It can't happen soon enough. The Federal Reserve is and has always been a scam of MASSIVE proportions -- utterly criminal. If you want to fix the economy, get rid of the Fed and get rid of fiat currency. Observe the nations who have taken these steps, ridding themselves of a private central bank and basing their currency on gold instead of air.

Where are the public executions for those responsible for the banking disaster?

Obama doesn't want nationalization because he doesn't want the buck stopping with him. And really, who would? If the feds own enough voting shares to run a company, they have to take responsibility for the bank's actions - every time a bank turns down a little old lady's mortgage application, Barack Obama would be the guy in charge. Plus, how do you responsibly run banks that are competing with each other if you run them all? It's like being the CEO of General Motors, canibalizing Pontiac's market share for the benefit of Chevy.

Because nationalizing all the industries a-la Cuba and Romania didn't work out so well either. After all, how many millions of people tried to secretly emmigrate FROM the US to all those top down centrally managed Marxist Paradises?

"Nationalization" got to be a dirty word in the 60s and 70s when Cuba and a lot of other newly communist countries confiscated privately held comanpies for "the people". And then many of the preveously third world oil exporting countries did the same with their oil reserves. Yea, when "nationalization" is a euphamism for confiscation it's wrong and the US and US corporations were usually the victims of that confiscation.

The federal government taking over a failing bank, particularly one that's insured under the FDIC and can no longer meet it's obligations, is an entirely different matter and I think it's pretty disengenuous of people to treat the two matters as similar.

Then we have a third kind of "nationalization" with AIG where the federal government has paid for a controlling interest in the company. What entity, private, corporate or governmental, other than the United States government, could be expected to litteraly buy a company and then not exercise any control over it? Due diligence is called for, particularly when acuiring a failed company, and a thorough reorganization is manditory in a case like this. Why should the government be less diligent in protecting it's stakeholders (me for instance) than a private or public corporation.

This isn't a communist takeover of private assets with no renumeration, it's a legitimate purchase of distressed property for real American dollars. And having spent that money, our money, the government should now be doing it's best to get something out of it. That means firing the people responsible for running those properties into the ground and reorganizing them on a paying basis. Obama is trying to have it both ways and it isn't going to work.

I believe Obama is reluctant to nationalize, though that is in fact the best option to dispose of the Toxic assets - because he is afraid of the "socialist" label being sealed to him. Right now it is just blowing around the zeitgeist, and mostly held to be fact by wingnuts and dolts. But if he nationalizes one bank the talking heads (uncontrolled by the Fairness Doctrine) will go bonkers and it will be spread much farther.

Nationalization as many wise commentators have noted (e.g. Paul Krugman, Martin Wolf - lead editor of the Financial Times, etc.) need not be complete or forever. Merely long enough to take care of all the $55 trillion in credit default swaps laying on banks' books.

With nationalization the government has the ability to safely dispose of them and the main pain will be to shareholders. Yes, they will help, but they have to be made to understood it is for the larger good of society.

Not to nationalize means we continue the dangerous trend of little or no credit flowing, and that means things will only worsen - possibly leading to a new Depression.

Remember that first Depression was caused by massive bank failures. But credit seizure IS a form of bank failure, and its portents are far more serious given how much more our whole financial system now depends on it...from the average home buyer, to the college kid needing a loan, to a company that needs to make payroll.

I do hope Obama soon conquers his fear and places the nation's welfare above the names he may be called.

Observe the nations who have taken these steps, ridding themselves of a private central bank and basing their currency on gold instead of air.

Which countries are those? Certainly none of our major trading partners. How did they do it and when? And what is their standard of living compared to ours?

Well, I do really like the idea of wholesale conversion of existing debt into common shares.

Heavy regulation or nationalization. I think that's what Obama is maneuvering about. He's trying to convince the industry to come up with a regulatory framework that won't be so obviously corrupt that the masses threaten kidnappings, but that won't saddle government with much oversight expense (or unintended authority, heh).

"Nationalization" is a perfect MSM bogeyword, and if its a word on everyone's lips because it's what "the left" demands, there might be a real possibility for concessions on the banksters' part, even though Obama is their man.

During the campaign, a Nader supporter made a video wherein he went hunting for "Obama-nuts". He still hasn't found them. This President has no balls whatsoever. Torture? No Prosecutions. War? Keep killing and dying for nothing. Fourth Amendment? Forget about it. Forget about prosecutions of those who violate it as well. Insolvent mega-banks? Nationalization is off the table. And don't even start on his lack of viable energy use/climate change actions. It's as though he is certain everything will work out if he just avoids any errors of commission and feels he won't be held responsible for any errors of omission.