Stupid or lying, which is it?

[Toro]

So your saying the federal reserve manipulation of rates caused the current crisis. It had nothing with banks and credit default swaps.

There are many reasons for the current crisis but the primary one is probably the Federal Reserve, which left interest rates too low, igniting a boom in housing. It also flooded the system with cash to bail out Long Term Capital Management and for Y2K, which contributed to the run up of the Tech Bubble.

However, lax regulation also contributed significantly, and the banks put a gun to their head in the belief that markets are always efficient. Markets are not always efficient. They took on too much debt under the assumptions of how asset markets behaved most of the time. However, when asset markets started behaving differently than their models suggested, they wound up too exposed and are now dead.

The US banking system is effectively insolvent. Had banks accurately assessed risk, this would not have happened.

 

[ABikerSailor]

Actually, it was caused by the greed of those at the top.

They didn't have any real money incidentally......it was all EFT funds, which means, no real money.

When they realized that people wanted to see the real money, they panicked, and next thing ya know, they're asking for bailouts, and looking for someone to give them real money.

When they received the money? They held onto it, as they were too embarrassed to admit they'd lied.

Madoff is a good example of this.

And that is why, with all the cash they've been given, they are STILL not putting it out in loans and the like.

Trickle down NEVER works. Only trickle up, and if you don't believe that, then check out the dude from India who won the Nobel Peace Prize for trickle up economics.

Ugh, trickle down, trickle up, blame it on this or that. If you want strong investment, don't overtax the wealthy. That does not mean they should not be taxed a reasonable amount. At the same time, you must also be certain that the majority of the non-wealthy earn a decent income, because they are the ones who drive the economy as they are the ones who purchase the bulk of all goods sold. If they don't have the money, everything collapses.

It's not either or, you can't destroy the wealth of a country and expect it to grow. You also cannot allow the middle class to disappear and expect it to grow. There has to be a good balance.

You also realize that back in the early 1900's, the Robber Barons (who were greedy pricks also), KNEW that if there wasn't a decently taken care of workforce, they wouldn't have any more products to sell, right?

Only trouble is.......those at the top right now are so far removed from the middle and the bottom, that they've forgotten who it was that made money for them.

 

[jeffrockit]

Lets not forget what began with Carter; The community reinvestment act that all but forced banks to give risky loans to unqualified recipients. I remember the first time I heard of an interest only home loan and thought that is going to be a train wreck.

In fairness to Bush, he asked for more regulation in this area but was all but ignored. The CRA has to have had a big part of this housing meltdown. You can't level the playing field when most of those that benefited from this, have showed an unwillingness to better their current situation.

An interesting quote:


"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."
~~~~~ The late Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931 - 2005 ~~~~~

 

[KittenKoder]

Lets not forget what began with Carter; The community reinvestment act that all but forced banks to give risky loans to unqualified recipients. I remember the first time I heard of an interest only home loan and thought that is going to be a train wreck.

In fairness to Bush, he asked for more regulation in this area but was all but ignored. The CRA has to have had a big part of this housing meltdown. You can't level the playing field when most of those that benefited from this, have showed an unwillingness to better their current situation.

An interesting quote:


"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."
~~~~~ The late Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931 - 2005 ~~~~~

One thing I have told many people: Pay should be based on how much work is actually done, the chances of physical harm, and the amount of actual product produced instead of what degrees people have. It would solve a LOT of problems, the economy would explode because people would want to produce more stuff to export bringing more money into the country and less out and the balance of wealth would even out.

 

[oreo]

Akin, House GOPers unpersuaded by Obama stimulus visit | Political Fix | STLtoday


“I don’t believe in the myth that all the spending programs that FDR implemented in the Great Depression pulled us out of the Great Depression. I believe that they made the Depression,” Akin said.

A very good book as resource to the "great depression". "The forgotten man". Excellent--unfortunately we are doing the exact same things that extended the depression--which then turned into the "great depression." By government trying to spend tax dollars to get out of it. Hoover did it, then Roosevelt did it on steriods. Yes, we got lots of new roads & bridges that we still use today. Today 4-lane highways criss-cross our country--where there were none in the 30's.

So we have bridges & roads. What we don't have is alternative energy. Yet, I see no money for that in this new supposed 813 billion dollar stimulus bill. Lots of pork & nonsense but very little in new job creation.

It was striking when I heard Obama praise the employee that chose to cut-back on his hours to save anothers job. That too was done in the 30's & encouraged by both Presidents. What the author discovered was that now instead of 1 family having no extra spending income 2 familes don't. Yep, it's exactly the same alright.

We're simply repeating the mistakes of the past. What brought us out of the great depression was WW2.

There is no discrimination in the unemployment line between republicans & democrats, white or black. When we finally realise that & start blaming our reckless government instead of ourselves, & hold our politicians feet to the fire on their campaign promises, we may actually get something done.

 

[AllieBaba]

That's right. Don't look at yourself and think of ways to pull yourself out of the gutter.

Just blame the government, and make them take care of you.

 

[editec]

We had depression BEFORE we had government regulations on businesses and banking, folks.

We had depressions BEFORE we had a FED, too.

The fact is that capitalism seems to have cycles it goes though no matter what government does to prevent them.

There were depressions in capitalist societies for the last 500 years.

Egnland had them Holland had them, France had them, Germany had them...

Now I am not saying that we cannot do anything to exascerbate them or to mitigate them, but good times bad times DOES seem to be just in the nature of economic systems.

We do NOT control the world, folks.

Societies merely learn to deal with the changes that fate seems to throw our way (or not) but I am not entirely convinced that anyone really understands the nature of these ebbs and flows in economies because what they are attemtping to understand is too subject to random events beyond anyone's ability to truly fathom them.

 

[Truthmatters]

Lets not forget what began with Carter; The community reinvestment act that all but forced banks to give risky loans to unqualified recipients. I remember the first time I heard of an interest only home loan and thought that is going to be a train wreck.

In fairness to Bush, he asked for more regulation in this area but was all but ignored. The CRA has to have had a big part of this housing meltdown. You can't level the playing field when most of those that benefited from this, have showed an unwillingness to better their current situation.

An interesting quote:


"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."
~~~~~ The late Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931 - 2005 ~~~~~

Now how does the Bonuses for the failed Bank CEOs figure into all of this thoery?

 

[Xenophon]

Perhaps he meant they made it worse, it's obviously wrong as the depression began before FDR was POTUS.

 

[no1tovote4]

Perhaps he meant they made it worse, it's obviously wrong as the depression began before FDR was POTUS.

Yet the depression continued until there was forced stimulus production because of a war.

Spending isn't enough if you don't also stimulate production. It will self-stimulate if needed products are not available. If the government attempts to provide the product without the production it extends the problem, it doesn't help anybody to just spend. We must spend effectively.

 

[editec]

Yet the depression continued until there was forced stimulus production because of a war.

Spending isn't enough if you don't also stimulate production.

If the government attempts to provide the product without the production it extends the problem, it doesn't help anybody to just spend. We must spend effectively.

The above is absolutely spot on, No1

Note that even if we stimulate production now, a significant amount of the production stimulated will happen in some other land ...some land where they still make stuff.

When I was a boy, American was a nation run by citizens who worked in factories and MADE STUFF...stuff that they bought and sold to each other.

That generation had suvived through the last great BANKER'S depression, and they'd just fought the war for their very existence against the Axis FASCIST powers.

That generation clearly understood what it meant to be a citizen of a nation and they understood that the nation's fate and theirs were tied together.

Then my generation and those that followed became a nation of consumers rather than citizens

When people on boards like these tell me that they care more about buying their shirts cheaply than the overall wellbeing of the nation's working class, I know that this nation is now so populated with spoiled, rather stupid children, and that the society is bound to unravel.

We either care about this nation we either understand that we all must sacrifice somewhat to make it work, or this society goes down. It's really that simple.

Obviously not enough of us understand that being a citizen is a birthright, but one that comes with responsibilities to THIS NATION...not as consumers, but to its CITIZENS.

Our leaders of late, have been nothing but selfish pigs and their attitude has become the zietgiest of our time.

9-11 happened and what did the idiot tell us?

"Go shopping"!!!!!!!



When Bush the Idiot wasn't removed from office at that point, it should have been apparent to all of us what total incompetents were in CONGRESS, too.

It's taken nearly fifty years of economically destructive policies on the part of the master class, but the selfish bastards have broken the Republic's economic back, folks.

Some of you believe this was purely an organic outcome, and that it was not expected.

I personally cannot believe that.

Why?

Because far too many of us who were not in power knew an economic meltdown was inevitable.

The FUNDAMENTALS -- you remember those fundamentals, right? Those are the economic things that people like Bush II and McCain kneejerkingly kept telling us were sound? -- ARE NOT RIGHT.

The Imbalance in our trade is not a minor prick in the economy

It is a bleeding arterial wound.

Because not ONLY ismoney leaving our shores, but those imports represent TENS OF MILLIONS OF JOBS that American do not HAVE.

One had to have been completely bamboozled by the economic priests to think that isn't the problem that is at the root of the current economic meltdown.

Everybody had been told by ROSS PEROT that this was a disasterous policy.

Remember him?

He was characterized as a nutter, remember?

And that is EXACTLY what has been done to millions of American, folks.

Anyone who wouldn't SWEAR THAT THE EMPORER HAD MARVELOUS CLOTHES was dismissed, disenfranchised, marginized from political power, or otherwise PUNISHED for not swearing to the validity of the LIES that the master class was selling the unwashed.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

If Obama wants to STIMULATE the Country and its Economy then spend money rebuilding our Industries. Rebuild the Steel Industry like we did for Germany after WW2. Rebuild the textiles Industry. Rebuild the numerous manufacturing industries we have let slip away.

Did you know we do not even make the new light bulbs in this country? In 2012 they are mandatory and we do not even produce a single one of them.

Instead of throwing money away to other Countries, CREATE new Industry and create new JOBS. Rebuild the shipbuilding industry. Modernize the power infrastructure. Build Nuclear power plants.

 

[editec]

If Obama wants to STIMULATE the Country and its Economy then spend money rebuilding our Industries. Rebuild the Steel Industry like we did for Germany after WW2. Rebuild the textiles Industry. Rebuild the numerous manufacturing industries we have let slip away.

Did you know we do not even make the new light bulbs in this country? In 2012 they are mandatory and we do not even produce a single one of them.

Instead of throwing money away to other Countries, CREATE new Industry and create new JOBS. Rebuild the shipbuilding industry. Modernize the power infrastructure. Build Nuclear power plants.

Grand idea, RGS.

Of course as long as we continue to make our working class compete against SLAVE LABOR (which is who are basically making most of the crap we import) the numbers will continue to work against anyone making any money on these new plants.

I don't mind one bit if American workers are in competition with workers in lands which have the same sense of social responsibility for its citizens as we do, but when our master class rushes to third world shitholes where workers are treated worse than I treat my dog, then something is SERIOUSLY out of kilter.

You must be old enough to remember the cold war, right?

Remember how we were fighting for the American WAY of life?

Well the American WAY of life included paying a living wage for a good day's labor, it included collective bargaining and it most defintiely included TARIFFS to insure that everybody got a share of the American pie.

Those WAYS OF LIFE were abandoned one stupid trade imbalancing policy after the other.

 

[Sidestreamer]

Akin, House GOPers unpersuaded by Obama stimulus visit | Political Fix | STLtoday


“I don’t believe in the myth that all the spending programs that FDR implemented in the Great Depression pulled us out of the Great Depression. I believe that they made the Depression,” Akin said.

Stupid. A lie would have been better crafted.

I say it's a lie. His district's full of morons so he knows that's all he needs to say.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Akin, House GOPers unpersuaded by Obama stimulus visit | Political Fix | STLtoday


“I don’t believe in the myth that all the spending programs that FDR implemented in the Great Depression pulled us out of the Great Depression. I believe that they made the Depression,” Akin said.

Stupid. A lie would have been better crafted.

I say it's a lie. His district's full of morons so he knows that's all he needs to say.

Actually it's true that FDR's policies made the Great Depression worse.

 

[Sidestreamer]

Stupid. A lie would have been better crafted.

I say it's a lie. His district's full of morons so he knows that's all he needs to say.

Actually it's true that FDR's policies made the Great Depression worse.

Could you explain that?

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

I say it's a lie. His district's full of morons so he knows that's all he needs to say.

Actually it's true that FDR's policies made the Great Depression worse.

Could you explain that?

Yes, his interventions in the market did nothing to help get us out of the Depression and ended up prolonging it by about 10 years or so.

How This Happened by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

 

[editec]

What FDR really did was save CAPITALISM, if anything.

Let us presume for a moment that all FDR's alphabet soup of work programs did nothing whatever to end the depression.

Can we also agree that those agencies mitigated some of the pain that American had because it put them back to work, at least well enough that the populations of the Hoovervilles stopped increasing?

If so then consider this...letting the makrket correct the problems that were in it could very well have taken a very long time.

Nobody has ever outlined how the market would revialize itself, or how long it might have taken, or what the unemployment rate might have climbed to before the market came back to life, but I'm reasonable certain that it might have taken at least a decade.

So the question is what would the American people have done if, with 25% or more of them permanently out of work, and absolutely NO HELP from the government while this disaster corrected itself?

Well we saw what Germany and Japan did, didn't we?

They went hypernationalistic, found a scapegoat class to blame all their problems on, and then went full blown FASCIST SOCIALIST, didn't they?

YOu think that couldn't have happened here?

I think it very well might have to be honest.

I'm old enough to have known and spoken to a lot of WWII Vets who were politicially aware of the times they grew up in.

Communism and Fascism were VERY popular in those days, folks, ESPECIALLY during the depression.

Yeah, I personally think that FDR saved capitalism from the excesses of the type of people who honestly believe that the market would eventually correct itself and people would just have die in droves while that was happening.

Of course none of us CAN know for sure whether FDR caused the depression to go on longer than it might have otherwise.

Neither can we know how the American people might have reacted if the unemployment continued to get worse, either.

All we can do is speculate about that.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Let's also not forget that Germany was also toiling under the Treaty of Versailles which wasn't exactly fair, that may have helped to ignite the "hypernationalism" as you call it. That along with the hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic, of course.

Those who would've "died in droves" while the market corrected itself would be wrong to blame those who would let the market correct itself, they'd be right to blame those who created the situation where the market needed to correct itself. The Fed, in other words.

 

[jeffrockit]

Lets not forget what began with Carter; The community reinvestment act that all but forced banks to give risky loans to unqualified recipients. I remember the first time I heard of an interest only home loan and thought that is going to be a train wreck.

In fairness to Bush, he asked for more regulation in this area but was all but ignored. The CRA has to have had a big part of this housing meltdown. You can't level the playing field when most of those that benefited from this, have showed an unwillingness to better their current situation.

An interesting quote:


"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."
~~~~~ The late Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931 - 2005 ~~~~~

Now how does the Bonuses for the failed Bank CEOs figure into all of this thoery?

Unfortunately it is not a theory (at least I think that is what you wanted to spell with "thoery"). Read up on the history of the CRA...it's fact!