Wall St

[Kramer]

<< Obama really fooled everyone who wanted change.  He really burned his base, me included, even if I couldn't vote for him or contribute to the campaign.  I rooted for him all the way.  Really believed he was the agent of change.>>

Since you are so easily fooled (Note: I was never fooled by Obama) maybe you are being played by Soros and the protesters too.

Mikey, stop being fooled by these people!

[Michael Tee]

<<so in otherwords, your analogy is bogus, since there have been no crimes committed, no indictements, nothing that Wall Street or Corporate America has done to warrant the flawed notion of If the government through its criminal code prohibits murder, is it then responsible for every murder that then occurs?  If its criminal code prohibits rape, is it then responsible for all rapes?

<<There's been no raping.  And as someone apparently needs the reminder one more time, making a profit is not a crime>>

Hah, sorry sirs, you shoulda waited for me to finish, I told you I'd be back shortly.  And you're right, making a profit is not a crime.  Not in and of itself.  But there are many profit-making activities that ARE (or once were, or should be) a crime.  And those I will get to in a minute.

Continuing from where I left off - -

So we are left with a lot of economy-crashing commercial activity, which, so far as we know at the moment, are not crimes.  From a criminal investigation POV, their file can be closed immedately:  they did X,Y,Z but at the time they did XYZ, none of it was a crime, case closed. 

From a POLITICAL POV, which is where the Occupy! movement comes in, we have to look a little deeper.  Was it ONCE a crime?  When did it stop being a crime?  How did it stop being a crime?  Who made it no longer a crime?  Why did they do so?  Should it have been made a crime?  Who tried to make it a crime?  How did the attempt to make it a crime fail?  These questions are important because the movement is concerned with cause and effect, with assigning blame, with future preventative actions, all of which are political in nature.

A lot of the rot spread because of repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999.  The Act, one of the New Deal's landmark regulatory accomplishments, set up a wall of separation between commercial and investment banking.  When the Act was repealed in 1999, it didn't take long for the staidest of commercial banks to take wild and wilder speculative flings, culminating of course in the bundled sub-prime mortgage loan "bonds" which brought the house down in 2008, imperiling the savings of millions upon millions of innocent American depositors.  Though it took place under the Bush administration, the repeal of Glass-Steagall was a bipartisan affair:

<<In the House, 155 Democrats and 207 Republicans voted for the [repeal], while 51 Democrats, 5 Republicans and 1 independent opposed it. Fifteen members did not vote.>>

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/10-years-later-looking-at-repeal-of-glass-steagall/

The repeal of Glass-Steagall is one of the more noticeable examples of legislative action or inaction (in this case, obviously, action) that created the conditions for the financial melt-down of 2008.  But other examples are not hard to find - - you can leave it to the economic historians to determine whether a particular condition was the result of government action or inaction (that is, of legislative criminalization or decriminalization) but in either case the root cause is the same:  the financial industry and its legions of highly-paid lobbyists swarming the Hill with only one mission to fulfill:  to see that legislation will always favour the industry, either through favourable new bills to be introduced or pushed through or for unfavourable bills to be nipped in the bud, delayed interminably or killed off in committee or on the House or Senate floor.

More specifically, you can look to some of the following activities and ask yourself, was this preventable by legislation, and if so, why was the legislation  never put forward?  Was such legislation ever put forward?  Who put it forward and who killed it?  Was it ever prevented by legislation and if so, was the legislation repealed, and if so, by whom and when?
1.  Why did the financial institutions (investment banks) that put together the shit bonds in the first place fail to use due diligence in assembling them and why weren't they required to do so?  (Many of the shit-bond packages lacked proper or any documentation regarding the nature of the individual mortgages included, such as borrowers' documented ability to repay.)
2.  How did the rating acencies fail to use due diligence in assigning triple-A ratings to the sub-prime mortgage bonds and why were they not required to do so by law?
3.  Why were the agencies allowed to rate the shit bonds that their investment-house clients were assembling and why wasn't a caveat attached to their rating indicating the extent to which they were dependent upon the investment house assembling the shit-bond for their own income?
4. Why were the investment houses allowed to sell their own product (shit bonds) to their own investor clients without disclosing the obvious conflict of interest AND WITHOUT DISCLOSING THAT THEY HAD INSURED THEMSELVES against default on these and all other similar bonds, i.e., that they were simultaneously selling the shit bond and betting against it?
5.  Why were the insurers such as AIG permitted to evade regulations designed to prevent them from insuring exactly against this kind of risk?   How were they permitted to issue new forms of insurance (credit default swaps) designed expressly to evade the insurance regulations that would have prevented them from insuring against default on sub-prime mortgage bonds?

That is not an exhaustive list.  What it indicates is that even if there was a complete absence of criminal activity, such an absence would testify only to legislative abandonment of any effective regulatory role, in decriminalizing what was formerly criminal or in failing to criminalize what obviously should have been criminal, all in the name of "deregulation," the god of the conservative movement and a god before whom the Democrats were prostrating themselves as well.

sirs, I don't mind telling you that I have invested a fair amount of time in this reply, which I don't mind at all if my  investment was in a serious discussion.  But I have to tell you, if your reply is in your usual jack-ass format of one or two lines repeating your usual jack-ass mantra of  "red is blue,  Kryptonite & Superman, etc." as I kind of suspect it will be, then, no hard feelings, but this will be the last time I ever waste replying seriously to any of your posts again.

[Michael Tee]

<<Since you are so easily fooled (Note: I was never fooled by Obama) maybe you are being played by Soros and the protesters too.

<<Mikey, stop being fooled by these people!>>


LOL.  Kramer, if you look at my posts from BEFORE Occupy Wall Street!, you'll see that I was voicing a lot of the Occupy! ideas before even the Adbusters article came out.  Chiefly, that there is no real difference between the GOP and the Dems, that they both are owned by the same special interests, and that they act for the special interests and not for the American people.

You should tell Adbusters and the Occupy! movement to stop listening to ME!!!

[sirs]

<<so in otherwords, your analogy is bogus, since there have been no crimes committed, no indictements, nothing that Wall Street or Corporate America has done to warrant the flawed notion of If the government through its criminal code prohibits murder, is it then responsible for every murder that then occurs?  If its criminal code prohibits rape, is it then responsible for all rapes?  There's been no raping.  And as someone apparently needs the reminder one more time, making a profit is not a crime>>

Hah, sorry sirs, you shoulda waited for me to finish, I told you I'd be back shortly.  And you're right, making a profit is not a crime.  Not in and of itself. 

Good, then your anaolgy is demonstrably flawed

But there are many profit-making activities that ARE

Then of course, you'll demonstrate those that ARE a crime, that Wall Street has violated........drum roll.................

(or once were, or should be) a crime.

AHHHHH, the crux of the problem and the core flaw to your entire diatribe.  Your hatred, or perhaps its bitter envy, or whatever it may be, at those that make far more than YOU think they should.  Folks like you would make it a crime simply to make over X dollars.  Folks like that will be shown the door, as that is not the foundation to this country, nor ever will.  You can take your communist utopia and play with it in someone else's back yard.  In this country, we really appreciate the foundation of freedom.  Freedom to succeed, as well as freedom to make really bad decisions. 

And news flash, despite your attempts to claim red is blue, the Government was undeniably at fault, at facilitating the economy crashing nose dive its currently taking.  The completely poor regulating of Fannie & Freddie, the Government's practical mandate that banks and lending institutions grant loans to folks who had no business purchasing a home at the time, were all ticking time bombs. And the Republicans AND Bush were there, and did nothing.  They had control, they had majorities, but Bush pushed for those risk heavy loans, and enough Dems provented any meaningful reform of Freddie & Fannie.  And when the Dems took control of the pursestrings in 2006, the keg was lit.

Then add to that completely wreckless spending policies by Obama & company, ripe with all forms of bailouts, and we know are reaping those effects.  Not to mention the every increasing stifling regulations being placed on businesses, producing a literal wet-blanket to any chance of early recovery or decreased unemployment.

Government, in its current manifestation, is the biggest reason we find ourselves in this economic disaster.  NOT because companies and Wall Street make more money than YOU think they should, but policies put in place, by the Government, both in the ever increasing regulation restrictions, and zero tax reform that allow the continuing quid-pro-quo arrangements, such as what Obama & Solyndra have have gotten away with.  The cherry at the top, Obamination Care, which adds to the continued uncertainty at what any company, large or small, is going to have to pay more for in taxes, charges, and mandates, is the source of this country's problems.  With everything the Government has thrown at Corporate America and Business, why on earth would they try adding to their payrolls??

[Michael Tee]

<<AHHHHH, the crux of the problem [referring to MT's partial list of the Wall St./financial institutions misdeeds leading up to the melt-down of 2008 and his queries as to which of those misdeeds were or should have been Federal crimes] and the core flaw to your entire diatribe.  Your hatred, or perhaps its bitter envy, or whatever it may be, at those that make far more than YOU think they should. >>

LOL.  Let's call that "sirs misrepresentation/oversimplification #1," or in short, SMO-1.   Because I had referred in very specific detail to certain very specific financial actions that were taken over a very specific period of time, from the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999 to the financial melt-down of 2008.  NONE of the actions referred to involved in any way the participation of professional football players, rock stars, movie stars, neurosurgeons, reality show participants or anyone else who (non-specifically) makes "far more [money] than I think they should."

From the very specific actions of some very specific financial players, sirs has tried to project my complaints into a general rant against anyone making lots of money.  Which is not at all what I was talking about.  I dealt in specifics which sirs tries to blur out of sight by pretending that my concerns are generally about anyone and everyone who makes what I consider to be too much money.  Wrong, wrong, wrong.


<<Folks like you would make it a crime simply to make over X dollars. >>

Really?  I would?  Where did I say it should be made a crime to make over a certain amount of dollars?  Don't bother looking, I'll spare you the trouble.  I never said it, so you can't find it. I never said it because I don't believe it.  I don't begrudge Bill Gates his money, but even he agrees it's too much, so he's given most of it away.  But we weren't talking about Bill Gates, we were talking about very specific folks in the financial industry - - and not once did I mention any specific amount of money as too much for them.  What I WAS talking about was specific actions of theirs that led directly to the crashing of the economy in 2008, to the bail-outs.  Can we call that SMO-2?

<<  In this country, we really appreciate the foundation of freedom.  Freedom to succeed, as well as freedom to make really bad decisions.  >>

Well, that also is a major oversimplification too.  You are not free to lie to a Federal investigator, for example; Martha Stewart found that out when she had to do jail time for it.  You are not free at the moment to go out and buy a hit of acid and get stoned out of your mind on it, although you were free to do so any time prior to October 15, 1966 and may become free to do so at any future time that the government decides that it's OK again to do it.  You were free to purchase alcoholic beverages in the U.S.A. anytime before Prohibition and anytime after it, but certainly not during it.  Investment banks were free to take in commercial banking deposits before Glass-Steagall and any time after the repeal of Glass-Steagall, but not during Glass-Steagall.  So many of your "freedoms" can be turned off and on like a tap, whether we are talking about pornography, dope, booze or financial and commercial activities, depending on the whims of the legislature from year to year.  That is just a simple fact of history, deny it as you will.  Laws can create new crimes out of previously innocent activities and laws can decriminalize what was formerly criminal conduct and make it suddenly legitimate. 

Your "freedom to succeed or fail" is basically measured out for you by your legislature.  The freedom to make a million bucks by selling dope no longer exists as it once did, but that's not to say it won't be restored again if your law-makers see fit to do so.

<<And news flash, despite your attempts to claim red is blue, the Government was undeniably at fault, at facilitating the economy crashing nose dive its currently taking. >>

I agree.  By standing back and doing nothing while their friends and paymasters in corporate America and Wall Street were getting away with murder and finally crashing the economy.

<<The completely poor regulating of Fannie & Freddie, the Government's practical mandate that banks and lending institutions grant loans to folks who had no business purchasing a home at the time, were all ticking time bombs.>>

Well, here we have a gray area.  As I understand the "mandate" I think all it did was loosen the restrictions on who could qualify as a borrower.  And however it was worded, it certainly did not and could not have mandated loans to "folks who had no business purchasing a home."  THAT is a pure absurdity.  No government anywhere in the world would authorize any such thing.   If anything, it probably loosened a few ratios, such as family income to total purchase price, or down payment as a percentage of purchase price, things like that.  The crux of the sub-prime mortgage loan crisis was the making of loans to borrowers who wouldn't have qualified by any standards, and the tailoring of mortgages (no repayment of principal or interest for one year!  for two years!) that was DESIGNED to sign up people who didn't even have the means to make the first payments.   NONE of this was authorized by Fanny or Freddy, despite the prevailing conservative mythology to the contrary.

<<And when the Dems took control of the pursestrings in 2006, the keg was lit.>>

Not only is that totally meaningless, it's complete bullshit.  What specifically are you implying when you say "the keg was lit?"  What specific actions did the Democrats take when they had "control of the pursestrings" that "lit the keg?"  That is just nonsense.  Be specific if you have anything in mind but the point as made is just infantile crap.

For your information, one of the key factors in the melt-down, the repeal of Glass-Steagall, had already occurred in 1999, with full bi-partisan support.   The sub-prime loan industry had started even earlier than that, in the early 1990s.  You can Google Accredited Home Lenders, Inc. or Aames Financial, The Money Store or Lomas Financial Corp. for more details.  They sure as hell weren't just sitting there, waiting around for Fanny Mae to loosen up lending restrictions.  That's just more conservative bullshit, invented after the fact to blame the melt-down on government "interference."   The pile of shit known as sub-prime mortgages was well underway by the mid-nineties.  Mortgage bonds ("mortgage-backed securities") had been around even longer, since the mid-to-late nineteen-seventies, but they were relatively safe investments then, since the quality of the individual mortgages in each bond had to conform to the regulations laid down by Fanny and Freddy (the loosening of which subsequently contributed to, but did not cause, the whole catastrophe that followed.)  The infiltration of sub-prime mortgages into mortgage bonds began as soon as a mass market in sub-prime mortgages had developed, which, as I said, was around the early 1990s.

The explosive growth in sub-prime mortgages and the consequent transformation of mortgage bonds (mortgage-backed securities) into shit bonds had absolutely NOTHING to do with government "interference" and EVERYTHING to do with the classic laws of capitalistic business and finance - - as the lending companies acquired more and more original mortgages, they had to raise capital in order to keep growing.  The only way they could raise the capital was to sell their assets - - the mortgage loans - - to banks and financial institutions up-stream.  Once the new capital was acquired, it too had to be lent out, so that the new mortgage loans could again be assembled and packaged into new shit bonds.  As the pool of qualified borrowers dried out, the lenders began looking for anyone to sign their new mortgages - - brokers were paid up-front commissions on each new warm body they could drag to the lender, and the lenders' mortgage terms were altered to appeal to the people who themselves knew that they had no hope in hell of ever repaying unless (a) they won a lottery or found a job  or (b) the home they bought would rise so high in value that they'd be able to either re-mortgage or sell at a huge profit.  Thus the "balloon mortgage" - - no payments at all for a year or two years, then huge payments so big that they'd probably crap out on the first one.  It really didn't matter to the borrowers, for they had no assets anyway, and this at least put them in a home for a limited time, with a chance to pay the mortgage if Lady Luck should choose to smile upon them, and it didn't matter to the lenders because they were going to sell this mortgage  with lots of others, bundled into a shit bond with, inexplicably, a triple-A rating or its equivalent from every bond-rating agency.

I want to emphasize that NONE of the above activity was due to "government interference," in fact was permitted only because the government failed to take action to prevent any of it.

The situation was compounded when the financial institutions which assembled and packaged the bonds sold them to their own clients (obviously without due diligence) and certainly without informing the clients that they themselves had obtained insurance against the default of any of these shit bonds (issued as a "credit default swap," a new financial instrument invented so that the insurers could avoid the very government regulations that would have prevented them from insuring against this very risk.  Again, none of these activities were due in any way to "government interference" but followed the inevitable laws of profit-seeking inherent in the capitalist system.  It is absolutely ludicrous to claim, as you do, that "government regulations made them do it."   It was the FAILURE of the government to intervene in any of these shenanigans that caused the melt-down of 2008.

<<Then add . . . wreckless spending policies by Obama & company, ripe with all forms of bailouts. . . >>

ANOTHER CROCK OF SHIT.  Do you not understand that by the time of Obama's taking over, all of the above had already happened, including the first bail-out, which was agreed to by Bush AND Obama?

<<Not to mention the every increasing stifling regulations being placed on businesses, producing a literal wet-blanket to any chance of early recovery or decreased unemployment.>>

More fucking conservative bullshit.  Glass-Steagall had already been repealed in 1999 and STILL hasn't been re-enacted.  A landmark "stifling regulation" standing since the time of FDR was repealed, but do you see any "early recovery" or "decreased unemployment" resulting from that?  Borrowing qualifications were, as you yourself claim, loosened by Fannie and Freddie, but you yourself say this helped CAUSE the melt-down, not improve it.  Do you think the government's loosening of borrowing requirements was responsible for any "early recovery" or "decreased unemployment?"  Where?  Because I sure as hell don't see any.

Well, you tell me:  exactly what "stifling regulations" have been placed on business by Obama, that have "produced a literal wet blanket" on any chance of early recovery or decreased unemployment, and what evidence do you have that the "stifling regulation" was actually responsible for "wet-blanketing" either early recovery or decreased unemployment?  NONE, no evidence at all, I know that, so don't bother to look.

<<Government, in its current manifestation, is the biggest reason we find ourselves in this economic disaster.>>

BULLSHIT.  You have absolutely no clue what caused your current economic disaster.  I just explained to you, in exquisite detail, how the melt-down of 2008 was caused.  Government had no part in it, other than by merely standing aside and watching the financial industry crash the whole economy and then giving them the keys to the Treasury.  Capitalism is the sole cause of the disaster because capitalism is a failed system.  The wars of capitalism, which are produced by the military-industrial complex and their servants in Congress, NOT by the so-called "government" are another major cause of the disaster.  Corporate control of the MSM, which prevents frank public discussion of the problem, is yet another cause.  So is campaign funding of candidates for office by special interests, which has proven a humongous disaster for American foreign policy, costing the Treasury trillions in wars and "homeland defence."

<<NOT because companies and Wall Street make more money than YOU think they should . . . >>

Ridiculous.  Their only purpose in buying out "your" government is so that they can make obscene amounts of  money.  They prevent legislative oversight of their activities, so that they can crash the economy and get repaid for their losses out of the Treasury anyway, they keep the country in a perpetual state of war everywhere so that they can scoop up ever-increasing amounts of your tax dollars and they have decided to fuck the American worker up the ass by closing down factories here and opening them all over the Third World.  Open your fucking eyes, for Christ sake!!  Why the fuck SHOULD they get a free rein to rip off the people when millions don't even have homes or health insurance?  OF COURSE they are making too much money, but that's not even the point - - they're making it at YOUR expense and you're can't see it when it's staring you straight in the face.

<< but policies put in place, by the Government, both in the ever increasing regulation restrictions . . . >>

Again, you'll just have to show me what regulations or restrictions this government has enacted that have allowed "Obama & Solyndra [to] have gotten away with."  Actually, you'll have to show me exactly what they have "gotten away with."  As far as I know, the U.S. government under Obama has made an investment in some kind of green-energy start-up and the investment went bad.  Is THAT a crime?  Didn't YOU tell ME that the US loves freedom, including freedom to succeed and freedom to fail?  So how can you fault Obama for taking a chance on green, when it looked like a good bet to him and his advisors?  Don't ALL capitalists make bad bets sometimes?

<<  and zero tax reform that allow the continuing quid-pro-quo arrangements, such as what Obama & Solyndra have have gotten away with.  >>

I don't get this at all.  How does "zero tax reform" allow what Obama & Solyndra "have gotten away with?"  Again, exactly WHAT have they "gotten away with?"  What "continuing quid-pro-quo arrangements" are you talking about?  What does that even mean?

<<The cherry at the top, Obamination Care, which adds to the continued uncertainty at what any company, large or small, is going to have to pay more for in taxes, charges, and mandates, is the source of this country's problems. >>

REALLY?  So that's the source of your country's problems?  Uncertainty?  Geeze, most of us thought it had to be related to the lack of jobs, to the millions and millions of jobs that the corporations sent overseas when they closed their American factories and re-opened elsewhere, to the millions of people homeless and thrown out of their homes, to the millions sick and unemployed without health care.  We thought there was a demand-side problem here, just like John Maynard Keynes always said would cause a depression.   So it's not demand-side after all, eh, it's just uncertainty?  I got it, the businessmen and entrepreneurs of America don't want to make a move because of this "uncertainty" over what their taxes are gonna be.    I guess their crystal balls show them EXACTLY everything else about their future projects - - cost and availability of raw material and labour, demand for product, market share of competitors, success or failure of advertising campaigns, volume of sales, etc., but in that whole crystal ball, there's just this one blacked-out area, What Are Their Taxes Gonna Be, and that is the uncertainty that is driving them crazy, preventing them from unleashing all of their entrepreneurial drive, hiring thousands, even millions of workers for their really brilliant projects.  But they can't.  They can't get off the ground because they don't know how much taxes they'll have to pay.  Oh, yeah, that makes a LOT of sense.

I kinda thought that businessmen and entrepreneurs were risk-takers, that because of the great risks that they took, they were entitled to earn more than their workers, much more in fact.  So, I mean, geeze, this is really sad, eh?   I mean, the great risk-takers of America, the leaders of the world in innovation and vision, they must have suddenly lost their cojones, eh?  Like, is it all gone now?

Well, sirs, thanks for the laugh.  That was a real treat, to hear the latest conservative, right-wing explanation for the failure of capitalism - - that it's not the high rate of unemployment, the vanished jobs, the lack of purchasing power and demand, it's not the endless foreign wars and ever-escalating costs of homeland defence and endless tax breaks for the rich that have drained your Treasury - -  hell no!  It all boils down to uncertainty.  Hilarious, sirs, absolutely hilarious.

<<With everything the Government has thrown at Corporate America and Business, why on earth would they try adding to their payrolls??>>

I dunno.  Because they are risk-takers?  BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

[Plane]

  Uncertainty is bad for business, it is the fear that we fear for fear itself.
   FDR wasn't wrong about everything.

    You havn't grasped what I ment about government causes for the national investment debacle that we seem to be in the middle of.

    It isn't like a law against rape causeing rape, it is like a law that permits rape under certain circumstances or when certain conditions are met.

      I don't know how Barney Frank keeps getting re-elected , he was one of the leaders of the push to make everyone a home owner, to erase green lines and to lower standards .

       There has never been a regulation against bundling several debt instyruments together and selling the resultant bag of loans as a product. But Freddy Mack was not always there to ensure that the lender could make this sort of loan and get out from under it no matter what the real quality of the loans involved might be.

      Rating agencys also failed , they are not government agencys , but the Government and everyone elese has come to rely on them. I think that rating agencys being more diligent earlyer would have had the best chance of preventing the whole crash.

[Michael Tee]

This one is for sirs and plane.

Firstly, for sirs - - when you were asking what Federal crimes have been committed, I answered that I didn't know, but that I would figure "the Feds" were combing over all the data, trying to sort it all out, and answer exactly that question.  We'd know when the indictments were handed down.  Well, the indictments haven't been handed down yet, but as an indication of the scope of the investigation, I give you this:

from today's CounterPunch (www.counterpunch.com), from the article, "Wall Street Firms Spy . . . "

<<At least 700 cameras scour the midtown area and also relay their live feeds into the downtown center where low-wage NYPD, MTA and Port Authority crime stoppers sit alongside  high-wage personnel from Wall Street firms that are currently under at least 51 Federal and state corruption probes for mortgage securitization fraud and other matters.>>

At least FIFTY-ONE probes?  Holy fuckin' shit, man, even I had no idea as to the scope of this investigation.  (Eliot Spitzer, where are ya when we need ya?)

And to answer plane's post before this insomniac goes back to sleep:

<<Uncertainty is bad for business, it is the fear that we fear for fear itself.
   <<FDR wasn't wrong about everything.>>

LOL.  No, but YOU may very well be.  Here's the quotation you had in mind, because I know it by heart:  << . . . that the only thing we have to fear ("fe-ah") is:  FEAR ITSELF.  Nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror ("terrah" - - in my head, right now, from memory, I can actually hear FDR saying this, from the Columbia Records album "I Can Hear It Now" narrated by Fred W. Friendly and Edward R. Murrow) that paralyzes needed efforts to convert RETREAT into ADVANCE.>>  The cadence was absolutely unbelievable.  Perfect to every beat.

FDR was talking about the fear of the unknown, the fear that kept some Americans from advancing into the changes and the uncertainties of the New Deal.  Basically, he was taking the fear that sirs was bleating and whining about and throwing it back in his face - - it is EXACTLY that kind of cowardly fear, fear of "uncertainty" that paralyzes Americans from endorsing or participating in radical new political initiatives.

I would have liked to be able to say that it is also that kind of fear that sirs and you claim is holding back new businesses and new jobs, but that is just total ridiculous right-wing bullshit.  All of business is a risk, every businessman and entrepreneur has, in addition to the possibility of higher-than -estimated taxes, hundreds of other critical factors to be concerned about.  That they would single out taxes as the one uncertainty among hundreds that prevents them from throwing the dice - - well, that is such a crazy thought it is apparent on its face that it has to be BS.  It's always amazing to me that anyone ever falls for that bullshit.



   << It isn't like a law against rape causeing rape, it is like a law that permits rape under certain circumstances or when certain conditions are met.>>

If you want to keep refining a bad analogy, I'll play along with you for the moment, but it's going to end badly for you. 

Rapes are isolated acts of individuals or small groups going on all the time sporadically although universally condemned.  Rape is not the default status of man-woman relations, and if it ever was, that would have been eons ago.  Any law that legalized rape of a stranger under certain conditions would be a radical break from the past, for rape of a stranger was never before acceptable under any conditions.  (Marital relations were always an exception and excluded from the laws of rape until recent times - - the abolition of the husband's "right" to non-consensual sex with his wife was not an amendment of the rape laws except to the extent that it removed a legal shield of long standing.) 

Commerce, OTOH, is the mainstream of human activity in a capitalist society and was already operating openly and in full swing with no societal or legal restrictions of note, so that government regulation of commerce was not suddenly creating conditions in which the thing regulated suddenly became legal, out of a previous condition of illegality.

Your argument that government regulation makes the government responsible for all breaches of regulation that follow, is on its face STILL absurd, the most recent analogy you offered being clearly inapplicable.  I'll give you a better analogy:  vehicular traffic on public highways is totally unregulated.  As Mr. Ford's products begin to flood the highways, the Provinces begin to enact Highway Traffic Acts, regulating maximum speeds, painting dotted lines on roads and prohibiting passing across solid lines, establishing stop lights and stop signs, etc., etc.  Because the government has attempted to regulate traffic, it thereby becomes responsible for the consequences of all future traffic accidents and every breach of the laws it enacted?  NONSENSE.

     << I don't know how Barney Frank keeps getting re-elected , he was one of the leaders of the push to make everyone a home owner, to erase green lines and to lower standards .>>

According to you, he reduced the amount of governmental interference in the lending business by making it possible for lenders to loan to more borrowers, namely to those borrowers previously excluded from borrower status by tighter government regulation of who could qualify.  Frank therefore LOWERED the degree of government involvement in the lending process, returning more discretion to the lender.  He should be a hero to you for LOOSENING government regulation of business.

       <<There has never been a regulation against bundling several debt instyruments together and selling the resultant bag of loans as a product.>>

Yeah, actually there were plenty of them.  Once upon a time.  When mortgage-backed securities were invented back in the mid-seventies, they were legal in only 15 states.  It took a lot of "lobbying" (in plain English, payola) for the bonds to become legal in all states, but Wall Street's lobbyists are among the best and the highest paid, and Wall Street's pockets are the deepest.   The appropriate legislative changes were purchased in due course by Wall Street and "the rest is history."  One of the biggest looting scams of the American public was set in motion.  Millions of small investors were wiped out.  But what else is new?

<<But Freddy Mack was not always there to ensure that the lender could make this sort of loan and get out from under it no matter what the real quality of the loans involved might be.>>

Well, actually, Freddy and Fanny were both there and doing a good job of making mortgage bonds safe, but then this thing called "deregulation" came along and then all of a sudden they weren't there anymore or they began looking the other way, or there weren't enough of them to make any difference.  You know how beautiful deregulation is, every conservative knows that, and believe me, so does Wall Street.  In fact, all the pressure for deregulation really starts and ends at Wall Street.  Their bought-and-paid for law-makers are just the errand boys who whip the conservative rank-and-file into line with bullshit rationalizations and speeches.

     << Rating agencys also failed , they are not government agencys , but the Government and everyone elese has come to rely on them. I think that rating agencys being more diligent earlyer would have had the best chance of preventing the whole crash.>>

Hahahaha, you DO understand, I hope, how the rating agencies are paid by the very institutions that are bundling the shit bonds and selling them to their own clients?  This isn't a case of somebody "failing" because they had too many long lunches and just didn't notice what was going on.  This is more of the corruption endemic to the capitalist system - - they were obviously LOOKING THE OTHER WAY for a logical reason.  Go figure.

plane, I think what we're looking at is a systematic failure of representative democracy, in that sooner or later the agents of capitalism will find a way to (a) buy off the legislature and (b) effectively silence 90% of the public discussion of what's going on by buying up the MSM as well.  It's a multi-stage procedure, just to give one example of which, buying the laws permitting concentration of media ownership had to precede the actual buying up of the MSM and the concentration of media into about half a dozen corporations, which today control almost everything that an American will see or hear, except for whatever he can be an eyewitness to personally.

[sirs]

I'm sure you'll get back to us when there's an actual crime that has been committed

[Xavier_Onassis]

As Kurt Vonnegut said, the greatest fortunes in the America have been made by men who have committed vile and immoral acts against which no laws had yet been passed.  In this case, at least some of the proper laws had been passed, and then revoked by turds like Phil Gramm.

[Kramer]

As Kurt Vonnegut said, the greatest fortunes in the America have been made by men who have committed vile and immoral acts against which no laws had yet been passed.  In this case, at least some of the proper laws had been passed, and then revoked by turds like Phil Gramm.

A free society requires people to have character and morality. Both of those have slowly been eroding ever since the 60's and we all know what the 60's brought. With the destruction of the church and family we have a sick society. All the rules and laws in the world aren't going to fix the problems we have. Roughly 100 million people in the USA and probably $3 billion people around the world need to be exterminated in order to get back to where we were 40 years ago. Of course nobody would be better than me to decide who stays and who goes.

[sirs]

As Kurt Vonnegut said, the greatest fortunes in the America have been made by men who have committed vile and immoral acts against which no laws had yet been passed.  In this case, at least some of the proper laws had been passed, and then revoked by turds like Phil Gramm.

Like what?  Last time I checked it takes more than 1 person to revoke a Federal Law.  And if memory serves me right, there have been multiple opportunites for supposed "proper law" to have been reinstated.

Best try again



On a related note, is it even possible for you to make a critical response of anyone, without resorting to 3rd grade namecalling??   

[Plane]

Your argument that government regulation makes the government responsible for all breaches of regulation that follow, is on its face STILL absurd..........

   Oh ,now I understand where we are failing to communicate.

    I failed to make my point in the first place, the government is not usually responsible for the result of breeches in the law , but it is always responsible for the direct result of the law, may I say also the government is responsible for the indirect and unintended consequence fo the law as well.

    Some regulation is necessacery , as far as regulation improves the confidence of investors that they won't be cheated, regulation is good for companys and investors alike.

     But anything can be overdone, government controll of the Mortgage industry was increasing and increasing leading up to the crash , till at the time of the crash the government was the garontor of more than half of all of our mortgages , including the lions share of the really bad ones.

     The government was an enabler of bad habits, regulation should be carefully considered and trimmed to fit where it is needfull , but eliminated where it isn't.

[Michael Tee]

<<I'm sure you'll get back to us when there's an actual crime that has been committed>>

Well, that'll be quite awhile, first the investigations have to conclude and report to the prosecutors, then the prosecutors have to decide and hand the indictments down to the grand juries, then the grand juries have to deliberate whether the cases should go on to trial, then the trial summonses have to be issued, defences prepared, motions argued and finally trials, then appeals, then more appeals.  I probably won't even be alive when the last appeal is exhausted.  But - - on the brighter side - - there could be some guilty pleas.  You won't need me to get back to you when that happens, if you're still alive then.  You'll know it.  Even The Wall Street Journal will record them.

But what will be really interesting would be if the investigations conclude that no laws have been broken.  (Very unlikely because of the fiduciary relationship between financial advisors and their clients, and the obvious breach of trust arising from the conflict of interest between the investment house that (a) packages the shit bond and (b) sells it to its own client.  I'm actually pretty certain that there WILL be criminal indictments handed down, some of which will inevitably result in guilty pleas, if only to allow the prosecutors to gain the cooperation of the early pleaders to rat out their former colleagues, and at the same time, getting the early pleaders the benefits of a sweetheart deal on sentencing.) 

But let's say that NO laws were broken.  To a guy like sirs, that would be the end of the story.  Move on, folks, nothing to see here, everything that was done was perfectly legal, just keep right on moving.  More thoughtful folks might begin to wonder, how is it there were no laws to prohibit any of this conduct?  These guys, motivated solely by greed, can crash the economy, gamble with depositors' or investors' funds, and recoup all the losses of their gambles from the public purse - - and NONE of what they did was illegal?  Why wasn't it?  And those are the kind of questions that SHOULD lead to how the country is governed and how it is corrupted.

[Michael Tee]

<<Last time I checked it takes more than 1 person to revoke a Federal Law.  And if memory serves me right, there have been multiple opportunites for supposed "proper law" to have been reinstated.>>

sirs sees all the dots and he can't connect them.

un-be-lievable

[Plane]

     Washington got what it wanted , the laws were a part and parcel in the problem.


      There isn't really a reason to expect more wisdom or even better motives from the government than from large profit making corporations.