DescentBB

This one WAS brought to you by the Republicans!

I’m sorry, but the current financial crisis was caused by your friend and mine, called “GREED” and it doesn’t have a political party affilation.

Thank you spidey.

you're spot on.

From the article quoted by Tunnelcat

Reuters. April 28, 2004
......
Since the new CSE rules will apply to the largest brokerages without bank affiliates, SEC Commissioner Harvey Goldschmid said, \"If anything goes wrong, it's going to be an awfully big mess.\"

Yep, looks like Harvey got that one right.

tunnelcat wrote:This one WAS brought to you by the Republicans!

If you truly believe that after all the evidence that shows democrat involvement in the creation and protection of policy that was at the core of causing the current financial meltdown then you are simply stupid.
That is not just some off the cuff ad hominem attack it is a conclusion drawn after observing the discussions that have taken place here in which you blatantly refuse to acknowledge anything that exposes democrat's contribution to the problem. You cling to every unfounded internet chat room rumor and fabrication that supports your ill informed political choice and repeatedly fail to comprehend the material you yourself bring to the argument.

Right now there is conscious effort on the part of many, including most of the main stream media 'journalists', to characterize the problem as a republican/Bush creation, or at least turn a blind eye to the Obama team when they make that assertion. The motive for spreading that lie and/or letting it go unchallenged by the media is clear, elect Obama at all costs!
The facts don't support their assignment of blame to only republicans at all but there are plenty of empty headed voters who will buy into that argument because it sits well with their emotionally driven and intellectually challenged state of mind.
You are a wanna be cheerleader for that team.

Kinda sad that Republicrats have fanbois.

Let's face it Will. Whomever is the administration when things happen carries the can for it. The general public is simply not smart enough for anything else. It doesn't matter when the seeds of the crisis or boom were sown the guy in power at the time it happens gets the credit or the blame, depending on the event. If this all happened next year and McCain was in then it would be his fault same if it was Obama. It was all the Bush admins glory when the market boomed these last 8 years and now that it crashed he gets the pie in the face.

Will,

no personal attacks/name calling please. Preceding it with \"if\" and following it with an explanation doesn't justify it.

-----

In lighter news: Voters infuriated by unexpected breakout of responsibility in Congress

Thanks for the link Lothar.
The next story was even better.
http://nakedloon.com/news/politics/2008 ... scue-bill/

Lothar wrote:Will,

no personal attacks/name calling please. Preceding it with "if" and following it with an explanation doesn't justify it.

I know, and I apologize to the moderator for having to call me down on it. But I can't sincerely apologize for pointing out something that is so wrong so I won't pretend to.
I will admit it is quite possible Tunnelcat isn't stupid and I was totally wrong in my conclusion but the alternative explanation would call into question her character and motives in a way that I wouldn't score well with the moderator anyway so I'll just not dig my hole any deeper......than I just did

Ford Prefect wrote:Let's face it Will. Whomever is the administration when things happen carries the can for it. The general public is simply not smart enough for anything else. It doesn't matter when the seeds of the crisis or boom were sown the guy in power at the time it happens gets the credit or the blame, depending on the event. If this all happened next year and McCain was in then it would be his fault same if it was Obama. It was all the Bush admins glory when the market boomed these last 8 years and now that it crashed he gets the pie in the face.

Normally you would be correct Ford but the media is in the tank for Obama and that isn't a normal phenomenon. The obvious tactic is to ignore the truth so the blame falls on one party and the result of that is to swing the election of the President to the medias candidate! Just wait until they do it every time!
Having our leaders appointed by the likes of Dan Rather - Dan who admits using forged documents to try and undermine the last election. His excuse: "they are false, but accurate" ! WTF?!?!

If I was Obama I'd be insulted! Well, if Obama was half the man I used to think he was, and I was him, I'd be insulted....

So Rather is using the Bush WMD line. \"We lied but we were right in principle\" ?
I am not bothering to follow the U.S. election so I can't say whether or not your media is slanted one way or the other but I hear the same comment from both sides so it should balance out.

I'm a \"just under 50\" guy, and from the perspective of most in the middle-class, I have a pretty good income. My retirement accounts aren't huge for someone my age, but aren't (weren't) too bad either. By most standards, they would also be considered pretty well diversified and well managed for someone my age.

So far, this year, I've lost a fair amount more in my accounts than I've taken in in salary. To put it another way, if I went to work every day this whole year, and never spent a dime of what I earned, my net worth would still be less now than it was at the beginning of the year. And that's not even including what I'm figuring to be about a $100K loss in value on my house. I'm not as worried about that part because I still own more of it than I don't, and I plan on staying in it for probably another 20 yrs.

The democrats MIGHT have been well-meaning in their prop up of the FM's, and the whole sub-prime lending concept, OR they might have just been pandering to votes. In either case, as was quite clear from those CSPAN recordings, they pompously and arrogantly ignored the warnings and blocked ALL attempts to head this mess off, but it certainly didn't end there. Greed on all fronts followed, from the folks that wanted a bigger home than they could afford, to the house flippers, to those &^%%$& mortgage brokers that pushed everything through as fast as they could, to the insurance companies that tried to offload all of their risk, to the entire freakin' federal government for not SCREAMING about this earlier.

It also irritates me to no end that the masses flock to the democrats for the \"economy\". All of the promises to make things better: taxing those greedy corporations, taxing cap gains, free everything to everyone. Yeah, help the little guys by taxing their greedy employers. These guys have no clue.

I think it WAS necessary to pass SOMETHING to free up credit flow, but notice that the market went down again today AFTER it passed. I'm starting to think the market is finally starting to watch the election polls.

end vent

I’m glad somebody has realized that \"living\" in a house is its actual value.

Now that the billis passed, let me ask a more salient question or two.
First how is the disbursement of the money to be administered. Who will actually write the multibillion dollar check and to what banks will the money be going? As I see it most of the large banks are being bought out so why would those banks need money. Does this mean then that only Fannie and Freddy get the bailout money? Will Barney Frank and Chris Dodd still have oversight of these institutions? And still fail to see any problems that may arise?

Secondly what happens when the banks get the money. Will they do as the Euro banks are doing and simply stuff it in some interest bearing account? Are there any rules stating the recipient banks have to loan out the bailout money? Clue me in.

Will, I'm beginning to suspect Tunnelcat is nothing more than a Democratic Underground Member Board (D.U.M.B) operative. These operatives go out seeking forums to inject totally useless and unsubstantiated \"facts\" in the hope of swaying votes. To date I have read nothing but talking points from TC. As her profile lists her as a retired geologist, I would of thought her posts would be more fact driven.

Well I think the 700 Billion is going to be used to buy up bad debt, not given to banks, but I could be wrong. There was other money set aside for “Bailing out Banks” and such.

Edit: I do believe tc plays Descent.

The 700 billion is going to be paid to Fannie and Freddie and AIG and whoever else is holding the bad mortgages. It's like buying stock after the value of the stock drops to almost zero so the person who sold it to you can get their money back. It does nothing to stop those organizations from continuing to make bad decisions, it does nothing to change the rules or lack of following the rules that led to the problem.

If you want to find the real beneficiaries of the 700 billion dollar purchase of bad paper watch and see who gets to broker the sales of the 700 billion dollars! What's the commission on brokering 700 billion dollars of a security? And then when the government re-sells those securities later who gets to broker that deal?

And in the meantime the new legislation allows judges to tell the banks and other lenders how much they get to charge. So if you have a mortgage of $200,000 you aren't paying it the bank would foreclose on you and sell your house to get their money back but now a judge can tell the bank to lower your interest rate...or reduce the principle...or re schedule the payments...or all of the above!
So how many judges are going to let banks foreclose on people? Not many right, after all the whole purpose of the new law was to have judges intervene and do something right?!? How many will be told by the judge that the bank is going to have to reduce that $200,000 mortgage down to $100,000 and reduce their interest rate from 8% down to 2% and reschedule the payments from a 30 year to a 45 year plan? Sounds good for the home owner, sounds like it's going to kill the mortgage security business and ultimately drive the cost of mortgages up for all the rest of us because the business of lending to home buyers is going to be very close to non-profitable.

The whole problem rose from bad legislation and ignoring regulation in favor of pandering to home buyers who can't afford a home and big money traders on wall street. So the solution they offer is more bad legislation and pandering to everyone who dared resist their 700 billion dollar plan...which is why it is now the 850 billion dollar plan!!!

F^@#ing incredible!!!

Ford Prefect wrote:...I am not bothering to follow the U.S. election so I can't say whether or not your media is slanted one way or the other but I hear the same comment from both sides so it should balance out.

Ford, it really doesn't balance or news like the following would be in all the major media instead of just FOX News at least as much as Ken Lay and Ennron was:

"C’mon, he writes housing and banking laws and his boyfriend is a top exec at a firm that stands to gain from those laws?" the aide told FOX News. "No media ever takes note? Imagine what would happen if Frank’s political affiliation was R instead of D? Imagine what the media would say if [GOP former] Chairman [Mike] Oxley’s wife or [GOP presidential nominee John] McCain’s wife was a top exec at Fannie for a decade while they wrote the nation’s housing and banking laws."

And here's a bit of personal observation if you are a democrat supporter and are able to disregard these facts simply because it's reported by FOX:
You are swallowing the democrat Kool-aid and screwing up everyones future...so thank you very F^@#ing much you morons!!!

Oh joy! I just found this little tidbit about the new bill (the old one was 3 pages, the new one is over 400 pages...)

Some loopholes exist. It's possible for a bank to buy $100 billion of bad debt--perhaps in the form of subprime mortgages that are becoming quickly worthless-- declare bankruptcy, and sell it to the Treasury Department for $120 billion, or $200 billion. In other words, although the Treasury Department is supposed to look out for the best interests of taxpayers, there's no law forbidding such profits in the case of firms involved in bankruptcy, receivership, or mergers.

Will you see a bit worked up over all this. Much more than on the usual political shenanigans that go on every day. The U.S. has spent far more than $850B killing passers-by and their own soldiers in Iraq and I don't recall so many Fs and ampersands in your posts. Haliburton alone must have extracted nearly that much from Uncle Sam's pockets. Are you getting your account statements with the total in brackets? (I know I am)

That’s a hell of a spin, if I ever heard one.

Spidey wrote:That’s a hell of a spin, if I ever heard one.

its called being uninformed Spidey

Ford Prefect wrote:Will you see a bit worked up over all this. Much more than on the usual political shenanigans that go on every day. The U.S. has spent far more than $850B killing passers-by and their own soldiers in Iraq and I don't recall so many Fs and ampersands in your posts. Haliburton alone must have extracted nearly that much from Uncle Sam's pockets. Are you getting your account statements with the total in brackets? (I know I am)

No, I only have about $2000 in stock and maybe $10,000 in the wifes and my IRA. Basically all we have is in two houses, one we own and are selling it and another we own 25% of and are planning to buy out the other owners using the funds from selling the first house as soon as we can.
Trust me if money was the motive for my politics I'd be a democrat for sure!

I'm madder than usual because the whole dynamic is changing from slightly screwed up to silly mad crazy end of the Great American Experiment screwed up!

We are about to see a very liberal guy elected President probably only because the old myth that democrats are better for the economy than republicans. If the Democrats hadn't voted to let Fannie and Freddy continue to implode Fannie and Freddy wouldn't have incurred a trillion dollars of additional bad mortgages just between 2005 and today. Without that giant load of bad paper none of the other banks and insurance companies would have failed and there would be no catastrophic financial crisis.
So basically the democrats were, at the very least, a prime cause for the economy tanking and the media is not just letting them off the hook completely for doing it, but they are also letting them hang it all on the republicans simply because it's an election year and they collectively want Obama as President!!?!
And now those same democrats are the ones in charge of a trillion dollars of bailout money they just added to all our families debt!!

It's way beyond just a little bias as usual. It's frikken bizzaro land! Back in the 1700's this was the stuff of violent revolt and revolution!

Remember the Sub-prime mortgage crisis? That is what all this mess started out being called. And here is an excellent (and very funny) interview explaining it.

Will wrote:We are about to see a very liberal guy elected President probably only because the old myth that democrats are better for the economy than republicans.

Not so sure that is a myth, at least for this particular Democrat and Republican. A recent poll of economists shows overwhelming agreement with Obama's economic plans as opposed to McCain's.

The economist wrote:"A survey of academic economists by The Economist finds the majority -- at times by overwhelming margins -- believe Mr Obama has the superior economic plan, a firmer grasp of economics and will appoint better economic advisers. (...)

Strikingly, this is the case even among the republican economists.

Even among Republicans Mr Obama has the edge: 46% versus 23% say Mr Obama has the better grasp of the subject.

That being said…

This current mess we are in was caused by the breaking of the housing bubble, now people can blame whoever they want for that.

But try to remember a few things…

What effect did 911 have on the economy, how about Katrina or oil prices as well as other things you can’t blame on anyone in our government.

Now here we are at election time, pointing our crooked little fingers, trying to get “our” guy elected. Since when is it the Presidents job to run the economy anyway?

I think it’s time we appointed a non partisan commission to deal with the economy, and leave it to them. Because I’m sick and tired of being the sucker in the middle.

McCain = 4 more years of Bush.
Obama = going back to Carter.

Take your pick, I thought we needed change!

BTW…polls are meaningless IMHO, due to the fact that they are subject to manipulation.

Pandora wrote:

Will wrote:We are about to see a very liberal guy elected President probably only because the old myth that democrats are better for the economy than republicans.

Not so sure that is a myth, at least for this particular Democrat and Republican. A recent poll of economists shows overwhelming agreement with Obama's economic plans as opposed to McCain's.

The economist wrote:"A survey of academic economists by The Economist finds the majority -- at times by overwhelming margins -- believe Mr Obama has the superior economic plan, a firmer grasp of economics and will appoint better economic advisers. (...)

Strikingly, this is the case even among the republican economists.

Even among Republicans Mr Obama has the edge: 46% versus 23% say Mr Obama has the better grasp of the subject.

Without having read your links yet I go in with two very big preconconcieved notions on why the myth is definitely myth:
1) How in the world can they reconcile Obama's incredibly large spending plans and tax increases without recognizing the impact it will have on the economy in it's current wounded condition? I think they must be judging it in a vacuum of a perfect world not in the current condition, I'll see when I read it and consider contrary evaluation.

2) The current lousy economic conditions are a product of very bad democrat policy!! How good for the economy was creating the mechanism to saddle our financial system with trillions of dollars in bad debt just so they could turn people who can't afford it but vote demo into homeowners? Is that democrats improving our economy or pandering for votes on the back of the taxpayers?!?
Was the refusal to accept the regulators warnings on Freddy and Fannie the democrats helping our economy?
Is the media's refusal to report the democrats guilt and instead help the democrats perpetuate the myth that the crisis is somehow is the deregulation policy of the republicans that caused it when in fact it was democrats ignoring the regulators for personal gain?!? How the hell can those media elitist sleep at night?

Insanity would be the only acceptable excuse for this behavior and I don't believe for a minute they are insane. They are a power hungry virus that infects our political process just as bad if not worse than the democrat or republican machines!

I'm willing to accept that both parties evolved into what they are because we let them but the elite media club deciding for us that we should accept the one virus while fighting the other is what I'd call an imminent threat! They are going to be the beginning of the end of our democracy if they are allowed to take control of the electoral process this way. It's not just unethical and grossly irresponsible it's treasonous!

Without objectivity and integrity the media becomes the controlling power of our government not unlike a King.
The next Tea Party should start at CNN tower and instead of tossing the cargo in the harbour we should be tossing the guilty off the roof!

OK Pandora, I read the poll link..or at least the first little bit. I stopped when I finished reading this part:

Our survey is not, by any means, a scientific poll of all economists. We e-mailed a questionnaire to 683 research associates, all we could track down, of the National Bureau of Economic Research, America’s premier association of applied academic economists, though the NBER itself played no role in the survey. A total of 142 responded, of whom 46% identified themselves as Democrats, 10% as Republicans and 44% as neither.

You really have to be kidding me to think this is representative of reality! Even if the undeclared are split evenly the \"poll\" is loaded 2 to 1 in favor of democrats!
You are employing the same tactic as every liberal journalist who 'reports' on the election!
bull★■◆●!
The democrats definitely did a better job of mixing and distributing the Kool-Aid this cycle!!

Pandora wrote:A recent poll of economists...

Chicago Boyz: Why Most of Us No Longer Read The Economist. The poll politically driven, statistically invalid analysis.

P.S. how many of these "economists" saw the housing bubble coming? I've been talking about it for years with my friend Tim, who runs seattlebubble.com.

Will Robinson wrote:OK Pandora, I read the poll link..or at least the first little bit. I stopped when I finished reading this part:

Our survey is not, by any means, a scientific poll of all economists. We e-mailed a questionnaire to 683 research associates, all we could track down, of the National Bureau of Economic Research, America’s premier association of applied academic economists, though the NBER itself played no role in the survey. A total of 142 responded, of whom 46% identified themselves as Democrats, 10% as Republicans and 44% as neither.

So you didn't read what they say two sentences further down?

The Economist wrote:Still, even if we exclude respondents with a party identification, Mr Obama retains a strong edge...

So, you seem to get similar results even if you just look at the independents, where there should be no such skew (unless you think all those that describe themselves as independents are actually closet Democrats). And even if you look at the - granted, very few - republicans that cared to take the poll, you get the same pattern. I think its not so easy to explain this pattern away, if it is so consistent across the sampled groups...

Lothar wrote:Chicago Boyz: Why Most of Us No Longer Read The Economist. The poll politically driven, statistically invalid analysis.

Eh? I don't see much statistics going on there beyond the mere description of the data. Also, in your link I couldn't find anything that would invalidate the poll. The only argument is, more or less, "i don't like the result so there must be an error", i.e., (1) all those independents (and probably the republicans) are closet democrats, and (b) it cannot be that only so few economists are Republicans.

Both of these arguments - both arguments from incredulity, really - cannot account for the fact that the result stays the same even if you look into the three groups - Democrats, Republicans, Independents - separately. So as I said in the response to Will, I don't think that it is so easy to explain the result away.

Actually I do believe that most independants are closet liberals…errr Democrats. Just look at the ones on this board and .com that purport to be independent, like Beowulf…yea he’s independent, yea and I’m the tooth fairy.

heh!

You said it yourself Pandora - \"I don't see much statistics going on there ...\". Neither do I. It's just a survey. Doesn't qualify as information; barely qualifies as data.

\"The only argument is ...\"? Maybe another (of numerous) possible arguments is that they should have just told us that they were going to do a survey of leftist academic economists, so why are we taking the results with any level of seriousness? In other words, there is nothing really to argue about here, since we just asked a bunch of fish if they think water is wet.

So, you're also saying that both the Independents and the Republicans that took the poll are actually lefties?

could be?

and how would we know?

Republican is not congruent with Conservative any more than Democrat is congruent with Liberal. There are social liberals and fiscal conservatives and vice versa.

Ditto to that dissent. I consider myself an Independent, NOT a liberal. I don't believe in most of the more extreme liberal ideas that border on socialism and I have voted Republican many times in the past. But it seems that if you disagree with the Republicans in any fashion, you get labeled a liberal. Democrats will do the same thing to Independents that consider themselves fiscal conservatives who don't like their tax dollars being spent on every crazy thing possible. A lot of these people don't consider themselves Republicans either.

Spidey wrote: yea and I’m the tooth fairy.

and here I just thought you liked frilly things.

Pandora wrote:Both of these arguments - both arguments from incredulity, really - cannot account for the fact that the result stays the same even if you look into the three groups - Democrats, Republicans, Independents - separately. So as I said in the response to Will, I don't think that it is so easy to explain the result away.

You're assuming the poll is done with some scientific goal of gathering statistics in a reasonable way. The poll takers admit that it isn't scientific, that they "contacted as many as they could get a hold of"...what, as many as they had in their email lists? Who is they? Do they have a random sample of these "associates" that they can get a hold of or only a sample of associates that run the same circles as they do?

It is really silly to use this so called poll to support your position.
Why not just look at opposing arguments from economically minded people who actually take apart Obama's and McCains plan and decide for your self if Obama really has the right plan for today's conditions! Forget whether or not you can find a room full of select scholars who would agree that Obama's plan is generally more acceptable to them?

This election isn't taking place in a hypothetical time and place, it is here and now and raising taxes is usually very bad for stimulating a struggling economy.

Second of all, it isn't the merits of either candidates plan that has me pissed off, it's the media's blatent attempt to let the democrats/Obama deflect the responsibility they certainly own for the meltdown and instead falsely accuse the republicans for causing it so they can push Oabam over the top!!

I could give a ratts ass if a bunch of egg heads think Obama is going to appoint better advisors so they feel warm and fuzzy with him! I want to know do you lefties really think Obama is so damn magical that we can do away with an objective media from now on? You let the Genie out of the bottle and you'll never get it back in!
From now on it's going to be representatives appointed completely by the media. Just how long do you suppose the current crew in charge will have that power before the highest bidder takes over their companies and jobs and starts dictating which candidates that get to run!!!! I know we all talk about it being that way in hyperbolic ranting from time to time but now its about to be here for real, full time!
Are you ready for that?!?!

This is cutting off your nose to spite your face, it's cutting off democracy to have a lousy four or eight years of a guy who isn't going to do anything new or impressive...and then what? Five or six media mogels hire and fire their anchors to set up the next two choices? It's frikken World Wide Wrestling Elections!!!