I for one am happy to see that John McCain's wingman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has come to his senses and is urging Obama to seize the commanding heights of the economy.

In all seriousness, I have yet to hear an economist that isn't calling for us to do this, pronto, and I'm glad one of the prominent Republicans in Congress is saying they're in favor of it publicly.

If it's fear of being called a socialist that's holding Geitner, Summers, and Obama back, get the fuck over it; morons are going to call him a radical communist even if he dismantles the federal government entirely, and reverts us to the Articles of Confederation.

Zombie Banks! An Army of Darkness! Bruce Campbell for President!

Hell every late night movie fan knows what you MUST do with Zombie Banks - shoot em in the head! And then burn the body.

Scientific consensus indicates nothing, in science.

related excerpt from:
http://science.videosift.com/talk/Socialism-An-Economic-and-Sociological-Analysis

"To protect the socialist ideal from the crushing effect of such
criticism, attempts have recently been made to improve upon the
accepted definition of the concept 'Socialism'. My own definition of
Socialism, as a policy which aims at constructing a society in which
the means of production are socialized, is in agreement with all that
scientists have written on the subject. I submit that one must be
historically blind not to see that this and nothing else is what has stood
for Socialism for the past hundred years, and that it is in this sense
that the great socialist movement was and is socialistic. But why
quarrel over the wording of it! If anyone likes to call a social ideal
which retains private ownership in the means of production socialistic,
why, let him! A man may call a cat a dog and the sun the moon if it
pleases him. But such a reversal of the usual terminology, which
everyone understands, does no good and only creates misunderstand-
ings. The problem which here confronts us is the socialization of
ownership in the means of production, i.e. the very problem over
which a worldwide and bitter struggle has been waged now for a
century.

One cannot evade this defining of Socialism by asserting that the
concept Socialism includes other things besides the socialization of
the means of production: by saying, for example, that we are actuated
by certain special motives when we are socialists, or that there is a
second aim - perhaps a purely religious concept bound up with it.
Supporters of Socialism hold that the only brand worthy the name is
that which desires socialization of the means of production for 'noble'
motives. Others, who pass for opponents of Socialism, will have it
that nationalization of the means of production desired from
'ignoble' motives only, has to be styled Socialism also. Religious
socialists say that genuine Socialism is bound up with religion; the
atheistical socialist insists on abolishing God along with private pro-
perty. But the problem of how a socialistic society could function is
quite separate from the question of whether its adherents propose to
worship God or not and whether or not they are guided by motives
which Mr. X from his private point of view would call noble or
ignoble. Each group of the great socialist movement claims its own
as the only true brand and regards the others as heretical; and
naturally tries to stress the difference between its own particular ideal
and those of other parties. I venture to claim that in the course of
my researches I have brought forward all that need be said about
these claims"

LOL

The Banks were given billions with no strings attached. If that isn't nationalizations without oversight then I don't know what nationalization is.

imstellar, I think you either misunderstood the quote you posted, or you misunderstand what we're talking about by nationalizing the banks.

We want to preserve private ownership of the means of production. In this case, we're talking about a temporary nationalization, where the government buys the bank, wipes out the shareholders, reorganizes the management, and then sells the bank back to private investors.

We do it all the time with smaller banks, we just need to do it with some of the larger ones as well.

Socialism would involve a movement to have the government seize the major banks and keep them, and there is no popular support for that in any part of our political landscape. Even Bernie Sanders, the once self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist, does not want government to retain permanent control of the banks.

I don't think permanent control of the banks would be a good idea either.

By Mises's own definition, I'm not a socialist because of that, and anyone who tries to call me that is "[calling] a cat a dog and the sun the moon."

*talks

Adding video to channels (Talks) - requested by kronosposeidon.

Furthermore nationalization is exactly the path the US and the IMF would push forward if this was happening in another nation.