What caused the eonomic meltdown?

[Stone]

are you saying that it is the governments jobs to prevent booms and busts? it seems to me that if they would not interfere that would end the boom and bust cycles. People are very steady and disconnected in their habits and needs so won't often cause booms and busts, but, totalitarian liberal government can do it easily as it lurches this way and that way.[/QUOTE]

Thank you for your sound wisdom. The governments only legitimate task is to provide for our security. Anytime a government enters into a market, chaos will eventually follow.

 

[KissMy]

You could say the Fed & Congress are always behind the curve & rarely shifts policy fast enough or extreme enough to prevent huge boom & bust.

are you saying that it is the governments jobs to prevent booms and busts? it seems to me that if they would not interfere that would end the boom and bust cycles. People are very steady and disconnected in their habits and needs so won't often cause booms and busts, but, totalitarian liberal government can do it easily as it lurches this way and that way.

Main Street was not the cause of the boom & bust cycle. It was high leverage caused by high leverage futures derivative trading. Excessive leverage drives up money creation, inflation & booms that end in a proportional bust. When a large number of people or companies are allowed to leverage themselves beyond their ability to pay, their failure will harm people far beyond those involved in borrowing & lending.

Wall-street's Sub-Prime derivative's bust harmed Main Street, Small Business & Working People. Government must regulate leverage, high risk credit & repackaging of junk loans into AAA. This junk found it's way into tax payer backed pension funds, city treasuries & FDIC accounts. They are feeding off of tax payers.

 

[Oldstyle]

With all due respect..."Main Street" does indeed bear some of the blame for the last boom and bust cycle, KissMy...because there were literally tens of thousands of average Americans who were engaged in "flipping" houses trying to cash in on the real estate boom just as there were even more Americans that knowingly lied in order to "qualify" for mortgages that they had no business at all being in.

 

[KissMy]

With all due respect..."Main Street" does indeed bear some of the blame for the last boom and bust cycle, KissMy...because there were literally tens of thousands of average Americans who were engaged in "flipping" houses trying to cash in on the real estate boom just as there were even more Americans that knowingly lied in order to "qualify" for mortgages that they had no business at all being in.

If you were a main-street mortgage broker, you were told by Wall-street & the GSE's that if you don't want to make money signing that homeless bum on the park bench up for a loan, then we will pay someone else that will.

 

[regent]

Like Friedman said, greed. Nothing motivates some people like a chance to make quick easy bucks, with no work.
And speaking of people, when they are subjected to a depression for too long they begin to make unpleasant noises, and begin to create all types of plans for a new cures and even new types of government. We have our own history and our own Declaration of Independence as evidence. Our costliest war was with our own Americans. If the Great Depression had continued with less and less hope, a Hitler-type might have come along rather than an FDR-type. America was lucky.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Main Street was not the cause of the boom & bust cycle. It was high leverage caused by high leverage futures derivative trading. Excessive leverage drives up money creation, inflation & booms that end in a proportional bust. When a large number of people or companies are allowed to leverage themselves beyond their ability to pay, their failure will harm people far beyond those involved in borrowing & lending.

of course that is mistaken. The Fed openly inflated the currency through the housing market in order to stimulate the economy. THe Fed is the source of inflation and deflation since that is their job, that is why it was created. If banks or anyone creates too much or too little leverage it is the Fed jobs to control it.

Who can say with a straight face that The Fed was not central to this depression?

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Like Friedman said, greed. Nothing motivates some people like a chance to make quick easy bucks, with no work.

Friedman said that?? Bet me $10,000 or admit to being a liberal fool.

And speaking of people, when they are subjected to a depression for too long they begin to make unpleasant noises, and begin to create all types of plans for a new cures and even new types of government. We have our own history and our own Declaration of Independence as evidence.

what depression silly goose??????

Our costliest war was with our own Americans.

dear, civil war was about slavery not greed!!!!

If the Great Depression had continued with less and less hope, a Hitler-type might have come along rather than an FDR-type. America was lucky.

lucky??? we got FDR who prolonged the Depression for ten years that led to world war? Thats lucky?????? See why we are positive a liberal will be slow.

Lucky would have been a conservative who instantly ended the depression here and abroad long before it cause a world war!!

unbelievably slow beyond belief!!

 

[regent]

Like Friedman said, greed. Nothing motivates some people like a chance to make quick easy bucks, with no work.

Friedman said that?? Bet me $10,000 or admit to being a liberal fool.

And speaking of people, when they are subjected to a depression for too long they begin to make unpleasant noises, and begin to create all types of plans for a new cures and even new types of government. We have our own history and our own Declaration of Independence as evidence.

what depression silly goose??????

Our costliest war was with our own Americans.

dear, civil war was about slavery not greed!!!!

If the Great Depression had continued with less and less hope, a Hitler-type might have come along rather than an FDR-type. America was lucky.

lucky??? we got FDR who prolonged the Depression for ten years that led to world war? Thats lucky?????? See why we are positive a liberal will be slow.

Lucky would have been a conservative who instantly ended the depression here and abroad long before it cause a world war!!

unbelievably slow beyond belief!!

There was a conservative in the White House for some years as the nation sank further and further into the Great Depression. Hoover did what has become the accepted Republican method to fight depressions: give to business and watch it trickle into corporation bank accounts. Your argument that FDR didn't put enough money into the New Deal as the war did, holds more water. Of course, the argument will be that Hoover was a liberal Democrat as was Bush. Surprised conservatives haven't declared FDR a Republican, maybe in the new Texas history books?

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Hoover did what has become the accepted Republican method to fight depressions: give to business and watch it trickle into corporation bank accounts.

too stupid and illiterate for words but typically liberal


Hoover turned the 1929 stock market crash into an international economic disaster.

... the Hoover interventions include: expanded public works( ever heard of Hoover dam), greater government control over agriculture, the Smoot-Hawley tariff, a virtual end to immigration, government loans for construction and other businesses ... Most important was Hoover’s pressuring businesses to not cut wages even as the prices of their output fell. The result was higher real wages, which were responsible for the unemployment rate topping out at 25 percent, causing the greatest human toll of the Great Depression. [1]
Hoover, much like FDR, was skeptical about free markets. [2]

 

[Wroberson]

American Companies are happier making profits and creating jobs in China.

U.S. firms less optimistic, but will still invest in China: survey - Yahoo! News

Why won't American companies invest more in America?

I think this explains, the unemployment situation too.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Why won't American companies invest more in America?

simple!! liberals are anti-business and have made it too costly to do business here.

 

[expat_panama]

...Why won't American companies invest more in America?

That would cause a 'trade deficit'.

What happens is that people can buy'n'sell goods, and people can buy'n'sell factories. When Americans buy foreign factories, the foreigners use the money they're paid to buy US goods. That's the only way to make a 'trade surplus'.

Payments always balance; if you want a 'trade surplus then we got to invest in China.

 

[MisterBeale]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk&noredirect=1]"Fear the Boom and Bust" a Hayek vs. Keynes Rap Anthem - YouTube[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTQnarzmTOc]Fight of the Century: Keynes vs. Hayek Round Two - YouTube[/ame]



[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEqkphVOkHc&list=PLFB2200A85E897D0D&index=16&feature=plpp_video]The Secret of Oz (The Federal Reserve) - YouTube[/ame]

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Payments always balance; if you want a 'trade surplus then we got to invest in China.

I'm lost, if we invest US dollars in China those dollars must then be spent in the US so payments balance and there is no surplus or deficit possible.

Far more importantly, what gets lost is that if a person or country makes high priced crap he or it gets poorer and poorer. The only solution to be make lower priced higher quality stuff.

There is no liberal magic cure for low quality and high price.

 

[KissMy]

Payments always balance; if you want a 'trade surplus then we got to invest in China.

I'm lost, if we invest US dollars in China those dollars must then be spent in the US so payments balance and there is no surplus or deficit possible.

Far more importantly, what gets lost is that if a person or country makes high priced crap he or it gets poorer and poorer. The only solution to be make lower priced higher quality stuff.

There is no liberal magic cure for low quality and high price.

Liberals have a magic pill for everything. They just create a huge hangover for others the next year.

Having the same number of US dollars flowing out of the country among the worlds population causes deflation/depression, because there are fewer US dollars per person. That means prices & wages must drop in the USA in order to get that money to flow back into the USA. Politicians hate deflation/depression so they print money to trying to re-inflate the economy to an inflation rate that keeps pace with population growth.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Politicians hate deflation/depression so they print money to trying to re-inflate the economy to an inflation rate that keeps pace with population growth.

to you mean politicians hate deflation and depression or that all people of common sense hate deflation/depression?

 

[KissMy]

Seven Zingers in Sheila Bair’s New Book

- Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner “looked like a scared little boy” at the press conference where he announced the 2009 stress test initiative. He was chosen to be Treasury Secretary “for all the wrong reasons… That ill-fated choice was painfully apparent as he struggled to get the words out, his voice at times quivering, his eyes darting nervously back and forth across the room.”

- “Was it gross incompetence or unbelievable disrespect?… Maybe the boys didn’t want Sheila Bair playing their sandbox.” – Bair on learning that other regulators didn’t loop her in on developments in rescuing Wachovia during the financial crisis.

- Citigroup’s Vikram Pandit “wouldn’t have known how to underwrite a loan if his life depended on it.”

- The Obama administration’s 2009 plan to help struggling homeowners “was doomed to failure,” “cheated borrowers” and was “designed to look good in a press release, not to fix the housing market.”

- Then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Neel Kashkari, who was heading the bank bailout-program TARP, pulled a “bait and switch” on American taxpayers by claiming that TARP wouldn’t let Treasury use the funds for mortgage modifications.

- On Mr. Paulson not having time to meet with her early on: “Clearly, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs didn’t think the head of an agency that insured $100,000 bank deposits was worth his time. That would change…”

- Ms. Bair got zinged herself by a protester outside the Treasury building during TARP negotiations, mistaking her for a “fat cat” banker as she exited. “How much did that suit cost?” the protester asked. $139 at Macy’s, Bair replied.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

What do you consider to be the MAIN driving force behind the 2008 economic meltdown?

First was the Federal Reserve whose policy was to stimulate the housing market in the wake of 9-11.

Second was the Fanny Freddie who bought the mortgages and guaranteed them.

Third, was Wall Street whose risk models were inadequate because housing had never gone down before.

 

[KissMy]

Dick Cheney said to Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill: "You know, Paul, Reagan proved that deficits don't matter. We won the mid-term elections, this is our due."

Japan has also proven that deficits don't matter.

Cheney Was Right About One Thing: Deficits Don't Matter

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Dick Cheney said to Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill: "You know, Paul, Reagan proved that deficits don't matter. We won the mid-term elections, this is our due."

Japan has also proven that deficits don't matter.

Cheney Was Right About One Thing: Deficits Don't Matter

So what???????????Cheney is not an economist and does not pretend to speak for Republican/libertarian economists.

See why we are positive a liberal is slow, so very very slow!!