The problem is BT the private matter became a huge public matter when misdeeds on Wall Street brought about the financial crisis that brought ouir economy to it's knees. The train has already left the station..... When the rest of America was burdened with the stress and strain of the severe recession that we experienced they had no patience to watch a few individuals on Wall Street get exorbitatnt bonuses simultaneously. And now the CEO of JP Morgan himself says what a failure and yet.......the Whale and others should expect bonuses? That's not the real world.....not by far.
That is where you lost me.....that is simply not true. If you were to say "misdeeds on Wall Street, misdeeds on Main St, misdeeds in Washington DC and every state capitol in the country and misdeeds by mom and pop and people across the land" I would agree with you and have stated so on multiple occasions. Judging by the comments of others, apparently you are the only one that missed them or ignored them...... If you do not understand that regulatory actions, unfortunate legislation - state and federal - the insatiable appetite of the GSE's Fannie and Freddie and the political screening provided by banking queen Barney Frank played a material role in what transpired, then you simply do not have a grasp of the facts and your conclusions will continue to be wrong....
I understand that greedy people took full advantage of doors left open by stupid people making bad policy and government without enough oversight of such foolish and damaging endeavors.. However......most people didn't prosper beyond belief except for a lucky few who sold their homes at the peak and didn't for whatever reason trade up and a few greedy risk takers on Wall Street who did prosper and wanted to be paid more in spite of all the evidence that the whole thing was a fallen scam. Myself....like so many other millions of hard working Americans I lost my home equity and the high paying job I did have. I don't have any patience for someone on the Street wishing to be paid when they were intricately involved in that whole greedy scenario and now when more risk taking leads to billions (2 ) in more losses. Then again....I always thought it was ridiculous for a baseball pitcher with a losing record and a high ERA to make a few million dollars and perhaps hold out for more money. But hey....there was that one game when the stuff was there and the strike outs were happening.....right? :lol: If the fans had a vote they would probably vote that guy not get a dime more and the price of their seats remain the same.
That's a crock and the ONLY reason it has reached this level of hysteria is the political motivations and agenda of this administration. Let's be clear.....the only way banks make money is by accepting risk. Every bank in every city, in every state in the country incur losses each and every single day. Without accepting risk, banks make no money....if banks make no money, the economic engine of this nation is f'ed....period. End of story. You don't understand that at all....the only time those losses are at issue is if they are outside the bounds of the firms risk management policies and material enough to jeopardize the safety and soundness of the firm. Now, it might sound like alot of money to you and the average Joe on the street - which is why this President will trumpet it at every turn to expand further the government reach - but to Morgan, it's no more than routine cost of doing business and not excessive relative to their size, capital base, or reserves they specifically set aside for just such losses.....at no time was Morgan at risk, at no time was even Morgan's earnings at risk, at no time was there even the remotest chance of any systemic risk to the system....that very notion is absurd on its face in this instance. To put it in perspective, if you lost 1% of your net worth is there any risk of you going bankrupt.....by definition the answer is no. By definition you still have 99% of net worth remaining as is the case with Morgan. They will finish the year 2012 with BILLIONS more in net worth than they began it, including taking into account the loss on the hedge position. The hysteria is absurd and entirely politically motivated.....
I don't think it's hysteria.....it's prudence. After the dam broke and washed away the town it's understandable to get a little concerned when you spot another leak in the new wall.
There is no leak, it is politically motivated nonsense......the stock-in-trade of a Chief Executive with no skills for the job at hand, but always on the campaign trail.
Speaking the campaign trail.... Yesterday he was on The View. Last week is was Jimmy Kimmel. In between he was at George Clooney's at a party. When does this fraud ever work? The last time I remember him being at the White House he was entertaining the Alabama football team.
BT until there is admission that something was very very wrong in the months and years leading up to the 2008 crisis the chances are that there will still be reckless individuals and companies trying to profiteer no matter the misery caused to the masses. Maybe that can't be stopped.....can't be cured as you have said but someone needs to try. It's better than standing aside and saying have at it.
Barney Frank? Harry Reid? Nancy Pelosi? Rahm Emanuel? Obama? You could be talking about the entire Congress....you have to be more specific. Where was it written on the tablets Moses brought from the Mount that political interest and profiteering are somehow more noble than economic interests and profiteering......absolute nonsense. That is where you just don't get it..... Your answer is to take power, influence and discretion from the collective judgement of the private sector and transfer it to a few central government bureaucrats/czars thinking that somehow God Almighty gave them the keys to societal salvation.......make no mistake there is greed and profiteering taking place in the halls of Congress my friend, just as there is on Main St and Wall Street and I absolutely with every fiber of my being reject the notion that we are better served giving them the keys to the kingdom......a recipe for disaster like no other unless of course North Korea, Cuba or the failed Soviet Union are your role models.
Dave, Move forward... We all know that you hate Bush and everything Republican in this nation. To begin the healing process, you must move forward. We can all play the blame game. Our economy woes did not start with Bush. Previous policies brought the issues to light under Bush's term. The United States built a house of cards under the pretense of being good to the poor to allow them to own housing that they could not afford. That is just one phase of the beginning of the end. That is THE primary reason that the housing industry fell. The forclosures on the market forced the price of housing down which made you lose your equity. To pick a point in history that serves your agenda and harp on that snapshot, is not healthy. Get well soon Dave.
Obama? He ran us into the ground leading up to 2008? No mention of anything Republican? Bush was in office for 8 years.......must have been one weak SOB to get pushed around by so many Democrats and Wall Streeters. Unless...... Hmmmmm..... didn't the GOP control both the Senate and the House in 2002 through 2006? And in 2006 the Dems took a slim 51-49 lead in the Senate and a 233-202 lead in the House which with a GOP prez wasn't so much of an edge they could dictate the nation's policy....as the GOP is pretty much unable to under the Obama tenure. Damn.... 4 years of a GOP prez and both houses of Congress during the formative years of the financial crisis and wouldn't you know it.....they had no idea that **** was goin down. :roll: :lol:
Maybe Bush was too busy creating all those czars to pay attention to what was happening in the housing and financial industries...... :wink: BT you just ask me to buy in 110% to the conservative viewpoint without acknowledging any of the "realities" that I bring up. We are like Congress in our degree of division as someone here brought up earlier. http://www.factcheck.org/2009/09/czar-search/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._executive_branch_czars#By_administration George W. Bush R 2001–2009 33 49 28 Barack Obama D 2009– 38 42 33 Damn....what a little czarmeister W was...... 8)
Having a lifetime's worth of equity wiped out in a 6 month period was a pretty hard price to pay for "essential" :roll: risk taking done by a few individuals who made millions while doing so. Of course most of America joined me in that misery. I talked with a guy this week from my old neighborhood who lost $216,000.00 on a home that he purchased in 2004.....ouch!! Not much better if not worse in the two years since I sold my home. I checked Zillow a couple of days ago and my old home's "zestimate" is now $7500.00 less than what I sold it for two years ago.
How's that "Hope and Change" working out? Where's that disgust for the liberal machine that forced bad morgage loans on the financial institutions that started the death roll for home equity?
Tom....that runaway train that was racing along precariously around the mountain when Obama took office is still moving but at least it has slowed considerably. It was allowed to go so far down the mountain it will take forever for it to get it back up there. No ordinary crisis.....no ordinary recession.
Absolute and unadulterated ********..... every mom and pop and average Joe who bought a house that they could not afford was a risk taker.....every real estate developer who acquired a piece of property in the hope of developing and selling at a profit in spite of the glut of housing was a risk taker, every spec home built by a builder in the hope that somebody would buy it in excess of its cost was a risk taker, every clever smooth talker that bought houses like they were on crack in the hopes of flipping them in days/weeks was a risk taker, every President and legislator who conceived of and approved of the Community Reinvestment Act and the Affordable Housing Act both designed to get people into homes that they could not afford and FORCED down the throats of every bank in the country at gunpoint was a risk taker, every congressional committee chairman who ignored repeated warnings by Administration officials and the Fed Chairman that the GSE's were becoming a systemic risk and argued instead for them to continue the reckless expansion of their balance sheet and every stupid f'ing state insurance commissioner, Governors and legislators who fought for state by state regulation of insurance companies and created a Goat F**k of a web of ridiculous regulations that compelled AIG and other insurance cos to organize separate subsidiaries in each and every state and could not share resources without a years worth of regulatory reporting and hearings creating a situation where in AIG - even though they had the cash/collateral available in the accounts of their subs, could not pledge nor produce the collatarel at critical junctures of the CDS crisis which was the melting flash point of the crisis....every one of them took a risk by crafting their inane and ultimately destructive regulation......don't go there with me about a few risk takers who were responsible.....it is nonsense and just a product of those stupid conspiracy rags you feast on