Comments on: When bankers are more dangerous than warlords

By: CPie

CPie — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 04:28:54 +0000

I think that the government will believe that it would be a good idea, but won’t do it, simply because of political suicide. What politician would bail out yet another bank that doesn’t take part in the US economy?

The main problem is that even if we were to bail them out the Afghans probably wouldn’t be that grateful anyway. Taxpayers would be furious, thinking that their money was ‘wasted’ on something that had seemingly no effect on the effort and their trust.

Yet if we don’t we will inevitably get blamed for its loss, like TaxLawyer said. I’m guessing a loss in Afghanistan might be inevitable if more lose-lose situations like this keep cropping up.

By: TaxLawyer

TaxLawyer — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 05:24:58 +0000

This is a really crappy situation, but there is literally no choice but to bail them out. Just as there was literally no choice but to help the Pakistani flood refuges.

We need all the goodwill we can get in a war zone. Whether we will be thanked for it is a different situation. But whether we will be blamed for its failure is a foregone conclusion.

Unlike our bailout of U.S. banks, this one is really necessary–and cheaper than military spending.

And as to bailing out another country’s banks, look no farther than AIG and bailing out European banks by honoring worthless derivatives.

By: KenInIL

KenInIL — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 22:59:43 +0000

I don’t see any great problem here. Palette up a few billion dollars, ship it over to Afghanistan, and turn it over to… someone, without getting a receipt. It worked fine in Iraq, didn’t it?

By: walt9316

walt9316 — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:19:57 +0000

Could it be that the US will finally be undone by its bankers and awol president?

By: MarkWolfinger

MarkWolfinger — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:16:33 +0000

It it possible that we would pay to bail out this Afghan bank?

Tim Geithner is an idiot, with no real world awareness, but surely even he would not allow this.

Obama’s presidency has been ruined by the single decision to employ Geithner and Summers. What a shame.