The Dow ends nearly 500 points lower -- its worst point drop in more than seven years -- as bank woes scare investors.

Looks promising. I bet we can top that tomorrow.

The fundamentals are strong.

This fall in value is really the ultimate outcome of bogus accounting that sprang from the deregulation of the 90s (starting with repub congress and clinton presidency) and has roots in reagan's 'the bill will never come due budget philosophy'. The deregulation has led to incredible information assymmetry in the investment market. only insiders have any clue about the value of most companies. Creative accounting tricks have been the rule more than the (enron) exception. Quarterly statements have always tended toward the misleading, but statements seem to be almost meaningless at this point. No one knows the true value of many publicly traded firms. markets with information assymetry are NOT efficient.

What has been the precident for prosecuting insider trading from enron? How many people were prosecuted for unethical conduct? There was no punishment for making shit up. eventually, these companies fall beneath the weight of their own incompetence. anyways, once the world realizes how little they actually know about corporate america, the whole system could really collapse at any moment. these financial institutions truely represent the roman leaders partied the night away while rome burned beneath them.

Companies like lehman bros. don't fall over night. their value has declined over the last few months based on when each type of investor learned about the reality: first high placed managers, 2) their friends, 3) high $ investors, 4) mutual funds, 5) index funds, 6) everyone else.

It could be the case that other sectors of the economy have been more truthful and it might be a mistake to pull money out now, but we don't know. Anyways, i stand by what i said in april.



the GDP measure in the US has a far different meaning now than in the 50s. In the 50s, most of the GDP was represented by infrastructure and manufacturing output. In theory, these types of outputs have inherent value. As our economy has transformed, GDP has increased via paper wealth and investments. If Worldcom stocks drops from $80 to $0, you have nothing to show from the supposed GDP. In comparison, if you had manufactured tractors and went bankrupt, you would still have the manufactured tractors existing somewhere in the economy. We are in currently in highly uncharted territority. The deregulation of the economy by republicans makes the water even murkier because business are essentially for regulating themselves and outsiders have almost no oversight of the accounting practices. In addition, a large portion of GDP growth had been mortgage equity, which resulted from skyrocketing housing and property costs. In fact, if it you wondered why reported economic data seemed better than actual conditions, now you know.

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/gdp_w_and_wo_mew_2.jpg

Nonetheless, this rebate will stimlate the economy some. Supply side tax cuts have very diffuse effects, especially now that we have global stock and currency markets. The greater the income disparities the less stimulated the economy is as the super rich spend much smaller % of income on consumer goods.

Perhaps, the bigger problem in the US is private debt. While always high, it shot up around Reagan's preidency and it has shot through the roof during the bush presidency, partly because of the extremely artifically low interest rates and the deregulated banking industry.

http://mwhodges.home.att.net/household-ratio.gif

Another type of debt, which is not included in any of the above graphs is the deterioration in our physical infrastructure (roads, bridges, dams, water and sewer infrastructure). Most of this was built 50 years ago or more and in dire need of costly repairs. (imagine tearing out the streets of Manhattan to fix the sewer underneath.)

All in all, we are at the precipice of a debt cliff looking down into an abyss. Our economic indicators are out of whack because the rapid increase in debt has masked the stagnation in houesehold wage rates. The national debt is very concerning, but private debt is the real sword of Damocles hanging above our heads IMO. we'll see.

I've said this before, but I don't really care about the Dow or whatever. That's not "our" economy. That's the rich people's economy. Their economy can be perfectly fine while ours is in the shitter, so I don't care to hear about it anymore.

But if I did care about the rich people's economy, I'd probably be fascinated with the levels of delusion out there in the media. "Huge banks getting bailed out or sold for parts weekly; everything is fine."

The Dow, bonds, and home equity constitute a lot of regular folks' retirement money. All are under siege.

You know it rebounded yesterday, right?


Blame Chris Dodd.

And it was a great rebound. Go down 500 points, rebound 140 points.

Seems like a solid economy.

This is as much about the failure of U.S. economic principles as anything.

This is socialism at the highest levels, the largest single nationalization of resources the world has ever seen.

Capitalism is pretty much dead.

I've said this before, but I don't really care about the Dow or whatever. That's not "our" economy. That's the rich people's economy. Their economy can be perfectly fine while ours is in the shitter, so I don't care to hear about it anymore.

If you have any skin in the game beyond the cash in your wallet, there's some reason to worry. Mortagages and the financial instruments derived from them have poisoned the entire financial well.

You think its fucked up now, wait till a couple of those ego tripping, thieves up in DC passes some stupid fuckin legislation to make shit worse.

Like the Bush Doctrine so we can fight a 3 trillion dollar war and borrow billions from China?

Yea, I forgot everything is Bush's fault. The Dem Congress handled things magnificently, along with the American consumer.

And that Barney running the Banking committee or whatever it was, did a great job.

But hey, keep those talking points coming. Don't think for yourselves, just repeat those things you read off those 'fair and balanced' websites.

Like the Dem Congress was there for 7 years fucking things up.

Yea, I forgot everything is Bush's fault. The Dem Congress handled things magnificently.

And that Barney running the Banking committee or whatever it was, did a great job.
No blaming the American overconsumer?
For shame...

Like the Dem Congress was there for 7 years fucking things up.

Somone up there damn sure should have been telling us something. The Dems are in Congress too even if they didn't have a majority. They still get a microphone as best as I can tell.

Yea, I forgot everything is Bush's fault.

Actually, McCain deserves his fair share of the blame too for his push to deregulate the banking industry with Phil Gramm. (1999)

Somone up there damn sure should have been telling us something. The Dems are in Congress too even if they didn't have a majority. They still get a microphone as best as I can tell.

I agree with that.

Would you like to buy more?

Treasury Secretary Paulson says "hundreds of billions" of dollars are needed to resolve U.S. financial crisis.

Actually, McCain deserves his fair share of the blame too for his push to deregulate the banking industry with Phil Gramm. (1999)

Which Joe Biden voted for and I think it passed 92-6 or something.

Not sure if this should go into a new thread, but Russia's stock market caved I guess. It went from 300b to 40b in a matter of a week or something????

Puting kept saying don't worry, we are in good shape. Now they're having to dump huge amounts of their recently acquired oil wealth to keep their economy floating.

Which Joe Biden voted for and I think it passed 92-6 or something.

At least Biden didn't sponsor it :^)

And remember, we're not voting for VP here, right?

At least Biden didn't sponsor it :^)

And remember, we're not voting for VP here, right?

Just saying if you think that bill was in part responsible for the situation we're going through right now, then both sides supported it.

Agreed, both sides get some blame, but I'm guessing that we disagree on the %'s that each should get.

I certainly don't think that counting on "THE CAREER DE-REGULATOR" to get this shit regulated is a wise move.

Agreed, both sides get some blame, but I'm guessing that we disagree on the %'s that each should get.

I certainly don't think that counting on "THE CAREER DE-REGULATOR" to get this shit regulated is a wise move.

We need to throw more pieces of the pie then just our fantastic elected officials. Peeps were taking full advantage of the situation too.

peeps who are stupid with money > peeps taking advantage of the system

There's a LOT of collective stupidity when it comes to money. Since money is how the world keeps score, there's not a lot of really rich people who are very inclined to share (unless you count the "get rich quick" crowd, which is simply taking advantage of stupid people). It doesn't help that most kids are taught by K12 teachers who aren't fixated on money -- they wouldn't be teachers if they were! So, you have stuff like economics taught as a formal subject in 11th-12th grade, "home ec" being more about learning to cook rather than learning to shop, etc. Kids should be learning the formal fundamentals of how money moves at an early age. The parents should get with the program, too. Kids should learn how to play the stock market, eBay etc. with small sums of real money. Economically speaking, Alex P. Keaton had it going on.

Economically speaking, Alex P. Keaton had it going on.

The Alex P. Keaton coalition got drummed out of the modern day conservative movement.

Let's give a trillion dollar bailout to Wall Street with no oversight to deal with a problem caused by a lack of oversight. How fiendishly brilliant!

You've got everyone from Mike Pence and Newt Gingrich to Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi stating their opposition with the structure of what's proposed.

This one's gonna get fun...

I would seriously rather have Michael Moore speaker than Nancy P. Just one of those peeps that seems USELESS.

I like the proposed restrictions on executive pay (golden parachutes) that the Dems are trying to include in this, but the Licks will probably fight that one tooth and nail.

The way that this is all being pushed along so quickly is kind of similar to what they did with the Patriot Act, I'd like to see this slowed down a bit.

Can't give the Bush administration another blank check on this one.

Paulson and Bernanke made a big promise with our money, but didn't bother to consult with our elected officials beforehand. Never mind the Dems -- the Reps feel just as out of it:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,425693,00.html

This international take on things is sadly amusing. Being compared with Albania-- oof:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-euromood20-2008sep20,0,7535469.story

Someone did the math, and its $1.8 trillion of bailout, or roughly $6000 for every man, woman, and child:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/26808715/site/14081545/

For some perspective, excluding social security (which is a distinctly separate pile of money), this is more than what all of America pays in income tax in a year (~$1.7 trillion). Personal income tax is about 80% of the federal budget, with corporate income tax providing the other 20% (~$400 million).

Remember, the fundamentals of our banking system are sound.
Paulson said so, not so long ago:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/25764545

Do you trust the man who didn't see the ditch to get you out of it?

Paulson and Bernanke made a big promise with our money, but didn't bother to consult with our elected officials beforehand. Never mind the Dems -- the Reps feel just as out of it:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,425693,00.html

This international take on things is sadly amusing. Being compared with Albania-- oof:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-euromood20-2008sep20,0,7535469.story

Good for Paulson and Bernanke. All the 'elected officials' would do is drag it out (do nothing congress) and then fuck it up anyway. :)

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship
with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country
has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of
800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it
would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my
replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you
may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation
movement in the 1990s. This transaction is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the
funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds
in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under
surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a
reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the
funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund
account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to
wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission
for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond
with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect
the funds.

Yours Faithfully,
Minister of Treasury Paulson

^that rules

I wish they had spelled Phil Gramm's name correctly, though.

Sincerely,

R. Federer

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship
with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country
has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of
800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it
would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my
replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you
may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation
movement in the 1990s. This transaction is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the
funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds
in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under
surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a
reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the
funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund
account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to
wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission
for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond
with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect
the funds.

Yours Faithfully,
Minister of Treasury Paulson

Can we put a due to Barney running the Banking?

Let's Play Wall Street Bailout
S27yitK32ds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S27yitK32ds

Can we put a due to Barney running the Banking?

It is funny how you constantly repeat far right media talking points, but claim not to watch/listen to them. Do you really think that B. Frank is solely to blame, despite the fact that most of the bad mortgages occurred prior to 2007 when the dems took over? The former repub banking chair (oxley) said that he worked with bfrank to write a bill that would have prevented some of this mess. the bill passed the house, but was given the 'one-finger salute' from bushco. in fact the repub majority sec board passed a new rule in 2003 that allowed five dealer-brokers to way over-leverage themselves. They could run a debt to asset ratio of 30-40:1 instead of 12:1. those firms were bear stearns, merrill lynch, lehman bros, goldman sachs, and morgan stanley. was that also bfrank's fault?

We're not out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122186669697058789.html)

Ultimately, how the particulars of this bailout are settled isn't going to make that much difference. Optimistically, the financial deck chairs get rearranged, investment banking going forward operates with less leverage and more oversight and one form of toxic debt, mortage derivatives and their related instruments, gets moved off the private books onto the public balance sheet. Oh and sec. treas becomes the power behind the throne.

Meanwhile... back on main street, the power dive that sparked this crisis continues. The cancer is spreading up the mortgage food chain and shows no sign of abating soon. The same institutions that just unloaded toxic mortgage instruments will have a whole new round of bad news as auto loans, student loans and credit card debt start to go sour too.

With flat wages and wealth evaporation in the middle class (lol 401k, lol home equity), even the most upstanding solid credit rating borrowers are just one negative life event away from foreclosure or bankruptcy. The cushion is gone, margin of error down to zero. Get hit by a divorce, job loss, death of a wage earner in the household, medical crisis... you're fucked and you can't sell your house with its upside-down mortgage.

This bailout and the upheaval of the last week or two is the tip of the iceberg... and it won't matter one bit who is president over the next four years, the bodies are still going to float to the top of the lake.

This bailout and the upheaval of the last week or two is the tip of the iceberg... and it won't matter one bit who is president over the next four years, the bodies are still going to float to the top of the lake.

I agree.

It is funny how you constantly repeat far right media talking points, but claim not to watch/listen to them. Do you really think that B. Frank is solely to blame, despite the fact that most of the bad mortgages occurred prior to 2007 when the dems took over? The former repub banking chair (oxley) said that he worked with bfrank to write a bill that would have prevented some of this mess. the bill passed the house, but was given the 'one-finger salute' from bushco. in fact the repub majority sec board passed a new rule in 2003 that allowed five dealer-brokers to way over-leverage themselves. They could run a debt to asset ratio of 30-40:1 instead of 12:1. those firms were bear stearns, merrill lynch, lehman bros, goldman sachs, and morgan stanley. was that also bfrank's fault?

I like to blame the dems to balance things out around here. All I see from your side is left wing talking points. So get off the high horse, trout nose.


Truthfully, the Dems and the Reps elected officials don't know SHIT about the intricasies of our economy. They are too busy trying to get 'gotcha moments' on their opponents to get reelected.

You guys go ahead and think Keith Oby wan Kanobi knows whats going on (or who to blame). I'm sure ESPN trained him well to know about our economy.

There are prolly about 10 peeps who really know what happened, how far reaching it will be and how to get out of it.

There are continually posts about Bush did it or the repubs did it on here, over and over and 1 post by me about a Dem and you get your pink panties all bunch up.

Quit fucking whinning, you pussy.

Also, this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU) is a good article about who's really to blame.

Paulson says that when he called for no oversight, he REALLY meant oversight:

Yz7juIgkevA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz7juIgkevA

According to the White House, this bailout legislation was planned months in advance:

http://www.rollcall.com/news/28599-1.html?type=printer_friendly

Fratto insisted that the plan was not slapped together and had been drawn up as a contingency over previous months and weeks by administration officials. He acknowledged lawmakers were getting only days to peruse it, but he said this should be enough.

And yeah, it's hard to blame Frank's tenure as the House chair for this mess. The housing market tanked last year, as the overextended market started to hit home. Most of the damage was created before, under a Rep Congress and executive. If Reps had been united and wanted to fix, they could've done so without Dems. xanadu's right to bring up Oxley. The politicians on all sides are tainted by money. Obama is the least tainted in his Presidential run (limited lobbyists and lobbyist money, though he still has some big money interests as advisors). He spoke about this taint being the problem with GSE reform specifically way back in the very first debate, over a year ago:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Decision2008/Story?id=3498294&page=1

OBAMA: We do need more liquidity, but we're going to have to not only help home owners who are going to be losing their homes as a consequence of this; we're going to have to go forward and make sure that we've got the kinds of tough regulation when it comes to financial instruments to make sure that people who have saved and are trying to get their own home for the first time are not hoodwinked out of it.

OBAMA: And, unfortunately, the reason that we haven't had tougher regulation in part goes back to the issue of lobbying. This is where special interests have been driving the agenda. We have not had the kinds of consumer protections that are in place.

And that's why, when we have this debate about lobbying, we have to remind ourselves it has very real consequences for the people of Iowa and the people around the country.

See, what he said makes perfect sense to me.

1. Why the fuck should he even BOTHER to write what those 2 political parties will toss back and forth and finally come up with as far as oversight?

B. They'll just get their panties in a bunch cuz he tried to take their jobs.

3. If it wasn't enough, they hack on him.

c. If it was too much, the Dems would scream at the Reps

5. is anyone listening to me anymore.

Seriously, thats their job. Let them do that part. The Do Nothing Congress will get to it just after they take another vacay break while the economy melts.

As for blaming political parties, one thing to keep in mind is that sadly, they are doing the will of the people. Left to our own devices, the masses get ourselves in debt. Collective money management skills just suck. Having the choice of "overextend yourself now, or you'll fuck yourself worse in 5 years when house prices go up a gazillion %" as the jacked-up market created, doesn't help. But it'd be true even without the overextended market. The allure of the credit card and power of the TV make rampant consumerism the rage. Our president tells us to go shopping in the wake of war. And guess what -- that's what a lot of people wanted to hear. <sigh>

Your letting them off to easy, imo, on that first sentence. They need to be watching things, and they weren't.

And Joe Biden is the CC Co's boy, afaict.

I don't expect Congress as a collective to do much different than what most of the people would want them to do. The collective "we" chronically will overspend, and most of our politicians will do what's in their power to enable that on various fronts. There's some that may stand out on some particular issues (Feingold's career comes to mind), but not enough of them to change the course of things, not very often.

I agree on Biden. Biden (or any pol from Delaware) is Big Credit's tool, the same as any Michigan politician is Big Auto's tool. I'd have been a lot happier with someone like Schweitzer getting the VP nod. Biden's now speaking out against the onerous bankruptcy law he helped pass, but he's a tool. I bet he was picked because he was a tool. That's neither here nor there relative to the U.S. economy as a whole. Biden's response in the same Iowa debate was "Dodd will take care of it", which didn't happen.

I suspect that at some point, the Keating 5 will come up in the context of the current economic issues. For a refresher, here's a couple articles about McCain's role in it -- one from when it happened, another from more recently:

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/1989-11-29/news/mccain-the-most-reprehensible-of-the-keating-five/1

http://www.azcentral.com/news/specials/mccain/articles/0301mccainbio-chapter7.html

After the shit has hit the fan, it's always fun to look back and see who was able to call it. There's this piece from november 2007, aptly titled Wall Street Requiem (http://www.portfolio.com/views/columns/wall-street/2007/10/15/Bear-Stearns-Troubles#page1):


It’s unlikely that Bear will be able to stay independent. Lehman has been trying to imitate Goldman, which logged blockbuster earnings in the third quarter even as its competitors were staggering. But whether Lehman will have any success depends on whether this crisis has truly passed, and that bet has long odds. In the meantime, expect the perennial takeover speculation surrounding Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch to reheat.

There is an end-of-era feel to the whole thing. After all those years of investment bankers being mistakenly lambasted as rogues, it will be ironic if the moment Wall Street finally embraced its reputation became its undoing.

See, what he said makes perfect sense to me.

1. Why the fuck should he even BOTHER to write what those 2 political parties will toss back and forth and finally come up with as far as oversight?

B. They'll just get their panties in a bunch cuz he tried to take their jobs.

3. If it wasn't enough, they hack on him.

c. If it was too much, the Dems would scream at the Reps

5. is anyone listening to me anymore.

Seriously, thats their job. Let them do that part. The Do Nothing Congress will get to it just after they take another vacay break while the economy melts.

I'm sorry but that's garbage, IMO.

If Paulson innocently just wanted to stay out of the oversight portion of this and leave it to to the Congress, then why did he include explicit language in the proposal that such oversight would be forbidden?

This doesn't pass the smell test.

He wanted complete control, with no oversight, until he saw the firestorm about it. Then he (or his people) concocted this explanation to see if anyone would buy it.

I don't expect Congress as a collective to do much different than what most of the people would want them to do. The collective "we" chronically will overspend, and most of our politicians will do what's in their power to enable that on various fronts. There's some that may stand out on some particular issues (Feingold's career comes to mind), but not enough of them to change the course of things, not very often.

I agree on Biden. Biden (or any pol from Delaware) is Big Credit's tool, the same as any Michigan politician is Big Auto's tool. I'd have been a lot happier with someone like Schweitzer getting the VP nod. Biden's now speaking out against the onerous bankruptcy law he helped pass, but he's a tool. I bet he was picked because he was a tool. That's neither here nor there relative to the U.S. economy as a whole. Biden's response in the same Iowa debate was "Dodd will take care of it", which didn't happen.

You are putting me in the uncomfortable position of listing things the Gov't could/should do for us, when I am a 'keep the gov't out of our lives' type of peep.

But since they want to regulate everything under the sun, why not hold them responsible for not informing us of the meltdown?

Why would Bush ask Obama to join him...?


http://photos-b.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v208/112/74/561561771/n561561771_653385_5570.jpg

In hindsight, no.

McCain had never even read the Paulson proposal as of yesterday:
http://www.wkyc.com/news/local/news_article.aspx?storyid=97180&catid=3

MIDDLEBURG HEIGHTS -- Senator John McCain says he has not decided whether or not to support the Wall Street bailout package now being reviewed by Congress.

The price tag is $700 billion, but could run higher.

In an exclusive interview he told Tom Beres,"I have not had a chance to see it in writing. I have to examine it."

But, this didn't stop him from being in favor of a joint statement with Obama, just before the "suspend his campaign" stunt:

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/09/24/politics/fromtheroad/entry4476632.shtml

Who gives a crap if he saw it or not. Its a 700 billion dollar CYA bailout from the thieves up there in DC.

When things go bad, both sides will point to the other saying, 'thats the bad guy over there.

They are seriously just doing this to cover their asses to make it look like they did something. I bet very few even knew wtf its all about.

It's like 5 pages long. They could scan it and email it to him... they could try Western Union.

And y'all don't think it was explained to him?

Y'all need to get away from MSNBC.

I like to blame the dems to balance things out around here. All I see from your side is left wing talking points. So get off the high horse, trout nose.



Really my post #4 is left wing talking points. THe one that comes complete with graphs, part of which was written in april. all left wing talking points. my citing of a repub with good sense who was nonetheless thwarted by bush is more talking points. My citation of an SEC policy that only affected 5 companies, yet 3 of those are bankrupt and the other two would be without a bailout.



There are continually posts about Bush did it or the repubs did it on here, over and over and 1 post by me about a Dem and you get your pink panties all bunch up.

Quit fucking whinning, you pussy.


so fucking what! i almost always back up my statements, you just utter generalized bullshit as if you are some fucking genius. i just asked for reasons why bfrank is to blame, and the best you could come up with is because you feel like blaming the dems. if 10 left wingers post valid reasons for their contempt of bushco, you don't balance it out by posting dumb shit that you made up. Should I continue to blame dems for not stopping our imports of russian natural gas. you are full of shit. seriously, we should make a separate country with bush as king for the fucktards who voted for him and continue to make every excuse for his pathetic tenure. you could go there and live in bliss.

And y'all don't think it was explained to him?
I certainly don't read all the shit that gets shoved in my face, but I do try and read the important shit. This one qualifies as "important shit", and it was only 3 pages long. Oh yeah, I forgot -- McCain's not that good on the economy.

The dude lied to Letterman, said he was flying off to Washington but REALLY was getting makeup applied as part of an interview with Couric. It's caught on tape and aired for the world to see. He's exposed.

As for the bailout itself. the $700 billion dollar figure is a number pulled out of their ass:

http://www.forbes.com/home/2008/09/23/bailout-paulson-congress-biz-beltway-cx_jz_bw_0923bailout.html


In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.

"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

Really my post #4 is left wing talking points. THe one that comes complete with graphs, part of which was written in april. all left wing talking points. my citing of a repub with good sense who was nonetheless thwarted by bush is more talking points. My citation of an SEC policy that only affected 5 companies, yet 3 of those are bankrupt and the other two would be without a bailout.



so fucking what! i almost always back up my statements, you just utter generalized bullshit as if you are some fucking genius. i just asked for reasons why bfrank is to blame, and the best you could come up with is because you feel like blaming the dems. if 10 left wingers post valid reasons for their contempt of bushco, you don't balance it out by posting dumb shit that you made up. Should I continue to blame dems for not stopping our imports of russian natural gas. you are full of shit. seriously, we should make a separate country with bush as king for the fucktards who voted for him and continue to make every excuse for his pathetic tenure. you could go there and live in bliss.

OMFG that is funny. I'm act liike I'm some fucking genius? Wow that's funny.

Its like the other thread about AMERICA FIRST! cuz JM postponed the debates. That is a post to just jab you guys. I thought it came through loud and clear. I guess you take me serious. My bad on that. But fuck you anyway. And we do buy NG from Mexico who buys it from Russia. It come in on tankers. Why? cuz of your dumb ass party's environmental ridiculousness.

AMERICA FIRST!

Lawmakers from both parties in House, Senate say they have bailout deal; will take it to Treasury Secretary Paulson.

No reason to not debate now, Johnny.

Can he still get his nap in?

BO was all huddled up, bunkered in getting preped for the debate, he had to come out of seclusion to go to DC. Now he has a built in excuse for sucking tomorrow night.

also I know he did some rallies

Oh yea, and AMERICA FIRST!

Exactly why we should vote for Barack Obama! Yeah! America first!

Really my post #4 is left wing talking points. THe one that comes complete with graphs, part of which was written in april. all left wing talking points. my citing of a repub with good sense who was nonetheless thwarted by bush is more talking points. My citation of an SEC policy that only affected 5 companies, yet 3 of those are bankrupt and the other two would be without a bailout.



so fucking what! i almost always back up my statements, you just utter generalized bullshit as if you are some fucking genius. i just asked for reasons why bfrank is to blame, and the best you could come up with is because you feel like blaming the dems. if 10 left wingers post valid reasons for their contempt of bushco, you don't balance it out by posting dumb shit that you made up. Should I continue to blame dems for not stopping our imports of russian natural gas. you are full of shit. seriously, we should make a separate country with bush as king for the fucktards who voted for him and continue to make every excuse for his pathetic tenure. you could go there and live in bliss.

And 1 other thing dumbass, if I had the time, energy and inclination to post links to economists saying the conservative side, or post all the lil gotcha momnets that y'all post....do you honestly think those links or opionions aren't out there?

I could post 1 for 1 for every story link that is posted that opposes the link y'all post.

I know y'all will just attack the source, etc. But if I felt like being a 'linkster' it would be fairly easy. But I dont' have the time or energy to post links that won't change 1 mind anyway. So why do it?

I know y'all will just attack the source, etc. But if I felt like being a 'linkster' it would be fairly easy. But I dont' have the time or energy to post links that won't change 1 mind anyway. So why do it?

You don't have to go all Ross Perot with charts and graphs and links. However, by consistently failing to articulate any kind of coherent defense for your positions, you have become--and I daresay have embraced the role--a conservative caricature. A LOL punchline to whatever topic is being discussed.

In fact, there's one of your own quotes (I can search out a link to it if you're having a Senior Moment(tm)John Mccain and can't remember it) basically stating that as your goal anyway.

You don't have to go all Ross Perot with charts and graphs and links. However, by consistently failing to articulate any kind of coherent defense for your positions, you have become--and I daresay have embraced the role--a conservative caricature. A LOL punchline to whatever topic is being discussed.

In fact, there's one of your own quotes (I can search out a link to it if you're having a Senior Moment(tm)John Mccain and can't remember it) basically stating that as your goal anyway.

Post it. I'm not sure what you are talking about.

I really don't give a shit though. I'm voting for who I want to and you'll vote for who you want to.

The country is basically split. But for some reason you cant handle having a poster or 2 that will vote for JM.

Whatever...

Post it. I'm not sure what you are talking about.

I really don't give a shit though. I'm voting for who I want to and you'll vote for who you want to.

The country is basically split. But for some reason you cant handle having a poster or 2 that will vote for JM.

Whatever...

I'm just making sure you saw this part of it.

Washington Mutual has been seized by the FDIC and sold to JPMorgan Chase:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/26893741

McCain REALLY picked the wrong day to grandstand on the bailout.

Washington Mutual has been seized by the FDIC and sold to JPMorgan Chase:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/26893741

McCain REALLY picked the wrong day to grandstand on the bailout.

Thats your opinion, which I don't believe for a second that you don't feel in your heart.

I'm hearing that the Dems are almost 100% culpable with our problems with the economy.

I'm shocked.

^ lol

eye reelee shud yuse green tekst mor

I was thinking about this with my head and pocketbook, moreso than my heart. Check this out:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13918.html

The whole sequence of events confirmed Treasury’s fears about the decision by Bush, at the urging of McCain, to allow presidential politics into what were already difficult negotiations. And while the markets were closed by the time the meeting ended, Friday could bring turmoil, and there will be immense pressure now by Treasury to get back on track before Monday.
Add the Washington Mutual buyout, and there's guaranteed market madness.
FYI, the "conservative alternative" discussed in the above article is a plan that consists of LESS regulation and tax cuts to recover (with insurance as sort of a smokescreen). Read their "plan" for yourself:

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/images/news/articles/economic-rescue-principles.pdf
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/washington-whispers/2008/9/25/not-so-fast-on-the-deal-house-gop-says-make-wall-street-pay.html

My Freinds, I will say this.

This if FUCKING GREAT. Our thieving elected officials ACTUALLY PUT ON THE SPOT to fix a problem.

This is a good thing. It will prolly end up showing how inept ALL those douches are up there. I know y'all won't agree with that saying its only the Repubs who are the douches and the Dems know the economy cuz the economy was good when Bill was up there, so all the Dems must know about economies.

But I honestly don't care if JM falls flat on his face, or BO falls flat on his face by fucking something up while being under the microscope. Finally they are being forced to actually DO SOMETHING instead of collecting a paycheck while 'doing absolutely nothing'

My Freinds, I will say this.

This if FUCKING GREAT. Our thieving elected officials ACTUALLY PUT ON THE SPOT to fix a problem.

This is a good thing. It will prolly end up showing how inept ALL those douches are up there. I know y'all won't agree with that saying its only the Repubs who are the douches and the Dems know the economy cuz the economy was good when Bill was up there, so all the Dems must know about economies.

But I honestly don't care if JM falls flat on his face, or BO falls flat on his face by fucking something up while being under the microscope. Finally they are being forced to actually DO SOMETHING instead of collecting a paycheck while 'doing absolutely nothing'

Agreed. Alas, they'll find a way to blame it on Iran and then BOOOOM!!!

You don't have to go all Ross Perot with charts and graphs and links. However, by consistently failing to articulate any kind of coherent defense for your positions, you have become--and I daresay have embraced the role--a conservative caricature. A LOL punchline to whatever topic is being discussed.

In fact, there's one of your own quotes (I can search out a link to it if you're having a Senior Moment(tm)John Mccain and can't remember it) basically stating that as your goal anyway.

Still waiting...

You don't have to go all Ross Perot with charts and graphs and links. However, by consistently failing to articulate any kind of coherent defense for your positions, you have become--and I daresay have embraced the role--a conservative caricature. A LOL punchline to whatever topic is being discussed.

In fact, there's one of your own quotes (I can search out a link to it if you're having a Senior Moment(tm)John Mccain and can't remember it) basically stating that as your goal anyway.

Tahoe checks watch...

Damn, I was looking for something from Barney, but couldn't find anything.

What does Barney have to say other than the 'its bush's fault' stuff.

I'm shocked.

and aren't you equally shocked that the rest of the board is blaming Bush?

You don't have to go all Ross Perot with charts and graphs and links. However, by consistently failing to articulate any kind of coherent defense for your positions, you have become--and I daresay have embraced the role--a conservative caricature. A LOL punchline to whatever topic is being discussed.

In fact, there's one of your own quotes (I can search out a link to it if you're having a Senior Moment(tm)John Mccain and can't remember it) basically stating that as your goal anyway.

Well, at this point I'm just going to have to call you a chicken shit and move on.

Moving on...

lol

Well, at this point I'm just going to have to call you a chicken shit and move on.

Moving on...

lol

I'd respond to you but I have to go to washington to help the nation through this crisis. America first! Yeah!

geerussell has gotten with the program!

I've posted a lot of 'holy shits' tonight, but damn, it was seriously funny to see Bush, Pelosi, JM, BO, Reid and that other Rep (forgot his name) setting there as Bush made a couple of statements.

OMFG, these guys/gals would rather shoot each other than smile for the cameras at this venue.

They are ALL (I know y'all don't think the dems are) a bunch of douches.

Well....there goes WaMu.

Nice knowin' ya, shitbag.

Now I'm part of JP Morgan Chase. I feel richer already.

I've posted a lot of 'holy shits' tonight, but damn, it was seriously funny to see Bush, Pelosi, JM, BO, Reid and that other Rep (forgot his name) setting there as Bush made a couple of statements.

OMFG, these guys/gals would rather shoot each other than smile for the cameras at this venue.

They are ALL (I know y'all don't think the dems are) a bunch of douches.
The other rep was Boehner, the House minority leader. There were others there as well, like Mitch McConnell. It wasn't a time for smiling.

As for the Dems present -- I like Obama. I can deal with Pelosi for the most part. I've worked with the "California den mother" personality before. Barney Frank is decidedly hit-or-miss. When he's on, though, he's smokin'! I don't have much use for Reid, Dodd, and especially Hoyer -- all strike me as being tools of various flavors. They're better than the alternatives, and that's it.

Stuff like this scares me (and I enjoy Jon Stewart):

http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=186052

Yeah, I think we need to have a plan to deal with the economic fuckitude. I disagree that we need a $700 billion no-strings-attached commitment, but I agree that we need to plan and provision for systemic failure, since it's been going on for awhile.

Comparing it with Iraq makes it sound like the evidence for collapse is as shaky as the evidence for Iraq having WMDs. I don't think that's the case. Bush shouldn't have strongly tied his face to this, because that just increases the likelihood of it getting rejected and fucked up.

FWIW, initially, I thought that the request from Bush to have Obama and McCain meet was about Paulson and continuity within the Treasury, which actually threatened to make sense and wasn't exactly partisan. Now it's clear that it was some kind of Bushwhack. <groan>

I like to blame the dems to balance things out around here.


And 1 other thing dumbass, if I had the time, energy and inclination to post links to economists saying the conservative side, or post all the lil gotcha momnets that y'all post....do you honestly think those links or opionions aren't out there?

I could post 1 for 1 for every story link that is posted that opposes the link y'all post.


So, first you admit to just 'blaming dems to balance things out', then you say you could be a 'linkster', but choose not to. It is not particularly hard to be a 'linkster'. I tend to open two windows and copy info from one window into the other. It takes a max of 5 sec. Since it seems like you post about 200+ messages a day, i am sure you have the time.

Anyways, i'm not even asking for links, just tell me why bfrank is primarily to blame for the economic crisis. What bfrank policies have led to this?

So, first you admit to just 'blaming dems to balance things out', then you say you could be a 'linkster', but choose not to. It is not particularly hard to be a 'linkster'. I tend to open two windows and copy info from one window into the other. It takes a max of 5 sec. Since it seems like you post about 200+ messages a day, i am sure you have the time.

Anyways, i'm not even asking for links, just tell me why bfrank is primarily to blame for the economic crisis. What bfrank policies have led to this?

I cant read, so I get all my info from the tube.

And conversely,

What legislation did the Repubs pass that the Dems fought that contributed to this?

What legislation did the Dems try to pass that the Repubs blocked that would have stopped this?

^ you may have some.

Well....there goes WaMu.

Nice knowin' ya, shitbag.

Now I'm part of JP Morgan Chase. I feel richer already.


I worked at Chase for three months. And unless you get Direct Deposit, be sure to check your accounts online each week because they will miscellaneous fee you up the ass w/o notice.

Call and bitch and they'll glady put the money back in your account, which shows they had no legitimate reason for taking the money out of your account in the firstplace.

I worked at Chase for three months. And unless you get Direct Deposit, be sure to check your accounts online each week because they will miscellaneous fee you up the ass w/o notice.

Call and bitch and they'll glady put the money back in your account, which shows they had no legitimate reason for taking the money out of your account in the firstplace.

I've never had that happen. The fees are all in the rules (myself having worked at a bank as well). It's not up to the bank to notify you when you fuck up, it's your personal responsibility.

1. You must surely concede that repubs campaign on and relentlessly tout deregulation. In fact, repubs don't need legislation to deregulate. It is much easier to accomplish via govt. appointment. It is necessary to enforce regulations for there to be any impact. Repubs are notorious for appointing industry insiders and lobbyists to direct regulatory organizations. It is like when bush made john bolton ambassador to the UN. He appoints someone who is fundamentally opposed to the job he/she is charged to execute. Thus, the head of the regulatory agency cuts back on regulatory staff, and sets the agenda for regulatory work. The appointment of deregulators to regulatory positions starts at the SEC and works its way down energy, food, and drug policy. It seems that action is primarily taken for political rather than safety reasons (e.g., Enron and other's manipulation of electricity markets, morning after pill actions, HPV vaccine actions, inability to label beef to indicate it has been tested for mad cow disease). i believe the fundamental weaking of regulatory agencies is probably as responsible for the current situation as is any particular law.

2. It is exceedingly pointless to introduce regulatory regulation that would be unlikely to pass out of committee, especially when the pres. would likely veto the bill anyways. Why bother writing new bills that would never see the light of day? In 2007, it became much more likely that bills could pass out of committee and even pass the house/senate, but not with sufficient margins to override presidential veto. bushco has been relentless in efforts to squash any regulatory reform at the outset. This diminishes any incentive to write bills, since the best expectation is that they could be used to say 'told you so' after a bush veto.

In some cases there are examples of deregulation that specifically contributed to the problems. new legislations is only necessary if it would be impossible for regulators to look the other way.

3. Repub legisilation/rukes:

2007 SEC reduces shareholder ability to verify accounting of firms they invest in

2004 SEC allows large broker-dealer firms to massively over-leverage. the typical allowance of debt to liquid assets was 8-12:1, but the new rule allows large firms to roll with 30-40:1. The only firms large enough to qualify are bear steans, merrill lynch, lehman bros., goldman sachs and morgan stanley.

1999 gramm-leach-bliley allows traditional banks and ibanks to mix asset types, which exposes all banks to much riskier investments and losses. bill originally has no dem support, but passes along party lines. clinton threatens veto, but he and congressional dems eventually sign off on bill after some concessions. Nonetheless, all 3 named sponsors are repubs for a reason.

dem legislation

2008 frank-dodd attempted federal take over of bad loans to reduce foreclosure. Plan would have allowed lenders to sell failing mortgages to govt. at 15% loss. Govt. would guarantee refinanced mortgage at current house value with fixed rate. Bush threatened veto and bill never made it to pres

2005 bipartisan effort led by repub oxley would reduce overleveraging by large finacial institutions. Bush threatened veto and bill failed to make it past senate. (not really a dem bill, but it was killed by bush)

2000s many dem state attorney generals attempted to combat predatory lenders via state level legislation and enforcement. bushco invoked the relatively obscure Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to invoke an ancient 1800s era law to preempt any states from reforming lending laws.

4. other non-regulatory drivers of crisis

2001 bush tax cuts and 2003 iraq war puts us in federal govt. financial hole with record deficits. bush and repub congress have no regard for budget deficits, which leads to weakening dollar. Unnecessary Middle East conflicts lead to oil price instability and additional wealth transfer from US to oil theocracies. federal govt. has great difficult in borrowing money to prop up failing banks

early 2000s greenspan with heavy endorsement from bushco and no opposition from dems set Reserve interest rates near zero. The availability of cheap captial encourages massive borrowing and the housing bubble. asset bubbles are almost always associated with low interest rates, especially when combined with low capital gains taxes. individuals almost 'can't afford not to put money into overpriced assets' because of concerns that they will be priced out of the assets. However, there is no inherent value for those assets so they eventually crash back down.

1993 clinton and congressional dems pass tax increases that substantially reduce budget deficit, helping improve economy later in 90s. If more strictly dem policies had stayed in place, it is likely that we would have had moderate economic growth throughout the 90s and early 2000s, rather than boom times. However, we would not be facing the implosion we have now. Basic dem econ policy is slow and steady with more social programs. repub econ policy is much more short term, leading to booms and busts. there are many similarities in the repub policies and regulatory actions that led to the savings and loan crisis as for the current crisis.

Now, tell me why bfrank is responsible.

1. You must surely concede that repubs campaign on and relentlessly tout deregulation. In fact, repubs don't need legislation to deregulate. It is much easier to accomplish via govt. appointment. It is necessary to enforce regulations for there to be any impact. Repubs are notorious for appointing industry insiders and lobbyists to direct regulatory organizations. It is like when bush made john bolton ambassador to the UN. He appoints someone who is fundamentally opposed to the job he/she is charged to execute. Thus, the head of the regulatory agency cuts back on regulatory staff, and sets the agenda for regulatory work. The appointment of deregulators to regulatory positions starts at the SEC and works its way down energy, food, and drug policy. It seems that action is primarily taken for political rather than safety reasons (e.g., Enron and other's manipulation of electricity markets, morning after pill actions, HPV vaccine actions, inability to label beef to indicate it has been tested for mad cow disease). i believe the fundamental weaking of regulatory agencies is probably as responsible for the current situation as is any particular law.

2. It is exceedingly pointless to introduce regulatory regulation that would be unlikely to pass out of committee, especially when the pres. would likely veto the bill anyways. Why bother writing new bills that would never see the light of day? In 2007, it became much more likely that bills could pass out of committee and even pass the house/senate, but not with sufficient margins to override presidential veto. bushco has been relentless in efforts to squash any regulatory reform at the outset. This diminishes any incentive to write bills, since the best expectation is that they could be used to say 'told you so' after a bush veto.

In some cases there are examples of deregulation that specifically contributed to the problems. new legislations is only necessary if it would be impossible for regulators to look the other way.

3. Repub legisilation/rukes:

2007 SEC reduces shareholder ability to verify accounting of firms they invest in

2004 SEC allows large broker-dealer firms to massively over-leverage. the typical allowance of debt to liquid assets was 8-12:1, but the new rule allows large firms to roll with 30-40:1. The only firms large enough to qualify are bear steans, merrill lynch, lehman bros., goldman sachs and morgan stanley.

1999 gramm-leach-bliley allows traditional banks and ibanks to mix asset types, which exposes all banks to much riskier investments and losses. bill originally has no dem support, but passes along party lines. clinton threatens veto, but he and congressional dems eventually sign off on bill after some concessions. Nonetheless, all 3 named sponsors are repubs for a reason.

dem legislation

2008 frank-dodd attempted federal take over of bad loans to reduce foreclosure. Plan would have allowed lenders to sell failing mortgages to govt. at 15% loss. Govt. would guarantee refinanced mortgage at current house value with fixed rate. Bush threatened veto and bill never made it to pres

2005 bipartisan effort led by repub oxley would reduce overleveraging by large finacial institutions. Bush threatened veto and bill failed to make it past senate. (not really a dem bill, but it was killed by bush)

2000s many dem state attorney generals attempted to combat predatory lenders via state level legislation and enforcement. bushco invoked the relatively obscure Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to invoke an ancient 1800s era law to preempt any states from reforming lending laws.

4. other non-regulatory drivers of crisis

2001 bush tax cuts and 2003 iraq war puts us in federal govt. financial hole with record deficits. bush and repub congress have no regard for budget deficits, which leads to weakening dollar. Unnecessary Middle East conflicts lead to oil price instability and additional wealth transfer from US to oil theocracies. federal govt. has great difficult in borrowing money to prop up failing banks

early 2000s greenspan with heavy endorsement from bushco and no opposition from dems set Reserve interest rates near zero. The availability of cheap captial encourages massive borrowing and the housing bubble. asset bubbles are almost always associated with low interest rates, especially when combined with low capital gains taxes. individuals almost 'can't afford not to put money into overpriced assets' because of concerns that they will be priced out of the assets. However, there is no inherent value for those assets so they eventually crash back down.

1993 clinton and congressional dems pass tax increases that substantially reduce budget deficit, helping improve economy later in 90s. If more strictly dem policies had stayed in place, it is likely that we would have had moderate economic growth throughout the 90s and early 2000s, rather than boom times. However, we would not be facing the implosion we have now. Basic dem econ policy is slow and steady with more social programs. repub econ policy is much more short term, leading to booms and busts. there are many similarities in the repub policies and regulatory actions that led to the savings and loan crisis as for the current crisis.

Now, tell me why bfrank is responsible.

I can blame Repubs but it cracks me up how peeps get all goofy is a Dem is even slightly to blame also.

So like I said, I come on the board at lunch and its "Bush did this" and "Bush did that" so I balance it out with 'Bullshit' of my own. So just deal with it, or ignore it. Its not all the Repubs fault and its not all the Dems fault. But y'all can't even accept some responsibility and I really get a kick out of that, from time to time.

Barney Frank, at the very least, should have had his finger on the pulse of Banking since thats what he chairs, iinm, but should have alerted the peeps of American and/or notified that great Democratic speaker Nanci and asked for legislation to stop something or regulate something, or just to speak out on the whole thing.

But Barney must have busy with something else.

I was talking to my Contractor freinds today and in the last week. Some Dems....some Repubs, I gather. But some were really, really looking for the bailout, cuz for Contractors when peeps get loans, we feed our families. Somewhat selfish....

But some were like, let it fail, pick up the pieces and build it up again. The problems is that our gov't is there to defend us. I don't want to let this thing just blow up, if our elected officials could do something in terms of guarantees, etc to keep our economy from totally failing. I don't know how bad it could get and I don't think a lot of peeps do, but if we can do something that doesn't expand gov't, i'd be for it, I guess.

If you get a chance to hear Ron Paul on the economy, do it.

The economy is not going to implode. Like a wildfire, a "crisis" like this, if played well, could ultimately prove healthy for our economy.

Naturally, industries like home builders and credit card companies will suffer terribly. But is that really so horrible? This nation has eschewed savings for a number of years in favor of escalating credit burden. Now, we may see a return to cash purchases and increased debit card use. Home buiding has had it's peak. Many credit companies are in financial ruin due to their own savage greed. Car manufacturers are oversatuated with comparable model within a line that do the same thing (GM and Ford have done this for years). Remember, necessity is the mother of invention, and right now we need to re-invent this economy.

In addition, many industries will "benefit" from this crisis. Fast food chains, offering cheaper meals when money is at a minimum, could flourish. Stores like Walmart and Target could see an influx of shoppers used to the higher-brow outlets such as Macy's and Bloomingdale's. The film industry, if wise, could work with movie chains to lower tickets costs a little, if only token for publicity's sake. The movie industry saw it's greatest decade ever in the 1930's, while in the midst and aftermath of the Great Depression.

Again, if this crisiss is played right, we could ultimately benefit long-term. However, if it's not, we could be on the verge of revolution. If this $700 billion package passes without serious pre-conditions and hawk-like oversight, I would seriously purchase a gun for protection.

And I'm not joking about that, either.

If you get a chance to hear Ron Paul on the economy, do it.
Co-signed!

The economy is not going to implode. Like a wildfire, a "crisis" like this, if played well, could ultimately prove healthy for our economy.

(1)Naturally, industries like home builders and credit card companies will suffer terribly. But is that really so horrible? This nation has eschewed savings for a number of years in favor of escalating credit burden. Now, we may see a return to cash purchases and increased debit card use. Home buiding has had it's peak. Many credit companies are in financial ruin due to their own savage greed. Car manufacturers are oversatuated with comparable model within a line that do the same thing (GM and Ford have done this for years). Remember, necessity is the mother of invention, and right now we need to re-invent this economy.

In addition, many industries will "benefit" from this crisis. Fast food chains, offering cheaper meals when money is at a minimum, could flourish. Stores like Walmart and Target could see an influx of shoppers used to the higher-brow outlets such as Macy's and Bloomingdale's. The film industry, if wise, could work with movie chains to lower tickets costs a little, if only token for publicity's sake. The movie industry saw it's greatest decade ever in the 1930's, while in the midst and aftermath of the Great Depression.

Again, if this crisiss is played right, we could ultimately benefit long-term. However, if it's not, we could be on the verge of revolution. If this $700 billion package passes without serious pre-conditions and hawk-like oversight, I would seriously purchase a gun for protection.

And I'm not joking about that, either.

(1) Selfishly, Yes, that is horrible. I know you are talking about the big boys though. At least I think you are.

And thanks for sharing on the other part. Good points.

Co-signed!

He actually warned about this and no one listened. He really is the only person that comes to mind that did warn us about this....And that has been something I've been bitching about.

Ron Paul must have good ideas if he was nominated by the Repubics. They prefer more controllable candidates.

He actually warned about this and no one listened. He really is the only person that comes to mind that did warn us about this....And that has been something I've been bitching about.
A number of folks were warning about much of this. In late 2004, there were all kinds of red lights flashing around Fannie and Freddie. Republicans were soundly re-elected, and Bush talked the talk of using political capital to get stuff done in Washington. The problem was simply never fixed. The problem with the political anatomy here wasn't foresight, but backbone.

Ron Paul's economic policies make a fair amount of sense in a theoretical purist "if I reinvent the world from scratch" fashion. There are some good gems to be had -- the Fed needs a serious overhaul. Unfortunately, politicians going for higher office tend to be restrained in real expressions of economic philosophy, instead presenting their views in the context of deltas (lipstick) to the current economic structures (pig).

A number of folks were warning about much of this. In late 2004, there were all kinds of red lights flashing around Fannie and Freddie. Republicans were soundly re-elected, and Bush talked the talk of using political capital to get stuff done in Washington. The problem was simply never fixed. The problem with the political anatomy here wasn't foresight, but backbone.

Ron Paul's economic policies make a fair amount of sense in a theoretical purist "if I reinvent the world from scratch" fashion. There are some good gems to be had -- the Fed needs a serious overhaul. Unfortunately, politicians going for higher office tend to be restrained in real expressions of economic philosophy, instead presenting their views in the context of deltas (lipstick) to the current economic structures (pig).

No time like the present! Kind of joking. Why not though? The one problem I have with much of his stuff is that his 'stuff' kind of makes us isolationists, right? Or am I missing something?

I just don't think we can isolate ourselves cuz we are the largest, most wealthy nation. Peeps want to come here, other peeps wish us great harm. Libs don't get that second part, imo. They think we are just disliked cuz of Bush. We are number one in most of the worlds eyes and peeps want to drag us down. But back on the subject. Our economy is so intertwined with the world that if we did do some of Pauls stuff, we could spiral down really quick.

That's interesting, Tahoe. I almost kind of want the economic crisis to hit us hard and marginalize us, so that if we want to reinvent the way we manage our economy, we can do it without a bunch of international investors crying and pouting about it. Kind of like letting your drunk brother sit in the tank for one night so he can think about how to get his life back in order without his loser friends getting in the way.

Huh!
Yeah, were comin back then with another bombtrack
Think ya know what its all about
Huh!
Hey yo, so check this out
Yeah!
Know your enemy!

Come on!

Born with insight and a raised fist
A witness to the slit wrist, thats with
As we move into 92
Still in a room without a view
Ya got to know
Ya got to know
That when I say go, go, go
Amp up and amplify
Defy
Im a brother with a furious mind
Action must be taken
We dont need the key
Well break in

Something must be done
About vengeance, a badge and a gun
cause Ill rip the mike, rip the stage, rip the system
I was born to rage against em

Fist in ya face, in the place
And Ill drop the style clearly
Know your enemy...know your enemy!

Yeah!

Hey yo, and dick with this...uggh!
Word is born
Fight the war, fuck the norm
Now I got no patience
So sick of complacence
With the d the e the f the I the a the n the c the e
Mind of a revolutionary
So clear the lane
The finger to the land of the chains
What? the land of the free?
Whoever told you that is your enemy?

Now something must be done
About vengeance, a badge and a gun
cause Ill rip the mike, rip the stage, rip the system
I was born to rage against em

Now action must be taken
We dont need the key
Well break in

Ive got no patience now
So sick of complacence now
Ive got no patience now
So sick of complacence now
Sick of sick of sick of sick of you
Time has come to pay...
Know your enemy!

Come on!
Yes I know my enemies
Theyre the teachers who taught me to fight me
Compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission
Ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality, the elite
All of which are american dreams

This damn thing might actually not pass (it's losing right now).

The market has been down as much as 700 pts today, currently down about 500.

Anybody have a good grasp on the short and long term effects of this not passing?

I've heard 3-4 million lost jobs.

I think it's obvious why Bush is pushing so hard for this to pass.

-- $700 billion bailout bill fails in House. Dow down by nearly 600 points.

It lost 228-205

This is pretty much the worst day I've had in ages.

Swam, I've got a couch you could use if it comes to that. I'm only half kidding about that. We've even got room for your Buddha statue.

So should I kiss our 401Ks goodbye?

This is pretty much the worst day I've had in ages.

At least you hit 3,000 posts?

:no sacred cows:

Treat me as an idiot here: I'm still not entirely sure what this means. The bailout plan seemed bad as is, and most of you seemed against it. With it not passing, that's a negative?

Fill me in.

So was this a case of House Republicans throwing Bush under the bus?

If they wanted this to pass for him, they could have easily made it happen.

Anybody have a good grasp on the short and long term effects of this not passing?
jftOwxJWdRc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jftOwxJWdRc

House defeats $700B financial markets bailout

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Writer
1 minute ago

WASHINGTON - The House on Monday defeated a $700 billion emergency rescue package, ignoring urgent pleas from President Bush and bipartisan congressional leaders to quickly bail out the staggering financial industry.

Stocks plummeted on Wall Street even before the 228-205 vote to reject the bill was announced on the House floor.

When the critical vote was tallied, too few members of the House were willing to support the unpopular measure with elections just five weeks away. Ample no votes came from both the Democratic and Republican sides of the aisle.

Bush and a host of leading congressional figures had implored the lawmakers to pass the legislation despite howls of protest from their constituents back home.

The overriding question for congressional leaders was what to do next. Congress has been trying to adjourn so that its members can go out and campaign. And with only five weeks left until Election Day, there was no clear indication of whether the leadership would keep them in Washington. Leaders were huddling after the vote to figure out their next steps.

Monday's mind-numbing vote had been preceded by unusually aggressive White House lobbying, and spokesman Tony Fratto said that Bush had used a "call list" of people he wanted to persuade to vote yes as late as just a short time before the vote.

Lawmakers shouted news of the plummeting Dow Jones average as lawmakers crowded on the House floor during the drawn-out and tense call of the roll, which dragged on for roughly 40 minutes as leaders on both sides scrambled to corral enough of their rank-and-file members to support the deeply unpopular measure.

They found only two.

Bush and his economic advisers, as well as congressional leaders in both parties had argued the plan was vital to insulating ordinary Americans from the effects of Wall Street's bad bets. The version that was up for vote Monday was the product of marathon closed-door negotiations on Capitol Hill over the weekend.

"We're all worried about losing our jobs," Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., declared in an impassioned speech in support of the bill before the vote. "Most of us say, 'I want this thing to pass, but I want you to vote for it — not me.' "

With their dire warnings of impending economic doom and their sweeping request for unprecedented sums of money and authority to bail out cash-starved financial firms, Bush and his economic chiefs have focused the attention of world markets on Congress, Ryan added.

"We're in this moment, and if we fail to do the right thing, Heaven help us," he said.

The legislation the administration is promoting would allow the government to buy bad mortgages and other rotten assets held by troubled banks and financial institutions. Getting those debts off their books should bolster those companies' balance sheets, making them more inclined to lend and easing one of the biggest choke points in the credit crisis. If the plan works, it should help lift a major weight off the national economy that is already sputtering.

The fear in the financial markets send the Dow Jones industrials cascading down by as over 700 points at one juncture. As the vote was shown on TV, stocks plunged and investors fled to the safety of the credit markets, worrying that the financial system would keep sinking under the weight of failed mortgage debt.

I'm scared. Hold me.

I think something needs to be done, badly.

Unfortunately, if Congress passed this bill, something would have been done badly.

Sweden did something like this a few years ago, but in exchange for the bailout, they gave each taxpayer a stake in the company. I'm not handing over $700B to anyone without something to show for it - in fact, $700B is waaaay too much money anyway.

These Wall Street fuckers broke our money. Let them fix it.

Free market my ass.

Does our collective government have the capacity to do anything well?

That's the trillion dollar question.

That's why the Bourne movies are so much fun to watch. It feeds the fantasy that when it comes to doing something, the US does everything right and never fucks up and disappears before anyone knows what happened.

Does our collective government have the capacity to do anything well?

That's the trillion dollar question.

I don't know, but y'all are wanting a candidate that wants to turn healthcare over to the Gov't. Maybe not completely but pretty much.

Medicare has been a major success, IMO.

Dow suffers biggest point drop in history, falling nearly 778 points in reaction to House vote rejecting economic rescue.

He wants to turn healthcare buying over to the government. I suspect they are the only entity big enough to keep Big Healthcare in check.

I'm glad that McCain thought it was a success:

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j7hIHOwVW6DK5Vg54OsbCT_6eB9Q


McCain camp claims credit over bailout changes

5 hours ago

CHICAGO (AFP) — John McCain's presidential campaign claimed credit as Congress readied Monday to vote on an emergency economic package, but Democrats said the Republican's last-ditch intervention had been no help.

Mitt Romney, McCain's erstwhile rival for the Republican nomination, said the deal on a Wall Street bailout worth up to 700 billion dollars would never have happened without the Arizona senator.

Speaking on NBC television, the former Massachusetts governor said "this bill would not have been agreed to had it not been for John McCain."

"That doesn't mean that he's the only guy doing that. And there many people ... who have been critical to it," Romney said.

"But, you know, this is a bipartisan accomplishment, a bipartisan success. And if people want to get something done in Washington, they just watch John McCain," he said.

"He's been the guy whose name is at the top of major pieces of legislation for a long time."

I told you our choices are a socialist or a moderate Dem.

I heard an interesting analogy on the way home today.

The current US economic crisis : The Iraq War
The Bush/Paulson bailout : "the surge".

Discuss?

Dow dumps nearly 800 points!!!

Really, the bailout plan is nothing more than a money-grab. Bush telling us last week if the plan was not ratified by Friday, it could spell certain doom.

Well, we're still here.

Can you imagine the tangibly wealthy (for the lack of a better term... the ones with REAL wealth, not just figures on paper) just salivating uncontrollably, waiting for another several hundred point drop before it's BUY BUY BUY.

Obviously, they cannot allow the middle class and their TD Waterhouse intellect to day-trade their way to riches. Sink the market, scatter the rats, then resurface it shiny and new.

Anyone have any comments on Nancy Pelosi's speech prior to the vote?

Anyone have any comments on Nancy Pelosi's speech prior to the vote?
Nah, not really. John Boehner (lol) was crying about his idea that the only reason more Republicans didn't vote for the bill was because they were put off by Nancy Pelosi's partisan rhetoric. It's quite honestly the most ludicrous thing I've heard him say, and he's said a lot of ludicrous things.

It would be really infuriating if he was doing anything other than making excuses. See, it's his job to get all the Republicans to vote the way the White House wants them to vote, and he totally failed today. So he's got to have some excuse - and his excuse was that because of some random shit that fell out of Nancy Pelosi's mouth, the House GOP's feelings got so hurt that they reflexively struck back at every single other person in America.

See, it's really upsetting if you take it seriously. But since this was something John Boehner said to try to explain his total failure to uphold his position, now it's just sad. I actually kind of feel bad for him today. I hope he and GWB can still find a way to salvage their friendship.

Just Swami?

Just Swami?
What, that's not good enough for you?

What, that's not good enough for you?

You are only one person, one very BIG person around here, but just one. I can't prejudge the board with just one reply? :)

BTW...Nancy delivered what % of the Dems? I was out most of the day.

”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

Just found it, I think it was 140/95

Actually, I'm rather glad the bill failed this attempt. A majority of Americans (so I'm told by the LiBeRaL media :) ) are not in support of this package. So, to have Congress pass it simply because the Prez says so is eaxctly the opposite of their job responsibility, which is to their constituents.

I heard (dont' read much) that it wasn't supported by peeps either.

This is all very much starting to sound like 1932 to me.

This is all very much starting to sound like 1932 to me.

Was there this much acrimony between the parties back then? Was the Prez's approvals low and the Congress' at a historic low?

I honesly don't remember what the political climate was then.

I can't decide who was dumber -- Pelosi for conducting the vote without having enougs to pass by a healthy margin, or Republicans blaming Pelosi's partisan speech as the reason they were voting as they were.

I can't decide who was dumber -- Pelosi for conducting the vote without having enougs to pass by a healthy margin, or Republicans blaming Pelosi's partisan speech as the reason they were voting as they were.

I think the Repubs said there were maybe, MAYBE 12 that changed their vote. I thought it was partisan politics at its worst, but all I'll get is "I'm shocked" or "I'm surprised" type of things :(

I seriously think about how peeps were talking about we are all Americans on this and then for her to come in play politics with the issue was...well, actually exactly what I expected from her.

I'm thinking POSSIBLY she really didn't want the bill passed but wanted a reason to blame it on the Repubs. I'm still playing catch up on this vote, but if it was the reason she torpedo the bill, it wasn't her genius, it was some behind the scenes peep. I seriously see the brain activity of a snail when I look at her.

Was there this much acrimony between the parties back then? Was the Prez's approvals low and the Congress' at a historic low?
They're both at historic lows, but the accurate polling history here doesn't date back that far. I think you place way too much value on the polling of Congress. It tracks the Presidential approval ratings (minus a few percent) virtually all the time, and rarely tracks how people feel about their individual Congresscritters.

They're both at historic lows, but the accurate polling history here doesn't date back that far. I think you place way too much value on the polling of Congress. It tracks the Presidential approval ratings (minus a few percent) virtually all the time, and rarely tracks how people feel about their individual Congresscritters.

I'm not going to look this up right now, but you are basically saying that Congs approvals will never be higher than the Prezs? Or just always about the same?

I had a fairly high opinion of Pelosi at the beginning.

She held firm on no impeachment, in favor of a decent legislative agenda and getting down to business.

There were some disappointing moments and missed opportunities (and a Senate SO closely divided doesn't help), but it seemed like she was starting to get the hang of it. The offshore drilling bill, where she traded 50 miles of offshore drilling no one was going to use in exchange for getting rid of oil tax breaks, was a good political move, and that was just a couple weeks ago.

Now this... she was actually going to shove this through with only 220 votes?!? Hunh?!

I'm not going to look this up right now, but you are basically saying that Congs approvals will never be higher than the Prezs? Or just always about the same?
Almost always the same plus or minus a few %, usually minus.

edit: short version- i agree with denny, but he may not agree with me.

i'm no expert on this, but the fact the white house and the financial pundit class are in hysterics strikes me as evidence that the bill is a total shit sandwich anyways. If there is a pair of interest groups more corrupt and self-servient than bush + financial pundits, I'd like to know who it is.

I can't imagine that $700 billion to failed bankers is a good investment. It is sort of like trying to bail out a pyramid scheme by giving $700 billion to the people at the top of the pyramid. People who are primarily concerned with perpetuating their own rapidly ascending wealth.

Thus, I am actually pleased that house repubs ended up killing the deal. However, the only worse solution is the insane house repub counterproposal of re-instating Enron accounting priciples and cutting the capital gains tax to zero. First of all, mark to market accounting is just a method of increasing the stated value of something by waving one's hands (literally hiring accountants to wave their hands). Second, cutting the cap gains tax to zero would further decrease the value of bullshit securities that couldn't be used as tax write offs. Further, cutting cap gains tax would lead to more income redistribution from the poor/middle class to the wealthy. It would be equivalent to concluding the only way to fix terrible policy is by setting even dumber policy. It also gives even more incentive to vulture to pick through what's left of our economy at great profit. People like mitt romney and warren buffett will always have more info than you or I when it comes to investing. They play with stacked decks.

If anything, I'd rather just see a $350 billion give away on a per cap basis so larger families get the lion's share of the money. I don't necessarily think it should be given as a lump sum, rather in monthly installments. At the same time, people would need to become aware that this is a one time event, and that sacrafices need to be maid. In fact, it might be necessary to require that late payments be paid off first (though I do not how this would be accomplished). This should infuse capital back in the system, but would benefit the people as much as the millionaires.

A $700B giveaway to wall st. would stem short term problems, but further aggrevate long term problems and pain. The financial industry/housing bubble/stock bubble share the same get rich quick attitudes that are truely at the heart of the same types of problems. Households and businesses operate on short time horizons that maximize outcomes in the upcoming year rather than over the next 10/20/50 years. This 'I want it now' mentality has infected most of American society, and especially the American political system. Everyone's time horizon is the next election, and campaigning for the next election begins shortly after the conclusion of the most recent election. Truth has been replaced by spin, and actions are determined by the ability to spin an uneducated and busy electorate. after 9/11, we could have reconsidered our place in the world, our values, and our shared humanity. instead, the pres. told us to keep shopping and set credit policies to ensure that we could. Opposition attitudes about domestic spying, unnecessary wars, unfair tax cuts were equated with anti-Americanism. We were told to buy a mcmansion in the outer suburbs even if we didn't really have the money for it, and we would spend more on gas that enriches our enemies. Act now or the price will be even more next year! You can't afford not to own that house! There is no such thing as sacrafice, deficits don't matter, the bill will never come due. Well, the bill is now due. The govt. could do a short term bailout, but then an even larger bill will become due next year or the year after. We're just about out of credit. We probably won't have another Depression, but tough decision have to be made and we're reached our collective credit limit. So deal with sacrafice, try to scrape by, hope that both wall st. and govt. become more transparent so that average citizens regain some sense of what is going on and how to plan for the future. Demand that politicians tell the truth and hold the media accountable with relentless criticism of false claims. Expect the news media to break down policy rather than 'assess what the average voter thinks'.

Anywaysm my only advice is to get used to your current standard of living and hope that you can maintain it. Move back to the cities and the inner suburbs, drive less, eat less, and try to stay healthy. Ideally, we would also work less and just spend more time on less consumerism. We also have to realize that our role as the world's policeman is over. If we spend more to build up the army, it will bankrupt us. I don't think it is a guns or butter question at this point, rather it is less guns and less butter. We can still build up our special forces and intelligence agencies, but we shouldn't invade anyone unless they attack us directly. let iran have their bomb, but let them know they will be annhillated if that bomb is used on us. we can't afford prevention, but we can afford containment.

Anyways, maybe i'm wrong, no one knows what will happen with certainty. However, these problems won't disappear regardless of whether or not this bill passes. In the end, i think the entire country needs to realize great freedom also requires some risk. we'll never be 100% safe from terrorists/crime/economic downturns, and we shouldn't expect govt. to help us out 24/7. At best, we can hope for a govt. that allows us to be free, and doesn't actively try to fuck us over. I personally believe bushco has been fucking us over for 7+ years. That is why i am so angry on this board, but, honestly i'm not angry in real life. i've just reoriented my expectations of what to expect from life. i've spent a lot of time in truely poor countries, so i don't really care if my life gets a bit less comfortable. consevatives seem to think it is indictment of the country to think that we should or even could consume less, but that's just not my worldview. i just think that others should realize there is a tradeoff between consumerism and the debt insecurities that accompany it.

The whole economy is a sham perpetuated by those who have everything screwing over those with very little. We're bailing out the people that have been figuratively raping us at the gas pumps and who literally have blood on their hands from people starving in low income countries. I say fuck them. Let prices collapse and the world go into recession and start over with a transparent economy that doesn't let the rich and powerful charge monopoly prices. I knew there was some speculation involved with the oil market, but I really thought global demand was the primary driver of oil prices. Fuck these assholes and their get rich at all costs mentality. Strip them of all their assets and throw 'em in jail. They literally let people starve while they jacked up the price of fuel and food.

Perhaps, the cherry on top of the sundae is their attempt to blame the crisis on poor people that they were intentionally ripping off with bullshit subprime mortgages. i've never been one to put much stock in class warfare, but there really could be a populist revolt if the truth comes out about the motivations of these fuckers. I know our economy has been turning toward a pyramid scheme since reagan and accelerated under bush, but i didn't realize just how distorted it was. the scales are falling from my eyes.

The House Repubs may have done the world a huge favor even if their true motivations were ass backwards.



While everyone knows the U.S. government is looking to bail Wall Street banks, few people realize that it's also bailing out speculative oil and commodities traders in the process, fueling a sharp rise in energy prices.

Lehman Brothers (nyse: LEH - news - people ) and AIG (nyse: AIG - news - people ) held enormous trading positions in commodities markets. If those positions had been liquidated suddenly, the price of everything from wheat to oil would have collapsed. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the main regulator of U.S. commodity markets, allowed Wall Street's investment banks and trading companies to take control of massive positions in commodities markets called swaps held by Lehman Brothers and AIG.

The result: Oil prices spiked by a whopping $16 per barrel on Monday, the largest single-day rise in oil prices ever.

"If speculators were forced to liquidate their positions, oil would easily be $65 to $75 per barrel by the time the liquidation was complete," said Michael Masters, the founder of Atlanta-based hedge fund Masters Capital Management. Tuesday, oil was trading at $108.74 in midday trading in New York.

For all the talk of OPEC, the biggest threat to high oil prices in the short term might be the implosion of Morgan Stanley (nyse: MS - news - people ) or Goldman Sachs (nyse: GS - news - people ), which would trigger a massive number of low-priced oil-futures contracts to flood the market all at once in search of buyers to liquidate those contracts.

"If either of these entities were to collapse, we believe the downside for commodities would be tremendous as these companies unwind positions," Valerie Wood, president and owner of Energy Solutions, told Platts on Monday. "In particular, we know Goldman Sachs has large investments in crude oil and natural gas commodities because its own Goldman Sachs Commodity Index fund [comprises] about 39% crude oil commodities and about 6% natural gas commodities. A liquidation of GSCI shares would directly result in the selling of these commodities, and selling pushes prices lower."

Ironically, the biggest losers turned out to be the traders who bet that at least one of the victims from this month's financial chaos would be forced to liquidate a major long position in oil prices. When they avoided that fate, the race to unwind those bets that oil prices would fall before the end of the trading month caused a massive rally in oil prices.

The market meltdown has revealed the full extent of Wall Street's influence on commodities prices and, especially, their role in energy markets. More than $40 billion in cash has poured into commodity markets since the start of 2008, according to a report by Standard & Poor's. The total amount of investments in commodity indexes is estimated at between $150 billion and $270 billion. In other words, new investments in the market have climbed by 15% to 25% in less than a year.

In 2006, the U.S. Senate's Subcommittee for Permanent Investigations had already reported "there is substantial evidence supporting the conclusion that the large amount of speculation in the current market has significantly increased prices." The trouble is that so much of the trading happens in so-called "dark markets," unregulated over-the-counter electronic exchanges where trading companies buy and sell energy derivatives, that this role is hard to document.

Investment banks make money off commodities speculation, but are just conduits for hedge funds and institutional investors that have taken large positions in commodities markets as a long-term investment.

"The market dynamics induced more and more financial players to move into commodities markets," said Fadel Gheit, a senior oil analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. "It was a perfect storm. The Federal Reserve was cutting interest rates and people were running away from the dollar as it lost value. Hedge funds, pension funds and mutual funds started pumping money into commodities because they were the safest place and the safest of them all was crude oil. There were too many dollars chasing too few physical assets. That's the bottom line."



http://www.forbes.com/energy/2008/09/23/energy-oil-washington-biz-cx_wp_0923energy.html

I was just listening to something on the radio and they said Bush was trying to reform Freddie and Fannie, the House passed it, but Chris Dodd blocked it in the Senate. Not sure about that DON"T HAVE A LINK. This was in 2002.

Barney voted no on it as well.

Lets remember who got their political contributions...1. Chris Dodd, 2. John Kerry 3. Barack Obama.

”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

Barney lit those fools up, "somebody hurt their feelings so they decide to punish the country?"

lol

Wyl9Ml7bsps

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wyl9Ml7bsps

Lets remember who got their political contributions...1. Chris Dodd, 2. John Kerry 3. Barack Obama.
The way the CRP and others count this is by assuming that anyone directly donating who works for Freddie/Fannie donates on behalf of Freddie/Fannie, not just themselves. If I work for GM, and I donate to Obama, does that make me a GM lobbyist, or some guy on the line? Since Obama has raised tons of money just from personal donations, one can always present him as being among the top receivers of money for most any industry -- he was ahead of McCain on "Big Oil" contributions until recently. You'll see similarly large amounts of money for Kerry and Hillary -- that doesn't mean either was central to the Freddie/Fannie lobbying efforts (though Kerry was rumored to want Fannie CEO Franklin Raines as Secretary of the Treasury until Raines was booted in disgrace). Check this out for more:

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/09/19/fact-check-did-obama-profit-from-fannie-and-freddie/

Of course, there are all kinds of ways to buy influence that can be harder to track. Look at how Rick Davis is in McCain's corner. Thus far, Obama has not demonstrated that he's got big lobbyists at the core of his campaign.


I was just listening to something on the radio and they said Bush was trying to reform Freddie and Fannie, the House passed it, but Chris Dodd blocked it in the Senate. Not sure about that DON"T HAVE A LINK. This was in 2002.

Barney voted no on it as well.
2002 was a split Congress with a tenuous Democratic Senate like what we have today. Republicans did no better in 2005 when they controlled all the committees, the Presidency, and had just got an independent report of major Freddie and Fannie scandal during campaign season (which was how Franklin Raines got booted in disgrace). They had all the political capital they were ever going to get, and blew it.

Of course, this bitching about Freddie and Fannie assumes that the current crisis has more to do with them than hedge funds and credit default swaps. All Freddie and Fannie did was have volatility. Hedge funds gambled on the volatility to a stupid degree. Perhaps the biggest blame in the derivatives market has to do with that WMD known as computers, since they enabled complexity in the derivatives market in ways that were never imagined by past economists.

Today is the end of the quarter for a lot of folks -- should be interesting.

"These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”
In 2003, when that statement was made, that would have been a mostly correct statement. They needed more accounting and accountability, but weren't in a crisis on a nationwide level or an asset valuation level. The subprime borrowing wasn't yet out of control. The GSEs were in a crisis at a corporate level at the time, but any time you fuck up your books by a couple billion, you'll have that.

Fundamentally, the American public wants to be a debtor society. I'm not at all deluded into thinking that Democrats or Republicans are any better on that front. They just want to overspend in different places.

Haha, Barney Frank delivers a hot steaming plate of PWNED! Not to mention, he said exactly what I was thinking but better.


Was there this much acrimony between the parties back then? Was the Prez's approvals low and the Congress' at a historic low?

I honesly don't remember what the political climate was then.
People seem to have this idea in their heads that this is the most partisan that Congress has ever been. History taps us on the shoulder and says, "ahem."

In 1932, the Great Depression was at its worst part. The President (Herbert Hoover) was running for re-election, but his responses to the Depression had been very minimal because he didn't believe in the government intervening in the market. As a result, things just got worse and worse, and the public "peeps" started to panic because they believed the government was sitting on their wallets doing nothing. The President was insanely unpopular. (Keep in mind that this same guy told the police to open fire on WWI vets who marched on Washington to collect their pensions.)

So in 1932, Congress got together with the President and put together a new tax bill that introduced a national sales tax to help with the rescue plan. Everyone in Congress was really excited to vote on it because it would make them look like heroes.

But a funny thing happened - the voters "peeps" got wise. They realized that they were being asked to pay for a huge bailout of the banks (sales taxes affect the middle class and poor disproportionately) and the new tax bill didn't change anything about the income tax scale or corporate taxes. Basically, this bill meant "bend over suckers." People wrote their congressmen in one of the hugest grass-roots letter-writing campaigns in US history. They had letters coming out of their ears.

So while the Democratic and Republican leadership were trying their hardest to herd all their congressmen into voting for the bill, the individual congressmen started thinking that voting for this bill would be suicidal for their careers, and let me tell you, 1932 was not a good year to be out of work.

http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x147/dspiewak/ab32.gif

So instead, Congress dropped the idea for passed a law that doubled the top income tax rates and doubled the estate tax (you will remember this as something that Fox News calls "the death tax"). Wall Street types rebelled against this new tax law and declared that they would do no new investing as long as the new taxes were in effect. The situation got even worse.

It was clear that when the chips were down, the rich investors were not going to do their part. Hoover lost the election in a landslide, and that set the stage for the New Deal. Regular people - our grandparents and great grandparents (or in other words, peeps) - got together and worked their asses off to put us through a Depression and a World War. The rich investors - the people who really could have helped out - sat around and whined about how much they were being taxed.

The rich investors - the people who really could have helped out - sat around and whined about how much they were being taxed.
Not all of them whined. Some attempted to overthrow FDR and the U.S. Government, like Bush's granddaddy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

I have a hard time believing things were as partisan now as they were when Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton. :)

Xanadu is a gentelman AND a scholar.

BTW, if a congressperson holds stock, then sells it before the vote, would that constitute insider trading?

Keep in mind that the houses aren't as big a factor as the derivative products based off the houses, but this is a good explanation of what's up:

wbty59Mckuo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbty59Mckuo

Of course, this bitching about Freddie and Fannie assumes that the current crisis has more to do with them than hedge funds and credit default swaps. All Freddie and Fannie did was have volatility. Hedge funds gambled on the volatility to a stupid degree. Perhaps the biggest blame in the derivatives market has to do with that WMD known as computers, since they enabled complexity in the derivatives market in ways that were never imagined by past economists.



It is not so much that computers 'allowed complexity', but that people started to let computers make investment decisions based on the output from computer algorithms. Thus, the computers identified the types of assets that were booming in value and put more money in those assets even if they were overvalued. Since more and more money went into those assets, their values became more and more inflated. However, computers don't have common sense and the algorithms react to trends, and are set to maximize profits with zero consideration for ethics. It is as if the computers washed the bankers' hands of any ethical consideration.

However, at some point a rational person should be able to step back and say there is no fundamental reason for a doubling in house prices or a tripling in oil futures or a doubling in food prices. However, those people wouldn't dare say anything because they already had so much banked on those asset values. Thus, they told the pundit hacks that whatever asset was surging in value at that time (houses, oil, tech stocks) would surge in value forever. This perpetuated the myth that the prices were accurate, when in fact they were artificial. The people at the top then start to pull their money of that asset and start inflating the value of something else. rinse and repeat: tech stocks... rinse and repeat: housing, rinse and repeat: oil. It works best in unregulated shadow markets. Thus, the creation of securities that no one understands or the creation of a shadow oil market keeps the world in the dark as to the true value of things. I wouldn't be surprised if the primary foreign investors in the oil market are based in kuwait, saudi arabia, uae. Not only would they gain from rapidly increasing values for the oil futures, but from the production of over-value oil at home. Essentially, the american govt. set up a shadow market for oil that let the middle east and greedy bankers manipulate oil prices in ways they could only dream of through production quotas.

At the same time, these bankers are necessary to keep our economy functioning. Thus, the question is who should we give the money to? There are a number of bankers that should probably be put in prison or at least to never be put in position to manipulate prices. We can go through a lot of short term pain and hope that 'bad bankers' are purged from the system. We could do a sweden-style nationalization and assume that federalized banks will do a better job, or we can give a bunch a money to the same people that fucked us over and hope they will do the right thing this time. None of the options are good. I think the uncontrolled bailout option is the worst.

If there is a bailout, the govt. needs to tie it to the end of shadow markets. Close the secret hedge fund markets for oil and other commodities, set accounting guidelines for banks and everyone else, ban overcomplicated derivatives. basically, they need to remove the ability to manipulate prices. this is what enron and others did in CA, and i think this has occurred in the housing market, the energy market, and the food market. It is basically allowing the wealthiest to use monopoly power to maximize prices. Monopoly power is just as big (if not bigger) threat to market economies as govt. control.

Indeed, transparency should be considered a virtue at this point.

BTW, if a congressperson holds stock, then sells it before the vote, would that constitute insider trading?


At this point, i wouldn't be surprised if they were shorting stocks prior to the vote. i don't trust any of them to do the right thing.

Barney lit those fools up, "somebody hurt their feelings so they decide to punish the country?"

lol

and the retort, No, it was just a fucked up bill.

That retort doesn't hold water when the reason that the Republicans themselves gave for not getting enough votes was Pelosi's speech.

Can't have it both ways.

I don't think Nancy wanted this to go through for some reason. Odd for the Dems not to want to get their hands on 700billion of the taxpayers money to spend how they wanted.

^ Not true. 10-12 said it. Not all.

It is not so much that computers 'allowed complexity',
That's why I used the phrase "enabled complexity". :)

I still say Dodd was in their pocket, Barney is a dufus and was more worried about getting peeps loans that couldn't repay them then reforming F&F, and Bush tried to reform it.

I still say Dodd was in their pocket, Barney is a dufus and was more worried about getting peeps loans that couldn't repay them then reforming F&F, and Bush tried to reform it.

I take it you haven't seen/heard the Bush speech from Oct, 2002 yet, eh?

From: Uncle Dave
To: Uncle Dave's Mailing List
Subject: FW: FW: FW: FW: FW: FW: FW: FW: FW: MCCANE EVEN BIGGER MAVRIK THAN WE ALL THOUGHT!!!!!!!!!!!


...You do understand that they don't get to pocket it, right?

You do understand that the Dems control the house right?

I still say Dodd was in their pocket, Barney is a dufus and was more worried about getting peeps loans that couldn't repay them then reforming F&F, and Bush tried to reform it.


I take it you haven't seen/heard the Bush speech from Oct, 2002 yet, eh?

Kindly disregard the German subtitles.

GkAtUq0OJ68

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkAtUq0OJ68

Your thoughts, Tahoe?


Yes, this is "gotcha messageboarding".

Well sure, but you make it seem like they all want to get their hands on our tax dollars for...well, for what reason, exactly? What are they getting out of it?

i like that "how they wanted" really meant "how Paulson decided was necessary and they didn't object to."

Kindly disregard the Dutch subtitles.
Fixed.
Glenn, for shame. You live in GR... if ya ain't Dutch, ya ain't much!

Fuck, I had a feeling I was going to get called out on that.

BACK ON POINT

ISO: Tahoe

Kindly disregard the German subtitles.

GkAtUq0OJ68

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkAtUq0OJ68

Your thoughts, Tahoe?


Yes, this is "gotcha messageboarding".

You are a lil late, since I mentioned Bush a couple of days ago. But you are catching up. Libs trying to make perfect an imperfect country once again. It just doesn't work.

So are you saying you can't reform F&F and still put programs in place for lower income peeps and minorities?

I'm not interested in parsing words with you, at least not today.

I think it was pretty clear what you were saying, at least IMO.

Good day, sir!

GD got PWNED!

Also, your perfect/imperfect phrasing confused me and made my head hurt.

^ Success!

Very CodenameV-ish of you.

No disrespect, Mr. V.

You do understand that the Dems control the house right?

They do not have a veto proof majority though. They need the republicans to go along with them or they can't accomplish anything.

Very CodenameV-ish of you.

No disrespect, Mr. V.

Sorry Bukky. nowwe'regettingsomewhere

By the way, I lost about $4K in my 401K yesterday, I'm guessing that my wife lost about the same or more.

I'm hoping to get some of it back today.

i like that "how they wanted" really meant "how Paulson decided was necessary and they didn't object to."

I understood the bill to give a LOT of lattitude to congress where that money was to go. Not all of it but a lot of it. It wasn't one buy out and its all spent. At least afaict.

And Mxy did you hear that Paulson had a Goldman/S exec in the negotiations with him? Is that even friggin possible? Talk about greedy CEO's waiting to get their hands on taxpayer money....they're even in on the negotiations...apparently.

From what I understood you are right that there would be many instances where the money was handed out rather than in one lump sum but the "decider" was always Paulson and the House only got what was essentially a veto board (oversight), not the right to decide themselves.

Though there's been little that I've seen on the real details of the changes to the bill, especially since it wasn't passed.

I'm not checking. I don't want to know.

But building is way, WAY down. Not a lot of money out there for mortgages and obviously peeps are holding on to what they have. Not a lot of additions/remodels...

I moved some posts here from the Presidential thread since it has more to do with the bailout than either candidate.

184 was replying to GD 401k thingy

sorry if I jacked it up a little. It just seemed totally derailed from presidential talk (not blaming anyone).

One should probably consider that individual campaign contributions and PAC contributions probably shouldn't be lumped together. I have donated to obama with no expectation that my company would be rewarded for it. PAC donations carry more of ideological alignment. Here is a chart that separates the PAC and individual donations. By comparison, obama got the vast majority of contributions from individuals from secrataries to ceo's. Most repubs got their contributions from PACs. PACs have explicit strings attached. Individual contributions may or may not have these strings. a huge contribution from a ceo may have some strings. small contributions from secrataries likely have no strings.

http://img.skitch.com/20080925-fmmdddnx5wj1nckduhwms41arq.jpg

Anyways, the idea that bush wanted to reform the financial system, but was blocked by the minority party democrats requires a 1984-style mind control. What stopped the majority republicans from following bush on the path to reform? They gave him everything he wanted for 6 years. If anything bush wanted to fully privatize fannie and freddie, but this wouldn't have done much if anything. How many other private firms have already failed? Republican oxley lays the blame for the lack of reform at bush's feet and i tend to believe him over bush or frank.

the key to understanding the sub-prime lending crisis is the understanding that foreclosures were actually a feature, not a bug of the process. Mortgage firms were not forced to give out loans without checking people's financial histories. they made a conscious decision to make those loans with the belief that the homes would appreciate in value. Thus, the mortgaging company used the homes as appreciating investments they would later own. The people holding the mortgage essentially were renting the home with zero down and interest payments on loan fees as rent. As long as housing prices go up, the mortgage firm wins either by retrieving the house or collecting usury-ous interset rates. Money from outside investors flowed into the securities, which boosted housing prices without even purchasing houses. Money goes in, prices go up, profits exist on paper, but not in reality. Houses aren't really worth more than they were 5 years ago. Eventually, enough people realize that this as a sham, prices goes down, this signals larger society that housing prices are overstated, which drops prices exponentially. The mortgages are now worthless.

Who wins? average people that sold their houses near the peak, but did not buy another house at peak prices. People that pulled their money out of instruments at peak housing prices. People at corporations that were paid huge bonuses and salaries, and were not paid in stock options. Mortgage brokers that collected huge fees, but then sold the actual mortgages at high prices to other firms.

Who loses? average people that bought houses at inflated prices. speculators that wanted to 'flip houses', but were left with depreciating assets. investors and ibanks that didn't pull their money out soon enough. taxpayers that finance bailouts.

Poor minorities are not at fault for this. In fact, white people received the majority of sub-prime loans, many of which were just speculators.

That's why I used the phrase "enabled complexity". :)

fair enough

And Mxy did you hear that Paulson had a Goldman/S exec in the negotiations with him? Is that even friggin possible? Talk about greedy CEO's waiting to get their hands on taxpayer money....they're even in on the negotiations...apparently.

You do know where paulson was ceo prior to becoming treasury secratary, right? The AIG bailout saved Goldman Sach's $20 billion, while the lehman bros. bankruptcy forced out a competitor.

You do know where paulson was ceo prior to becoming treasury secratary, right? The AIG bailout saved Goldman Sach's $20 billion, while the lehman bros. bankruptcy forced out a competitor.

Yes, I do.

I'm telling ya, they are a bunch of thieves. Both sides though. Thats where we disagree.

Nice read from Time.com


The Bailout Defeat: A Political Credibility Crisis

By MICHAEL SCHERER / WASHINGTON
49 minutes ago

There was a lack of trust, a loss of confidence, a popular revolt.

Nearly every major political leader in the U.S. supported the $700 billion financial-bailout bill. The President. The Vice President. The Treasury Secretary. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve. The Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Democratic and Republican nominees for President. The Democratic and Republican leadership of the House and Senate. All of them said the same thing: vote yes.

But a majority of those politicians anointed by the Constitution to reflect the will of the people voted no. This is a remarkable event, the culmination of a historic sense of betrayal that Americans have long felt for their representatives in Washington. The nation's credit crisis on Monday exposed a much deeper and more fundamental problem: a crisis of political credibility that now threatens to harm our nation further, should the markets freeze up and more companies begin to fail, as many experts predict.

The problem has been growing for years. Roughly 28% of Americans approve of President Bush. Roughly 18% of Americans approve of Congress. Now those low numbers and majority of bad feelings have manifested themselves in the starkest of terms.

Asked to take a leap of faith regarding a dizzyingly complex problem, a critical mass of voters refused to trust their leaders, turning down the medicine that was offered. And so the politicians who are most exposed to popular whims have run for cover. With an election on the horizon, 95 House Democrats and 133 House Republicans opposed the bill. Some portion voted no for clearly ideological reasons. But many more were simply doing what politicians do - responding to the will of the people.

An analysis by statistician Nate Silver, who runs FiveThirtyEight.com, made this clear. Of the 38 incumbent members of Congress from both parties who are considered vulnerable in the coming election, 30 voted against the bill (eight supported it). By contrast, members of Congress from relatively safe districts were evenly divided - 197 for it to 198 against it.

"What this showed more than anything else was that not even members of Congress can ignore a switchboard system of Capitol Hill that is so totally jammed," said Peter Sepp, a conservative opponent of the bill with the National Taxpayers Alliance.

If the experts are right, the nation now risks great financial hardship, because there was no one to stand up and explain the situation. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 778 points on the news. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson warned Monday afternoon that car loans and student loans were likely to tighten. Other economists have warned of the possibility of widespread corporate failures and unemployment, if the short-term credit markets freeze up. Bank failures, or mergers, are likely to continue. The taxpayer costs of federal insurance on deposits could increase.

In a worst-case scenario, economic historians may find that all of Paulson's predictions come true, leaving the cost to the Federal Government far greater than the risky $700 billion investment in the private sector. If this comes to pass, the historians will find many people to blame: Paulson and President Bush for failing to explain the plan better. The House leadership for failing to whip enough votes. Even the presidential candidates for failing to use their bully pulpit to force the issue.

But those historians should not forget that roots of the failure predate the vote on Monday, and even the mistakes of Wall Street. Years ago, the trust between the people and their politicians was broken. Credibility was lost. The reserve of goodwill went bankrupt. And when they needed it most, our nation's leaders found that they had squandered their ability to exert influence over the people who chose them to lead.

LOL @ Maxine Waters and Meeks.

Dems laughable really

and then theres Barney. Wow, that shit is funny.

fa0agm7lIPQ&feature

I know y'all won't watch cuz YOU CANT HANDLE THE TRUTH

Acutally that one Dem is the guy who came out yesterday or something and said the Repubs are right and we were wrong.

Franklin Raines..."These assets are so riskless" LOL

and Barney has some real douzies. Wow.

I know y'all won't watch cuz YOU CANT HANDLE THE TRUTH

I responded to this already -- from a past post in this thread:


Republicans did no better in 2005 when they controlled all the committees, the Presidency, and had just got an independent report of major Freddie and Fannie scandal during campaign season (which was how Franklin Raines got booted in disgrace). They had all the political capital they were ever going to get, and blew it.

There's plenty of blame to spread around. The one common factor is the lobbyists getting too close to the right people preventing good stuff from possibly happening (though keep in mind it is in the nature of today's Americans to overspend).

As far as no change to F&F I say that part is the Dems. Its clear by that video what happened when someone tried to regulate it. Dems blasted the messenger.

That was going on during campaign season. 2005 is the real test. No races were on the line right away, Republicans controlled all offices, etc. If I cared, I'd make the argument that the political blame is proportional to who was in control in the White House and Congress for the past 10 years or so.

I think the 'housing for all' thing was mainly carried by the Dems that contributed to the problem. Bush used it too. He carried that liberal point for a lil bit and I posted that.

So for that lower end, it was the Dems fault.

Then there is the middle part, out here 550-850 that was hit hard too. Middle America took advantage. So this isn't class warfare, but I'm convinced that the Dems fought any reform for F&F.

Personally, I had a 1.2 million loan cross collateralized(sp?) up to 2mil with some other stuff. It could be considered funny biz, but I sold the holdings. I prolly shouldn't have been given that loan based on flucuating income.

But anyway, the lower end stuff is clearly the Dems responsibility, but that lower end stuff was only a % of the overall problem, imo.

Great column by Thomas Frank of the liberal rag "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL".


The GOP Blames the Victim
Capitalism sure is fragile if subprime borrowers can ruin it.

By THOMAS FRANK, WSJ

Two weeks ago, I wrote that the breakdown of the nation's financial industry was undeniably a self-induced injury; that it would finally force conservatives to own up to the wrongheadedness of their deregulatory project; that they couldn't possibly blame the disaster on any of their traditional bogeymen.

But I had forgotten about conservatives' extraordinary instincts for blame-evasion. This is a movement, after all, that blandly recasts its greatest idols as traitors once their popularity has crashed; that routinely sloughs off responsibility for . . . well . . . anything since, by its logic, conservatism has never really been tried in the first place. Consider in this respect Mitt Romney's remarkable speech to the Republican convention a few weeks ago, in which he rallied his party against Washington -- a place his party has controlled, to one degree or another, for nearly three decades -- by listing the city's various institutions and crying, "It's liberal!"

Or consider the way the House Republicans torpedoed the bailout bill a few days ago. The real reason they did it was almost certainly to evade responsibility for an unpopular measure but the announced reason seemed designed to convince the nation's 7-year-olds -- because Nancy Pelosi said something mean.

On economic questions the standard exculpatory maneuver is even simpler. When some free-market scheme blows up, one needs only find an institution of government in close proximity to the wreckage and commence accusing.

Thus we hear from some on the right that the disaster on Wall Street was the handiwork not of those with unbridled pecuniary motives but of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were government-sponsored enterprises and therefore partially exempt from market discipline and of theoretical necessity the sole culprits.

There is no doubt that Fannie and Freddie enabled the subprime neurosis, but for certain conservatives they are virtually the only malefactors worth noting. The dirge goes like this: Fannie and Freddie were buying up subprime mortgages, and they were doing it for (liberal) political reasons. Mortgage originators thus had no choice but to hand out mortgages like candy. Had market forces been in charge, loans would, no doubt, have been administered with a rigor and sternness to make John Calvin blanch.

I asked Bill Black, a professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and an authority on the Savings and Loan debacle of the 1980s, what he thought of the latest blame offensive. He pointed out that, for all their failings, Fannie and Freddie didn't originate any of the bad loans -- that disastrous piece of work was done by purely private, largely unregulated companies, which did it for the usual bubble-logic reason: to make a quick buck.

Most of the mistakes for which we are paying now, Mr. Black told me, were actually made "by four entities that under conservative economic theory should have exercised effective market discipline -- the appraisers, the originators of the mortgages, the rating agencies, and the investment banking firms that packaged the subprime mortgage-backed securities." Instead of "disciplining" the markets, these private actors "served as the four horsemen of the financial apocalypse, aiding the accounting fraud and inflating the housing bubble." It is they, Mr. Black says, who "turned a crisis into a catastrophe."

Ah, but truth is no ally to a conservative with his back to the wall. So much more helpful are the trusty narratives on which the movement was built. So when we have dispatched this first canard, we learn from other conservatives that it is the sub-prime people who are to blame; that by taking out loans they couldn't possibly pay off, these undesirable borrowers have ruined us all.

There is no way to measure the number of people who took out mortgages they knew they couldn't afford, of course, but for what it's worth, a 2007 report by the Mortgage Bankers Association reports that the FBI estimates "80 percent of all reported fraud losses arise from fraud for profit schemes that involve industry insiders." That means the lenders, not the borrowers.

Just imagine the flights of fancy that the theory of borrower malevolence and Wall Street victimization requires conservatives to take: All these no-account folks, you see, got together and forced investment banks to engineer subprime mortgages into highly leveraged securities. Then they tricked all manner of hedge funds and pension funds and financial institutions into buying these lousy products. Just for good measure, these struggling homeowners then persuaded bond-rating agencies to misrepresent the risk associated with these securities.

Now imagine what such a fantastic scheme, if true, would mean for capitalism itself. This economic system, glorified by all, dominates the globe today, bidding prices up and down, forcing entire nations to change their ways to better suit its needs, and yet it is so fragile that when challenged by the weakest members of society and a handful of community organizers it simply crumbles. Thank goodness the Soviets never figured this out.

Write to Thomas@wsj.com

Yes, I do.

I'm telling ya, they are a bunch of thieves. Both sides though. Thats where we disagree.

This is what makes you so irritating to me. You don't actually respond to what I write. You draw up strawman arguments for things I've never said. I never said that dems were angels, or even that they are particularly effective at govt. I've stated instances where I think they are completely wrong (the bailout bill, Russia, not standing up to Bush, releasing strategic oil reserves). I even copied a post that shows I disagree with dems. I just think republicans, especially bush-cheney, have taken corruption and incompetence to entirely new levels. How many repubs have been indicted in the last 8 years. How many more would have been if not for a corrupted, partisan justice dept. i've also stated that i think the 2-party system is a joke because it doesn't really give voters a choice for fundamental changes in governance

I've even stated reasons why liberal policies have been fundamental failures in the past. In the 1960s, many of their policies were based on simpleton theories of right or wrong. Thus, policies were made with tunnel vision, haste, and lack of regard for how people would react to the new policies. Even worse, there was little to no attempt to verify that policies were having the desired effect. As a modern example, look at obama's health care proposal. This is a fundamental shift in policy. It may or may not be a good policy, but we have little idea right now. If I were a politician, I would advocate a number of potentially new programs that would be pilot-tested in smaller localized settings. Thus, if the program had unintended, negative consequences, the program could be refined or scrapped. This is responsible government IMO, but requires a long term mindset. Our govt. is utterly devoid of long term thinking, which has led in part to our current state. Of course, this problem is not just limited to govt., but also to the media and our society as a whole.



i don't have any pollyanna ideas that dems are the saviors of the country or even that they are not in the pocket of corporate america. nonetheless, bushco seems hellbent on discarding any semblance of our justice system, oversight for wall street, food or drugs, the military, or even just a semi-rational foreign policy in general. How much worse must the country get before you concede bush has done more than just 'make some mistakes, like all presidents'? You act as if it is an anomaly that bush is not liked or even respected; however, the asshole has like a 20% approval rating. i know that congress also has a low approval rating, but the numbers of individual are consistently much higher. It is just the body as a whole that has low ratings, partly because they have just passed whatever bush gave them plus kickbacks for special interests for 6 years followed by years 7-8 in which little was accomplished, partly because bush would have vetoed what dems wanted anyways.

when i hear obama prattle on about how important it is for ukraine and georgia to join NATO, i find it infuriating, but he still has a more reasonable stance than mr. bomb bomb iran. hell, obama's initial statement about georgia/russia was right. saakashvilli was an idiot to attack the rebel strongholds. i read that bush/rice repeatedly warned him not to shake up that hornet's nest, but he couldn't help himself. in fact, he has been a shitty leader outside of his support of the west. he is known for corruption and likely went after the rebels to shore up his domestic support.

As far as no change to F&F I say that part is the Dems. Its clear by that video what happened when someone tried to regulate it. Dems blasted the messenger.


I suppose this argument would work if fannie and freddie were solely responsible for the downfall of our economy, but this is just not the case. I suspect that when the final analysis comes out, we'll see that private lenders made many more of the bad loans than fannie and freddie did. Bush's position on fannie and freddie was to completely privatize them, which would likely have led to even more bad loans on their part. If privatized, it is very likely that they would have been less regulated (not more regulated), even under the dems' regulation regime. So, if you want to say the dems were bigger supporters of fannie and freddie, i can't disagree. However, the core problems of our economy go way beyond fannie and freddie. In fact, I suspect their balance sheets are far better off than any of the private mortgage firms going under. It would be very difficult for any mortgage firm to survive a housing bubble/recession. If fannie and freddie were solely to blame, their bailout and govt.'s agreement to make on their bad loans would fix the problems.

However, one can't assign blame for the housing bubble and ignore the efforts at the local and state levels. Governors, mayors, and atty generals (primarily dems, but also some repubs) have been fighting predatory lending for years, but were impeded by the bush-corrupted justice dept. If you want history, look up Roy Barnes in GA and our old friend Eliott Spitzer in NY. So yes, the repubs. wanted to reign in fannie and freddie, but it was primarily to empower unregulated private lenders who were running wild at the time.

I suspect, the root of the mortgage crisis was primarily due to rampant speculation. The availability of cheap credit and the lack of any mortgage oversight led people to buy houses as investments even though they had no understanding of economics or the housing market in general. If I were in the construction business, I would be very worried about my job prospects in the immediate future. There is a glut of houses that will depress prices and inhibit building for years to come. Some economists even advocate for the govt. to knock down houses, just to level off prices for existing home owners. This was all just a house of cards, and the base card has already been pulled out. The fact that many, many home owners took out second mortgages on the perceived value of their homes just indicates that the worst is ahead of us, not behind us.

If anyone is interested in a very good, but long discussion of the lending practices at the heart of this mess, I recommend the following article. I sat through part of a terrible fox news special on the financial crisis that almost entirely ignore the fraud perpetuated at the bottom of the pyramid scheme.

http://www.cjr.org/essay/boiler_room.php?page=all



As of the end of june, florida joined Illinois and California in suing Countrywide, including chief executive Angelo Mozilo. The Illinois and California complaints, particularly, provide useful windows into the gears of the subprime sales machine. The suits allege that the company, as a matter of corporate policy and on a mass scale, engaged in deceptive marketing that “misrepresented” the basic terms of loans—including what interest rates were, whether they were fixed or floating, and what fees would attach—and through changing the terms at the time of closing.

And while they are only allegations, few would argue with California when it asserts that the more onerous the terms of a loan for the borrower—e.g. higher rates, prepayment penalties, etc.—the more global bond investors would pay for it; and is it really in doubt that everyone in the loan-supply chain, including the sales force, got higher pay the more onerous the terms? Or, as California puts it: “The value on the secondary market of the loans generated by a Countrywide branch was an important factor in determining the branch’s profitability and, in turn, branch manager compensation.”

Such incentives would logically set the table for the creation of vast call centers—“loan factories,” where retail sales staff were trained in “high-pressure” sales tactics, complete with scripts, cold calls, databases, etc., to “steer borrowers into riskier loans,” as California alleges. The eighty-one-page Illinois complaint, filed June 25, similarly describes a culture in which traditional banking values were turned on their heads and were aimed overwhelmingly toward “selling” loans, which is the opposite of traditional underwriting.

From 2004, Countrywide led the market in rolling out new “products” that were basically bureaucratic ways of approving a loan to anybody. The complaint said Countrywide threatened to fire underwriters for (my emphasis) “attempting to verify a borrower’s ability to pay.”

As the bank said in ads aimed at brokers:

More ways to say yes! Qualify more of your borrowers with Expanded Criteria programs from Countrywide®, American’s Wholesale Lender®. Countrywide offers some of the most flexible documentation guidelines in the industry.
Remember, this was not some fringe player. It was the firm that around 2004 was the nation’s largest home-mortgage originator. The market leader.

The complaint has plenty of examples of people blown out of homes they already owned by Countrywide products. A sixty-four-year-old widow with payments of $300 a month on a thirty-year, fixed-rate loan is put in a “3/27 interest-only loan with a fixed rate for only the first three years of the loan.” Never mind what it is; she couldn’t afford the $800 payments before the rate adjusted, Illinois says.

I suppose this argument would work if fannie and freddie were solely responsible for the downfall of our economy, but this is just not the case. I suspect that when the final analysis comes out, we'll see that private lenders made many more of the bad loans than fannie and freddie did. Bush's position on fannie and freddie was to completely privatize them, which would likely have led to even more bad loans on their part. If privatized, it is very likely that they would have been less regulated (not more regulated), even under the dems' regulation regime. So, if you want to say the dems were bigger supporters of fannie and freddie, i can't disagree. However, the core problems of our economy go way beyond fannie and freddie. In fact, I suspect their balance sheets are far better off than any of the private mortgage firms going under. It would be very difficult for any mortgage firm to survive a housing bubble/recession. If fannie and freddie were solely to blame, their bailout and govt.'s agreement to make on their bad loans would fix the problems.

However, one can't assign blame for the housing bubble and ignore the efforts at the local and state levels. Governors, mayors, and atty generals (primarily dems, but also some repubs) have been fighting predatory lending for years, but were impeded by the bush-corrupted justice dept. If you want history, look up Roy Barnes in GA and our old friend Eliott Spitzer in NY. So yes, the repubs. wanted to reign in fannie and freddie, but it was primarily to empower unregulated private lenders who were running wild at the time.

I suspect, the root of the mortgage crisis was primarily due to rampant speculation. The availability of cheap credit and the lack of any mortgage oversight led people to buy houses as investments even though they had no understanding of economics or the housing market in general. If I were in the construction business, I would be very worried about my job prospects in the immediate future. There is a glut of houses that will depress prices and inhibit building for years to come. Some economists even advocate for the govt. to knock down houses, just to level off prices for existing home owners. This was all just a house of cards, and the base card has already been pulled out. The fact that many, many home owners took out second mortgages on the perceived value of their homes just indicates that the worst is ahead of us, not behind us.

My statement was...



As far as no change to F&F I say that part is the Dems.


So I never said F&F were soley responsible. I went on to 'share' my own stuff. I built 2 almost identical houses. 1 I sold for 2+ mil and the other I had to throw a nice lot in the deal to make it go. I prolly realized 1.2 or something from the house. The first was when the market was good. The second, obviously, the market wasn't. But I took it in the shorts. I could have walked from that 2nd situation and cried about shit, but I dealt with it and gave up an asset that was partly funded by retirement. So, I agree, speculation was a part of the problem too. I've given and example of that...unfortunately my own. I didn't wan the Gov't to bail me out. I made my choices. I'll deal with them. So all these bitches whinning kind of gets to me.

The housing market out here is so different from Michigan its night and day. You can buy a house and a year later you've realized a 50% gain. When its equity, its hard for peeps not to send their kids to college with it, buy a new car, or even a boat when you have lenders willing to write peeps a check for it. So it isn't just the lower end stuff. There is plenty of middle America or I'll say middle Californians that knew what they were doing but as long as someone is writting them a check. They took it. So thanks to the thieves up in DC, they'll bail everyone out....WITH OUR TAX DOLLARS. Unfortunately, this time it might need to be done. NO ONE will ever know what really would have happened. It might not have been as bad as some said. Who knows. Its done now.

I really appreciate going to Michigan and seeing peeps I grew up with from Detroit to Bay City and bullshitting with them about houses. Some are ecstatic to find out they think their house went up 15-20k over a 10 year period. While in CA we were realizing that in a month. In Michigan houses are homes, out here they are a commodity.

Ok, I need to go get a beer and I've written a bunch of shit that prolly doesn't mean much anyway.

Fuck all those thieves up there in DC. :)

BTW...all my freinds in Michigan are still in their homes, but plenty of peeps have been ousted from their out here. Let the free market happen. Keep Gov't out of our lives.

As you probably know, Tahoe, Fannie and Freddie woes don't have nearly as much to do with the high-priced California markets, because they exceed the conforming loan limits. You (typically) need pricier jumbo loans NOT through Freddie and Fannie, or (less typically) do multiple "families" in the same home.

Which, again, is why I keep saying the F&F part of the problem is the Dems, but it was in no way 100% of the problem. I consder the F&F the lower dollar mortgages. They didn't have much, if anything to do with me on those houses.

FHA does flucuate its limits from area to area. Michigan is lower than CA as an example. I think thats part of what you were saying.

Countrywide to renegotiate mortgages with 10,000 in Michigan

By Jay Greene

Michigan Attorney General Michael Cox announced a settlement today with Countrywide Financial Corp. over allegations the nation’s largest mortgage company engaged in predatory lending.

The settlement means that Countrywide will renegotiate mortgages with more than 10,000 current and former homeowners in Michigan, saving them approximately $129 million in principal and interest payments.

“Through our negotiations, we have provided a helping hand to thousands of Michigan families who are struggling with the foreclosure crisis,” said Cox in a statement. “And, unlike the Wall Street mess, this was no bailout. Countrywide is paying, not the taxpayers.”

The allegations included misleading marketing techniques and incentives for selling loans with risky features.

Cox joined 11 other state attorneys general, including those in Illinois, California, Connecticut and Florida, in filing the lawsuit against Countrywide. Some 400,000 homeowners were involved in the settlement that involves approximately $8.4 billion in loans.

Countrywide also agreed to:

-- Pay more than $9.8 million to assist Michigan homeowners who lost their homes to foreclosure. These funds will also be used for borrower education programs and neighborhood rehabilitation efforts.

-- Pay relocation assistance payments to certain homeowners who go into foreclosure after the date of this settlement.

-- Stop selling subprime and option adjustable-rate mortgage loans in Michigan for two years and impose new limits on the sale of low- or no-documentation loans.

-- Stop an automatic foreclosure process until certain details regarding the mortgage holder’s situation have been verified.

-- Maintain a specified number of staff focused on helping troubled homeowners avoid foreclosure proceedings.

I consder the F&F the lower dollar mortgages. They didn't have much, if anything to do with me on those houses.

While they may not have had much to do with you personally, F&F were very, very much involved in the big dollar "Alt-A" class of mortgages. These are a level above sub-prime but still very high risk and often with little to no documentation of income. Like the rest of the mortgage market, F&F rushed headlong into as many of these as they could get their hands on because they were high return.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/10/04/business/ATTY1WQA.jpg

It is actually interesting to me that F/F were one of the last to snatch up the riskiest sub prime mortgages. According to the NY Times article, many in the govt. wanted F/F to snatch up some of the bad mortgages in 2007 when it became obvious that the market was tanking. I would mark this as the beginning of the bailout.

To generalize, I think repubs wanted to get rid of F/F in favor of private companies. Dems wanted F/F to take more risks like the private companies. In the end, both were wrong, because the whole thing was a sham in the first place. The only difference is who would take the losses. If we're bailing private companies out anyway, it is probably better that F/F has more since we can monitor them more closely. I still think the primary mortgage lenders are the biggest contributors to this mess. Countrywide was a scumbag organization and I get the impression they were better than average.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 679 points, after hitting its lowest point since May 27, 2003 during the session.

I'm seriously starting to consider cashing in my 401K.

Normally, the penalties and tax implications would make that stupid as hell, but not if this keeps up.

I'm seriously starting to consider cashing in my 401K.

Normally, the penalties and tax implications would make that stupid as hell, but not if this keeps up.

Although I'm fully on board with the harbinger of doom bandwagon, I still wouldn't do that--taxes and penalties really are that big. A hard look at your allocations within your 401k however is certainly in order.

I'm seriously starting to consider cashing in my 401K.

Normally, the penalties and tax implications would make that stupid as hell, but not if this keeps up.


Buy high, sell low. Well played Glenn.

Buy high, sell low. Well played Glenn.

Yeah, I get that, but it might be high right now compared to where it will be in a month.

Got a meeting with my planner next week.

-- Stocks tumble at open -- Dow sinks more than 500 points in first 5 minutes of trading.

Yeah, I get that, but it might be high right now compared to where it will be in a month.

Got a meeting with my planner next week.

Don't sell. The buyers are lying in wait. See what Monday brings before you act.

I predict a 1000 point swing by the end of next week.

But I'm going to say which way

There has to be a bottom soon. Right?
please
please
please
please
please
Right?

-- Stocks tumble at open -- Dow sinks more than 500 points in first 5 minutes of trading.
If only it had kept that up for one more hour, nobody would need to worry about the stock market no more.

There has to be a bottom soon. Right?
please
please
please
please
please
Right?
What you're seeeing are the Jane and John Smiths of Anytown USA, armed with internet intellect and Charles Scwab, freaking out as their retirement savings goes down the drain. Hey, fucktards.... the stock market is a "gamble". High risk yields high rewards. Also, if you don't know what the fuck you're doing, DON'T PLAY.

What you're NOT seeing right now are the pro traders who pulled out early, and are lying in wait. The whole idea of buying low is to buy a LOT in a hurry. A few stock here and there ain't gonna do much. There's a lot of $$$$$ out there, but it has yet to be played.

Wait until Tuesday.

^ This post isn't on-topic with that, but man interest rates are still low. You can buy a house for a good price and have low rates.

basically you figure about 700 buck per 100k financed, then add 1% or so for taxes and insurance. So if you have a good job, buying a house (make that buying a home) might not be a bad place to put your money.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/53802.html

A conservative campaign? LOL.

^ This post isn't on-topic with that, but man interest rates are still low. You can buy a house for a good price and have low rates.

basically you figure about 700 buck per 100k financed, then add 1% or so for taxes and insurance. So if you have a good job, buying a house (make that buying a home) might not be a bad place to put your money.

Thats just what I did. I bought a little bungalow in Berkley last month and it costs me less than the two bedroom apartment that I was staying in before. If you have the funds and are confident that you will have a job through all this crap it, you really can get an awesome deal/investment out of it.

That being said I may lose me job...get forclosed on...and lose all the equity....but thats the case with any investment really.

Dow's going up big time...

Thank you President Obama.

If that moron tries to take credit for it, I'm going to die laughing.

Ledezma is terrible.

What you're seeeing are the Jane and John Smiths of Anytown USA, armed with internet intellect and Charles Scwab, freaking out as their retirement savings goes down the drain. Hey, fucktards.... the stock market is a "gamble". High risk yields high rewards. Also, if you don't know what the fuck you're doing, DON'T PLAY.

What you're NOT seeing right now are the pro traders who pulled out early, and are lying in wait. The whole idea of buying low is to buy a LOT in a hurry. A few stock here and there ain't gonna do much. There's a lot of $$$$$ out there, but it has yet to be played.

Wait until Tuesday.

Hmph. I was off by one day.

900 pernts, nice

When he wasn't paying for hookers....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021302783.html

Ledezma is terrible.
At?

At?


Everything.

Existence.

I think it would be a huge mistake to believe that the economic crisis is over because the stock markets are up this week. My personal belief is that we are in for a decade-worth of a lousy economy. The US govt. and the US population is essentially bankrupt in that there is no apparent way for either to pay off their outstanding debts.

In the best case scenario, the global economy continues to grow at its present rate, but the rest of the world stops lending the US so much money. In this case, we’ll have to print more money, which will devalue our currency considerably. At the same time, I doubt that our wages will grow much. Thus, everything we buy will cost much more, but our incomes will be stagnant. Thus, American material wealth has reached its zenith and we’ll become much poorer in a relative sense to emerging economies in the middle east, south and southeast asia, and even Canada. Eventually, manufacturing and other low wage jobs will return to the US because labor costs and other costs of business will decline. We should even develop a trade surplus at some point to balance out our existing debts. The biggest threat to our recovery will be govt. corruption and corporate influence. If we continue to pour money into huge failing conglomerates, we are doomed to fail. Our biggest competitive advantage has been our higher education system and a relative lack of govt. corruption. Hence, transparency will be the key to recovery. We can’t afford another bush-cheney administration regardless of whether dems or repubs are in charge. In this case, the best stock market investments are likely to be made in multinationals whose primary business lies outside the US or in the stock markets of emerging economies. Our stock market can go up and down, but long term investment potential will be very sketchy especially in light of currency devaluation. The unfortunate outcome of the huge income discrepancy is that the rich can run the market up or down whenever they want and the average person is powerless.

In the worst case scenario, we have another global depression a la the 1930s, where no one trusts anyone else and global productivity declines precipitously. I have no idea what would happen in that scenario and I doubt anyone really knows. In that case, it wouldn't matter where your money is.

Anyways, i would put the odds of something similar to scenario 1 at 75% vs. 25% for scenario 2. However, i doubt anyone knows with certainty what will happen. so much is psychological reaction rather than predetermination. it was obvious that we would go through a financial reckoning due to overextended credit, but the fallout of the crisis is an unknown.

What effect would raising tariffs on imported goods have?

I heard the other day that back in the 1930's, tariffs on imported goods supported the US Gov't 100%, by the 1970's it was down to 30 or 40% (I can't recall the specifics) and now today it is less than 2%.

Would job creation and growth of US industries result or would US firms just jack up their prices without the foreign competitors/products to keep them in line?

Simple answer: It's not just goods anymore.

Recession fears help send Dow down more than 700 points at close for the second time ever.

another simple answer is that we don't even have the manufacturing base to make most of what we import anyways. the japanese and chinese were able to use protectionist schemes to prosper economically, but as mxy said, we have little incentive to go protectionist when intellectual property is so easy to steal anyways.

edit: i think this downturn will uncover a lot of downsides to globalization that many expert didn't anticipate (and that i personally didn't anticipate). globalization works much better when everyone is prospering, but could be disasterous when everyone is suffering. the sharp increase in food staples is an example. many people in poor countries had specialized in more profitable agriculture or manufacturing and had little national food reserves to counter the upswing in global food prices.

simple answer #3... the rest of the world can hit us back just as hard with tariffs on our exports. Protectionist trade wars are kind of lose-lose. Especially in a multi-way game where we don't have many exclusive advantages.

In a country that's debasing manufacturing economics, we are EXTREMELY vulnerable to embargoes and poor trade relationships.

For the Quahog voters:

CHINA SAY "U.S.A. DO WHAT WE WANT CUZ U.S.A. NO MAKE SHIRTS." WE SAY "NO" AND U.S.A. GOT NO SHIRTS. NOW WE COLD.

GOTTA START MAKIN SHIRTS. ANYONE HERE CAN MAKE SHIRT?

9/11!

interesting side note: the us put an import quota on japanese cars 25-30 yrs ago. the end result was a huge profit windfall for jap automakers because americans were willing to pay more for the jap cars, but supply had been decreased.

side note 2: one of krugman's theories that led to his nobel prize showed how it is theoretically possible for a rich country to be made better off through protectionist practices. however, despite this finding, krugman has always been an advocate of free trade.

interesting side note: the us put an import quota on japanese cars 25-30 yrs ago. the end result was a huge profit windfall for jap automakers because americans were willing to pay more for the jap cars, but supply had been decreased.

side note 2: one of krugman's theories that led to his nobel prize showed how it is theoretically possible for a rich country to be made better off through protectionist practices. however, despite this finding, krugman has always been an advocate of free trade.

I'm going to ask (maybe tell) this question (granted, feeling like I know the answer, but) isn't japs a fairly bad word? My wife is Japanese and to Japanese peeps, its like the N word or the S word to Hispanics. I thought that was a fairly well known thing. Maybe not..

Comments...

On the first paragraph... but what ended up happening was a larger % of Toyota cars, as an example, were made in the US. I read something a while back where more of most Toyota models these days are manufactured in the US than some Chevy's. Canada manufacturers a lot of parts for Chevy's ( I think I have that right).

Its odd whenever I visit Michigan how many GM products I see though.

side note 2: one of krugman's theories that led to his nobel prize showed how it is theoretically possible for a rich country to be made better off through protectionist practices. however, despite this finding, krugman has always been an advocate of free trade.

His further elaboration on that point was that in practice a government would never be able to micromanage policy deftly enough to get the benefits of protectionism.

I'm going to ask (maybe tell) this question (granted, feeling like I know the answer, but) isn't japs a fairly bad word? My wife is Japanese and to Japanese peeps, its like the N word or the S word to Hispanics. I thought that was a fairly well known thing. Maybe not..

Comments...

On the first paragraph... but what ended up happening was a larger % of Toyota cars, as an example, were made in the US. I read something a while back where more of most Toyota models these days are manufactured in the US than some Chevy's. Canada manufacturers a lot of parts for Chevy's ( I think I have that right).

Its odd whenever I visit Michigan how many GM products I see though.

for the record i don't have any ill regard for the japanese and i edited the post since the ever sensitive tahoe was offended even though i spelled out japanese in the first appearance and only intended the j-word (as tahoe would term it) as an abbreviation.

anyways, i'm pretty sure that we haven't had quotas on car imports in a number of years, so i wouldn't bet that japan builds cars in america because of quotas. one of the reasons american car companies have been building plants in canada is the universal health care provided by the govt., but hey we've got the pride that can only come from deploying the largest military in the world to 'liberate' a country and only kill or displace millions of its residents. meanwhile, we have the best healthcare system in the world as evidence by our standing as the country with 42nd best infant mortality rate. even if it is not the best, it is the most expensive, which is really what is important.

I don't seem to be able to edit the original, so take use this as the politically correct version.


interesting side note: the us put an import quota on japanese cars 25-30 yrs ago. the end result was a huge profit windfall for jpn automakers because americans were willing to pay more for the jpn cars, but supply had been decreased.

side note 2: one of krugman's theories that led to his nobel prize showed how it is theoretically possible for a rich country to be made better off through protectionist practices. however, despite this finding, krugman has always been an advocate of free trade.

I don't seem to be able to edit the original, so take use this as the politically correct version.

Appreciate it.

for the record i don't have any ill regard for the japanese and i edited the post since the ever sensitive tahoe was offended even though i spelled out japanese in the first appearance and only intended the j-word (as tahoe would term it) as an abbreviation.

In defense of Tahoe, he's not being super-sensitive or overly PC there. The word got popular use as a wartime slur and pretty much fell out of common use post-wwII but it's still generally considered offensive. Not that I believe you meant anything bad by it but you'd do well to not get in the habit of falling back on it as a convenient abbreviation because people will tend to do a double take.

Bill Parcells disagrees.

initially, i didn't think tahoe was too sincere in his criticism, but now i realize that he was sincere. i regret using the abbreviation in hindsight, but I honestly wasn't trying to offend. i looked it up on the 'series of tubes' and saw that jpn is the appropriate abbreviation, which i'll use in the future. honestly, i wouldn't run around saying j-p in spoken language, i just use abbreviations in internet posts when possible.

Bill Parcells disagrees.

lolcano......xanadu, all you have to say is "no offense" and then you can say whatever you want and there is no offense taken


That's just what the plays are called

Don't forget to preceed every statement with "No disrespect." It works every time, especially in the NBA.

Xanadu is WRH approved.