Friday, October 3, 2008

I Found This Interesting

I got this link sent to me.



I think this is very biased obviously but it is interesting none the less. I personally dont think you can point the finger at any one thing to explain why an economy goes into a recession these things just tend to happen over time. However it is interesting to see how some things intended to help have made the problems a lot worse for everyone. Interested to see if anyone has any comments on this video.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I feel dumber after watching it. Some good facts and good background information, but the conclusions are idiotic.

The Democrats did it all? Republicans not at fault?

Let's check some facts.

Republicans have had the White House since 2000.

Republicans had a majority of the Senate from 1993 to 2001, and no fewer than 49 of the 100 Senators from 1994 to today.

Republicans had majority control of the House of Representatives from 1995 through 2006.

Were the Republicans asleep or high while the Democrats did all of this awful stuff all by themselves when the Republicans had more control than the Democrats?

Both parties fucked this up.

Big Tasty said...

You feel dumber after watching it? Not sure if I got the same impression. I guess I didnt post it for the overall message on who to vote for, I posted because there were some pretty good ideas as to reasons why the economy is in shambles. I dont think anyone should think that who we vote for is going to fix this problem. Or should I say no party is to blame and no party has the answers to fix this. Time, and every individual taking it upon themselves to control there spending and debt will heal this economy, not some politicians arguing.

Anonymous said...

good point tasty but we live, weather we like it or not, in a two party system. So you have to ask yourself at least when it comes to the economie were you stand.

These bills and laws that where passed back then had oversite and you could only get the loans under certain regulations and standard that you, the borrower, meet.

In 2000 when the congress, senate and whitehouse where under republican control oversite and regulation went out the door.

Because that is the republican mantra, they want to deregulate everything and let the free market run unchecked with no oversite.

If you watch that video again, I won't because I agree with timmay about it, look and see when the number of those bad loans start to rise its after 2001 when the rep. had put there own people in those oversite possitions.

When you have people watching that don't believe they should be watching this is what happens.

CC

Anonymous said...

good point tasty but we live, weather we like it or not, in a two party system. So you have to ask yourself at least when it comes to the economie were you stand.

These bills and laws that where passed back then had oversite and you could only get the loans under certain regulations and standard that you, the borrower, meet.

In 2000 when the congress, senate and whitehouse where under republican control oversite and regulation went out the door.

Because that is the republican mantra, they want to deregulate everything and let the free market run unchecked with no oversite.

If you watch that video again, I won't because I agree with timmay about it, look and see when the number of those bad loans start to rise its after 2001 when the rep. had put there own people in those oversite possitions.

When you have people watching that don't believe they should be watching this is what happens.

CC

C-Weed said...

look anytime you have that many violins you know that its trouble from the liberal cock suckers. I don't believe in liberal cock suckers especially violin playin mah fucken liberals. So fuck them and their violin playin' liberal mah fuckas
YEAHHHHH!!!!

McGarnagle said...

I am surprised the creator of this video failed to mention the Bill passed in 1999 that required the Freddie/Fannie to start making it easier for more people to qualify for home loans. It had bipartisan support.

The funniest thing about this video is the fact that its not just the poor who are being affected by sub-prime mortgages.

Anyone who took on more debt that they could possibly handle structured in a way that the rates, etc would escalate have been affected. You really have to question individual lenders stupidity in underwriting these things, along with the people who took on these loans.

It's just funny how greedy people became. There was a runup of people purchasing more expensive homes that they could not possibly afford on a traditional mortgage. So they turn to their other options without really bothering to know whether they could afford it when the rates rose x%. Or they ignored the fact that after their low rate period, the loan would skyrocket x%. Couple that with the fact that our economy normally has down business cycles and you have a recipe for having difficulties affording your payments.

On paper, even a subprime mortgage can work, its just the person who takes it on has to have a handle on how they work.

It would be real easy to sit here and blame one political party or another, but as Big Tim said, both parties fucked up, but it goes further then that.

While the government sponsors Freddie & Fannie, these were publically traded institutions that had fiduciary responsibilities to their shareholders. They continued to guarantee and buy up completely shitty loans that they had no business even purchasing. The guys at the top made huge salaries, and wanted to continue their massive loan growth, but I guarantee you that these fuckers knew that there was no humanly possible way that everyone taking on these loans could possibly afford them. I don't feel like looking it up, but one of the CEO's of Freddie or Fannie went to trial and might be seeing jail time, and I know the FBI is now investigating the other company.

Congress is not composed of financiers. To hold them solely accountable is ridiculous. Fannie/Freddie and every large bank are "supposed" to be the experts. Fannie/Freddie had a responsibility to be the watchdogs over home loans and were effected by greed.

Big Tasty said...

Love all the comments. Timmay and I had a rather lengthy email discussion in which he raises some great points. Here it is.

Good analogy with Pauly and the restaurant. And it's not a Republican or Democrat thing, I don't think McCain or Obama would allow the same bullshit to continue.

I agree with about 90% of Obama's policies, especially on taxes, but the 10% where I disagree with him make it almost impossible to vote for him. As for taxes, despite the bullshit, he isn't proposing raising taxes on a single person. He just won't lower them as much as McCain thinks he can. I do think you fix the economy by letting more working class people keep more of their money and let them spend it. They will spend it, they will benefit from it, but also that money, as it is spent, goes right into the economy. What most businesses need is more business. They get that business when people have money to spend. I don't think you fix the economy by cutting taxes on the wealthiest people, even including myself. I can't believe my family is in the top 10% for family earnings in the U.S. That is sad, but true. The difference between guys like me in the top 10% and guys in the top 2% is completely staggering. They don't need any more direct breaks, especially not now. Trickle down has never worked, the reality is that if you put the money at the bottom, in the hands of consumers, it will trickle back up to the rich guys when the poor guys spend that cash to buy the gas, the cars, the electronics, the construction services, and all the other things the rich guys are making selling. If joe six-pack gets a tax refund and buys a computer for his kids, that's good for his family, good for the computer store and good for Bill Gates. Boo-ya, everybody wins. Or, we can just cut Bill Gates' taxes and fuck everybody else.

On the other hand, I think Obama's labor policies, as a puppet of labor unions, could do so much damage to business and our economy that I still am not convinced that I can vote for him.

I'm not excited about McCain either, I think his tax policy is a puppet of the rich, but I also don't like the Palin pick. I think it was idiotic, it was nothing but a PR move (which did get a lot of attention) and it makes me want to puke that people are so excited about it. A "regular person," "joe sixpack" in the White House? Great for a stupid movie, bad for the country.

What the fuck is it with Americans? When they turn on their favorite sports team, they want to see the best, most elite athletes on their team, not joe six-pack looking like themselves out there. When they watch t.v. shows, they want the women to be super hot, model types, not average looking people like in real life. When they need heart surgery, they want an elite surgeon with the best education and experience doing the job. Yet, somehow, when it comes time to put somebody in charge of our military and our trillion dollar budget, we want some average fuck with cute one-liners? We despise "elitists" with their big words and their Ivy League educations? Give me a break, that is EXACTLY who you want working a job that important.



--- On Thu, 10/9/08, Matt Browne Matt Browne
Subject: RE: Yo
To: tckamin@sbcglobal.net
Date: Thursday, October 9, 2008, 10:49 AM


I agree that is complete horse shit that he can and has taken so much tax money and moved it into the private sector. These bailouts were such a fitting way for him to leave office. I cant imagine what goes through his head when he approves bills that bail out these banks that got fat for so long. I think that is the biggest problem with putting two business men in office. My dad always thought this was a smart thing to do. However what he didnʼt realize is these business men didnʼt care about saving the country money or do what is in our best interest. No they both sold out to the billion corporations that put these two jackasses in office in the first place. I almost sort of seems like the mafia in a sense. Remember that seen in goodfellas where pauly takes control of the restaurant, and basically all he does is steal from the restaurant, uses the credit to buy sh!t and sell it out of the back at discount rates because what do they care it is all profit. Then when there is no money to borrow anymore they just light a match to it and collect on the insurance. Well I just feel like they lit a match on everything they did for the last four years and we (taxpayer) are going to have to pay for it. Sad because everyone thinks the answer is to turn this thing over to the liberals who will no doubt but regulations on the private sector, but I also feel like the govt reach will extend where it shouldnʼt, and there is no way in hell that they can fix these problems without raising my taxes even higher than they are now. I donʼt have the answer but the problem seems deeper than just voting for an elephant or a donkey.



Matthew Browne

Project Manager

Lake City Glass Inc.

Ph. 608-244-5681 ext. 27

Toll Free 1-800-362-7397

Fax 608-244-5531




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Tim Kamin
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2008 10:37 AM
To: Matt Browne
Subject: RE: Yo



Well, my philosophy with regulation is that regulation and federal bailouts should go hand in hand.



If banks want to make risky loans and take their chances, more power to them. That's the free market, vaya con Dios, do your own thing, etc. Just don't ask the taxpayers to insure your bad investments or bail you out when you fail. You take the risks, and you certainly take all of the profit, so you should also take your lumps when you fuck up.



On the other hand, if the taxpayers, i.e. the government, are going to be on the hook to save these bastards with a trillion dollars, then we should have a say in how they do business, meaning regulations that prevent them from taking risks with our money on the line.



With Fannie Mae and Freddie make buying up all of these bad loans and encouraging the banks to keep doling them out no matter how risky they were, we were set up to fail.



I heard a pretty scathing analysis of the entire Bush administration's regime as being nothing more than a puppet to funnel public tax dollars to private interests. The first thing they did was get us into a war in Iraq . Why? Because people from Saudia Arabia who trained in Afghanistan destroyed the WTC on 9/11. Huh?



Then, as Commander in Chief - more like a puppet on Dick Cheney's arm - GW funneled billions and billions of tax dollars to private contractors like Halliburton and Blackwater, paying them many times more that it would cost to have a draft and use our own military for these functions. Now, after 8 years of putting public cash in private hands, as his final act, he pushes and lobbies for a trillion dollar bailout for his Wall Street chums, which basically transfers MASSIVE private debts to the taxpaying public.



I'm not sure that this is all by design or as sinister as it seems, but when you look at it like that, it's pretty amazing how badly we've gotten fucked. I don't think Bush is the kind of guy who intentionally did that, but I don't think Bush has ever run this country. Cheney, on the other hand, has horns growing out of his head.

--- On Thu, 10/9/08, Matt Browne <

From: Matt Browne
Subject: RE: Yo
To: tckamin@sbcglobal.net
Date: Thursday, October 9, 2008, 10:10 AM

Really good article. I didnʼt really understand what the CRA was all about. It is a tricky proposition though because on one hand you want to treat everyone (race, class, etc) equally but at the same token that comes with a risk. I didnʼt realize that all of these lenders were not regulated by the federal govt. It seems so foolish looking back. I donʼt even know if I fully understand what subprime loans are. It just seems to me that the mortage crises could have been avoided by the federal govt. Not exactly sure how, but somehow they needed to regulate what banks were giving away money for. I always thought that interest rates should go hand in hand with what housing market is doing. When houses are worth more (this sounds pretty dumb) interest rates should be lower because there is less risk from the banks end. When the housing market begins to level off the interest rates should rise making it more difficult for everyone to get a loan, but the value of housing should be decreasing. It seems to me that our govt made sure that it was the other way around. When times started getting tougher in the housing markets they started these 0 down ARM loans, that ended up killing everyone when they couldnʼt sell there home for what is worth. Like I said I donʼt know who to blame, but I do know the federal govt has more blame than either side is willing to take and that is frustrating.



Matthew Browne

Project Manager

Lake City Glass Inc.

Ph. 608-244-5681 ext. 27

Toll Free 1-800-362-7397

Fax 608-244-5531




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Tim Kamin
Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2008 3:27 PM
To: Matt Browne
Subject: Yo



Somebody posted an article that kind of responds to the claims in that video you posted about the Community Reinvestment Act. If this article is true, that law had almost nothing to do with the subprime crisis. I think this post ends with a retarded claim that the whole mess is the fault of Republicans, but I do think it exposes a lot of the bullshit that naturally arises when somebody first takes a side, then assigns blame.



http://buckyville.yuku.com/topic/11641