Keeping Things In Perspective

From Kevin Drum at Mother Jones:
"...BankUnited in Florida has finally been taken into receivership. No surprise there, but the price tag might be: apparently the FDIC estimates the takeover will ultimately cost taxpayers a cool $4.9 billion-and that's for a bank with less than $15 billion in assets."

TW: Think about that one for a second. $5 billion that is a nice chunk of change. With all of financial carnage which has occurred over the past year or so, to a certain degree we have become immune to these announcements. But put that in perspective $5.0 billion could buy a lot of things: education for needy kids, meals for the undernourished, a nice cushy padded cell for Dick Cheney. Some group of executives ran that bank into the ground, the conservatives bitch and moan and whine about guvmint but at the end of the day you the taxpayer are cleaning up the turds of "capitalists" and free markets gone wild. A little good effective regulation can go a long way.