Jim Rogers: Bank Bailout is 'Horrible Economics'

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/jim-rogers-bank-bailout-horrible-econ

Jim Rogers: Bank Bailout is 'Horrible Economics'
By Susie Madrak
Friday Dec 12, 2008

Jim Rogers, who cofounded the Quantum Fund with George Soros, attacks the bank bailout as "wrongheaded" and says most of the major banks are already bankrupt:

"Without giving specific names, most of the significant American banks, the larger banks, are bankrupt, totally bankrupt," said Rogers, who is now a private investor.

"What is outrageous economically and is outrageous morally is that normally in times like this, people who are competent and who saw it coming and who kept their powder dry go and take over the assets from the incompetent," he said. "What's happening this time is that the government is taking the assets from the competent people and giving them to the incompetent people and saying, now you can compete with the competent people. It is horrible economics."

[...] Goldman Sachs & Co analysts this week estimated that banks worldwide have suffered $850 billion of credit-related losses and writedowns since the global credit crisis began last year.

But Rogers said sound U.S. lenders remain. He said these could include banks that don't make or hold subprime mortgages, or which have high ratios of deposits to equity, "all the classic old ratios that most banks in America forgot or started ignoring because they were too old-fashioned."

Many analysts cite Lehman's Sept 15 bankruptcy as a trigger for the recent cratering in the economy and stock markets.

Rogers called that idea "laughable," noting that banks have been failing for hundreds of years. And yet, he said policymakers aren't doing enough to prevent another Lehman.

"Governments are making mistakes," he said. "They're saying to all the banks, you don't have to tell us your situation. You can continue to use your balance sheet that is phony.... All these guys are bankrupt, they're still worrying about their bonuses, they're still trying to pay their dividends, and the whole system is weakened."

Yep. The pointless bailout, the one that only postpones the inevitable, is embraced warmly by the Republican party while the one that actually provides a product and employs millions of working-class people is rejected. It's the blue shirts vs. the blue collars.

Tags: Bailout, Bankrupt, banks, Economy