Quote :

"This is the result of "progressives" pushing for banks to lend to people who had no business trying to purchase a home"

You got it!

And add to that the massive corruption brought on by the people put in charge of Freddie and Frannie. I'd like to think that, someday, they would be brought up under investigation, but that's probably a pipe-dream.

9/20/2008 9:37:51 PM

Quote :

"not to mention the fact that aaronburro doesn't know what he's talking about"

have you even read about Bretton Woods? it doesn't take a fucking genius to understand the implications of one of the initial problems with that agreement, and that is, frankly, to what I am referring.

but hey, go ahead and blame everything on Republicans when you clearly don't know what the hell you are talking about. Blame the big bust that was brought on by Jimmy Carter on the Republicans. Really makes sense

9/20/2008 11:55:41 PM

Appearently you didn't look at the graphs that well. It was millitary spending during the Reagan/Bush era that drove the deficit up, not Carter. Even LBJs "great society" (the source of the Democratic reputation for handouts) didn't drive up deficits that much. It took a fiscal conservative, with a strong belief in less government, to do that.

So, "The Big Lie" continues - the one that says that Democrats are big spenders, and the Republicans are fiscally conservative, and for less government. The problem is that data for the last 50 years just doesn't bear that out. In the Reagan era there was a theory that he was driving up the deficit on purpose so that liberals would no longer have the option of overspending. Reagan created both an enduring ideology, and an enduring debt. Overall, the graphs speak for themselves:

http://zfacts.com/p/318.html

http://www.die.net/musings/national_debt/

[Edited on September 21, 2008 at 12:55 AM. Reason : *~<]Bo]

9/21/2008 12:54:42 AM

name one government program/regulation that works effectively... and go

hopefully after our taxes go up to support bail outs, we can get more tax rebates to bail the taxpayers out as well

[Edited on September 21, 2008 at 8:45 AM. Reason : awesome]

9/21/2008 8:40:53 AM

^^ you don't get it, do you? I wasn't saying Carter spent a bunch. I was saying Carter's policies FUCKED OUR ECONOMY, which reduced tax incomes. durrr. what a fucking tool.

9/21/2008 7:52:13 PM

^Hey, you can call names all you want, at least I post some data to back up what I say ... You talk a lot, but don't back up shit.

9/21/2008 9:17:33 PM

So I'm just wondering if everyone is aware that Bill Clinton's term was when the most deregulation occurred?

And to whoever was saying that the problem is that there hasn't been enough govt intervention and it's needed now....and whoever said that I can't possibly be saying that something that happened in the 30s is responsible for the mess today..?? Um...yes. It is. Nevermind Fannie and Freddie, but Social Security, Welfare....all those things are the govt trying to make things 'fair' and look what's it gotten us.

9/22/2008 5:47:37 PM

^ding ding ding

couldn't have said it better myself

9/22/2008 11:24:21 PM

Quote :

"and look what's it gotten us"

seriously, i want to be rich one day like the rest of the rich people

9/22/2008 11:26:39 PM

mytwocents:

Quote :

"Nevermind Fannie and Freddie, but Social Security, Welfare....all those things are the govt trying to make things 'fair' and look what's it gotten us."

csharp_live:

Quote :

"couldn't have said it better myself"

Birds of an ideological feather ... I think it's going to be a stretch to blame Social Security, and Welfare, for the current mess in the financial markets. If anyone can do it though, I'm sure you can. But, if you want to convince anyone else, it's going to take more than just your "say so".

These ideologs treat the free market as a religion, and the "invisible hand of the market" as a God that can do no wrong. Just like in the bible, the wrath of the Lord always comes from past sins against the God.

The truth of the matter is that this mess is a mess of unrestrained greed. So much money came in from over seas, that it had to go somewhere. And now that they've gotten themselves into this mess they want the "strong hand" of the government to pull them out (complete with golden parachutes) ... Sometimes greed drives the market into places it should never go.

[Edited on September 23, 2008 at 8:10 AM. Reason : *~<]Bo]

9/23/2008 8:02:29 AM

I learned a long time ago that the vast majority of people can't be persuaded to change their opinion on issues like these. I actually find it quite fascinating the way in which fallacies are used in such numbers for such important issues and no one is immune to using this as their method of attempted persuasion. This goes for all sides of every issue and everyone is guilty of it...politicians happen to be among the worst abusers of it but unfortunately most people out there treat their political views like they do their religion and that's a very dangerous thing.

I'm not suggesting that anyone take my opinion as gospel but at least my arguments are more sound than others being that they involve actual facts. Clinton really did have the bigger hand in deregulation. That's a fact. Fannie and Freddie were created because back in the day someone thought it was every American's 'right' to own a home along with the right to free speech. I can't see those two being of equal value but clearly FDR did. The government also decided that it is everyone's right to not have to work if your skills or means didn't allow for you to have the job that you felt you deserved.

I hear people blaming Bush and his administration for the reason our economy is where it is now and there's no facts. What has President Bush and his administration actually done in the last 8 years that has lead to the state our economy is in now? And it clearly must have been something HUGE because for something to bring our economy to it's knees in that short of amount of time, some major economic decisions must have been made...I'm just asking what those were.

9/23/2008 5:05:37 PM

I still dont understand why dems dont love bush. He has been a spending hound and is taking us closer to govt controlled everything... liberal utopia.. whats the problem fellas?

9/23/2008 5:10:59 PM

^ maybe because that's not a "liberal utopia"
That's just a characterature of what Liberalism actually means and what Liberals actually want that Conservatives try to use as a weapon

9/23/2008 5:28:29 PM

ok, what is a liberal utopia to you?

9/23/2008 5:42:16 PM

well, to start with - a government that is responsible with tax payers money. Disregarding what they actually do with the money for a moment, we can all agree that no government, conservative or liberal, should play fast and loose with tax dollars, as is happening now.

I'll also remind you that "liberal spending programs" are supposed to benefit the population at large, not funnel billions of dollars into selective, supposedly private industry.

9/23/2008 5:47:19 PM

I agree with your first statement. I think its a great goal, but very naive. When its not your money, people tend to be loose with it. That is why a smaller, less power govt is a better answer. imo.

However, I feel that many well intentioned programs end up creating dependency and breed worthlessness and lack of responsiblity and waste.

I, as a fiscal conservative, feel its morally wrong to take from anyone to give to another without thier consent. I also feel you have to have consequences, not rewards, for bad decisions and bad behavior. I believe in less govt and more freedom. One set of rules for all. Govt isnt the answer for my daily problems, just creates more of them.

I see more waste in my business from what has come out of these good programs. Total lack of responsiblity and rewards for doing the wrong thing.

9/23/2008 6:04:17 PM

and that's all fine. sounds good - i don't completely agree with you, but you've spelled out the basics for a fiscal conservative.

However, you're being disingenuous, and frankly just an asshole, when you try to suggest that anywhere in the liberal agenda is the iron-fisted nationalization of industries like banking, housing, airlines, and auto manufacturing.

9/23/2008 6:21:25 PM

I didnt mean to imply that at all. Im just saying that libs are for more govt control, less consequences, and bigger govt.. in general. correct?

Right now they are trying to throw in 30billion to help american car companies refit thier plants. And what voting block does that help them with?

For me agent, this is THE issue. All the other stuff doesnt matter if we cant afford anything. That is why I get so mad at these new spending and entitlements proposed bc its just buying votes now and letting future generations deal with paying for it. They simply dont have the best interests of the country at heart. imo

[Edited on September 23, 2008 at 6:36 PM. Reason : .]

9/23/2008 6:33:07 PM

so now "THE" issue is not that we're giving $1 Trillion to the financial sector, but maybe there will be a few billion going to the automakers?

No, i don't think the automakers deserve any money any more than the banks do. maybe even less so. The automakers deserve to go under if they can't make their cars competitive with the Asians and Germans.

but again, you're being disingenuous to turn this entire clusterfuck into a problem with Democrats trying to funnel some money to certain core constituents, as wrong as that may be

9/23/2008 8:36:35 PM

The government should give us each $2,333.33 instead.

9/23/2008 8:39:27 PM

eyedrb:

Quote :

"Im just saying that libs are for more govt control, less consequences, and bigger govt.. in general. correct? "

No ... But it is a common misconception. I don't know where people get that idea. The "fiscal conservatives" are the ones that rack up deficits, and spending is the measure of growth in government.

I don't know about other liberals, but I don't want, "more govt control, less consequences, and bigger govt". The two biggest things I want from a government are: that they not pander highest bidder, and that they strive to insure that all of their children have an equal chance at a good education. Other than that, just keep the roads maintained and making sure I have water, power, and police.

[Edited on September 24, 2008 at 1:20 AM. Reason : *~<]Bo]

9/24/2008 1:16:04 AM

Quote :

"The "fiscal conservatives" are the ones that rack up deficits"

Fiscal conservatives are traditionally for low spending.
The Republican party isn't fiscally conservative.

9/24/2008 1:24:00 AM

how cute. you actually think that public education is about education.

9/24/2008 1:25:17 AM

no agent THE issue is spending and the fiscal solvency of this country.

The fact that in the middle of a spending orgy of money we dont have... they are adding on more to buy some votes. Its total bs. Raising taxes isnt the answer, that hurts everyday americans. Cutting spending IS the answer. Which will never happen when politicians put thier agenda before the countries.

9/24/2008 9:18:25 AM

^^I suggest you quit attending a public university then.

9/24/2008 10:04:24 AM

university != public education. nice try, though.

9/24/2008 11:34:12 AM

yeah, you're right. The $1500 we paid in tuition each semester completely covered the entire cost of providing the education.
Those private schools who charge $25,000 are just pocketing the rest of the money

9/24/2008 11:35:53 AM

tell me. does everyone go to a university? nope. case closed.

9/24/2008 11:37:24 AM

I honestly haven't completely made up my mind on the issue, but I think this op-ed makes a very good point. Someone please dismantle it.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122212948811465427.html

Quote :

"How did we get here? Let's review: In order to curry congressional support after their accounting scandals in 2003 and 2004, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac committed to increased financing of "affordable housing." They became the largest buyers of subprime and Alt-A mortgages between 2004 and 2007, with total GSE exposure eventually exceeding $1 trillion. In doing so, they stimulated the growth of the subpar mortgage market and substantially magnified the costs of its collapse."

Quote :

"Now the Democrats are blaming the financial crisis on "deregulation." This is a canard. There has indeed been deregulation in our economy -- in long-distance telephone rates, airline fares, securities brokerage and trucking, to name just a few -- and this has produced much innovation and lower consumer prices. But the primary "deregulation" in the financial world in the last 30 years permitted banks to diversify their risks geographically and across different products, which is one of the things that has kept banks relatively stable in this storm."

9/24/2008 1:56:14 PM

exactly. the only "deregulation" that led to this was the push to give loans to people who had no business getting them

9/24/2008 2:01:11 PM

Quote :

"There has indeed been deregulation in our economy -- in long-distance telephone rates, airline fares, securities brokerage and trucking,"

sneaky little bastard. he took one of the major deregulation culprits, and stuck it in a list of other deregulations that have arguably been for the better.
Credit Default Swaps, anyone? Those are basically insurance policies, but with a different name so they don't to be regulated. There's your "securities brokerage" right there.

Quote :

"But the primary "deregulation" in the financial world in the last 30 years permitted banks to diversify their risks geographically and across different products, which is one of the things that has kept banks relatively stable in this storm."

again, he took one of the problems of the whole situation and tried to spin it as a benefit.
AIG is in the situation they're in now because of the deregulation that allowed them to "diversify their risks.... across different products", namely, products that inherently contain conflicts of interest if one company is in all of those businesses, like banking, investing and insuring. (where the banking BU lends money to the investing BU, who buys investments, then insures those investments with the insurance BU)

9/24/2008 2:45:17 PM

^ CDS are not securities, but contracts.

Also, CDS, themselves, are not at the root of the cause. It is the lack of collateral that AIG provisioned for each one. There is little reason why they should not be able to be in the CDS market provided there are enforced capital requirements for the CDS they enter into.

On a side note, it is not deregulation or a lack of regulation that is to blame. On the contrary, it can be said that there is almost too much, albeit ineffectual, regulation. Banks must report to a plethora of regulatory bodies, both state and federal. It is often said that too many regulators often means no one is truly regulating. Compare our system with the U.K.'s single-body regulatory framework (the FSA) and it is clear ours is way too muddied.

The NYT article below puts this a little more succinctly....

Quote :

" THERE is a misconception that President Bush’s years in office have been characterized by a hands-off approach to regulation. In large part, this myth stems from the rhetoric of the president and his appointees, who have emphasized the costly burdens that regulation places on business. But the reality has been very different: continuing heavy regulation, with a growing loss of accountability and effectiveness. That’s dysfunctional governance, not laissez-faire. When it comes to financial regulation, for example, until the crisis of the last few months, the administration did little to alter a regulatory structure that was built over many decades. Banks continue to be governed by a hodgepodge of rules and agencies including the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the international Basel accords on capital standards, state authorities, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Publicly traded banks, like other corporations, are subject to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. And legislation that has been on the books for years — like the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act and the Community Reinvestment Act — helped to encourage the proliferation of high-risk mortgage loans. Perhaps the biggest long-term distortion in the housing market came from the tax code: the longstanding deduction for mortgage interest, which encouraged overinvestment in real estate. In short, there was plenty of regulation — yet much of it made the problem worse. These laws and institutions should have reined in bank risk while encouraging financial transparency, but did not. This deficiency — not a conscientious laissez-faire policy — is where the Bush administration went wrong. It would be unfair, however, to blame the Republicans alone for these regulatory failures. The Democrats have a long history of uncritically favoring expansion of homeownership, which contributed to the excesses at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the humbled mortgage giants. The privatization of Fannie Mae dates back to the Johnson administration, which wanted to get the agency’s debt off its books. But now, of course, the government is on the hook for the agency’s debt. As late as this spring, Congressional Democrats were pushing for weaker capital requirements for the mortgage agencies. The regulatory reality was that few politicians were willing to exchange short-term economic gains — namely, higher rates of homeownership — for protection against longer-term financial risks. Still, the Bush administration’s many critiques of regulation are belied by the numbers, which demonstrate a strong interest in continued and, indeed, expanded regulation. This is the lesson of a recent study, “Regulatory Agency Spending Reaches New Height,” by Veronique de Rugy, senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and Melinda Warren, director of the Weidenbaum Center Forum at Washington University. (Disclosure: Ms. de Rugy’s participation in this study was under my supervision.) For the proposed 2009 fiscal budget, spending by regulatory agencies is to grow by 6.4 percent, similar to the growth rate for last year, and continuing a long-term expansionary trend. For the regulatory category of finance and banking, inflation-adjusted expenditures have risen 43.5 percent from 1990 to 2008. It is not unusual for the Federal Register to publish 70,000 or more pages of new regulations each year. In other words, financial regulation has produced a lot of laws and a lot of spending but poor priorities and little success in using the most important laws to head off a disaster. The pattern is reminiscent of how legislators often seem more interested in building new highways — which are highly visible projects — than in maintaining old ones. The biggest financial deregulation in recent times has been an implicit one — namely, that hedge funds and many new exotic financial instruments have grown in importance but have remained largely unregulated. To be sure, these institutions contributed to the severity of the Bear Stearns crisis and to the related global credit crisis. But it’s not obvious that the less regulated financial sector performed any worse than the highly regulated housing and bank mortgage lending sectors, including, of course, the government-sponsored mortgage agencies. In other words, the regulation that we have didn’t work very well. There are two ways to view this history. First, with the benefit of hindsight, one could argue that we needed only a stronger political will to regulate every corner of finance and avert a crisis. Under the second view, which I prefer, regulators will never be in a position to accurately evaluate or second-guess many of the most important market transactions. In finance, trillions of dollars change hands, market players are very sophisticated, and much of the activity takes place outside the United States — or easily could. Under these circumstances, the real issue is setting strong regulatory priorities to prevent outright fraud and to encourage market transparency, given that government scrutiny will never be universal or even close to it. Identifying underregulated sectors in hindsight isn’t a useful guide for what to do the next time. Both presidential candidates have endorsed regulatory reform, but they have yet to signal that it will become a priority. That isn’t surprising. Fixing these problems may seem a very abstract way of helping the average citizen, and it will certainly require taking on special interests. It’s easier to tell voters that the regulators have taken care of last year’s problem, even if that accomplishes nothing for the future. In the meantime, if you hear a call for more regulation, without a clear explanation of why regulation failed in the past, beware. The odds are that we’ll get additional regulation but with even less accountability and even less focus on solving our very real economic problems. Tyler Cowen is a professor of economics at George Mason University."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/business/14view.html?_r=1&sq=Too%20Few%20Regulations?%20No,%20Just%20Ineffective%20Ones&st=cse&oref=slogin&scp=1&pagewanted=print

[Edited on September 24, 2008 at 4:40 PM. Reason : .]

9/24/2008 4:40:05 PM