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Pariah wrote:

I got 4 hours of overtime last week and today I filled up my tank for $2.55 a gallon. If this is a downturn, so far I like the results.
I am not especially worried about being laid off. It could happen but because I am rather a key man in the production chain there are about a dozen people where I work that would have to go before I did. I produce what they work with and there is no one in the company who could step in and do my job.
Not to brag but I am very good at what I do and being a skilled pressmen is a pretty same job area because the world runs it's business on the product I produce.
I still make my living the old fashioned and durable way. I take raw materials, paper and ink, and add value to them with my labor and skills. People like me are the basis for our whole economy and what makes the fantasy world of high finance possible.
Wall St could be leveled to the ground and I would still be cranking out printing. If you want to run a business you need to come to someone like me for the envelopes and forms you need.
My job can't be outsourced, not with 24 hour turn around demands and can't be done by someone not fluent in English because I am part of the proofing process.
So like old Alfred said "What? Me worry?

One of the positives about this, in addition to the gas prices falling is that once the credit problem dies down (which wont happen immediately) we're going to have cheaper housing prices. (until it takes off and becomes another bubble). There needed to be a correction in real estate prices, and this will have that effect (though its going to get pretty ugly before it gets better).

Ribtorus wrote:

By "people', you really mean banks and other finincial professionals who should have understood the risks and acted accordingly. That's the nub of their job, afterall, and they failed.

also the people who signed the mortgages. They are after all the ones who have to pay the bills every month. People on this board saw that these loans seemed too good to be true, so lets assign some responsibility to the homeowner too.

And don't forget govt which told banks to lower the credit requirements in the first place.

everlong554 wrote:

Ribtorus wrote:

By "people', you really mean banks and other finincial professionals who should have understood the risks and acted accordingly. That's the nub of their job, afterall, and they failed.

also the people who signed the mortgages. They are after all the ones who have to pay the bills every month. People on this board saw that these loans seemed too good to be true, so lets assign some responsibility to the homeowner too.

And don't forget govt which told banks to lower the credit requirements in the first place.

So how come McCan't is trying to prop up housing prices by purchasing mortgages with tax dollars?

It was a smurfing game of hot potato and nobody thought they were going to be the ones that got burned, it was going to be the "next" guy.

Small businesses frequently fail, and they often fail because those running them do not have the necessary business skill.

It's those that don't have the necessary business skill that are most likely to need lower qualifications to get the loans.

Farmerkev wrote:

It was a smurfing game of hot potato and nobody thought they were going to be the ones that got burned, it was going to be the "next" guy.

yep, that sums it up in a nutshell. Make bad loans, pack them up in obfuscated securities and sell them off.

resedit wrote:

Small businesses frequently fail, and they often fail because those running them do not have the necessary business skill.

It's those that don't have the necessary business skill that are most likely to need lower qualifications to get the loans.

Please elucidate for this waiting crowd exactly what small business experience you have to make such a sweeping claim. I have started and run my own small business, Kev runs his own.
Where is your knowledge from?

Last edited by Pariah (2008-10-12 10:43 am)

resedit wrote:

Small businesses frequently fail, and they often fail because those running them do not have the necessary business skill.

Yes.

http://www.smallbiztrends.com/2008/04/s … ates.html/

Proportion of New Businesses Founded in 1992 Still Alive By Year.

It's those that don't have the necessary business skill that are most likely to need lower qualifications to get the loans.

I think, though, that it is really, really presumptuous to assume that failed business only fail because of the personal inability of their owners. The world is a big, mean, scary place, and there's always somebody trying to make a buck at your expense. Even if everyone were 100% competent (also not the case) some (many? most?) businesses would still fail.

As far as qualifications; for every person like Ribtorus, who ran a business succesfully without going to business school, how many people who did go to business school end up running their startups into the ground? Qualifications by themselves mean little - I could qualify for a great many things I could not afford, and which I would be foolish to pursue.

The failure rate of businesses financed by lowering standards may increase. Hell, it probably will. But I think it's more important to ask: Is this helping anyone? Who? How much is it helping them? What will the long term effects be?

I'm coming down on the "Teach a man to fish," side of the equation.

bratboy wrote:

I'm confused as to where "business skill" = "qualified for loan" comes into the equation.  Is that the criteria upon which loans are extended?

Maybe things have tightened up since the .com bubble. I know for a while there, a business plan was actually considered a negative.