“It’s financial insanity”

Leave it to CNN to wait until the last paragraph to present the voice of reason on the latest possible “plan” – to let all the banks unload their toxic mortgages on the taxpayers:

Banking consultant Bert Ely is skeptical about the government getting involved at all. If the government chooses to “prop up the institutions or allows the institutions to offload asset (sic) onto a government entity, who’s going to take the losses? It’s financial insanity. The markets have to clear. Our fundamental problem: an oversupply of housing.”

When the savings and loans went under because they spent more time buttering up House Banking Committee Chairman Fernand St. Germain than they did watching their balance sheets, we were all told this would never happen again.

Nineteen years later, we who have refused to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.