[quote]rainjack wrote:
oneforship wrote:
The upside of an Obama Whitehouse = it’s not a Clinton Whitehouse?
We may be pining for the Clinton years before the new baby jesus gets done with us. [/quote]
I sure hope not.
But it might be what we need to overturn the system and get things moving back in the right direction.
[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
And now for a less sanguine view…
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ODYwOTEyZTQyMzc2ZGMwYmEwMTRmN2VjN2I1YTE0M2E=
[/quote]
Good read. Thanks.
[quote]vroom wrote:
dhickey wrote:
vroom wrote:
[i]Look, have you heard of credit default swaps yet? Do you know that they are essentially insurance, but that they weren’t regulated like insurance, such that the companies that sold them did not have to keep reserves in case payment had to be made?
Did you know that mortgages were bundled up and sold as complex instruments, with AAA ratings from the various agencies? Did you know that credit default swaps were used to insure these instruments, and that companies going under were doing so because of having to pay off on credit default swaps?
The fact that lenders were compensated simply to write a mortgage, which was then offloaded to other buyers with a crappy AAA rating, and insured with useless credit default swaps, is the underlying reason for the financial fucking meltdown.
Greed and a blind eye turned when people wanted to skirt the regulations of the insurance business. I’m sure Bush had absolutely no fucking clue, or didn’t care.[/i]
excellent job listing the symtoms. Now let’s see if you’re bright enough to figure out the cause.
Pay attention, this is a big word… GREED. One of the seven deadly sins that the modern day republicans are so fond of claiming is a virtue. It’s a wonder they have been embraced by the Christian groups at all.
It was greed when the rating agencies, having no clue how to rate the mortgage derivatives simply declared them as AAA and accepted their payment.
It was greed when the banks originating mortgages pushed incentives for closing deals and then turned a blind eye on how these mortgages were actually sold to end consumers.
It was greed when credit default swaps were sold with the assumption that housing prices would never go down, such that there was no need to maintain reserves for defaults.
It was greed when unsophisticated purchasers didn’t look closely enough at the terms of their deals and they thought they were getting a great deal on their mortgage from the banks.
It was greed when the fat cats at the top made huge profits on this process, especially when at some point they actually knew how and why housing defaults were increasing but they milked the process for all it was worth.
It was greed when banks, pension funds, and investors around the word saw great low-risk (sic) AAA rated mortgage derivatives and snapped them up.
It was greed when the fat cats mentioned above used their offshore accounts to sell their own companies short when they knew the bottom was going to fall out. Their greatest trick is to have you clamoring for very conditions that let them fleece you blind.
The result, greed has put the general consumer in a crappy situation. Billions have been sucked out of their pensions and investments and put into the accounts of the people at the top who eventually knew exactly what was going on and what would eventually happen when the house of cards fell.
So, where does this leave us. Am I against free markets? Not at all. Am I against capitalism? not at all. However, some intelligent application of regulations could have helped.
It might have been nice if the banks originating a mortgage had to keep some skin in the game. That would have prevented the total offloading of risk.
It might have been nice if banks were restricted from offering predatory lending packages to unsophisticated consumers – such that we never would have been lead to the situation of foreclosures and dropping housing prices.
It might have been nice if ratings agencies were forced to have some skin in the game when they gave AAA ratings. It would have made them at least try to figure out how to realistically rate these instruments instead of slapping on the AAA and accepting their fee.
If might have been nice if companies offering credit default swaps as insurance on these things had of been required to have some reserve in place to pay up in the eventuality that they might eventually be required to pay up. Does AIG ring a bell?
None of these types of regulations would have stopped people from originating mortgages, creating derivative instruments, offering insurance on investments or buying houses. The markets still would have been run by private enterprise seeking profit.
However, some or all of those regulations could have made a difference in the scope of the bubble that we faced and the severity of the collapse when it eventually burst.
Now, if you want to play politics, you can try to blame folks that encouraged loans for those that are less well off - in order to blame government for being involved in the market, due to a stupid ideological bent, but that wouldn’t really address the situation we are facing.
The lack of intelligent oversight with respect to financial activities, while still allowing free market capitalism, is squarely to blame. I can honestly say I truly hope that the Bush administration was merely asleep at the wheel… anything else would be much worse.
Fuck you very much.[/quote]
wordy but wrong. If greed were the issue our economy would be in consistant disarray. Start with understanding the business cycle and then plug in the applicable variables for this mess.
LOL.
Greed is certainly one issue, at least when unrestrained unethical activity creates a crisis of global proportions.
You guys can choose to turn a blind eye and place ALL the blame at the feet of a government program if you want to.
[quote]AssOnGrass wrote:
Noodle_Arms wrote:
I kind of wanted McCain to win so that the Republicans would have to swim in their own shit for the next four years. They created this meltdown, they should have to fix it.
It’s really not fair to pass this situation to a Dem and blame him for not fixing not. It may actually be beyond repair. Let’s hope not.
Explain to me how pushing lending to unqualified borrowers is the Republicans’ fault.[/quote]
You weren’t paying attention when the Republicans deregulated the financial markets?
Explain to me how you managed to fail this.
[quote]vroom wrote:
LOL.
Greed is certainly one issue, at least when unrestrained unethical activity creates a crisis of global proportions.
You guys can choose to turn a blind eye and place ALL the blame at the feet of a government program if you want to.
[/quote]
UH, the unethical activity in question, far from unrestrained, was engaged in by design by the very people who are about to have possibly actually unrestrained control of every corner of our federal government thanks to the easily duped lemmings now populating this nation.
This about as debatable as the sky being up, but that won’t stop people from living in their alternate universe.
The Upside of an Obama Whitehouse?
Other countries don’t hate us as much cuz they got some of that “hope” too…