Nationalization of the banks

So, Paulson says that government part-ownership of banks is 'deeply upsetting to Americans' or some such nonsense.

What the hell? What a stupid statement. If it is upsetting, that's only because we hold to free-market ideology like a bunch of market fundamentalists. There is no reason why the banks should not be under state control permanently. Other countries have done it, and it works decently. Is Paulson aware that many of the most profitable companies in the world are state-owned oil companies? They seem to do decently under government management (e.g. Pemex, Petrobras, PDVSA). Socialized agriculture was very productive in Hungary, and socialist industry in Yugoslavia. There's nothing inherently wrong with state ownership of companies- was there anything wrong about the Tennessee Valley Authority? Oil, like credit, is too important to the functioning of society to be under the control of greedy oligarchs. Especially when the oligarchs, in this case, showed no more financial discipline or wisdom than a little boy in a candy store.

The government should bloody take over the banks in the United States, all of them. Not as a bailout, but as a long term acqusition. The current bank owners need to suffer for this, and they should suffer by having their property stripped from them. This nonsense about socialising costs and privatizing benefits has gone on too long.