This is a follow up to yesterday's post ...
To give you an idea how much federal handouts help subsidize the banking sector think about this: According to Bloomberg News and the IMF, without federal subsidies and the bailout programs after 2008 the biggest banks in the U.S. would be operating with losses, or would be making a tiny fraction of the profits they have in the past.
It doesn't matter whether you want to call it market socialism or crony capitalism, the result is the same. The biggest players in the banking sector depend on the state for their survival.
As a reminder, what we spend on corporate welfare runs into the hundreds of billions, and dwarfs what we spend on traditional welfare programs for children, the elderly and the poor.
For a review of the difference between corporate welfare/socialism and social welfare spending in America click here for Mike P. Sinn's 2011 "Think by Numbers: Government Spends More on Corporate Welfare Subsidies Than Social Welfare Programs" and/or here for my 2013 post, "Corporate Welfare vs. Social Welfare ... It's Not Just a $40 Billion Gap."
Sinn and I use different measuring sticks, but the story line is the same: Many market players in the "private" sector - especially those on Wall Street - don't operate according to free market principles they claim to live by.
In many ways they are wards of the state, and just too ignorant or arrogant to acknowledge it.
- Mark
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