Frank Kogan

Actually, what Capra is doing is more subtle than having George Bailey/Jimmy Stewart saying "Trust Me." It's been years and years since I've seen the film, but the way I remembered it, the bank wasn't simply small and family run, it was something of a credit union. And what Capra was having Jimmy say was, in effect, "Trust Us," meaning trust your neighbors, whom you know, who are your fellow depositors and the ones who are building homes on the basis of the money - our deposits, from you! - we lend to them. So he was saying, "Trust us 'cause we are you, and we are the small guys and you know us." (And now I recall for sure that Potter wasn't invested in the Building And Loan, 'cause later, when Jimmy's uncle loses the $8,000, Jimmy goes to Potter to bail him out, and Potter refuses). Whereas the people who are hoarding the money now are large institutions who, if my brother's account is right, are - with reason - not trusting their own assets. They're holding onto their own money because they don't how much money they've got. In the movie you're not assuming that Bailey has suckered Martini into a mortgage at rates that Martini can't afford, whereas in the current subprime mess you have institutions who've (sometimes unknowingly) invested in "assets" that turn out to be based on the solvency of suckered Martinis, many of whom are going to end up insolvent. Even in Bedford Falls (was that the name), a certain number of Martinis are going to fail, but because of the housing bubble and unethical and highly nontrasnparent dealings, you know that way more Martinis are failing, but you can only wait to see how this plays out.

Notice how I'm now writing with great authority about something I was clueless about several hours ago, and may well still be clueless about!