Forums > General Chat > Depression or Recession

As a taxpayer with no debt and only a small percentage of investments of the type being bailed out, it rags me that we're using tax dollars to suck people out of the hole that they should have stayed out of if they'd had a lick of sense.

In my opinion, Reagan's pidgeons are finally coming home to roost.  Now the politicians will puff and posture to see who can out-FDR FDR with the goal of re-establishing regulation.  The two party system is NOT  what our founding fathers had in mind, and how to prevent it from evolving was probably their single greatest shortcoming in the architecture of our governmental system.  With our two party system, we swing from one set of elites on the right to another set of elites on the left.  No wonder all of the rest of the developed world follows a parliamentary system with representation according to actual popular vote among parties.

Sadly, the bail outs are probably necessary because such a large number of people are in trouble, that if we don't save them, the rest of us will go down too.  Phooey.

As for the question about recession vs. depression, the old joke was that it was a recession if your neighbor lost his job, and a depression if you lost yours.

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Die Entropie des Motorrads wird immer groesser. Most roaches are created unintentionally. IBA #27546

 

 + 1

Yeah Baby!

 

 

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The older i get the faster i was.

 

"a lick of sense" 

 

In the big frat house ballroom with the big "Greed" sign above the door, I'm thinking there's a doorman who collects and holds the good sense of members as they enter the room.

Good sense just gets in the way of the dance in that room, and the brothers in the fraternity all know that Dad will likely bail them out when the shit hits the fan at the end of the party.

We can't have the whole frat house going to jail now can we.  Who would set up the next party?

C

 

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Another sunrise, These bright and crystal moments, Crow flies overhead.

 

+2

 I think it's complete bullshit that the government is going to bail out the fools that bought $700,000 homes when they damn well knew they could only afford $400,000 homes...

 And now, we're going to fund their home with our tax dollars....for the next 10-15 years...

Times are going to be hard, if they aren't already for you. It's all going to trickle down...Hell I read this morning that NY Strip clubs noticed a strong decline in business!!

 

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07 X-Challenge - -Xplor BlueRidge (08) Group Leader/Sweeper -Xplor the Pines (07) Group Leader -PB500 Group Leader (06,07)

.....

It's a wee bit more complicated than individual debt. It's more like a run on the banks and paying off your friends before leaving town after eight years. If what's below does not make your blood boil then nothing will....

This is at the heart of the bailout:

"In short, the so-called 'mother of all bailouts,' which will transfer $700 billion taxpayer dollars to purchase the distressed assets of several failed financial institutions, will be conducted in a manner unchallengeable by courts and ungovernable by the People's duly sworn representatives. All decision-making power will be consolidated into the Executive Branch - who, we remind you, will have the incentive to act upon this privilege as quickly as possible, before they leave office." 

The deal proposed by Paulson is nothing short of outrageous. It includes no oversight of his own closed-door operations. It merely gives congressional blessing and funding to what he has already been doing, ad hoc. He plans to retain Wall Street firms as advisors to decide just how to cut deals to value and mop up Wall Street's dubious paper. There are to be no limits on executive compensation for the firms that get relief, and no equity share for the government in exchange for this massive infusion of capital. Both Obama and McCain have opposed the provision denying any judicial review of decisions made by Paulson -- a provision that evokes the Bush administration's suspension of normal constitutional safeguards in its conduct of foreign policy and national security. [...]

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There's only one like you, no way they could have made two - BW

 

"suspension of normal constitutional safeguards" 

 

We've all seen this picture show before.  Our grandparents watched the same picture show in 1932.

This pisses me off far more than the habeas corpus travesty.

Whoever said your average C-student was harmless.

Fear used as a tool, is chilling.

What are we supposed to be afraid of again?  The details are kind of vague.

C

 

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Another sunrise, These bright and crystal moments, Crow flies overhead.

I was in Sedgwick, ME back at the end of July and we were out on the Eggomoggin Reach for the annual regatta.  Discussion turned to the cost of some of the boats.  Yeah, yeah, I know.... if you have to ask the price, you can't afford one....

Well, chat turned to salaries and bonuses in different fields, and it was pointed out that one of the investment bankers had recently worked a deal that had earned him an $18M bonus.  The measley $6M for the boat was chump change in the investment banker scheme of things.

It seems to me that a lot of the money that has been lost, at least at the start of the fiasco, was lost through absurd compensation to high level players, and even to medium level players in many cases.

I'd like to see the federalized remnants go back to sane compensation models.  I hear that key players say they won't accept this.  I say let them walk away and see what else is available on a true "free market."

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Die Entropie des Motorrads wird immer groesser. Most roaches are created unintentionally. IBA #27546

..and while you're at it, add the incestuous Board of Director scam that permeates our business landscape.  You sit on my Board, I'll sit on yours and we'll both get rich rubber-stamping each other's agenda.  And while I'm at it, I think I'll sit on the Boards of 6 or 8 companies that I couldn't possibly begin to understand fully, and make a couple/three hundred grand apiece while I'm at it.  It won't feed the polo ponies, but it ought to take care of coffee money anyhow.

+3

and yes, I'm mad as hell too.

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jean

BullSh!t,

I just want a bail out job on a GS !

When I bought my first house it was madatory to have 10-20% down, then they screwed around and created Fanny and Freddie and guess what you only needed 0% down then. Now look at the mess, no body knows the way out ?...

They call this new approach to home ownership, NINJA loans: No Income, No Job [or] Assets ......Quick get a loan to them ,then have F+F sack em' up and sell em' to investors. They don't care if a few years down the road if the owners are over there heads and can't make a payment. It's out of their hands....

They ought to just stretch out those ARM loans to something like a 50 year fixed rate @8% and then they might be able to make their payments, instead of having the tax payers make the payments and socialize their losses.

And now just coming over the news ,The FBI is looking into F+F, Lehman Bro's, and AIG. Looks like an investigation into fraud by the people that once ran them. Wonder what this is all about, maybe the real crooks will get found out !!

Oh, and give me a GS too !!!....

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06 Ducati 620 Multistrada [Rabbit] ;

test

 

Edit; Woah! it worked! I've been trying to post to this thread (and others) for 3 days now.

Although Fannie Mae has been around a long time, the first time I ever heard of Freddie Mac was in 1981 when we had the 18% interest rates in the mortgage market.  I was buying a house and it had an assumable loan that was not being escalated for the new purchaser.  The interest rate was an unbelievably low 9 7/8%, and I jumped on it.  I looked into the loan, and it was a Freddie Mac loan with an escalation clause, but for whatever reason, the holder of the bundle that included this loan was not escalating on transfer of ownership.  We had sold another house, and the loan was assumable, but it escalated.  Although it escalated to 13.5%, the buyer thought they were getting an incredible deal compared to the current rates for new loans.  Times sure change.

As for the investigations into fraud, I suspect that if any honest broker looks carefully at the whole concept of derivatives and the derivative market, the whole thing would appear to be fraudulent.

The commentators on TV today were saying that no one should be looking at the fairness of any of this.  With a straight face they were saying that although a lot of folks had done a lot of stupid things, that we should fork over whatever it takes to bail them out or we'll all go down.  Sounds like extortion.

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Die Entropie des Motorrads wird immer groesser. Most roaches are created unintentionally. IBA #27546

Prosecute them all, fire the government, and start over.

 

EDIT; wow! a second post to the same thread! But I don't have the confidence to try a long post.

The Saga continues:

Senator Dodd called the Treasury proposal “stunning and unprecedented in its scope and lack of detail.”

Asserting that the plan would allow Mr. Paulson to act with “absolute impunity,” Senator Dodd said, “After reading this proposal, I can only conclude that it is not only our economy that is at risk, Mr. Secretary, but our Constitution, as well.

”........I think we've seen this "Patriot Act" before

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There's only one like you, no way they could have made two - BW