<p>It’s a good thing for who exactly?</p>
<p>Are the hedge fund honchos distributing their personal, ridiculous incomes when things go well?</p>
<p>Where exactly is the accountability.</p>
<p>I find it fascinating that both Greenspan and Bernanke have said that it is not the Fed’s job to look at asset prices when making policy. This is the reason that the Fed used when they saw a bubble in the stock market and the housing market and did not take decisive action to stop these bubbles. Yet, when asset prices go down, they quickly take action to try to stem the tide. </p>
<p>The Fed’s actions do not affect everybody positively. Savers make less money. One reason, and the main reason this country isn’t saving money, is savers are not being paid to save. After inflation, savers don’t make any money. Let’s remember that the next time the Fed chairman says we don’t save enough as a country. We don’t save enough because of the Fed’s policies. We have to count on other countries to provide our capital. This has implications down the road. Them that owns, rules.</p>
<p>The Fed’s policies are inflationary and are destroying the value of the dollar.
To get a positive return on capital, we as a society have to take more risk.
Because of Fed policies, we have a large misallocation of capital. Too much went into residential real estate, not enough went into productive assets.</p>
<p>We are bailing out companies, that through their own actions, were mismanaged.
Countrywide Credit was probably broke. They were ruining themselves by lending to people who couldn’t afford their loans. They did this for a quick buck. Now the company will probably survive. The marketplace was saying no, it shouldn’t survive. The government has other ideas.</p>
<p>I don’t know. It just bugs me that every 10 years or so, we have to bail out the people that most advocate for free markets and as little government interference as possible. For 9 3/4 years you just hear about how bad the government is, how inept, and how the private sector is so much better. Then for about 3 months every 10 years, it is “Save me. Save me. Save me.” Then after the government comes in and saves their a@@es, what do you hear? The government can’t do anything. We, the free market advocates, are brilliant. (And because we are so brilliant, continue the subsidies and the tax benefits). </p>
<p>You would think the free market people would be a little more appreciative. ;)</p>
<p>There are many articles out today that state it is getting harder to get a mortgage. </p>
<p>Uh yeah. You mean you have to have more than a pulse to get a mortgage? You might actually have to be able to pay it back? What a concept.</p>
<p><a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/ft/20070817/bs_ft/fto081720071734509584;_ylt=AtRaWK_hgwYKSexEUEVV08YDW7oF[/url]”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ft/20070817/bs_ft/fto081720071734509584;_ylt=AtRaWK_hgwYKSexEUEVV08YDW7oF</a></p>
<p>"In one of the most turbulent weeks in the financial markets this year, there have been not only tears but also laughter as black humour have helped some of the world’s biggest banks and institutions come to terms with the prospect of huge losses. </p>
<p>As the FTSE 100 shed 4.1 per cent on Thursday - the biggest daily loss in more than four years - traders let rip with expletives and gallows humour in equal proportions as they grappled with the unprecedented volatility.</p>
<p>One joke likened the crisis in subprime assets - responsible for triggering the implosion of some hedge funds as they totted up billions of dollars in losses - to the Titanic disaster: as with the Titanic, the downside was not immediately apparent and only a few wealthy people got out in time.</p>
<p>Another dealer announced in a cheeky e-mail the creation of a new structured product: a Constant Obligation Leveraged Originated Structured Oscillating Money Bridged Asset Guarantee, or COLOStOMyBAG. One trader noted on the product - a parody of the increasingly bizarre acronyms that have become commonplace in the world of structured finance - “It’s basically full of ****.”</p>
<p>Other traders described a new quantitative trading method - one of the complex mathematical models de-signed to profit from pricing inefficiencies in the markets - otherwise known as a “dartboard”."</p>
<p>
We haven’t had a ‘free market’ in this nation for well over a hundred years.</p>
<p>“I fail to see why the FEDs action is considered a bail out. It is only easing the credit crunch and is not a government give away.”</p>
<p>The fed effectively increased the money supply. This will allow debtors to pay back with cheap (less valuable dolars) loans of dear (more valuable dollars). It increases inflation which is a hidden tax (usually the liberals favorite kind but one which alleged conservatives occassionally partake as well).</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong. I think the fed did the right thing but the effect is to allow people who made bad business decisions (the banks, hedge funds) to stay in business and people who made bad personal decisions (ballon mortgages, second mortgages) to escape the consequences of their decisions. It is also a boon to those folks (realtor and the whores who write for the real estate section of newspapers and sell add space to the real estate industry) to escape the full consequences of their bad advice to the rubes out there.</p>
<p>There shold be a jail sell somewhere large enough to hold the editors of the Washington Post and all the real estate lobbyists and the banker who let the loans and then turned around and sold them. We can also throw the FreddieMac execs in there who were lying to congress about the profits they were making because they didn’t want to admit to how much bad paper they were spreading. But alas the world is not a just place.</p>
<p>Law prof predicts fraud charges in subprime debacle.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=a78b927c-b20c-4fb7-950a-97f4032dc148&k=38980[/url]”>http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=a78b927c-b20c-4fb7-950a-97f4032dc148&k=38980</a></p>
<p>The bankers will probably get away with it. They always did. </p>
<p>I bet you there is serious mis-representation to the folks who went for these mortgages as well.</p>
<p>Robert Hare used to say that if for some reason he did not have the prison population to study psychopathy, he would have headed for the stock exchange to look for them. He was not kidding.</p>
<p>“Robert Hare used to say that if for some reason he did not have the prison population to study psychopathy, he would have headed for the stock exchange to look for them. He was not kidding.”
:eek:
;)</p>
<p>Mini, you must have ticked off somebody</p>
<p><a href=“http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003769828_unions01m.html[/url]”>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003769828_unions01m.html</a></p>
<p>mini is probably talking 2.5% net after the SEIU takes dues out.</p>
<p>We have the SEIU lobbying our state legislature here in Maryland for a cut of every low-income family daycare subsidy dollar given to poor families. Essentially they want a slice of the money spent to subsidize poor childrens day care costs. The SEIU are slimy buggers.</p>
<p>“I expect them to be good soldiers,” Gregoire said. “We’ve shown that, when we do have revenue, we will be very fair to folks, so when we’re in troubled times we’ll expect the same fairness from them.”</p>
<p>She’s kidding, right?</p>
<p>Not SEIU member. 2.5% gross.</p>
<p>“She’s kidding, right?”</p>
<p>Not really. The government always has revenue because it has a monopoly on the use of force and so can take whatever it wants. When you have all the guns and all the billy clubs and all the prisons you make all the rules.</p>
<p>The main difference between the mafia and the government is the illegal numbers racket had a better payout than the state lottery. Both do well in labor racketeering.</p>
<p><a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/stocksfinanceproperty;_ylt=AmubT2tb3MwIh0.JNAgeWz8DW7oF[/url]”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/stocksfinanceproperty;_ylt=AmubT2tb3MwIh0.JNAgeWz8DW7oF</a></p>
<p>Many people in Cleveland apparently lack both the means and the competence to own homes and manage somewhat complex finances. The least competent are the easiest to dupe.</p>
<p><a href=“Real estate gap grows in Napa County in July”>Real estate gap grows in Napa County in July;
<p><a href=“http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/calbreath/20070819-9999-1b19dean.html[/url]”>http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/calbreath/20070819-9999-1b19dean.html</a></p>
<p>Looks like there are many Clevelands out there.</p>
<p>"According to the research firm Claritas, the number of households with a net worth of more than $1 million – not counting home equity – rose nearly 2 percent in San Diego County last year to 37,704. The continuing influx of the wealthy has kept foreclosures in places such as Del Mar, Rancho San Bernardo and La Jolla extremely low. </p>
<p>The upward movement of prices in those neighborhoods helps keep the county’s median price relatively high, even though most other neighborhoods are on the decline. Last month, 23 of the county’s 91 ZIP codes showed rises in the median price. </p>
<p>The bad news is that the arrival of wealthy households will do little to improve the health of the market in low-income neighborhoods in places such as Chula Vista, San Ysidro and Paradise Hills, where most of the foreclosures are occurring.</p>
<p>Of course for perhaps the first time the average consumer has probably outwitted the Wall Street expert. When you are holding a no-principal interest only baloon mortgage you cannot lose anything by walking away from the house and leaving the keys in the door:-) Even a renter is stuck with a lease and the loss of his security deposit. What are you out when you have put no equity down and lived in the house for a couple of years for the cost of the sub-prime interest and gotten to write that off on your taxes?</p>
<p>“Sorry Roger you tiger now”</p>
<p>BTW the Chairman of Goldman Sachs just endores Hillary and the firm was a major contributor to Bill’s campaigns and not just financially. It provided his Sec of the Treasury Robert Rubin who returned to the firm after his government service. Goldman is the Democratic equivelent of Haliburton when it comes to </p>
<p>I couldn’t help noticing that Hilary has John Mack’s endorsement. Whatever happened to the insider trading investigation involving John Mack? It went pffft. 
I think it is time to stop electing candidates who are bought and sold by Wall Street and religious fanatics too. </p>
<p>That eliminates almost every republican running and most democrats too.</p>
<p>I do think you still lose your credit rating and could face further lawsuits to recover any losses to the lender as the loans are full recourse rather than no recourse. Now with 1000’s of defaults the odds of getting sued may be low but you might be on the hook for years and they could sell that opportunity to recover to another party just as credit card companies sell bad debts to collectors.</p>
<p>Didn’t this all start because your credit was so bad nobody in their right would lend you money? (No you you of course but the folks taking out these loans)</p>