Matt Miller for President

Here is the platform:

A Third Party Stump Speech.

Eat your spinach. No whining.

Bank reform and Golden Sacks of crap

Too big to fail is just what it means: any financial reform that leaves standing commercial institutions that are "too big to fail" is doomed.

Any reform that fails to bring these monsters down to a size where they can be controlled, instead of them controlling us, fails to protect the American wage earner.

And just to be clear, breaking up the giant oligopoly banks is about as "free market" a policy as we can envision. Government is not the enemy of business, but it is a referee and protector of the market. When one player, like Goldman Sachs, becomes so powerful that it can successfully manipulate the economy in which it plays, the market is broken and needs reform.

Large investment banks command an horrific percentage of corporate profit in the U.S. (as opposed to our beleaguered and important community banks, the ones that would provide loans to you and me if Chase and company had not sucked up all the dollars). Read more here.

They buy and sell politicians of each major party with a stroke of a pen. They send their minions to work for the regulators. They profit from our hardship.

It is time to recognize that, like the oil and rail monopolies of the past, large investment banks need to be brought down to a size that would allow for greater competition, more transparency, and to allow the market to punish any them, even with failure, for bad decisions. They need to be broken up and a stable, competitive market restored.

The current proposed legislation does not go nearly far enough.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Yes, the heavy lifting of health care reform had to be tackled first. Not cap and trade, not financial reform. Thank you for the vision, the effort, and the guts. Only a few of us believed.

But now, there is some business that HAS to be next. Jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs.

We need oxygen out here. Our local employers who have not already fallen are hanging on by their fingertips. Capital needs to flow again, regardless of it's source, be it relaxed requirements, government spending at a community level, housing subsidies. As quickly as possible, and don't worry about nuance or endless debates about what is "fair."

While you and congress try to figure out how to staunch the wounds caused by the behemoth banks, our local banks are being buried by the weight of Washington's indifference. It's a crisis, even if you don't hear much about it back there where you are all employed.

This needs to be tackled NOW, for the health of our communities, our economy, and frankly, for the Democratic Party.

Beware the knives

Liberals have their knives out for fat cat bankers. They should put them away and take a deep breath.

The fact is, there are very few people capable of running banks, large or small, and most of them already are. There is no benefit to turning banks over to bureaucrats, or destroying them and the value of stock often owned by pensions, state retirement accounts, and people who worked hard their whole life.

There are many causes to the credit crisis, and banks are certainly at the center of the storm. That does not mean that individual bankers or banks are villains. Much of the blame goes to Phil Graham and a lot of misguided Democrats who changed the rules and allowed banks to invest in riskier enterprises and give loans to people who did not deserve them.

A whole generation forgot the lesson of the Great Depression and lived beyond their means. We are all at fault, and it doesn't help to point fingers at who might be more at fault than others.

So what to do now? Hidden beneath the headlines is the fact that many "risky" banks are actually making money. They look bad on paper because the value of the assets they hold is unknown. Since the markets have frozen up, it is hard to value property, but the regulators are forcing a "mark to market" strategy that is forcing banks to revalue property at low, low levels.

Because of this, banks are flirting with capitalization ratios that make it appear they are in worse shape than they are, if the same assets were valued over a longer term.

The banks need time, and we all need some sort of confidence in our real estate markets, which requires banks to be able to lend.

First, according to many, we need to pull our banks back from the brink. The best way to do this is to follow the advice of commentator Jim Cramer and implement the same kind of program of "forbearance" that saved the S&L situation of the 1980s. Once there is a market for real estate, the banks can mark the value of their assets in prudent ways, or dispose of them. Until then, the exercise is not only futile, but damaging.

Secondly, the government needs to provide guaranteed home refinancing for everybody at 4%. This will start the process of reducing inventory overhang, and doesn't punish those who bought wisely.

But the current mob mentality of the left, to cut off the heads of bankers and destroy the banks they lead, is horrifically irresponsible. It is the banking system that government should reform, not banks. That is done with laws, not seizure. Once prudent rules are back in place, and the market stabilizes, we want bankers running our banks, and we need our banks to succeed.

Or else the crisis is just beginning, and will be made worse by the Left's lack of understanding and disdain for money.