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ShnickyShnack wrote:

Farmerkev wrote:

ShnickyShnack wrote:

I'm in the group that's rather bored of posing questions that you refuse to even see, much less answer.

What question would that be?

Indeed.

I do believe I've answered every question you posed but by all means one more time.

ShnickyShnack wrote:

You're displaying a truly bizarre thought pattern, but I would like to remind you that I too think the bailouts are absurd. Screw TARP, throw in the Fed and they're up to what, ten trillion dollars? Truly insane.

However I'm not ideologically forced to believe that the Gubmint Bailouts caused the meltdown, which means I'm open to a more complex (and realistic) perspective.

I said people knew there would be bailouts and engaged in riskier behavior than they would if they knew there wouldn't be any help.
More simply put, more people will walk a tightrope if there is a net below than will without a net below.
There isn't any arguing it, it's a fundamental truth.

ShnickyShnack wrote:

Farmerkev wrote:

ShnickyShnack wrote:

You're displaying a truly bizarre thought pattern, but I would like to remind you that I too think the bailouts are absurd. Screw TARP, throw in the Fed and they're up to what, ten trillion dollars? Truly insane.

However I'm not ideologically forced to believe that the Gubmint Bailouts caused the meltdown, which means I'm open to a more complex (and realistic) perspective.

I said people knew there would be bailouts and engaged in riskier behavior than they would if they knew there wouldn't be any help.
More simply put, more people will walk a tightrope if there is a net below than will without a net below.
There isn't any arguing it, it's a fundamental truth.

That's an interesting philosophical statement, but I don't see how it has any bearing on the financial crisis.

I've seen no indication whatsoever that the people involved even acknowledged the risks. Quite the contrary, they constantly insisted they'd engineered risk out of the system. And if they didn't acknowledge risk, they didn't contemplate a collapse; and therefore didn't bank on a bailout.

Of which there have been many over the years, right? You can point to at least a dozen.

The last banking system  on a big scale?
S&L bailouts.
I think even you were alive for that one.
Examples in other areas too numerous to list.

resedit wrote:

ShnickyShnack wrote:

Farmerkev wrote:

I said people knew there would be bailouts and engaged in riskier behavior than they would if they knew there wouldn't be any help.
More simply put, more people will walk a tightrope if there is a net below than will without a net below.
There isn't any arguing it, it's a fundamental truth.

That's an interesting philosophical statement, but I don't see how it has any bearing on the financial crisis.

I've seen no indication whatsoever that the people involved even acknowledged the risks. Quite the contrary, they constantly insisted they'd engineered risk out of the system.

Oh come on - anyone who tells you they've "engineered risk out of the system" is lying through their teeth. They know it, you know it, everyone knows it.

But that's been the Republican rap for dereg. Let capitalism play out as it may which it did. Greed overcame common sense on both the corporate and to some extent, the consumer end. With less and less power to real things in, well, take a look around. We all know people who were once gainfully employed (THEIR WHOLE LIVES) suddenly laid off and searching. It sucks for those people and I blame 8 years of bush.

resedit wrote:

ShnickyShnack wrote:

Farmerkev wrote:

I said people knew there would be bailouts and engaged in riskier behavior than they would if they knew there wouldn't be any help.
More simply put, more people will walk a tightrope if there is a net below than will without a net below.
There isn't any arguing it, it's a fundamental truth.

That's an interesting philosophical statement, but I don't see how it has any bearing on the financial crisis.

I've seen no indication whatsoever that the people involved even acknowledged the risks. Quite the contrary, they constantly insisted they'd engineered risk out of the system.

Oh come on - anyone who tells you they've "engineered risk out of the system" is lying through their teeth. They know it, you know it, everyone knows it.

Oh, I knew it, to be sure.

I also remember being smurf on from a great height, right here in this very forum by "experts" who thought I was crying wolf.

But I really think the wizards of Wall Street honestly believed they were safe from risk. They certainly didn't imagine they were bringing down the system to the tune of many trillions of dollars.

In other words it was the same blind, stupid failure of imagination that allowed America's leaders to waltz into Iraq thinking it would be a cakewalk. Six years, 100,000 civilian lives and around $700 billion later, the boys are still over there.

Interestingly that's the same amount appropriated for TARP.

Investors don't plan to fail.

They weren't counting on government bailouts because they expected huge profits.

Farmerkev wrote:

ShnickyShnack wrote:

I'm in the group that's rather bored of posing questions that you refuse to even see, much less answer.

What question would that be?

How about

Farmerkev wrote:

ShnickyShnack wrote:

...

Did Uncle Sam also cause the meltdowns in Iceland and the Baltic countries?

It's called realistic.

Nothing about Iceland and the Baltics. I remember well listening to a senior Icelandic official speak of it in an long interview. He didn't blame the US, instead 'fessed up to bad policy on their part.

I'm with you partway on this one, I guess. Wall St. seemed genuinely scared of what was happening in September; who wouldn't be, faced with another Great Depression? It's like being afraid of nuclear war; no one is immune, and emotions overrule whatever the thinking brain comes up with.

I do think, tho, by October they'd figured out that they'd be seen to as a class, and as the fear ebbed they started to return to their old ways, learning little, getting away with whatever they could, including exec bonuses. They should face some pain. At least a few are- Madoff and this guy come to mind. Remember him?

Stanford indicted for alleged Ponzi scheme
Justice Dept: Empire a pyramid scheme built on lies, bluster and bribery

WASHINGTON (AP) - Brash Texas billionaire R. Allen Stanford was indicted and jailed Friday on charges his international banking empire was really just a Ponzi scheme built on lies, bluster and bribery.

The Justice Department announced charges against Stanford and six others who allegedly helped the tycoon run a $7 billion swindle. At a court hearing in Richmond, Va., a federal judge agreed with prosecutors that Stanford poses a flight risk and ordered him to remain in custody until a future detention hearing in Houston.

Among those charged were executives of Stanford Financial Group and a former Antiguan bank regulator who prosecutors say should have caught the fraud but instead took bribes to let the scheme continue.

Robert Khuzami, the enforcement director for the Securities and Exchange Commission, said investigators have built “an impressive criminal case from the rubble of this massive fraud.”

If convicted of all charges in the 21-count indictment, Stanford could face as much as 250 years in prison, officials said.

Dick DeGuerin, Stanford’s lawyer, said in a written statement that Stanford was “confident that a fair jury will find him not guilty of any criminal wrongdoing.”

The indictment unsealed Friday in Houston charged Stanford and other executives at his firm falsely claimed to have grown $1.2 billion in assets in 2001 to roughly $8.5 billion by the end of 2008. The operation had roughly 30,000 investors, officials said.

Investigators say that even as Stanford claimed healthy returns for those investors, he was secretly diverting more than $1.6 billion in personal loans to himself.

Not enough, and not systemic reform, true. Get into that territory, you at least get Fox and guys like res ranting about Teh Dictator Obamination, rights, boards of directors et al. Seen it more times than I can count.

I mostly wanted to work in that bit of news without starting yet another thread.

Looking up the S&L crisis yesterday, Wikipedia traced it back to Britain in the late 1700s. Seemed tenuous and a bit of a reach to me. You could trace it back beyond the invention of money vs. barter and shed little new light on the present.

ShnickyShnack wrote:

Uncle Sam, distorting the business cycle since 1637.

...like that. 'Scuse me, but this country wasn't constituted until 1776, tho I'm sure you have something in mind.

I'm content to take it back to deregulation in the '80s, with a few refs to policies of the '70s and '60s as antecedents.

And on topic, I agree with sturner about spinning the legacy, and would note the similarity between belief in the transcendental and magical thinking. That has a tendency to spread in those prone, until it subconsciously colors almost everything; if you want to believe, your thinking brain will find a way. Neurologically, emotion tends to precede conscious thought, brain imaging has shown for the last ~15 years.

Farmerkev wrote:

isaly wrote:

Farmerkev wrote:

That is all I've been talking about.

Retirement is another subject.

That's a half truth. The point is that people are supposed to be 'taking responsibility' for their retirement by availing themselves of investment opportunities aided by creativity which is the result of people being able to take advantage of what markets will offer.

That system has to be trustworthy or the whole argument about better options than social security is a bunch of hooey.

And now, since so many people lost so much value toward that retirement because of gunslinger style capitalism and all the mythological creativity that high priced talent offered us. . . and so many people have lost their jobs. . . all I can offer you is a half-hearted 'I told you so' because likely it's going to get a lot worse. . . at least as long as they keep propping up artificially inflated assets. . . and I, for one, am not the least bit excited about having been right.

So, your suggestions about dealing with the problem of being 'too big to fail' are:

My solution would have never started on that road decades ago and putting a stop to it now.
My solution would involve people undergoing pain which of course makes it unworkable for you.

The thing is since the 80s there has been an incredible push, mostly by the right, to promote the idea that everything is free and borrowing was the best way to create wealth. Couple that with stagnant wages, you end up with millions of people borrowing their way into a higher standard of living.
I am quite convinced that this all was a deliberate tactic. Obscure the fact that most people were not benefiting from the "growth" by making credit easy. When the economy is as flat as it has been for most people they seem to be willing to settle for fake wealth, which is what debt is.
Had loans remained traditionally difficult to qualify for the failure of our economic system to raise wages would have been far more obvious.
Imagine how differently our economic culture would be if the metric all the news sources used was the median wage instead of the stock market.

Anyone with a nice graph illustrating that mediam wage stat from 1980 thru today wins a cookie.

One hell of a lot of investors were relying on what turned out to be fraudulent ratings.

resedit wrote:

But that's been the Republican rap for dereg

What has been?
That there's no risk involved?

Stop getting you information about what republicans say from left wing sites. They are lying to you.

Quite the contrary. I see it with my own eyes, in Washington, the way people vote and the lobbyist that push their agendas through on both sides, one side is just better than the other.

Honestly, you are the one who is constantly referencing right wing propaganda sites. Lets have a reality check here.

Michael Moore gets a word in