FFM

Under current law Goldman Sachs can recommend a security, like sub-prime mortgages, to a client and at the same time decide to sell short the same product for its own account. Therefore, if it happens to own a boat load of securities that they feel are overvalued there may be a temptation to encourage their clients to  buy it. Someone please post on the front page of the New York Times which congressman or senator would be opposed to changing this law along with the amount of money they received from wall street firms in the form of campaign contributions. This rule defies common sense, encourages graft and corruption.

The President knows that the members of the oligopoly in the banking industry are not going to go along with reform. Hopefully others in the industry will see that they are being abused by the oligopoly and support solid reforms that includes breaking up the oligopoly. 1. Banks cannot be too big to fail. If they are too big to fail they are too big to exist. 2. The financial services industry is not a free market and must be broken up. The industry is controlled by an oligopoly whose interest is not to provide the best products and services to the consumer. They are focused on keeping the oligopoly alive and making it stronger. Anti trust laws must be enforced to put the financial services industry back into a free market. 3. The industry needs more regulation. Milton Friedman, the economist most revered by many conservatives said in his book \"Free To Choose\" that the governments role in a free market is to be an umpire to assure that everyone is playing fairly. The

Big banks must be allowed to fail. Failing includes being taken over by the government, the board members and senior management fired and the shareholders wiped out. The "new bank" then needs to be repackaged, probably into many small pieces, and then sold to the private sector. Further, "to big to fail" should not be allowed in the first place. The big banks, who are members of the oligopoly that controls the banking industry, must be broken up using existing anti-trust laws. We no longer have a free market in the banking industry serving the consumer. We have an industry serving the oligopoly that controls it. President Obama needs to find the gonads to do what is right. If not, we need to find someone with bigger ones.

We will see who is stronger; big banks or the Senate. Here is what needs to be the end result. No bank can be too big to fail. The banking industry needs to be broken up also for the sake of allowing the industry to operate as a free market. Right now the market is controlled by an oligopoly of large banks whose major objective is to keep the oligopoly alive. Improve regulations. Even Milton Friedman, the economist of choice of most republicans, believed that the governments' role in the free markets was to be the umpire. " Rational  self-interest" as described by Adam Smith in his book Wealth of Nations described an economy where both the producer and consumer was looking out for their own self interest and this resulted in the best outcome for the country as a whole. For this to work, the free market needs an umpire. Presently are umpires have become too lax. I am losing faith that this can be accomplished. It seems like our rule makers and umpires have b