Privatized profits and socialised losses...
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From what I understand it wasn't conservatives that forced lenders to hand out mortgages that they knew wouldn't get paid. Deregulation wasn't the issue, liberals believing everybody in America should own a home forced this. And now we want to stick government's hands into health care as well? I don't think so. Maybe after the first trillion dollar tax hike is past. X|
shiftedbitmonkey wrote:
Our dollars are reserved for those who create them.
That trillion isn't going to the people that did this, they already got their money. It's going to clean up the mess. Free market? Not as long as socialists are allowed in office.
Visit BoneSoft.com for code generation tools (XML & XSD -> C#, VB, etc...) and some free developer tools as well.
But the entire value of all homes currently in foreclosure is only $120 billion. The only way the full loss would even be that $120 billion is if all sell for $0 in foreclosure, which is unlikely, because foreclosed properties average a sales price of 60% of market value. So, sorry, BoneSoft. Massive FAIL. You're way off base in assigning blame.
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BoneSoft wrote:
Deregulation wasn't the issue
Sure it was. Under the banking rules in effect when in the 60's and 70's, this whole mess would have been impossible. Of course it was the Democrats who decided that Fannie and Freddie so hand out homes to everyone who could lie with a straight face, but it was the Republican led deregulation that made it legal for them to do so.
BoneSoft wrote:
Free market?
How about a fair one? Why should Americans accept the same pay and living conditions as Chinese coolies?
BoneSoft wrote:
Not as long as socialists are allowed in office.
Which includes George Bush the way I parse socialism.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
Don't get me wrong, I don't suggest that we lay all of the blame at the feet of the Democratic party. And you may be right about deregulation. But from what I understand it's Clinton's "sub-prime mortgage" that killed us. The heads of lending firms were just all too happy to profit from it (and fund Obama's campaign).
Oakman wrote:
Which includes George Bush the way I parse socialism.
Are you referring to the bail-out? Because from what I gather it doesn't sound like there's much of a choice. Though I all for faulting him for not seeing this comming and try to head it off at the pass, if that had even been possible.
Visit BoneSoft.com for code generation tools (XML & XSD -> C#, VB, etc...) and some free developer tools as well.
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From what I understand it wasn't conservatives that forced lenders to hand out mortgages that they knew wouldn't get paid. Deregulation wasn't the issue, liberals believing everybody in America should own a home forced this. And now we want to stick government's hands into health care as well? I don't think so. Maybe after the first trillion dollar tax hike is past. X|
shiftedbitmonkey wrote:
Our dollars are reserved for those who create them.
That trillion isn't going to the people that did this, they already got their money. It's going to clean up the mess. Free market? Not as long as socialists are allowed in office.
Visit BoneSoft.com for code generation tools (XML & XSD -> C#, VB, etc...) and some free developer tools as well.
BoneSoft wrote:
From what I understand it wasn't conservatives that forced lenders to hand out mortgages that they knew wouldn't get paid. Deregulation wasn't the issue, liberals believing everybody in America should own a home forced this.
This is silly. You can't put blame anymore on liberals than you can on the republicans (I refuse to call that group of reprobates conservatives). This is a breakdown caused by inherent flaws in a monetary system and transformative products that allowed people to use their homes as an ATM machine. Just as no one forced these lenders to take unbelievable risks or lie about those risks in order to inflate their credit rating no forced these individuals to buy homes they couldn't afford. I worked in the industry, at Bear Sterns as a matter of fact, and there was never a liberal push to create these bad loans. In my opinion the biggest problems are due to shortsightedness. Companies like Bear were gobbling up these non-performing and underperforming assets as fast as they could get them. And, when they didn't have enough cash in reserves to buy the next billion dollar lot of bad loans at $0.90 on the dollar guess what they did......they borrowed or resold portions of these lots to and from other organizations and lied about their exposure as they did it. So, you can blame this on a political party if you like but in the end it comes down to people just loosing all sense and now the chickens have come home to roost.
Sovereign ingredient for a happy marriage: Pay cash or do without. Interest charges not only eat up a household budget; awareness of debt eats up domestic felicity. --Lazarus Long
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BoneSoft wrote:
From what I understand it wasn't conservatives that forced lenders to hand out mortgages that they knew wouldn't get paid.
But that's not my point now is it? My point is that since no one forced them to make risky loans they should fall flat on their asses. We should not be bailing them out. Why are we bailing them out? Why are the taxpayers paying for the finance companies decisions? And why would conservatives support this socialist move?
I've heard more said about less.
shiftedbitmonkey wrote:
We should not be bailing them out.
I agree with you. But Zepplin paints an awfully bleak picture of a world where we don't bail-out.
shiftedbitmonkey wrote:
And why would conservatives support this socialist move?
Personally, I don't support it. But it's sounding like there's not much of an option at this point. Personally, I say we seize the assets of everybody who profited from this and sell them into slavery to fund a recovery.
Visit BoneSoft.com for code generation tools (XML & XSD -> C#, VB, etc...) and some free developer tools as well.
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BoneSoft wrote:
Deregulation wasn't the issue
Sure it was. Under the banking rules in effect when in the 60's and 70's, this whole mess would have been impossible. Of course it was the Democrats who decided that Fannie and Freddie so hand out homes to everyone who could lie with a straight face, but it was the Republican led deregulation that made it legal for them to do so.
BoneSoft wrote:
Free market?
How about a fair one? Why should Americans accept the same pay and living conditions as Chinese coolies?
BoneSoft wrote:
Not as long as socialists are allowed in office.
Which includes George Bush the way I parse socialism.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
Oakman wrote:
Which includes George Bush the way I parse socialism.
I'm not sure one can describe the Bush political philosophy as socialism some much as corporate welfarism. there really is no name I can think of for this scale of plundering the treasury (read middle class) to line the pockets of the rich. Paulson and cronies should be (I can't say it, FBI would be on me in a minute...). I can only hope that the Democrats force the inclusion of some limits on the degree to which the executives involved can benefit from this. I have given up on the Republicans. They have truly betrayed every conservative principle. I begin to think this was deliberate, to insure that the next Administration would have no money left for social programs, or for that matter, anything else...
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BoneSoft wrote:
Free market? Not as long as socialists are allowed in office.
Conservatives are supporting this socialist move. Conservatives are arguing for it. Maybe the dems in office are supporting it, but I don't hear a cry from the left to do this. How is this the result of liberals? And I'm talking about the bailout. NOT the lending to everyone and their mother.
I've heard more said about less.
Most of the left is opposed. Check out the headlines on the liberal blogs.
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What's most amazing is that the total value of all homes currently in foreclosure is only $120 billion. Where is the other $875 billion going?
Is the $120 billion the total value of the homes or the total value of all the mortgages (and don't forget 2nd and 3rd ones) on those homes?
Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. [Yogi Berra]
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BoneSoft wrote:
Free market? Not as long as socialists are allowed in office.
Conservatives are supporting this socialist move. Conservatives are arguing for it. Maybe the dems in office are supporting it, but I don't hear a cry from the left to do this. How is this the result of liberals? And I'm talking about the bailout. NOT the lending to everyone and their mother.
I've heard more said about less.
My point is that it seems that the damage was already done, and it seems like there's no alternative. I certainly don't want to shell out a trillion for this, I hope there is an alternative.
shiftedbitmonkey wrote:
Conservatives are arguing for it
There are probably a lot of crooked ones that stand to profit from this. But I don't see all the angles here. I just can't help be see this as a shining example of why we shouldn't socialize health care, or anything else for that matter.
Visit BoneSoft.com for code generation tools (XML & XSD -> C#, VB, etc...) and some free developer tools as well.
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But the entire value of all homes currently in foreclosure is only $120 billion. The only way the full loss would even be that $120 billion is if all sell for $0 in foreclosure, which is unlikely, because foreclosed properties average a sales price of 60% of market value. So, sorry, BoneSoft. Massive FAIL. You're way off base in assigning blame.
Well I wasn't looking to assign blame. And you make a good point, I want to know where the rest of that money is.
Visit BoneSoft.com for code generation tools (XML & XSD -> C#, VB, etc...) and some free developer tools as well.
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shiftedbitmonkey wrote:
We should not be bailing them out.
I agree with you. But Zepplin paints an awfully bleak picture of a world where we don't bail-out.
shiftedbitmonkey wrote:
And why would conservatives support this socialist move?
Personally, I don't support it. But it's sounding like there's not much of an option at this point. Personally, I say we seize the assets of everybody who profited from this and sell them into slavery to fund a recovery.
Visit BoneSoft.com for code generation tools (XML & XSD -> C#, VB, etc...) and some free developer tools as well.
Then the free market concept as it stands on its own is a farce. Because at some point when greed gets out of control the taxpayers will have to bail out the market lest it suffer total collapse through its co-dependency. I state that socialism by itself, and capitalism by itself cannot stand without the other. We are seeing evidence of this today. No longer can any conservatives argue the free market as a stand-alone concept. It has to be tempered and balanced. Regulate the finance and other industries that society is DEPENDENT upon. Reign in greed. Kill all socialist programs (including welfare) and allow the free market to provide them. And raise the minimum wage to a livable one. Balance the two concepts into a workable hybrid. The greed of humans in positions of power and influence is too great of a factor to trust. That's my rant. I'm completely disgusted by this.
I've heard more said about less.
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My point is that it seems that the damage was already done, and it seems like there's no alternative. I certainly don't want to shell out a trillion for this, I hope there is an alternative.
shiftedbitmonkey wrote:
Conservatives are arguing for it
There are probably a lot of crooked ones that stand to profit from this. But I don't see all the angles here. I just can't help be see this as a shining example of why we shouldn't socialize health care, or anything else for that matter.
Visit BoneSoft.com for code generation tools (XML & XSD -> C#, VB, etc...) and some free developer tools as well.
BoneSoft wrote:
just can't help be see this as a shining example of why we shouldn't socialize health care, or anything else for that matter.
Sorry, there's no relationship. This is (as Chris points out below) a crisis caused by greedy financial companies run amuck. It is a failure of regulation,. The bailout is corporate welfare, not socialism, and is happening only because the alternative is so short-term painful, the government fears it could fall because of it (and well it might if everyone's 401k suddenly became nearly worthless, along with everything else). We will pay even more in the long term, because the bailout is with borrowed dollars, compounding the sin.
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Are there any true conservatives left? Or is it just smoke and mirrors. Seems Corporate socialism is OK. Redistribute the wealth to the top by taking taxpayer's money and handing over 700 billion, while Americans are still losing their homes, their taxes will go to keep those at the top in good pay. There's nothing "free" about this market. This is not unexpected. This was forewarned by economists. So they take risky ventures and now want to be saved. Lessee... if my business doesn't succeed because of a risky move on my part can I get a bail out? Nope. But I'll have to pay for this one. I still support the free market concept. We shouldn't bail any of it out. Let it fall. Else it is a total lie. A total lie. No more can people declare with any moral high ground that the free market won't get out of hand if deregulated. Evidence is 700 billion on top of the 85 billion to AIG and the 200 billion to Frannie and Freddie. 995 billion dollars. A TRILLION DOLLARS! Unbelievable. But don't mention health care. Our dollars are reserved for those who create them. Now I dare any conservative to argue that this is not nationalizing the finance system and isn't corporate socialism and is a sound functioning piece of the free market system as argued by conservatives. What a joke.
I've heard more said about less.
If there is one group of people who do not deserve the slightest bit of blame in this entire fiasco, it is conservatives. They had nothing whatsoever to do with it. The entire thing was caused by the government forcing lenders to make loans to people who they otherwise would not have lent to. Did conservatives elect Bush? Yes, we did. Did Bush lead as a conservative? No, he did not. But the only people trying to institute any sort of regulation over fannie and freddy were George Bush and John McCain in the last couple of years, and they were defeated every time by democrat led opposition. The lack of any real regulation has been the work of liberal democrats. They are the culprits here, and them alone. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aSKSoiNbnQY0[^] What is the proof that republicans are not directly to blame for any of this? A democrat controlled congress is not demanding hearings. They know that the only people who could possibly be found culpable are their own. None of that is to absolve the republicans for not fighting harder, they have not the courage or the will to fight this, but they sure as hell did not cause it.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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BoneSoft wrote:
From what I understand it wasn't conservatives that forced lenders to hand out mortgages that they knew wouldn't get paid. Deregulation wasn't the issue, liberals believing everybody in America should own a home forced this.
This is silly. You can't put blame anymore on liberals than you can on the republicans (I refuse to call that group of reprobates conservatives). This is a breakdown caused by inherent flaws in a monetary system and transformative products that allowed people to use their homes as an ATM machine. Just as no one forced these lenders to take unbelievable risks or lie about those risks in order to inflate their credit rating no forced these individuals to buy homes they couldn't afford. I worked in the industry, at Bear Sterns as a matter of fact, and there was never a liberal push to create these bad loans. In my opinion the biggest problems are due to shortsightedness. Companies like Bear were gobbling up these non-performing and underperforming assets as fast as they could get them. And, when they didn't have enough cash in reserves to buy the next billion dollar lot of bad loans at $0.90 on the dollar guess what they did......they borrowed or resold portions of these lots to and from other organizations and lied about their exposure as they did it. So, you can blame this on a political party if you like but in the end it comes down to people just loosing all sense and now the chickens have come home to roost.
Sovereign ingredient for a happy marriage: Pay cash or do without. Interest charges not only eat up a household budget; awareness of debt eats up domestic felicity. --Lazarus Long
Chris Austin wrote:
You can't put blame anymore on liberals than you can on the republicans
Yeah you're right, I shouldn't have said it. You make a good case. I'll close my mouth and open my ears for a while.
Visit BoneSoft.com for code generation tools (XML & XSD -> C#, VB, etc...) and some free developer tools as well.
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Ed Gadziemski wrote:
Where is the other $875 billion going?
Here's what I learned today (Just like in the Lounge except for the anger ;) ) The government’s $700 billion rescue plan for our failing financial markets has grown to include foreign banks operating in the United States too. Over the weekend, foreign banks emphasized their importance and influence in the U.S. banking system to make sure they get a piece of the pie, and our government, brandishing the negotiating skills of a three-year-old, capitulated to their every demand. :wtf: As the government prepares to bail out Wall Street, many of the same executives who caused the mess are still going to collect their bonuses. About 10,000 executives at the New York office of bankrupt Lehman Brothers will share in a $2.5 billion bonus pool. House Democrats are demanding that the bailout call for “appropriate standards for executive compensation.” But Secretary of the Treasury and Wall St insider, Paulson argues that that would make it harder for persuade companies to sell their troubled assets to the government, and he wants to avoid punitive steps. :omg:
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
The truly frightening aspect of all this is that we are paying for this bailout with dollars we don't have. this $T is all borrowed funds, which will just expand the national debt. In the long run, this just hatens the day when interest on the debt (the only bill the Treasury really seems to have to pay) will exceed GDP (of course the revolution will have come before that, since the taxed class cannot afford to pay even at 1/2 GDP). The only apprpriate standard for "executive compensation" of those whose companies take any of this handout should be reduction in pay to the same as the least paid employee. $2.5B "bonus" pool my ass. Bonus for what, I ask.
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If there is one group of people who do not deserve the slightest bit of blame in this entire fiasco, it is conservatives. They had nothing whatsoever to do with it. The entire thing was caused by the government forcing lenders to make loans to people who they otherwise would not have lent to. Did conservatives elect Bush? Yes, we did. Did Bush lead as a conservative? No, he did not. But the only people trying to institute any sort of regulation over fannie and freddy were George Bush and John McCain in the last couple of years, and they were defeated every time by democrat led opposition. The lack of any real regulation has been the work of liberal democrats. They are the culprits here, and them alone. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aSKSoiNbnQY0[^] What is the proof that republicans are not directly to blame for any of this? A democrat controlled congress is not demanding hearings. They know that the only people who could possibly be found culpable are their own. None of that is to absolve the republicans for not fighting harder, they have not the courage or the will to fight this, but they sure as hell did not cause it.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
If there is one group of people who do not deserve the slightest bit of blame in this entire fiasco, it is conservatives.
Okay, you and the two other true conservatives are absolved. Teo Absofuckingsolvo. Now stop trying to convince anyone that the Republican Party has been conservative in any sense of the word. You might as well claim that pigs are the same thing as pigeons. A Republican President, a Republican Secretary of the Treasury and a Republican head of the Federal Reserve are picking your pocket and mine in order to practice naked state socialism. Wake up and smell the thievery.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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BoneSoft wrote:
just can't help be see this as a shining example of why we shouldn't socialize health care, or anything else for that matter.
Sorry, there's no relationship. This is (as Chris points out below) a crisis caused by greedy financial companies run amuck. It is a failure of regulation,. The bailout is corporate welfare, not socialism, and is happening only because the alternative is so short-term painful, the government fears it could fall because of it (and well it might if everyone's 401k suddenly became nearly worthless, along with everything else). We will pay even more in the long term, because the bailout is with borrowed dollars, compounding the sin.
Rob Graham wrote:
Sorry, there's no relationship. This is (as Chris points out below) a crisis caused by greedy financial companies run amuck. It is a failure of regulation,.
It's the disasterous results of government meddling where it doesn't belong.
Visit BoneSoft.com for code generation tools (XML & XSD -> C#, VB, etc...) and some free developer tools as well.
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If there is one group of people who do not deserve the slightest bit of blame in this entire fiasco, it is conservatives. They had nothing whatsoever to do with it. The entire thing was caused by the government forcing lenders to make loans to people who they otherwise would not have lent to. Did conservatives elect Bush? Yes, we did. Did Bush lead as a conservative? No, he did not. But the only people trying to institute any sort of regulation over fannie and freddy were George Bush and John McCain in the last couple of years, and they were defeated every time by democrat led opposition. The lack of any real regulation has been the work of liberal democrats. They are the culprits here, and them alone. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aSKSoiNbnQY0[^] What is the proof that republicans are not directly to blame for any of this? A democrat controlled congress is not demanding hearings. They know that the only people who could possibly be found culpable are their own. None of that is to absolve the republicans for not fighting harder, they have not the courage or the will to fight this, but they sure as hell did not cause it.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
None of that is to absolve the republicans for not fighting harder,
They're sure fighting harder to give away more borrowed money to the banks and insurers that ran amuck without regulation. Now Paulson is insisting we buy the poison assets of Foreign banking firms just because they do business here. The price tag went up from $700B to $1T+ yesterday when he discovered more friends "in need of relief". The Republicans in the house are mostly backing this, it's the Dems that seem to be the only voices of opposition. And you thought Iraq was going to be Bush's "Legacy". He'll be remembered as the destroyer of the mighty US Economy, and of the republican party, for neither will likely ever recover. Another $T to the national debt in one weeks time. Unbelievable.
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Stan Shannon wrote:
If there is one group of people who do not deserve the slightest bit of blame in this entire fiasco, it is conservatives.
Okay, you and the two other true conservatives are absolved. Teo Absofuckingsolvo. Now stop trying to convince anyone that the Republican Party has been conservative in any sense of the word. You might as well claim that pigs are the same thing as pigeons. A Republican President, a Republican Secretary of the Treasury and a Republican head of the Federal Reserve are picking your pocket and mine in order to practice naked state socialism. Wake up and smell the thievery.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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Don't get me wrong, I don't suggest that we lay all of the blame at the feet of the Democratic party. And you may be right about deregulation. But from what I understand it's Clinton's "sub-prime mortgage" that killed us. The heads of lending firms were just all too happy to profit from it (and fund Obama's campaign).
Oakman wrote:
Which includes George Bush the way I parse socialism.
Are you referring to the bail-out? Because from what I gather it doesn't sound like there's much of a choice. Though I all for faulting him for not seeing this comming and try to head it off at the pass, if that had even been possible.
Visit BoneSoft.com for code generation tools (XML & XSD -> C#, VB, etc...) and some free developer tools as well.
BoneSoft wrote:
But from what I understand it's Clinton's "sub-prime mortgage" that killed us.
Until Reagan reformed the tax code, Mortgages were safe, secure, and boring. By eliminating the tax exemption for all other kids of debt, he made them attractive far beyond their intrinsic worth. Ask all the credit card companies. Clinton's people certainly pushed sub-prime mortages, but remember that Clinton's Whitehouse had to get Newt Gingrich's Congress to go along on everything that was done.
BoneSoft wrote:
Because from what I gather it doesn't sound like there's much of a choice
There's always a choice. In this case we are being assured by the people, like Paulson, who caused the problem and the people who were supposed to oversee the system so no-one could create a problem, like Dodd, that, if we hand them a blank check for a trillion dollars (yes, it's supposed to be less, and if you believe it will be, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you) then they (and they alone) will be able to fix this problem they either caused or allowed to be caused. All we have to do is trust them. :wtf: I don't want to play Charlie Brown to their Lucy. They will yank the football away - no question about it. And they will all get richer while they do it.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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Rob Graham wrote:
Sorry, there's no relationship. This is (as Chris points out below) a crisis caused by greedy financial companies run amuck. It is a failure of regulation,.
It's the disasterous results of government meddling where it doesn't belong.
Visit BoneSoft.com for code generation tools (XML & XSD -> C#, VB, etc...) and some free developer tools as well.
BoneSoft wrote:
disasterous results of government meddling
Nope. Had the regulations governing mortgage investment and investment banking not been "liberalized" by multiple "conservative" administrations, this could not have happened. And this National Socialist rescue of the guilty companies is being foisted on us by the Republican Administration, no one else. Someone explain why it's the Investment Banks that need bailing out, rather than the account holders? Why not just garauntee all $401K and similar statutory retirement accounts including pension plans (most of whom likely have little sxposure to this crap) and let the hedge funds and the like take the pain. Let these dealers in worthless paper fail.