Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Posts: 6742
Location: Central CA
| Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 7:11 pm Post subject: Maybe we can make it a little clearer... | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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... since the sound bite crowd seems to be having trouble grasping it.
Let me save you having to do any real work and post from the Times a pretty good answer to my question about how we got to this point in the first place:
Are you getting a glimmer yet, MA? We aren't SUPPOSED to be in a position where our system could "crash" if we don't pony up to keep certain big businesses in business.
And why would that be a surprise to anyone, eh?
Well, me anyway. I can't believe some of you have any intent of paying any part of that bill or you wouldn't work so hard at pretending you don't understand what the hell is happening here.
You see? These things were NOT designed to be this way. The fact that their failure COULD bring down the stock market is not natural but is a deliberately manufactured situation that should never have been allowed to come into being.
Oh oh... the greed factor again?
As far as I've been able to find out, they did flipping NOTHING to keep the companies from getting out of control.
Did we get that one? Not just the addicts, mentally defectives and just plain trash in the lower reaches of the societal spectrum but the vaunted middle class. I'm amazed that some of you are having so much trouble grasping what has happened here.
Hell, we have people railing against any form of government intervention in the continuing enrichment of the top 5% at the expense of the rest and refusing to admit that the mess exists, while totally refusing to look realistically at the manner in which deregulation was used as a means of robing first the general public and now the public treasury. It's a whole easier just to parrot whatever Rush or BOR and the other millionaire opinion shapers who have waxed fat on this very situation are saying and not have to actually think.
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Joined: 09 Feb 2008
Posts: 1292
Location: Brand Central
| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 2:39 am Post subject: | |
Seriously man, do you ever chill?  sheesh!
I made a small comment in the other thread, and it was merely an observation of how it seems to work... and you seem to take it personally... as if i was attacking you when I was not. Its like "make any comment, see Nofs go up like a bottle rocket" I'm not trying to push your buttons man, but you seem to have so many. |
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Joined: 24 Feb 2005
Posts: 457
| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 6:00 am Post subject: | |
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MA., Nof's is not exactly my favorite person on any board., but sometimes the lay of the land might be a thing to consider. You are a history "buff" or major?
You know enough? about past politics and they lay of the land? to disregard all the links that have been posted? The other day I was talking to an "elderly" customer., and SHE Brought up the subject of F & F., and then we talked about the bank failure. SHE said this reminded her of 1929. She told me we are in a recession and the Great Depression is right now. Gee I wonder how she knows? I'm not a fan of "rumors" but I am a realist. If a company can (or all the financial market) can tank in less than a year. SHLD included. What the hell is your take? Except parroting what everyone else is saying? Do you have an opinion? I may just post links. But I think the shit has hit the fan and it's flying. |
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Joined: 24 Feb 2005
Posts: 457
| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 6:06 am Post subject: | |||
My Dad used to tell me... Shit or get off the pot. In other words take a stand. Have an opinion of your own.
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Joined: 04 Jul 2003
Posts: 2179
Location: A little bit sideways!
| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 6:25 am Post subject: | |||||
Nofs is one of my fav's on all boards. But that's just my spin. 
Some history of Fannie Mae. http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Fannie%2bmae
Always a problem. If you think the first Great Depression was a mess wait 'till you see this one in action. ~GoodFella Last edited by GoodFella on Tue Jul 15, 2008 6:58 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Joined: 24 Feb 2005
Posts: 457
| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 6:55 am Post subject: | |
| I love Nof's rhetoric. He has an advantage that I don't have. He's lived through things. Things I've only been scolded about by my grandma and Dad. Neither are alive today., wish I could have them scold me again. So Nof's will have to do. | |
Joined: 09 Feb 2008
Posts: 1292
Location: Brand Central
| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 2:14 pm Post subject: | |
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Don't get me wrong: I enjoy Nofs posts, but he seems to want to body slam me on every comment I make.
I made a simple comment based on what I have been reading regarding Fannie & Freddie - I was quite surprised to learn they are 50% of the industry together, and merely pointed out the obvious: they are too big to fail. The investors who own their stocks might end up taking a shellacking at some point, but the businesses themselves will not go the way of Enron. Perhaps I neglected to include some righteous indignation... (thats a leetle joke there, k?) You want an opinion? here's one: F&F are going nowhere, the Fed will see to that.... My real concern is that the 24 hour press coverage of this and Indymac could start a run on other banks... if panic spreads then we really are screwed in ways that we have only read in history books. In my mind's eye, I'm seeing the FDIC standing there holding the bag like poor old George Bailey at the Building and Loan... The hyperbole of the newsmedia could start something we would regret... they feed on bad news and make it worse every day. In that regard, Phil Gramm was right - he referred (ham handedly of course) to the 'mental recession' and if the media has their way, we might get an ugly one. Are we in a recession? Some parts of the country are for sure, other parts are doing OK. Are we in a bear market? no doubt about that... A Depression? not hardly. At present the nation is entering a mild recession which, if handled well and things break our way, can and will be dealt with. The biggest problem is and will remain the cost of energy. To that end, we should be pursuing ALL forms of energy with renewed vigilance: Drilling off the coast (and as a Floridian I'm stunned to hear myself say that), new nuclear plants, wind and solar energy and clean coal plants ... as hard as we can. I have said for years that national energy independence is, IMO, a national security issue, and there should be a goal of 100% within 10 years. Essentially a "Manhattan Project" for energy. With every tank of gas in a fatassed Suburban or Excursion, we are literally funding terrorists, and jeopardizing the nation's economic immediate future. (note: i am chock full of opinions! *grin*) |
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Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Posts: 6742
Location: Central CA
| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 2:31 pm Post subject: | |||
Knock it off MA. Either stick with the subject or just knock it off entirely. This thread is not about me or my buttons. And you've been making comments for the past couple of weeks that haven't been addressed or barely more than noticed by me. In fact, I don't think I've responded to one of your posts in that period so knock off the fricking hype for once. hell, you even made one of those "Say something good about Sears, incur the wrath" style comments that you pop up with now and again on the Sears board and it was totally ignored, not only by me but by everyone else (I expect much to your chagrin. No fun making a bait post and not getting a bite, eh?). And I didn't look at your shallow minded comment on THIS thread as a personal attack. I looked at it as what I still consider it to have been... a simple little standard "conservative" sound bite attempt to blow off something that SOME of us feel is an important issue... one that actually offered nothing in the way of information pertinent to what had gone before. I mean, do you really think we haven't all heard that lame refrain a hundred times already? In short, you offered what I guess YOU consider an excuse for why we were going to be ripped off to the tune of yet another 15 billion bucks... and I challenged you on that and why we were in a position to have to cough up the 15 bil in the first place. Instead of answering, you came up up with the above... which is typical when you stop to think about it. I realize how important it is for some people to think they're pushing someone's buttons... one of the favorite expressions of trolls is a smirky little "I must have really struck a nerve there", after all... but that isn't the case here. The thread, with links and references to raw data, was put here to illustrate how a situation continues to deteriorate on a daily basis. You posted one of your lame assed unsupported sound bites that attempted to dismiss the damage being done to the economy as just another necessary evil the rest of us have to put up with so your crowd can get their dividends or whatever. I took issue with that. That's all it is, no buttons pushed, little or no notice of you personally taken at all until you started doing your little button pushing hamster dance. In fact, it would appear that the only buttons being pushed around here are yours.
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Joined: 09 Feb 2008
Posts: 1292
Location: Brand Central
| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 2:40 pm Post subject: | |||
Actually, I was thrilled. I thought "great, they've decided to let me express my opinion without jumping my ass every fracking time" As to the topic at hand: I'm not happy at all that the banking system is such a mess. Its now obvious that Greenspan made a muddle of things by raising interest rates as fast as he did in a ham handed effort to wring the "irrational exuberance" from the system... in doing so he precipitated the mortgage mess we have now by forcing the resets in the ARMs. That has led to a weaker dollar, which in turn has been one of the reasons the price of oil has spiked, which in turn is goosing inflation... So, what to do? Focus on energy independence and many of the other issues will solve themselves. |
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Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Posts: 6742
Location: Central CA
| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 3:50 pm Post subject: | |||
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Since we're obviously going to go from from the bailouts and THEIR effects on the economy to... oh hell, let's settle for energy independence...
ANOTHER one line solution to the world's problems, eh? Let me try one myself here: As long as the people who CREATE the problems are the ones we have to depend on to FIX them... we're boned.
Sorry, but in MY opinion, that's total bullshit. Feel free to come back and add more stuff yet again but it still boils down to it requiring more than simplistic sloganeering to solve an entire syndrome of problems as complex as what's going on here. But again, let's take your statements at face value for the purpose of questioning them. So... what do you mean by "focus on energy independence" which by itself appears to be nothing but another political slogan meaning "write the energy companies another blank check on the taxpayers/consumers."? Is your answer to simply open everything up to unlimited drilling and mining and exploitation? Will we be "energy independent" then? Is it to make sure the existing energy companies, whose track record for working in the national interest sucks up to this point quite frankly, have complete control over alternative energy sources through rubber stamp government agencies run by representatives and lobbyists for those same companies? Isn't that pretty close to what we already have? I'm not saying I DON'T support increased development of our own resources mind you, but only that given the performance of the people in charge that has led us to the point we're at, I don't favor giving them Carte Blanche to simply do it to us yet again. They're gonna get MY money, I want some control over how it gets spent. And do you mean we won't have to do anything about the manipulation of oil futures (or the next big commodity bubble scheme that pops up)? Do you mean that all those millions of acres of public lands that the oil companies have been sitting on leases for since the 70s, and not even paying their royalties on in many cases couldn't have been opened up over the past 30 years or so to help alleviate the situation? What about the infrastructure that was basically abandoned when it became more profitable to buy oil than to produce it? Do you mean that they SHOULD have torn down all those refineries and sold them for scrap or let them deteriorate to uselessness back when foreign oil was cheap and they could make more profit importing energy than they could producing it? How does this insure that "many of the other issues will solve themselves." since many of them are self contained little bubbles themselves and have nothing to do with energy? For example, how would have opening up offshore drilling have prevented the subprime mortgage bust? We could go on and on with reasons why we believe the situation to be a manipulated and contrived one designed to produce exactly the same record profits for the energy companies and the economic UPTURN being enjoyed by the few that are in a position to benefit from said manipulation but I seriously doubt that it would mean anything as far as you're concerned. As always, you seem to be content to ignore those particular underlying issues and focus on whatever floats to the top. The idea for many is NOT to simply slap another multi-billion buck bandaid on one little aspect of the damage being done, but to first recognize and then try to heal the entire injury and then to take preventive measures to see that this situation can't occur again. The very idea that these problems will take care of themselves, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES is ludicrous on the face of it. Exactly that attitude, on the part of far too many people over the past 20 years, is the underlying problem and the reason the fat cats have gotten away with what they have already. |
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Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Posts: 6742
Location: Central CA
| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 5:03 pm Post subject: | |||||||||||||
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Again, this is not something you can over simplify and zip up in a single sweeping generalization.
Bernanke: economy faces 'numerous difficulties'
None of the steps taken thus far require the companies being "fortified" to act with any kind of responsibility toward the rest of the country. None of these problems are going to be solved permanently until that one is addressed.
Only one of those pertains to the original subject of the thread, however.
Of course it is... nobody is making any effort to control ALL of the factors that lead to inflation.
But we're supposed to believe it's nothing serious, right? Most of the rest of it involves stuff we've talked about.
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Joined: 09 Feb 2008
Posts: 1292
Location: Brand Central
| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 5:13 pm Post subject: | |||
No, i said all forms of energy. Look a couple of paragraphs above for the answer to that. My statement was a summation of the root problem: High energy costs are the root of higher food costs, shipping costs and ultimately have an effect on the financial system as well (weaker dollar, tightening credit etc) NOT that it is the ONLY cause, it is the ROOT cause, and IF you can fix the cost of energy, you will have solved a lot of the problems from a systemic point of view. Here's the real communication issue here: I see life as a set of givens and look for ways to fix a problem. I don't internalize any of this, I look at it from a point of detachment and, again, from a problem/solution POV.... Whereas, it seem to me that you look at it and want to find someone to be mad at, or an entire class of people to be mad at. I simply do not subscribe to the class warfare approach to life. and: Had you not singled me out in your original post, I probably would not even have responded to this post at all. |
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Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Posts: 6742
Location: Central CA
| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 5:47 pm Post subject: | |||
Bullshit! What you SAID was:
The elaborations always come only after someone questions your simplistic little one line cures for the world's problems. What you di is exactly what you did in this thread... you spout the current talking point in its most minimal form, totally ignoring all but the the single point that YOU happen to have a talking point for. As for singling you out... who else is there? nobody else does this. Only you... for right now anyway. Pop in and try to blow off an entire thread with some lame one liner with no apparent thought behind it and post a "countervailing" opinion solely for the purpose of posting one. I expect that to change shortly of course, but for right now, you're "singled out" because you're the SINGLE person doing what I'm referring to. And then of course, in order to follow the formula, you have to take exception and start howling "persecution" when someone (not only me, these days either) calls bullshit on it. When I decided to engage you on this one I could have predicted almost verbatim the course this thread was going to take, up to and including your self serving little autobiographical snippets. They've always been the final resort when someone challenges you on your blanket statements and generalizations, after all. We've reached that point now and I've been through enough of these with you to know that you will absolutely HAVE to have the last word , so what I'm going to do is abandon this one and let you have that last word. Enjoy.
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Joined: 09 Feb 2008
Posts: 1292
Location: Brand Central
| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 6:24 pm Post subject: | |||
... is what i said. you are willfully ignoring that. Man, you start a fight and then you stomp off in a pique. |
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Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Posts: 6742
Location: Central CA
| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 7:03 pm Post subject: | |
Damn! You can't even be satisfied with the last word... you have to make it a challenge, eh. Well it worked... much to my own chagrin. Since you're obviously missing the point about your "debate" techniques, I'm gonna try one more time.
Look buddy... I didn't "start" a fight. I called bullshit on one of your one liners. Just as I'm always going to do when you toss them naked, without any empirical evidence (which still has not been forthcoming) into the arena in an attempt to refute something I or someone else has just said. THAT has been the nub of what I've been saying and you still aren't getting it. As I've said before... anyone who doesn't get it after numerous explanations is not failing to get it... he's REFUSING to get it. Anything that has been said in answer to your subsequent attempts to elaborate on that one liner has followed from that simple act on my part, including your attempt to blow off the first one with a second one just as meaningless as the first. Let's get one more thing clear: I did NOT "stomp off in a pique". If you get your jollies thinking your shallow little inanities are worth someone getting in a pique or "stomping off" over, knock yourself out. I tossed in the TWO... count 'em, TWO... smiley faces to show that I was far from in a pique but rather amused by your following of the same stale formula you've followed since you burst upon the scene here. God, I hate people who score it as some kind of "victory" when you simply decide they're no longer worth trying to deal with. You're the one that started howling and whining when I called bullshit... you're the one that started tossing in all kinds of elaborate explanations regarding what you really MEANT by the meaningless one liners... you're the one that has to break an arm patting yourself on the back about not internalizing, yadayada... at least when you try to explain or elaborate the basic one liners that were the reference for my own complaint in the first place... therefore it would appear that it's not I who's in a "pique" here. Actually I rather enjoy it when you go Pee Wee Herman on me like this.
Oh by he way... as for singling you out... at least two other people posted on this thread... one of whom also addressed you directly by name... a person who hasn't been shy about getting in MY face on the occasions when she's felt I was wrong and who cannot therefore be accused of anything but stating her own opinion (in fact, I believed she used the term calling BS on another message board, eh?)... so,why is it only me who is "picking fights" by simply disagreeing with your very basic little premise... which is all you bothered to toss out there until I did? Just possibly, if you would simply say what you REALLY mean the first time around instead of just tossing out the TP of the day that you think should somehow automatically refute the dozen or so links and several sources and numerous quotes we've included in our own posts and leaving it to the rest of us to automatically know what the hell you're referring to by it... you wouldn't have to keep coming back and posting complaints about the manner in which your pronouncements were received and perceived later. Just a thought. *stomps off in a pique*
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Joined: 09 Feb 2008
Posts: 1292
Location: Brand Central
| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 7:08 pm Post subject: | |
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see, i'm not fighting or debating
i'm expressing my opinion and opinions are, by definition, never wrong as they are subjective. |
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Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Posts: 6742
Location: Central CA
| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 7:10 pm Post subject: | |
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Say g'nite MA.
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Joined: 09 Feb 2008
Posts: 1292
Location: Brand Central
| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 11:02 pm Post subject: | |
| nitey nite! | |
Joined: 02 Jun 2006
Posts: 142
Location: Between a Rock and an otherwise very hard place
| Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 9:48 pm Post subject: | |
| Actually you can still subjectively be incorrect MA. For example, Bush saying we aren't in a recession when all evidence points to the contrary, and Bernanke pussy footing around the word without using it just for political correctness. Or here's another example, the Catholic church saying the Earth is flat or the center of the universe, despite it being an opinion, and condemning anyone contrary to it to death for heresy, in particular Giordano Bruno for being the first to ball up and tell the church it was wrong, is just another example of how the church was wrong. | |
Joined: 08 Jul 2003
Posts: 4793
| Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 6:07 pm Post subject: keep less cash | |
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'keep less cash on hand than traditional lenders'
Which the non traditional lenders contorted to mean-'Ok,no money down mortgages' which was in turn twisted to mean 'NO income VERIFICATION' which which in turn was miscontrewed as 'do what ever you want' which then was FLIPPED flopped into 'get it(the original) loan out of my hands as soon as possible'.All because the actual intent of a governemt sanctioned progaram was completely exploited by some very greedy people. But when government or tax payer backed programs are turned into publically traded companies what the heck do you expect. I remember during the internet bubble of the late 90s had one good willed liberal financial talk show host always pushed government bonds and programs like Fannie and Freddie.He used to get barbequed but said the return on those programs was in YOUR best INTEREST-pun intended.But see,he was a true believer:help those that normally couldn't help themselves but that winds up being the problem:people do wind up helping themselves-to stuff they have no business dealing with. |
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