IT'S NOT A GAME!

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 10:05 am

This has GOT to be the best comment on our Wall Street mess I've ever seen anyone put out. No namby-pamby touchy-feely 'lets-make-sure-people-feel-OK-in-this-bad-economy' that most of the TV news talking heads spout out each day. This time John Stewart goes straight for the jugular, with raw emotion. OUCH! It may be painful to watch, but I almost stood up and cheered Stewart on, even though I don't harbor any dislike for Jim Cramer, just the Wall Street crooks that think this is all a game to them.

You can read the excellent comments by conservative pundit Andrew Sullivan along with the full Daily Show video here:

To Catch a Predator

Or go straight to Hulu and see the full Daily Show here:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/62203/the-dai ... ar-12-2009

Note: I refuse to go to the Daily Show or Comedy Central's website. They require enabling Flash third-party storage just for the privilege of watching their videos. (This allows them to store more than 100 kilobytes of data on your computer that can be used as spyware. It's worse than third-party cookies. Stupid Viacom!)

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 10:56 am

That was brutal.

Dakatsu · Post by **Dakatsu** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 11:15 am

He went CNN Crossfire on his ass

Gooberman · Post by **Gooberman** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 11:48 am

I watched it, and my main impression was that of all the people that need their jugular gone for, Jim Cramer is pretty low on that list.

It be a shame if he becomes \"the face\" for this, because by going on the show he strikes me as a guy that really does want to help.

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 12:15 pm

And the blame game goes on…

dissent · Post by **dissent** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 2:21 pm

Gooberman wrote:I watched it, and my main impression was that of all the people that need their jugular gone for, Jim Cramer is pretty low on that list.

x10.

Certainly Wall St. has a share of the blame, but one piece of the pie is not the whole pie. There are plenty of other guilty parties in this whole mess, including numerous government entities and individuals (who are currently scrambling to cover their butts). Scapegoating one or two groups is only going to ensure that this whole thing happens again, and sooner rather than later.

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 4:44 pm

can you post a link for those of us who Hulu gives a giant middle finger to?

AlphaDoG · Post by **AlphaDoG** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 6:04 pm

That's not the video in the topic, but it's enlightening non the less.

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 8:46 pm

Most of you have missed the real sad part. While Crammer is a legitimate ass, no one was taking him to task until he dared criticize Obama's economic policy (or lack of). So in true liberal style, attack the messenger trumps attack the message. This happened with Joe the Plumber also. The demoscammers methodology of demonizing any who dare find fault is perhaps the biggest concern we should all have.

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 10:04 pm

You’re right, I missed that, but then I don’t watch the guy…so sue me.

flip · Post by **flip** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 10:14 pm

Seems to me the Achilles heel was the housing market. Taking a bunch of B-rated high risk loans, packaging them together then stamping a low risk A-rating on it is fraud. I can't help but think these intellectuals, who carry advanced degrees in math and economics, knew what the effect was gonna be.

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 11:03 pm

The “trigger” was the housing market, the “Achilles heel” so to speak of any economy is Psychology, and what people decide to do when things go wrong.

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 12:34 am

woodchip wrote:Most of you have missed the real sad part. While Crammer is a legitimate ass, no one was taking him to task until he dared criticize Obama's economic policy (or lack of). So in true liberal style, attack the messenger trumps attack the message. This happened with Joe the Plumber also. The demoscammers methodology of demonizing any who dare find fault is perhaps the biggest concern we should all have.

hey everybody! let's attack a host who actually has the BALLS to call someone on their bs! Are you doing the same thing that you're accusing the dems of? naah, you're better than them!

Dakatsu · Post by **Dakatsu** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 2:25 am

woodchip wrote:Most of you have missed the real sad part. While Crammer is a legitimate ass, no one was taking him to task until he dared criticize Obama's economic policy (or lack of). So in true liberal style, attack the messenger trumps attack the message. This happened with Joe the Plumber also. The demoscammers methodology of demonizing any who dare find fault is perhaps the biggest concern we should all have.

He and CNBC were attacked because Rick Santelli bailed out of coming on the Daily Show, not because of evil liberals, commies, etc.

I love how you relate everything to partisan politics

CUDA · Post by **CUDA** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 7:07 am

Dakatsu wrote:
woodchip wrote:Most of you have missed the real sad part. While Crammer is a legitimate ass, no one was taking him to task until he dared criticize Obama's economic policy (or lack of). So in true liberal style, attack the messenger trumps attack the message. This happened with Joe the Plumber also. The demoscammers methodology of demonizing any who dare find fault is perhaps the biggest concern we should all have.
He and CNBC were attacked because Rick Santelli bailed out of coming on the Daily Show, not because of evil liberals, commies, etc.

I love how you relate everything to partisan politics

because everything IS partisan politics. wake up Dakatsu

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 8:16 am

Ferno wrote:
woodchip wrote:Most of you have missed the real sad part. While Crammer is a legitimate ass, no one was taking him to task until he dared criticize Obama's economic policy (or lack of). So in true liberal style, attack the messenger trumps attack the message. This happened with Joe the Plumber also. The demoscammers methodology of demonizing any who dare find fault is perhaps the biggest concern we should all have.
hey everybody! let's attack a host who actually has the BALLS to call someone on their bs! Are you doing the same thing that you're accusing the dems of? naah, you're better than them!

Did you carefully read what I posted or are you knee jerking ? The host is not whom I'm attacking.

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 8:18 am

Dakatsu wrote:
woodchip wrote:Most of you have missed the real sad part. While Crammer is a legitimate ass, no one was taking him to task until he dared criticize Obama's economic policy (or lack of). So in true liberal style, attack the messenger trumps attack the message. This happened with Joe the Plumber also. The demoscammers methodology of demonizing any who dare find fault is perhaps the biggest concern we should all have.
He and CNBC were attacked because Rick Santelli bailed out of coming on the Daily Show, not because of evil liberals, commies, etc.

Are you like 13 years old and still wishing you were being breast fed?

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 8:20 am

Spidey wrote:You’re right, I missed that, but then I don’t watch the guy…so sue me.

I don't watch him either. Feel better?

Lothar · Post by **Lothar** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 10:08 pm

flip wrote:I can't help but think these intellectuals, who carry advanced degrees in math and economics, knew what the effect was gonna be.

I don't think many of them knew. It's not as though they positioned themselves to take advantage of the collapse.

I think what happened is, essentially, at each step of the way, someone added a tiny bit of fraud to the system... but none of the analysts managed to account for the fact that every other analyst was adding a tiny bit of fraud. Nobody could tell, just from looking at their own part, what they'd built. It was only outsiders, who were looking at prices and saying "wtf?", who realized that there was a house of cards in place.

AlphaDoG · Post by **AlphaDoG** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 11:38 pm

Lothar wrote: I don't think many of them knew. It's not as though they positioned themselves to take advantage of the collapse.

I think what happened is, essentially, at each step of the way, someone added a tiny bit of fraud to the system... but none of the analysts managed to account for the fact that every other analyst was adding a tiny bit of fraud. Nobody could tell, just from looking at their own part, what they'd built. It was only outsiders, who were looking at prices and saying "wtf?", who realized that there was a house of cards in place.

I wish I could believe that, but in my estimation, all them people knew WELL in advance, that the sell off was about to commence.

flip · Post by **flip** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 11:50 pm

Yeah I'm still giving it the benefit of the doubt, BUT, truth is they brought down the whole worlds economy doing what they did. You mean to tell me there were NO safeguards to keep that from happening? If that's the truth then a one world government is sure to follow soon and by necessity must.

10Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.

11And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more:

12The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble,

13And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.

14And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all.

15The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing,

16And saying, Alas, alas that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls!

17For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,

18And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city!

19And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.

Being a Christian I always wonder how current events relate to prophecy. America for a fact industrialized the whole world. We were the most powerful and rich nation on the face of the Earth for many years. Our money IS or at least was the standard. I can't help but see striking similarities with that verse and our current predicament. My question is this to all. As precarious as things are at the moment, if the bottom does fallout, and it causes a ripple effect throughout the whole world, what kind of currency would we end up with on the other side of it?

Dakatsu · Post by **Dakatsu** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 12:34 pm

woodchip wrote:
Dakatsu wrote:
woodchip wrote:Most of you have missed the real sad part. While Crammer is a legitimate ass, no one was taking him to task until he dared criticize Obama's economic policy (or lack of). So in true liberal style, attack the messenger trumps attack the message. This happened with Joe the Plumber also. The demoscammers methodology of demonizing any who dare find fault is perhaps the biggest concern we should all have.
He and CNBC were attacked because Rick Santelli bailed out of coming on the Daily Show, not because of evil liberals, commies, etc.
Are you like 13 years old and still wishing you were being breast fed?

I don't know how I am supposed to reply to this; you infer that Cramer was attacked because he criticized Obama's economic plans, but he, Cramer, took offense to this episode:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episod ... eId=220250

That sparked the final interview, not his remarks...

EDIT: This is probably more important...
EDIT: I guess I forgot the other link from my last edit, but it was the episode from March 9th.

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 1:00 pm

Dak, ask yourself this question: If Cramer never criticized Obama's economic policy, do you think we would of heard anything about how Cramer ran his business? Remember, Cramer is a big time democratic supporter (or was up until now)and as such you heard nothing about him beforehand. So in the end, the whole Crammer bashing episode was done only to divert you from Crammers message of bad economic policies. Did you hear anyone in the news discussing what Obama was accused of by Cramer? If not then the diversion worked perfectly.

Lothar · Post by **Lothar** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 1:58 pm

AlphaDoG wrote:I wish I could believe that, but in my estimation, all them people knew WELL in advance, that the sell off was about to commence.

How many of them got out of RE and put their money elsewhere beforehand? How many of them took the time to find investments that didn't contain much RE and shifted over to those? Personally, I think most of them drank their own kool-aid -- they believed RE would continue to go up as long as they kept packaging loans together and reselling them, and they could keep getting their cut.

People who knew the market was going to tank would've done what I did the last few years: put all the money into CDs or a Money Market account with a guaranteed return, wait for everything to drop 40%, and then buy into the stock market again.

flip wrote:You mean to tell me there were NO safeguards to keep that from happening?
...

Being a Christian I always wonder how current events relate to prophecy.... As precarious as things are at the moment, if the bottom does fallout, and it causes a ripple effect throughout the whole world, what kind of currency would we end up with on the other side of it?

There were no safeguards to prevent this from happening. What happened was a direct result of the removal of safeguards -- Fannie and Freddy were the "safety net" for all the other banks' bad loans, and the government acted as their "safeguard", only those 2 entities have more debt than the publicly-held debt from the rest of the government COMBINED (from 2006: US publicly-held debt $4.9 trillion; Fannie+Freddy+operations $5.2 trillion). So we were looking at a huge amount of bad debt being created, and no safety net big enough to deal with it.

I don't think we're looking at a single-currency world as fallout from this. If anything, I think we're more likely to see governments trying to NOT tie themselves to other governments that could cripple them with their retarded economic policies. There are plenty of countries in the EU that are unhappy with how slacker nations like Italy and France keep dragging them down, and I think many other nations that have thought about forming such economic coalitions will heed their warning.

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 4:23 pm

Hey guys, here's the true architect of this disaster, David X. Li, with the help of our politicians and greedy Wall Street and bank financial managers. Troubling, he no longer lives in the U.S. He went back to China to head up China International Capital Corporation to head up the RISK MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT! Time to put my tin hat on. I smell an impending screw job for the U.S. Remember boys and girls, China owns the largest chunk of our present treasury debt due to the continuing U.S./China trade imbalance. To read is to understand. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

FINANCIAL DISASTER

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 5:58 pm

“This article is utterly stupid, and represents typical journalistic hogwash. Whoever wrote this piece understands nothing about finance or the sources of the current crisis. Blaming everything on the Gaussian copula (or any other quantitative methodology) is beyond ridiculous and does not warrant a serious rebuttal.”

At least some people still use critical thinking…

But this is the bestest quote of all…

“The formula was just window dressing for one of the simplest scams of all time: making a bet you can't cover. In lawful societies, people who do this go to jail. In criminal circles, they get broken legs. In our oligarchical kleptocratic society, they get bonuses and bailouts.”

dissent · Post by **dissent** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 6:52 pm

tunnelcat wrote:FINANCIAL DISASTER

Nice find, tc.

or, more like these comments

This article is utter sensationist non-sense, it's akin to blaming the inventor of cars for causing car accident. I didn't expect (or want to) to see this type of crap on Wired.

I think this article is way too critical of David Li. "The Formula That Killed Wall Street" is so inappropriate, it was the IMPROPER USE of this formula by less qualified I-bankers that destoryed Wall Street.

so yeah, I think that the maker of the tool does not necessarily get to have all of the guilt laid at his/her doorstep. People that associate themselves with the tool and misuse it, either through ignorance or malice, also get to share in the blame.

flip · Post by **flip** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 9:11 pm

How many of them got out of RE and put their money elsewhere beforehand?

They didn't have to. Looks to me as if they knew they couldn't go under. They made themselves rich with shady deals, got bailed out by the government to avoid catastrophic collapse and now they get large bonuses too?????? Seems like we may be underestimating these guys. Looks like they had all bases covered and a great deal of foresight.

There are plenty of countries in the EU that are unhappy with how slacker nations like Italy and France keep dragging them down, and I think many other nations that have thought about forming such economic coalitions will heed their warning.

Hate to play devils advocate here, but this is exactly why I think a one world government is inevitable. The only way to keep such shenanigans from happening again is to draw it all under the same net. At this point how can any other government have confidence in us, or we them, that this won't happen again?
That's only possible of course if the bottom falls out and there's world wide collapse but that's still a definite possibility at this point, or now as we know, anytime in the future.
We already have a global economy, and we are already invested in each others markets. So the only thing that makes the most sense is to bring all things under one authority.

dissent · Post by **dissent** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 10:18 pm

flip wrote:... The only way to keep such shenanigans from happening again is to draw it all under the same net. ....

No; but other than that I found your last comment utterly hilarious.

flip · Post by **flip** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 10:34 pm

Eh? I don't get it dissent. What exactly are you saying no to, and what exactly was hilarious?

dissent · Post by **dissent** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 1:37 am

Ok.

No, I disagree that \"the only way to keep such shenanigans from happening again is to draw it all under the same net\". One of the points of the last article tunnelcat posted was that \"they\" (the whiz kids, the technocrats, the investment bankers, the markets, the bond slicers-and-dicers, etc) thought that they had their mathematical bases covered, and that these new statistical techniques (Xi's \"Gaussian cupola function\" methods) were the correct way to model and determine the risk of these new financial products. Turns out they were wrong.

I don't think having it \"under the same net\" was the problem at all. What happened was that \"they\" failed to properly scale up their little process. The analogy I have here is to the chemical process industry. When we develop a new process chemistry in the laboratory, we don't just rush out and think we can build a full scale plant based on a few experiments in benchtop glassware. No, the process has to be scaled up in steps of larger and larger size, eventually resulting in building what's called a \"pilot plant\", which is built on a large enough scale that chemists and engineers feel they have a decent chance of taking data from such a process unit (producing, say tens or a few hundred pounds per day of products from this new process) and then scaling it up to a full-blown commercial scale plant (where you may be producing on the order of thousands or tens of thousands (or more!) pounds per day of product from your new process.

This is what the financial wizards failed to do - they didn't test to see whether their method would \"scale-up\" successfully on a smaller scale before unleashing it on the full financial market. They essentially built a commercial scale \"plant\" of a derivatives market based only on a little \"glassware\"-scale tinkering. But scale-up always seems to reveal issues that are critical on a large scale, that just don't occur or are not possible to observe on a smaller scale. That's why chemical companies spend big bucks on their smaller and pilot-scale research efforts, because the cost of a commercial plant is megabucks or gigabucks, a substantial risk.

So I don't see it as a problem of insufficient oversight, I see it as a problem of hubris (and ignorance) - and if you think the bureaucrats in our government aren't cocky enough, just wait til you see the bureaucrats in a \"world\" government.

Which is why I found your \"solution\" of a world government to be rather amusing.

EDIT - flip: I went back and re-read your post. I think I kind of folded my thoughts about the article tunnelcat posted in with what you wrote, so my amusement may have been more directed at the combination of her post and your post.

Hey, as I get older, it gets harder and harder to keep my few remaining neurons dancing in unison.

flip · Post by **flip** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 6:07 am

Heh I understand that last statement completely

My disagreement with your assessment is this. I don't think it was an oversight, or a big mistake. Awhile back I saw an interview of a guy who worked at AIG. He and others were questioning this voodoo math and most were intimidated into silence, This guy lost his job. He was pointing out the \"obvious\" flaws, and was basically told to to shut his mouth.

Here's the way I understand it.
A huge amount of banks were making bad loans that by all general purposes, they should have known couldn't be paid back. AIG, a triple A rated company, steps up and says they will insure those loans.

That rating meant that the ratings agencies believed its chance of defaulting was as close to zero as a thing could be. It also meant it could get loans more cheaply than other companies that had lower ratings.

In effect, AIG was saying that if, by some remote chance (ha!) those mortgage-backed securities suffered losses, the company would be on the hook for the losses. And because AIG had that triple-A rating, when it sprinkled its holy water over those mortgage-backed securities, suddenly they had triple-A ratings too. That was the ratings arbitrage.

Ok so in essence they took advantage of some loopholes. That is not a mistake or oversight but rather a \"scam\". To me it's tantamount to saying \"piss on em we will still get ours.\"

\"It was a way to exploit the triple-A rating,\" said Robert Arvanitis, a former AIG executive.

That's intentional and malevolent. So I can see no ignorance involved, just greed and hubris.

So I don't see it as a problem of insufficient oversight, I see it as a problem of hubris (and ignorance) - and if you think the bureaucrats in our government aren't cocky enough, just wait til you see the bureaucrats in a \"world\" government.

Which is why I found your \"solution\" of a world government to be rather amusing.

We are in absolute agreement here. That is not my solution at all.I do however think it will be one of their solutions. Seeing as how the whole world, years ago pitched in together, we are now bound to each other. Letting a small division of a company put the whole world at risk is not something that will be allowed to happen again (we hope), and I see that a world wide agency, overseeing all the markets throughout the world as being something very possible and yes BAD, but now almost inevitable.

As far

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 2:21 pm

You made some very good points dissent, bravo.

Spidey wrote:But this is the bestest quote of all…

“The formula was just window dressing for one of the simplest scams of all time: making a bet you can't cover. In lawful societies, people who do this go to jail. In criminal circles, they get broken legs. In our oligarchical kleptocratic society, they get bonuses and bailouts.”

OK Spidey. What about AIG now giving out huge bonuses (out of our taxpayer dollars thanks to Bush and the way Paulson set up the original bailout) to the very division that played all those investment games, caused billions of dollars to evaporate (or pocketed, who knows?) and tanked the company? We've had local people around here that have been caught embezzling money from their companies and were caught, arrested, prosecuted and thrown in jail! I don't see that happening to any of these guys that 'gambled' with my savings account and lost it. Bastards!

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 3:04 pm

Lol, what do you want me to do, defend it…give me a break…the point I was making is you can’t blame the tools for a poor job.

A hammer can hit a nail, or a hammer can hit a thumb, either way you can’t blame the hammer.

But I know you want to blame someone, so have at it, if it makes you feel better.

JFTR, that was the point of the quote.

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 3:49 pm

Yes, the users are the ones that should take most the blame. But doesn't the tool supplier who gives the tools and ideas to these users also share in the blame? Mr. Li must have known that his little formula could not work and be sustained on a macro scale. Charitably, he was either clueless, or worse calculating. If he was clueless, he shouldn't have had the ability to influence so many financiers and banks. If he was calculating, we're screwed. Anybody with any sense knows that pyramid schemes are inherently unstable and depend on a constant money input to continue or the pyramid will topple over. You can't make money from nothing.

Teach someone to paint, they will paint a picture. Teach someone to gamble, they will probably lose their money, no matter how good they are at it, unless they cheat. Give someone a set of lock picks and show them how they work, they'll probably go burgle someone's home. Give Wall Street Financiers the TOOLS, ie. formula, to make money that seems easy, mathematically foolproof and to good to be true, they'll do it to because some 'Money Wizard's' formulas SAID it would work and make their quarterly profits positive! So who do you blame, the guys that came up with the tools or the guys that used them and lost big time?

Spidey · Post by **Spidey** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 3:54 pm

Depends…if I sell you a defective tool and deliberately misrepresent its use, then you might have a case, but any good carpenter knows you don’t use a hammer to drive a screw.

These people knew what they were doing.

“Give someone a set of lock picks and show them how they work, they'll probably go burgle someone's home.”

Or get a job as a locksmith.

flip · Post by **flip** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 3:59 pm

Ha not only that tunnelcat, they are still on the job!!
For Gods sake at least fire the bastards. I might could be more, how did you put it, \"charitable\" but the fact that they are keeping on keeping on really steams me.

CUDA · Post by **CUDA** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 4:06 pm

tunnelcat wrote:OK Spidey. What about AIG now giving out huge bonuses (out of our taxpayer dollars thanks to Bush and the way Paulson set up the original bailout) to the very division that played all those investment games, caused billions of dollars to evaporate (or pocketed, who knows?) and tanked the company? We've had local people around here that have been caught embezzling money from their companies and were caught, arrested, prosecuted and thrown in jail! I don't see that happening to any of these guys that 'gambled' with my savings account and lost it. Bastards!

I hate to inform you TC but the AntiChrist is no longer President. and Mr. Obama is doing the same thing as Mr. Bush only at a larger scale. pull of the blinders.

and FYI it was one department of 400 people out of a company of over 106,000 that cause the AIG mess.
since apparently you dont understand how AIG was involved. here's the breakdown. AIG insured the loans that the Banks gave, to the people that lied about their incomes, and were allowed to do so because of the regulation changes that came from (D)Barney Frank and (D) Chris Dodd during the Clinton administration. granted the Bush Administration did not regulate this problem and has some fault in this. but your partisan hatred is really tainting anything you post.

Edit: FYI flip the managers that were incharge of the department responsible have been fired.

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 4:12 pm

I just got a clue in this weeks March 16 issue of Newsweek about why Jon Stewart got so 'emotional' at Cramer. It seems that Stewart's parents may have been victims of one of the Wall Street scammers (Madoff?). Who it was I can't seem to find out yet, even searching online.

Spidey, if they knew what they were doing, we've been taken, at all our retirement accounts expense! That thought really pisses me off! I agree with flip, why aren't these guys being locked up? Probably because white-collar crime has a different standard from the crimes commoners commit. I can just see them in their little New York high-rise offices flipping the bird and snickering at all of us suckers that let them use our hard earned money and either lose it or steal it!

Don't roll your eyes CUDA, These AIG birdbrain geniuses are being rewarded for FAILING, with taxpayer money! If I'd failed at my job, I'd have been fired. If I'd stolen something, I'd have been arrested!

Edit: Clinton and the idiot Dems were caving to the Republican desires for deregulation of the markets. Clinton traded his soul to get things done during his administration. I blame the Dems for not standing up, saying no and even kowtowing to the Republican's wishes. Deregulation is a Republican mantra. I'm no fan of the Dems that allowed it either. Not all of the 400 AIG geniuses have been fired and they are still going to receive bonuses. And Bush/Paulson appointed the CEO in charge of AIG now. HE doesn't need a damn bonus!

CUDA · Post by **CUDA** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 4:19 pm

there are 4600 managers at AIG and many of them earned their bonuses per their contracts and made the company money. so you want to tell them all FU I know you did your job but to FN bad your not getting what was promised you by the contract you and we signed. AIG did not delare bankruptcy, thank you federal government, so the contract is still in force. now I dont like what has happened, but the law is the law. the contract IS enforceable like it or not.

IT'S NOT A GAME!

IT'S NOT A GAME!

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