Lehman Brothers Bankrupt, Merril Lynch folds - Go Bush!

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powell1 said:
If we could have only known that a march into Iraq would cause an excess of cheap, available cash to lend, lowered borrower standards by lenders, borrower ignorance, creation of exotic loans, falsifying borrower papers so they qualify for loans above what they should, unethical mortgage brokers, repackaging of loans into different debt instruments that were not properly rated, and investor excitement and greed from the returns they were seeing, etc. Then this whole thing could have been stopped.

Damn you George Bush. Damn you.
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This was intended to be sarcastic. I still don't get how Iraq = all of that.

Not to say that there weren't indicators or that it couldn't have been stopped, but you guys are kind of using the Bush admin as a scapegoat for losing a game that had many more players.
 


powell1 said:
...Since you seem to have a bit of a boner for Barack, how exactly do you think he would have handled the situation? What should have been done? Should we have let BS go under? I'm not entirely criticizing you, I just don't think you understand the complexity of the financial markets (and truly, either do I past a certain point). There could have been a lot of repricussions to that course though:

• The financial markets would have seized.
• Your bank would have closed its doors.
• The FDIC would not have the capital to cover all the assets in a nationwide bank run.
• The government would have instituted capital controls.
• Gold would have raced to $2,000 per ounce…but you would not be able to buy or sell it, since market trading would have been suspended.
• The government would have no choice but to turn on the printing presses to unprecedented levels causing a massive devaluation in the U.S. dollar. In turn, this would have led to a total collapse of emerging markets and the currencies of those countries.
• Even developed markets like the G7 would have also seen a collapse in their markets and currencies.
• Your house would be worthless, your business would be worthless, and your assets would be frozen and devalued every hour.
(source, take it for what it's worth)

This is starting to stray a little from the original post, but I'm just trying to get a handle on how you are getting from point A to point B in your head.
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I don't disagree, and I don't have a boner for Obama. I've stated many, many times that Ron Paul was my choice - but he can't win so fuck it. I simply think that we know the Republicans fucked shit up, why let them fuck it up for 4 more years?

Fuck it - let's see what he can do. Can't be worse than Bush. Electing McCain is the same as re-electing Bush, and I don't see how that can be a good thing.
 
powell1 said:
I understand just fine. See, you are kinda like this kid I knew in math class. He'd work his ass off on a big problem, thinking about it for hours, factoring this, simplifying that, yadda yadda yadda. Problem is, he always got the answer wrong. His logic was just fucked up. That's just the way it is. When the processor is fucked up, the equation isn't going to compute correctly.

Since you seem to have a bit of a boner for Barack, how exactly do you think he would have handled the situation? What should have been done? Should we have let BS go under? I'm not entirely criticizing you, I just don't think you understand the complexity of the financial markets (and truly, either do I past a certain point). There could have been a lot of repricussions to that course though:

• The financial markets would have seized.
• Your bank would have closed its doors.
• The FDIC would not have the capital to cover all the assets in a nationwide bank run.
• The government would have instituted capital controls.
• Gold would have raced to $2,000 per ounce…but you would not be able to buy or sell it, since market trading would have been suspended.
• The government would have no choice but to turn on the printing presses to unprecedented levels causing a massive devaluation in the U.S. dollar. In turn, this would have led to a total collapse of emerging markets and the currencies of those countries.
• Even developed markets like the G7 would have also seen a collapse in their markets and currencies.
• Your house would be worthless, your business would be worthless, and your assets would be frozen and devalued every hour.
(source, take it for what it's worth)

This is starting to stray a little from the original post, but I'm just trying to get a handle on how you are getting from point A to point B in your head.
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Arguably and theoretically this could happen. However things would not be worth anything because the money issued is worth nothing, hence there is value in nothing period. It could have much greater positives than negatives, such as an actually government backed currency being issued and the Federal Reserve being disbanded. It is a good play for The Fed to create a bail out to protect an economic collapse, and pass the cost and interest off to the US tax payer. Not that this country could ever get out of the debt it's in anyways, so that point is moot.

Remember currency is just anything people will accept as money. It doesn't have to be backed by anything. Our currency is backed by gold as a ruse to create another market and acquire it for very cheap and sell it high, and it's worked very well. When was the last time Fort Nox was actually audited by the US Government? No body knows if any gold even exists there anymore - again its all show.

So maybe the point is, that it would be best for the countrys economy to totaly tank so that there will be economic reform.
 
Rage9 said:
So maybe the point is, that it would be best for the countrys economy to totaly tank so that there will be economic reform.
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I agree. For any meaningful change to happen, things will need to get a lot worse. If that happened, people would stop worrying about petty issues and realize that the country needs to be run more like a business. I wish there was another way, but I don't see one either. We both know that no matter who is in office, they will do what it takes to make damn sure they aren't the ones that are remembered as the ones who completely collapsed the economy. If that means bail outs and printing more money, it'll happen.


As far as who takes office, it's not going to kill me if Barack wins, but more of my views are typically aligned with Republicans than Democrats (though it seems less and less with either party as candidates on both sides change their minds to what they think people want to hear), so if I do vote, that'll be the reason. I don't like either one much.

My point of getting involved in this thread was to see what the justification for blaming the Bush admin for this whole mess was. Since we all seem to agree that there really isn't one, that there were far more parties at fault, and they are now handling it the same way anyone else would, I guess the point is over.
 
There should have been more regulation IMHO. If the credit verification process was more stern then we wouldn't have had such a high rate of foreclosures.

To be fair, the Democrats did push through some regulation a year after they took control of the Congress, but the damage was already done due to the lack of oversight in the prior years.
 
Rage9 said:
...Our currency is backed by gold as a ruse to create another market and acquire it for very cheap and sell it high, and it's worked very well. When was the last time Fort Nox was actually audited by the US Government? No body knows if any gold even exists there anymore - again its all show.
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Our currency is not backed by gold. Hasn't been for quite some time. We have a fiat monetary system.
 
Typo when I tried, I typed is instead of was. It was in reply to
Gold would have raced to $2,000 per ounce…but you would not be able to buy or sell it, since market trading would have been suspended.
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The point being is there is no issue with gold if the economy crashes.
 
My mom just called me today asking what she should do about her retirement savings that are in ING right now. I guess she got a scary letter in the mail from them today. She didn't explain it very well and I haven't heard anything in the news, but I guess they're in some serious trouble now as well. I told her i'd setup a meeting with her and my financial adviser under one condition, she tell me who she voted for (she's lifelong republican), she said she voted for that Ron Mcain guy I was talking about...uhhhhhhhhhhhhhg. Fuckin' baby boomers lol
 
Fuck regulation, if the government needs to tell multi-billion dollar corporations how to not get in trouble, then they deserve to fail.

The Federal Reserve is the whole reason reason we're facing this problem in the first place; banks made risky investments and decisions on the basis that the fed would bail them out. Its not a Republicrat thing. Anybody who wants to blame the problem on Bush or any politician for that matter needs to go take a piss and study United States monetary policy.

So let the big investment banks fail. We need to go through some growing pains and learn from our mistakes. Their assets will be bought up by smaller banks and firms which will in turn fuel investment, jobs, growth and everything that makes capitalism great.

Now is the time for optimistic investors to load up on dirt cheap financial securities.
 
Unarmed Gunman said:
I love the job this administration has done. Lehman Brothers and their 150 year history couldn't survive, Merril Lynch jumped into Bank of Americ'a arms, AIG (the 7th largest company in the world) is knocking at the door of the government (ahem, taxpayers I mean) for a $40 Billion bailout to stay afloat because they saw it worked for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and all this on Monday.

Things are going great.

Somebody, anybody - please help me understand how you can want another Republican administration.

Don't tell me about raising taxes - Infaltion is a tax. The rising price of gas is a tax. Alot of you don't seem to realize this. You bristle at the thought of Obama (who may, or may not be worth a fuck, but at this point I think we need to find out) because you think he'll raise taxes.

Let's look at this from a basic economic view. Any increase in your cost of living that is not offset by rising wages has a net negative overall effect.

Rising fuel prices is a tax.
Corporate bailouts (Fannie Mae, Freddi Mac, AIG, etc) is a tax.

Just because you don't see it on your check stub doesn't mean it's not a tax. Inflation is a tax. Listen to Ron Paul, because he can explain it better than I, but it's the truth. And the only way we can fund a continuation of the war, and more corporate bailouts, etc. is thorugh inflation. This misperception that the Republicans don't tax as much as Democrats is frustratingly mainstream, and therefore hard to explain.

Both parties tax, but the Republicans are smarter about how they do it - because they use financial markets and inflation to tax, whereas Democrats go right after your wages.

I don't expect anyone to change their political beliefs, but at least understand the economics behind it.
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Man, don't tell me you guys not see this coming from a mile away. It is time for a freakin change. Anyone in office at this point is better than Bush.
 
Not gonna lie I'd rather pay an extra $1,000 a year in gas than an extra $30,000/year in taxes.
 
Sorry - pitching in my .02 - both parties caused it - one through inaction - the other through deliberate action:

Here's McCain's economic advisor blowing up Investment Banking - Mtg crisis included, and getting paid for it.
McCain guru linked to subprime crisis - Lisa Lerer - Politico.com

Here's Cheney moving his investments overseas, 4th paragraph, in 2006 . . .
Vice President Cheney's Economic Hypocrisy by Dean LeBaron — bush, leadership, corporation | Gather


Here's what helped create the oil speculation market
Oil Speculation

Found this too . . GAO report questioning the CFTC's effectiveness regulating the futures trading market for oil. Who sits on the CFTC? Bush Appointees.

GAO-08-25, Commodity Futures Trading Commission: Trends in Energy Derivatives Markets Raise Questions about CFTC's Oversight


@SuprNova - Good point - if things keep up, that 29k will buy you a loaf of bread.
 
Of course there is a greed that powers it all, but
Federal reserve is behind all that and goverment depends on them , because they owe them so much. This country has been negative in trade for years. Guess how we can pay, yeah print more money. But you cant just print money you need to make something up to support it.
Well here we go
Making something up Part 1 : Technology boom.
Remember times you throw something to the wall and if it stick just a little - great, you have all that venture capitals money to build your next best search engine, webvan, younamed.com. Well thaen after like 5 years - wait, all those tech companies don't produce any money.
Finaly it collapsed

But we still need to print money. We need to come up with something pretty fast here.
Bingo. Who does not want a house?

Making something up part II.
Housing. Lets let everyone buy a house and prices will go up so we can tel economie is growing so we can print more money. How do we do it- lets let every redneck buy a house,then take equity loan in a half year-buy another 2-take equity loan in half year-buy another 3.
What we do with these loans we pack them in nice envelops and sell them to some bank in Japan or England .

Now, who did not sell them fast enough blame your greed, redneck will not pay.

All said
Part III.
Obama - we will create another technological "wonder"- green technology
McCain- we gonna drill some oil we never drilled before.

You ask me- i'll better pay for trying doing green stuff.
 
The Economist started talking about the impending collapse of the US housing market about 6 years ago, so it's not like the administration didn't have any indicators that this was coming. They had articles almost every week practically begging the administration to do something to slow the bubble for the sake of the world economy, but they didn't. They could have done something about it, but chose not to.

The Fed is very powerful, no doubt. But the US Government can still control it...it's not like it's a rogue group of money printers.
 
I don't think that anyone on either the democrat or republican side would argue that a bit more regulation of the financial industry (or at least safeguards that don't come from our taxes in the form of bailouts) is not needed at this point, but what's with both parties calling for an end to golden parachutes for execs that are the heads of the banks that have major screwups? I understand if that position applies to government sponsored enterprises such as Fannie or Freddie, or companies bailed out by taxpayers, but they have no business trying to regulate executive employment contracts like that.

Watching Palin today call for an end to large payouts to CEOs who "break the public's trust" was amusing to say the least. What ever happened to the small-government, free market, low-regulation platform of the republicans? Leave this shit to the board of directors and stockholders of these public companies. I wonder what McCain advisor Carly Fiorina would have to say about golden parachutes...
 
invisible777 said:
If the Democrats you rely on so much were as good as they said, they would have gathered the majority needed and overturned any veto Bush issued. They did not. Presidential vetoes have been overturned many times, including times when the majority needed wasn't fully composed of the President's political party. No one in the Democratic party was able to achieve this. quote]

It actually takes 2/3rd of congress to override a Presidential veto so its pretty tough to overcome.

Most of the seeds of this predicament were planted prior to 2006, only now our we bearing the bitter fruit of the crop. From 2000-2006 the Republicans controlled all three branches of government (Executive - President, Legislative - Congress and Judicial - The Supreme Court). I hold all politicians responsible, but the Republicans had the remote control and chose the lousy programming.
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I am not American but from all the speeches I have heard from Ron Paul, Obama, Cain, I find that the only genuine guy is Ron Paul. The only one who could improve America is Ron Paul. Obama just do uplifting speeches. Cain and Obama is not going to make things better. In fact, things are going to get worse, much worse. Inflation will keep going up as long as the fiat currency is being used. Anyway no turning back now, as you only have two mad men to choose from. Give it a year or two and you'll realise they are not much different than Bush.
 
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