, appearing downcast. “But I think we have gotten so many toxic assets spread throughout the banking and financial community throughout the world that we're going to have to do something that no one ever envisioned a year ago, no one likes.”...

Waters (D-Calif.), who was ripped on blogs as a “communist” and “tin-pot collectivist,” after suggesting a government takeover of the oil industry at a hearing on gasoline prices, was more reluctant.

“The word ‘nationalization’ scares the hell out of people,” Waters said. “Citibank is probably almost nationalized with the amount of money that we've put in it. But I don't think that we are ready to move to the point of a formalized nationalized banking program yet.”...

The prospect, though, was raised by two New Yorkers who are free-market economists. Matthew Richardson and Nouriel Roubini, professors at New York University's Stern School of Business, penned an op-ed in Sunday’s Washington Post entitled “Nationalize the banks! We’re all Swedes Now.”

“We feel downright blasphemous proposing an all-out government takeover of the banking system,” they wrote. “But the U.S. financial system has reached such a dangerous tipping point that little choice remains.”
--TheHill.com

How about you, Mr. President?

"I will not allow our financial system to collapse. And we are going to do whatever is required to get credit flowing again so that companies and consumers can do their business and we can get this economy back on track."
--interview with E.J. Dionne

This is really happening. For a touch of reality we turn to veteran Chicago political analyst Don Rose:

It’s clear the GOP has locked into a strategy of solid opposition because, though they won’t say it out loud, they agree with Rush Limbaugh’s battle cry, “I want Obama to fail.”

They have nothing to lose by opposing him. Their ranks are diminishing and there will be nothing to gain if his program works. Their only hope of coming back will be if Obama fails.

Never mind that the country might fail with him.

If the GOP thinks they have found Obama's weak spot, I hope it works. ey