The chronology doesn't match. The boom in credit derivatives started before F&F got into the game, and F&F weren't even the worst hit -- AIG, for example, was hit much worse. What's more, the demand for credit derivatives was global.
So I'm respectfully going to have to disagree: I believe the boom was a demand-driven phenomenon (demand for credit derivatives), not a supply-driven one as you're proposing.
What kind of credit derivative? The kind that has become popular in the last 10 years relating to mortgages? In which case it perfectly fits the timeline of Cuomo and Clinton’s kickback scheme?
Going into detail is hard without a certain similar foundation because there are some examples that will always be long standing exceptions. For instance: generally, not factoring in anything else, if a white guy, a black guy, and a Mexican went to a mortgage lender and asked for a mortgage loan the key thing to look for is that their monthly income will be three-times more than the monthly mortgage payment. But, it has been known forever there are certain populations that would not ask for a loan unless they can pay it and will pay it somehow. Like Indian, Chinese, and Korean immigrants (of the top of my head). They think not paying is dishonorable or something. They’ll take 47 jobs to pay if they have to.
There is no financial equation to factor this. Does this apply to first generation as well? When do their offspring become Americanized and lose that sense of honor for repaying back debt? And of course this is something off the books since you can’t really have a policy of giving loans to selected races. I can tell you that issuers try and squeeze them with interest, because on paper the issuance looks risky and the high-interest can be justified. But you can’t get crazy because you are looking at zero risk debt and they will get a better deal at the next place the go to.
I’ve seen issuers give debt they had no hope of collecting on first hand. And the reason is they got kickbacks to do so and a promise the debt would be bought up from them (if it met specific criteria).
<script src="http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/js/2.0/video/evp/module.js?loc=dom&vid=/video/politics/2009/02/17/acosta.housing.cnn" type="text/javascript"></script><noscript>Embedded video from <a href="http://www.cnn.com/video">CNN Video</a></noscript>
I like how the banks get blamed for doing what the government gave them incentives to do. A bus driver with an 800k mortgage. While I have an apartment because I want to do things right and want to pay my own way. The world has gone mad. There is no longer any accountability. Remember the old tried and true plot where the hero revealed the evil scheme of some evil politician and the people where in an uproar? Yeah, no way that can work today. The ugly truth isn’t even an inconvenience anymore. People are actively being ignorant. It’s scary.
Actually, not exactly. Censorship means forbidding expression of some views, usually for political reasons. The Fairness Doctrine means forcing expression of some views in addition to others, also for political reasons. Not *exactly* censorship, but uncomfortably close, as I said.
Okay, so if someone is forced to devote half the time to an opposite expression he is being forced to not express what he wants. It’s censorship of private industries, bottom-line.
Definition of censor: an official who examines books, plays, news reports, motion pictures, radio and television programs, letters, cablegrams, etc., for the purpose of suppressing parts deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or other grounds.
Suppression.
Could you cite a source? I was under the impression that all bills submitted to Congress are public documents. How could Obama have bypassed this?
Since you only asked for one:
http://blog.sunlightfoundation.com/2009/02/09/we-need-online-review-of-stimulus-legislation/
Yeah, MM is like Rush. Both of them tell known lies. The only difference is that MM's politics are better.
So MM is like Rush how? Tell me a known lie? You just made every Politian or political commenter/entertainer into Michael Moore, which is garbage, and troubling. People have the right to have any opinion they want, regardless of how ridiculous. What Michael Moore does is the sleaziest disgusting act of deplorableness. This troubles me a lot.
So, you believe that whining and finger-wagging are functionally equivalent to depriving people of their livelihood? Fair enough, I guess...
No. I see depriving people of their livelihood as depriving people of their livelihood. I see people scared to talk and go against the mainstream as people scared to talk and go against the mainstream. I see x as equaling x. I’m sure the ideologues during McCarthyism didn’t see anything more than whining and finger-wagging either.
But I do. That's why I like the EU so much -- it's managed to cobble together something that actually works on some levels while accommodating political systems and models as different as Slovakia Sweden, Slovenia and Italy.
I’ll leave this for another time as a response would be too lengthy.
Even if the cost of the failure takes the entire economy with it? Fair enough, I guess. Do you also believe that if a building violates fire regulations and burns should be allowed to burn down, even if it means the entire block catches fire?
It never would. Only 5% of the banks were in trouble. Those 5% control far too much. When I worked for Bank of America they were teetering right at the maximum number of checking accounts any bank could have in the US. It’s like 20% of the total or something. I hate Bank of America. It deserves to fail. To explain exactly why it would take 20 pages or so, so I’ll highlight a couple of points. They claimed to have Six-Sigma. Their “black-belts” would always say three- errors per million. It’s fucking six. There are two sides to the bell curve, three on each side. It equals six. Any fucking moron that can add should be able to see that. If you want three errors per million you have to tighten specs and only allow 1.5 on each side per million. No one knew what the fuck they were doing there. And the errors I saw I could count in percentage points easy, high percentage points. People really thing really big corporations are evil. They’re not. They are stupid and wasteful. Most people, in all management brackets, have no idea what they are doing. They fake it. They know they are over their heads, they know they shouldn’t be sitting at whatever table they are, but they aren’t going to admit it. They fake it. And since no one can see the big picture they focus on what they can, their little slice of the pie and in the short term, because that is all they can handle.
People think large corporate entities are run short-term for profit. Long term is far more profitable, always has been, always will be. They are run short-term because the people in charge are regular people, the people under them are regular people, and everyone is in over their heads. They’re not bad people, they’re not evil, just regular and in over their heads, and they don’t even know it. But you need those people to keep the beast going. The beast grows to fast and you need more people and you lower quality and now you have stupid people with the regular people and you mix stupid with short-term thinking. But the beast keeps growing, and there is more waste, and more stupid decisions, and more people in over their heads.
And then it comes to a head. The beast collapses. But it doesn’t die. Its cut up and incorporated into other beasts, which then grow too fast, and then collapses, and is bought up.
If we allowed the banks to fail, the 95% of smaller banks would’ve cut up the failed beasts and grown a little. Instead of 5% controlling 65% of the game, we would have had a lot spread out and even game for a while. It wouldn’t have hurt that bad and would have been hugely beneficial in the long run. You can see that long-run is the way to view things, yes? And that 5% controlling most of the game is not optimal, yes? Things would’ve worked great if the government stayed the fuck out of it and let nature takes its course.
By the way, Unrestigered: am I an ideologue? I took your quiz, but you forgot to grade me. Here's a re-statement of my answers in simple yes/no format (except where it's not applicable):
Well, I have to go with ideologue since you seem to have swallowed the Ron Emmanuel and friend's Rush attack plan hook, line, and sinker. I can't abide that kind of character assassination and the mindsets that revel in it. I’m not an ideologue so I can like Alan Colmes and Rush and appreciate their different point of views. And I can’t see any decent person liking Michael Moore, even if they agree with his message as his tactics are so dishonorable and devious. I can appreciate diversity in thought and I don’t have hypocritical double-standards for the political entertainers of either spectrum, you should give it a try. It’s fun and enlightening.
