The bank rescue - An Obama miracle.

[The Rabbi]

Where do people think Obama bailed out the banks? George Bush bailed them out with TARP. I supported the initial part of TARP because the banking system had seized up. I opposed Bush's extension of TARP to the auto companies. ANd I really opposed Obama using TARP as his own private slush fund to reward friends and punish enemies.
The result of all this has been Dodd-Frank, which turned the banks into regulated utilities. Too big to fail has now been enshrined in law. Bankers are happy because they will get salaries no matter what. The taxpayer will get screwed because there is no incentive not to play with gov't guaranteed funds.
Deregulate the whole thing. Now.

 

[rightwinger]

There is little question the markets were in a panic in 2008 dropping half their value. Banks failing would have created a domino effect and led to a depression

The government was the only ones with money to prop up the market

It worked, and a depression was averted

 

[The Rabbi]

There is little question the markets were in a panic in 2008 dropping half their value. Banks failing would have created a domino effect and led to a depression

The government was the only ones with money to prop up the market

It worked, and a depression was averted

Thank G-d for President George W. Bush.

 

[Sallow]

Certainly sounds like you post implies you had a concern for your well being, being part of the financial system.

If you and your clients did OK then what the hell maybe it wasn't as bad as all of that. What I get out of your post was that the whole financial system was on the verge of collapse within hours. Certainly if that had happened would that not have effected you?

Glad to hear you are doing well as a professional gambler.

A financial collapse would have affected us all.

And if you think investing is gambling, you're simply not doing it right.

Find yourself an advisor. Looks like you're not up to this.

.

Sorry Mac, but investing as currently practiced by the average Joe IS gambling, it's just that the risk/rewards are harder to calculate in the financial markets than they are at the blackjack table (thus the need to pay an "advisor", which I like to call "gambling coaches").

There was a time in this country when the average person saved for retirement by stuffing their dollars into their mattress, they could do this because the purchasing power of the dollar was continually rising AND THEN the banking crew figured out a way to get their piece of that action... quite simple really, erode the purchasing power of the dollar so that average Joe had no other choice but risk his hard earned cash in the Wall Street Casino, heck it's a great system since the faster you erode the value of the dollar the bigger the risks poor Joe has to take in order to have enough to retire on and the bankers are the ones that get to decide the rate of dollar depreciation.

What a Country!

Really?

When was this "magical" time?

This country has been experiencing wild booms and busts till around the 1950s. Then we sorta reverted to the booms and busts starting in the 1980s. Between the 1950s and 1980s there were some pretty strong regulations in place to keep this sort of nonsense from happening.

 

[FA_Q2]

There is little question the markets were in a panic in 2008 dropping half their value. Banks failing would have created a domino effect and led to a depression

The government was the only ones with money to prop up the market

It worked, and a depression was averted

And all it cost us was the transfer of money to the banks that caused the crisis in the first place, the enshrinement into law that if they ever did so again the government would be right back there paying them off AGAIN and creating the worst moral hazard humanly possible.

IOW, it didn’t work worth a shit if you want to look further than that year.

 

[Sallow]

There is little question the markets were in a panic in 2008 dropping half their value. Banks failing would have created a domino effect and led to a depression

The government was the only ones with money to prop up the market

It worked, and a depression was averted

Thank G-d for President George W. Bush.

For what?

Creating a mess?

Then desperately trying to restore his "legacy" by averting a worldwide financial cataclysm?

 

[FA_Q2]

Really?

When was this "magical" time?

This country has been experiencing wild booms and busts till around the 1950s. Then we sorta reverted to the booms and busts starting in the 1980s. Between the 1950s and 1980s there were some pretty strong regulations in place to keep this sort of nonsense from happening.

There was nothing ‘magical’ about it. When we were actually on the gold standard you could save by ‘stuffing’ the mattress. The boom and bust cycles were irrelevant. The simple fact was that your money was not subject to the same type of depreciation that it is now subject to.

On the plus side – such depreciation FORCES capital to work as unused capital will become worthless. On the down side, those without much capital and no knowledge of how to make it work take it in the shorts.

 

[Desperado]

Heads should have rolled instead everybody gets big bonuses paid for by the American taxpayer.

And the main players were rewarded with high position jobs in the government.
Cheat Sheet: What?s Happened to the Big Players in the Financial Crisis - ProPublica

This was not a Democratic or Republican problem... both parties were at least equally to blame. Just as the bailout was not a real solution. The so called solution did nothing to ensure the crash will not happen again.
and both parties should be held responsible.

 

[zeke]

A financial collapse would have affected us all.

And if you think investing is gambling, you're simply not doing it right.

Find yourself an advisor. Looks like you're not up to this.

.

Sorry Mac, but investing as currently practiced by the average Joe IS gambling, it's just that the risk/rewards are harder to calculate in the financial markets than they are at the blackjack table (thus the need to pay an "advisor", which I like to call "gambling coaches").

There was a time in this country when the average person saved for retirement by stuffing their dollars into their mattress, they could do this because the purchasing power of the dollar was continually rising AND THEN the banking crew figured out a way to get their piece of that action... quite simple really, erode the purchasing power of the dollar so that average Joe had no other choice but risk his hard earned cash in the Wall Street Casino, heck it's a great system since the faster you erode the value of the dollar the bigger the risks poor Joe has to take in order to have enough to retire on and the bankers are the ones that get to decide the rate of dollar depreciation.

What a Country!

Really?

When was this "magical" time?

This country has been experiencing wild booms and busts till around the 1950s. Then we sorta reverted to the booms and busts starting in the 1980s. Between the 1950s and 1980s there were some pretty strong regulations in place to keep this sort of nonsense from happening.

Lots of people believe that our boom/bust cycle is the result of having a Federal Reserve bank created and then the income tax to pay the interest on the money created in the Federal Reserve banks.

Create money out of thin air and collect real money in the form of interest paid for by real Americans with real money.

Good gig if you can do that. And boom and bust cycles are the preferred way of working this system. Look at some of our wars and find out who profited from them. Or look at the latest collapse. The big bankers made out like bandits. Which is what they were. Robbers and bandits. They weren't to big to fail. They were to stupid to allow them to continue in roles of leadership. But leaders they still are. Jamie Dimon? Come on, the dude belongs in jail. Franklin Raines of Fannie Mae should be in jail with him

As to the comment I read about who was able to foresee the housing collapse.
I and several other mortgage loan officers that I knew, foretold the collapse when the Repubs got Clinton to sigh Graham, Leach, Bliley. It was not a mystery as to what was going to happen. The only question was how much money could be made before the collapse. But we all knew a collapse was coming. You can't make bad loans to people, sell them off and then expect no one will ever find out they bought shitty loans.

 

[LordBrownTrout]

Obama saved this country but he needs to do a lot more to get us back to the innovator we were in the 1950, 1960s and 1970s...There's a lot of cave men but I can only hope we can do it.

No he didnt. TARP occurred under bush and he didnt save the country either.

 

[Sallow]

Really?

When was this "magical" time?

This country has been experiencing wild booms and busts till around the 1950s. Then we sorta reverted to the booms and busts starting in the 1980s. Between the 1950s and 1980s there were some pretty strong regulations in place to keep this sort of nonsense from happening.

There was nothing ‘magical’ about it. When we were actually on the gold standard you could save by ‘stuffing’ the mattress. The boom and bust cycles were irrelevant. The simple fact was that your money was not subject to the same type of depreciation that it is now subject to.

On the plus side – such depreciation FORCES capital to work as unused capital will become worthless. On the down side, those without much capital and no knowledge of how to make it work take it in the shorts.

Your "gold standard" crapola was a myth that never was..

This was especially acute during the Depression and the run on the banks.

You folks seem to forget all about that.

There were other runs as well, but that is probably the most famous.

Add in our currency is what most other currencies peg against.

Seems that the wealth of the country really is what you can pull from the ground, what you can build, what you can grow and what services you can provide.

And not a shiny yellow metal.

 

[Sallow]

Obama saved this country but he needs to do a lot more to get us back to the innovator we were in the 1950, 1960s and 1970s...There's a lot of cave men but I can only hope we can do it.

No he didnt. TARP occurred under bush and he didnt save the country either.

Which means you are selling pencils and apples just outside your Hoovertown?

Since when?

 

[LordBrownTrout]

Obama saved this country but he needs to do a lot more to get us back to the innovator we were in the 1950, 1960s and 1970s...There's a lot of cave men but I can only hope we can do it.

No he didnt. TARP occurred under bush and he didnt save the country either.

Which means you are selling pencils and apples just outside your Hoovertown?

Since when?

Are you saying that we wouldn't have survived without the bailout? We would have made it without govt intervention. It would have taken awhile. Nonetheless, the banks paid off their note.

 

[Sallow]

No he didnt. TARP occurred under bush and he didnt save the country either.

Which means you are selling pencils and apples just outside your Hoovertown?

Since when?

Are you saying that we wouldn't have survived without the bailout? We would have made it without govt intervention. It would have taken awhile. Nonetheless, the banks paid off their note.

I don't know what you mean by "survive".

But the financial sector? That would have completely collapsed. You are talking major outfits like AIG, Goldman, Morgan/Chase, oh heck, just about everyone, going the way of Lehman.

Once that happened? Everything else goes.

So if you thought the Depression was fun? You would have been in fun central.

 

[NightFox]

A financial collapse would have affected us all.

And if you think investing is gambling, you're simply not doing it right.

Find yourself an advisor. Looks like you're not up to this.

.

Sorry Mac, but investing as currently practiced by the average Joe IS gambling, it's just that the risk/rewards are harder to calculate in the financial markets than they are at the blackjack table (thus the need to pay an "advisor", which I like to call "gambling coaches").

There was a time in this country when the average person saved for retirement by stuffing their dollars into their mattress, they could do this because the purchasing power of the dollar was continually rising AND THEN the banking crew figured out a way to get their piece of that action... quite simple really, erode the purchasing power of the dollar so that average Joe had no other choice but risk his hard earned cash in the Wall Street Casino, heck it's a great system since the faster you erode the value of the dollar the bigger the risks poor Joe has to take in order to have enough to retire on and the bankers are the ones that get to decide the rate of dollar depreciation.

What a Country!

Really?

When was this "magical" time?

This country has been experiencing wild booms and busts till around the 1950s. Then we sorta reverted to the booms and busts starting in the 1980s. Between the 1950s and 1980s there were some pretty strong regulations in place to keep this sort of nonsense from happening.

Since apparently you're unaware that the American Economy existed before the current fiat currency system was institutionalized and what that meant for the holders of hard asset backed currency I cannot help you with your completely non sequitur analysis.

Pray continue though...

 

[Sallow]

Sorry Mac, but investing as currently practiced by the average Joe IS gambling, it's just that the risk/rewards are harder to calculate in the financial markets than they are at the blackjack table (thus the need to pay an "advisor", which I like to call "gambling coaches").

There was a time in this country when the average person saved for retirement by stuffing their dollars into their mattress, they could do this because the purchasing power of the dollar was continually rising AND THEN the banking crew figured out a way to get their piece of that action... quite simple really, erode the purchasing power of the dollar so that average Joe had no other choice but risk his hard earned cash in the Wall Street Casino, heck it's a great system since the faster you erode the value of the dollar the bigger the risks poor Joe has to take in order to have enough to retire on and the bankers are the ones that get to decide the rate of dollar depreciation.

What a Country!

Really?

When was this "magical" time?

This country has been experiencing wild booms and busts till around the 1950s. Then we sorta reverted to the booms and busts starting in the 1980s. Between the 1950s and 1980s there were some pretty strong regulations in place to keep this sort of nonsense from happening.

Lots of people believe that our boom/bust cycle is the result of having a Federal Reserve bank created and then the income tax to pay the interest on the money created in the Federal Reserve banks.

Create money out of thin air and collect real money in the form of interest paid for by real Americans with real money.

Good gig if you can do that. And boom and bust cycles are the preferred way of working this system. Look at some of our wars and find out who profited from them. Or look at the latest collapse. The big bankers made out like bandits. Which is what they were. Robbers and bandits. They weren't to big to fail. They were to stupid to allow them to continue in roles of leadership. But leaders they still are. Jamie Dimon? Come on, the dude belongs in jail. Franklin Raines of Fannie Mae should be in jail with him

As to the comment I read about who was able to foresee the housing collapse.
I and several other mortgage loan officers that I knew, foretold the collapse when the Repubs got Clinton to sigh Graham, Leach, Bliley. It was not a mystery as to what was going to happen. The only question was how much money could be made before the collapse. But we all knew a collapse was coming. You can't make bad loans to people, sell them off and then expect no one will ever find out they bought shitty loans.

This leaves ALOT out in terms of how our currency is valued. Additionally, if people were tossed into jail? You'd have to seize the financial institutions. That would have caused panic.

I will agree that Clinton signing the gramm-leach- bliley bill was a mistake. But it's one that could have been corrected by the Bush administration. There were clear warnings that there was a problem.

 

[Mac1958]

Say I walk into your office and say, I have a 500000 dollar 401K I want to roll over. Assuming you even concern yourself with such a little amount what is the first thing you do?

I assume you do a financial needs analysis. Then you will suggest investments based on that analysis and, here it is, the willingness of me to take risk. You probably will give a quiz on the risk I am willing to take. You may certainly suggest less risk depending on my place in life and ability to recover but the big out for advisors is that they asked the unknowing what risk they would like to take. What I told the guy I have now is that I want everyone to make money, him, me and the companies we invest. Of course that is a no brainer. Turns out the more risk the more chance of reward apparently. Kind of like betting on a number verse red or black in roulette.

First, there's a point where more risk doesn't actually mean (potentially) more reward. That doesn't stop some goofballs from doing dumb stuff, but that's up to them.

Second, "risk" usually refers to volatility. It's going to go up, it's going to go down. But practically speaking, the risk is really the behavior of the investor when it goes down. If the investor does nothing or little and lets the market take its course and go back up, it wasn't really that risky because this is an investor who can keep his head on straight. It's the impatient investors, especially those who aren't receiving professional guidance, who bring in the risk. They freak and jump ship at the bottom. Now THAT'S risk.

Third, roulette is purely chance, the player has no input. There's plenty of input in a sound plan that is carried out correctly. It's the goofballs who leave more to chance, and they're the ones who pay the price.

There was a study by a company called DALBAR a couple of years ago. It showed that the average "active investor" (goofball) had earned an average of only a 3.49% return over the last 20 years, less than half the market. So the Mom & Pop who just kept putting their money into a carefully diversified portfolio of simple freakin' mutual funds kicked the goofballs' asses. Gawd, I love that one.

It really isn't as risky as people think. It just requires a good plan, adherence to the plan, patience and self-discipline.

.

 

[Sallow]

Sorry Mac, but investing as currently practiced by the average Joe IS gambling, it's just that the risk/rewards are harder to calculate in the financial markets than they are at the blackjack table (thus the need to pay an "advisor", which I like to call "gambling coaches").

There was a time in this country when the average person saved for retirement by stuffing their dollars into their mattress, they could do this because the purchasing power of the dollar was continually rising AND THEN the banking crew figured out a way to get their piece of that action... quite simple really, erode the purchasing power of the dollar so that average Joe had no other choice but risk his hard earned cash in the Wall Street Casino, heck it's a great system since the faster you erode the value of the dollar the bigger the risks poor Joe has to take in order to have enough to retire on and the bankers are the ones that get to decide the rate of dollar depreciation.

What a Country!

Really?

When was this "magical" time?

This country has been experiencing wild booms and busts till around the 1950s. Then we sorta reverted to the booms and busts starting in the 1980s. Between the 1950s and 1980s there were some pretty strong regulations in place to keep this sort of nonsense from happening.

Since apparently you're unaware that the American Economy existed before the current fiat currency system was institutionalized and what that meant for the holders of hard asset backed currency I cannot help you with your completely non sequitur analysis.

Pray continue though...

I'm well aware of it.

The "hard backed" currencies weren't so "hard" when there were bank runs.

That's no "non sequitur", that's reality.

And our economy prior to the "New Deal" was one that completely favored the well monied.

It wasn't until the 1950s do you see a recognizable middle class in this country.

 

[Truthmatters]

I pretty much lost everything in 2008-2009, banks and bankers make me furious and probably always will. The fact that the government had to bail them out while I was pretty much on my own and shit out of luck will color my politics for the rest of my life.

But the government didn't have to bail them out.

You lost it all while the big banksters were made whole. And your Dear Leader was all in on that.

But fret not, he extended your paltry unemployment handouts and you can probably go get an EBT card.

Bush bailed out the banks

how I wish you people would accept faccts

 

[Truthmatters]

SEC Votes for Final Rules Defining How Banks Can Be Securities Brokers

Eight Years After Passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, Key Provisions Will Now Be Implemented

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2007-190

Washington, D.C., Sept. 19, 2007 - Ending eight years of stalled negotiations and impasse, the Commission today voted to adopt, jointly with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board), new rules that will finally implement the bank broker provisions of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999. The Board will consider these final rules at its Sept. 24, 2007 meeting. The Commission and the Board consulted with and sought the concurrence of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and Office of Thrift Supervision.







The Bush team held back the broker rules in GLB for nearly his entire two terms