Yeppers,,1002 posts on this thread, and there still is no substantial coherent reason or message from the ''Occupy Wall Street'' protestors..

Congratulations indeed.

 

On this we must disagree, the regulators (include the fed) were operating with a defacto approval of Congress and the various administrations who were in power during the debacle.

You and I were in a business that profited greatly because of these blind as a bat regulators and their "controllers". Housing starts were the main indicator of a robust economy and everything possible was done to sustain those million plus starts.

At the time it seemed like a good idea, but come the subprime mortgage era and the elimination of all qualifiers for buyers (except body temperature and pulse) the starts were now being built on a foundation of sand. So pardon me if I do not give the politicians, Mr. Clinton and Mssrs Bush especially, a pass on this.

 

I don't know. I am not convinced.

The Travellers/Citi deal is a questionable one, you are right... but it was either that or let Travellers fail, which at the time would have been the equivalent of letting AIG fail. I know that doesn't make it right, and I am not trying to say you are wrong.

But that does not mean Merrill Lynch could have been bought at that time. Travellers was an insurance company with a heavy derivatives portfolio. That is different from M.L., an investment brokerage and mutual fund management company that designed and sold derivatives.

Sounds to me like you're rationalizing. Sounds like you're deflecting, and attempting to imply (without making the case, since you can't) that CRA never happened; that the banks did not do their damndest to ignore it for more than two decades; that Reno did not strong-arm them; that the repeal of Glass-Steagall had no effect on the markets; that Fannie/Freddie did not loosen their underwriting standards to facilitate the bundling of toxic sub-prime paper; and that even if all of that had happened, that it did not matter, because it had no effect whatsoever.

I mean, listen to yourself. If Glass-Steagall did not matter, why did they commit death by a thousand cuts, for two decades, with extra-legislative regulation? Why did they fight to repeal it for all of that time? Why did they bother, if it did not matter?

And if Fannie/Freddie did not underwrite and provide agency for the toxics that the banks designed and brokered after, and only after, the repeal of Glass-Steagall, why are Fannie Freddie one of the biggest (combined) outstanding recipients of TARP money, if not the biggest?

You say my position is ideologically motivated. That's crap. I have no love of the banks. I want to see them broken up.

Ideologue. Sheesh. Look in a mirror, dude.

 

+1

A more reasonable and rational position than that of Old Tool. I agree.

Bush did try to pull the plug on Fannie and Freddie, and Barney Frank outmaneuvered him, but I don't give Bush points for that. The bomb was already set to blow, by the time Bush put down his Bible and paid attention. He hit the panic button too late, and as I have said before on this board, I recognize that the Bush administration and Congress were all on the take. Every last one of them desperately wanted Fannie/Freddie to be solvent. So they screwed us, too.

Both sides screwed us.

This is not about partisanship. We are being gangbanged from both ends.

My beef is with the idiots on the streets who are marching in bank lobbies and in front of the homes of bankers, and who believe that they have identified the devil.

When people believe they have the devil by the horns, and can call him by name, they stop thinking. That is when they go into witch-hunt mode. And that's where we are, now.

The devil is not the banks.

The banks are made of shareholders and depositors. Both of which are people. And those people are the 99%, for whom the OWS idiots claim to be marching.

Finally, I have a problem with Carter's apologists, and Clinton's apologists, and Obama's apologists. (And yes, I suppose I have a beef with Bush's apologists, too. ) The apologists are empowering and inflaming the idiots on the street.

 

Me, an ideologue? :laughing: That's a rich one. I've been accused of such from both sides of the dogmatic fence, so get in line - to the hardliners on the right, I'm a leftist, pinko, communist nut. To the tree huggers I'm a heartless, hypocritical facist out to make the world safe for the 1%. I rather enjoy the dissonance.

My critique was specifically pointed at your guessing game about what you believe happened behind closed doors between Reno, Clinton, the bureaucrats, the banking lobbyists, et al - and that such a thing led directly to the repeal of Glass-Steagall because the financial industry was handcuffed.

Utter nonsense - the historical facts of the matter do not support such a fantasy. Try these facts on for size and see if your version of events could possibly be true:

Late 1970's (can't recall exact dates) - Brokerage firms begin offering interest-bearing money market accounts, including check writing priviledges as well as debit and credit cards. Congress does not challenge this. the Federal Reserve Board allows it.

1986 - The Federal Reserve Board makes a ruling allowing commercial banks to have up to 5% of revenue from investment banking.

1987 - The Federal Reserve Board approves the application by Chase Manhattan to underwrite commercial paper.

1989 - The Federal Reserve Board increases the limit on commercial banks to 10% of revenue coming from investment banking.

1990 - The Federal Reserve Board approves the application by J.P. Morgan to underwrite securities.

1996 - The Federal Reserve Board increases the limit on commercial banks to 25%! of revenue coming from investment banking. At this point, the Glass-Steagall restrictions become moot as any bank holding company in the country would be able to be safely under this limit based on the money existing in the total market.

1997 - Bankers Trust (Deutsche Bank) is allowed to buy investment bank Alex Brown & Co. & becomes the first commercial bank to acquire a securities firm.

1997 - Travelers tries to merge with J.P. Morgan, but the deal goes south and Travelers ends up buying Salomon Brothers to become Salomon Smith Barney.

1998 - the $70 billion merger of Travelers and Citicorp slides right on through without a hiccup - including a specific thumbs-up from the Federal Reserve Board.

1999 - Gramm-Leachy-Bliley is passed and signed into law, formally repealing the banking act of 1933.

Every single one of these acts leading up to the event in 1999 is in direct violation of the Glass-Stegall act - every single one. Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr. & Clinton all stood by - as did every session of Congress through those years - and let the Federal Reserve Board eviscerate a law passed in 1933.

If you believe any of the above facts are in dispute, I'd be happy to entertain a citation supporting such a contention. Good Luck.

 

One of the things that is rarely addressed (This thread has over 1,000 posts so it may be here and I missed it) is the political class itself being the problem. As Old Tool says many administrations of both parties have contributed to the situation and Congress has either rubber stamped, not exerted proper oversight or went along with various policies.


But probably over 90% of politicians are just that - politicians and that is all they know. The current President is a perfect example - he is a lawyer and his only other job was a "community organizer" and they have no real knowledge about business, what it is to have to make a payroll, fiscal or monetary policy, and how regulations actually affect businesses.


Wasn't it Nancy Pelosi who said they had to pass Obamacare to find out what was in it. In a perfect world there wouldn't be "professional politicians" who spend their whole life running for one office after another and working their way up the political ladder.

Most aren't probably intending to cause harm but they don't know what to do so they are spoon fed ideas, sometimes by unscrupulous "experts" and they refuse to actually think or admit they are wrong. Kind of like Obama saying last week that his administration has been right on everything.

He doesn't have a clue what to do so he just keeps or tries to keep doing the same. That is why he keeps trying for another "stimulous bill", he has no other idea plus now he is in pandering to the public employee union mode.If things continue this way the country really is shot and I don't see how the people who got us there have the brains or courage to get us out.
But at least as we slip to third world status it should prevent the whole third world from moving here.

 

the status quo is the problem

 

Not personally, but you implied that all lefties are moonbats 8)

I only answered yes to 2 (Trust fund & tramp stamps) of the questions and only 2 of my 5 children are quadraperds, so that's a half yes. :excited:

Tina :rose:

 

The "facts" are not in dispute, but please tell us what the Congress had to say about each "fact", how about the executive branch, Steve Forbes (for those during his tenure), how about what the labor unions had to say about them

My point is that you can point to any person or group and spin similar stories. Why do you chose the fed, other than because of the giant hardon that you carry for them.

 

I say fuck the banks, we have involuntarily already had a huge stimulus pumped into our economy and we are no better off than we were before-the only real company that has profited and been responsible enough to take action on paying their portion back is General Motors

We should have just let the banks battle it out-dont even get e started on the housing issue

 

WOW Old tool thank you for this. And don't worry if anyone wants documented sources I'll find them because I've seen it all before. But not as succinctly and understandable as you just did here.

Now how did they take high risk loans, bundle them, and give them AAA ratings?

 

Here's two different ways of dealing with Occupy Protesters.

It got mean and ugly in Oakland.

Watch live: ‘Occupy Oakland’ attacked by police

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/10/25/watch-live-occupy-oakland-attacked-by-police/

But meanwhile in Albany:

Cops Defy Order to Crack Down On #OccupyAlbany Protesters For Curfew Violations

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/cops-say-dont-think-so-order-crack-do

If more police officers respond like that this movement will be impossible to stop.

 

What matters is not how many people show up for demonstrations. What matters is who wins on election day, and whether or not their policies benefit most of the electorate.

These demonstrations are only beneficial if they win popular support for the concerns of the demonstrators. In a violent confrontation most Americans are more likely to support the police than a mob of demonstrators. This is particularly true if the demonstrators have stopped traffic, and engaged in vandalism.

 

if its a mob against government corruption, violence or not i would join against the cops and government. If its a bunch of idiots just wanting to tear up shit, then i would help the cops. Part of demonstration is to piss the right people off to get results, sometimes that means breaking shit or blocking traffic .

 

Got mean and ugly today in Dallas infront of Chase Bank Main Branch...

 

These police attacks are a crock of shit

 

Nor am I.

I do not dispute any of this. I had already conceded it.

Good typing.

These exceptions prove the rule, if they do anything. Because they are completely beside the point.

Did Reno strong-arm the banks, or did she not?

Did the Clinton administration battle to repeal Glass-Steagall, or did it not?

The law was not toothless in 1999, or they would not have bothered.


******

And one more thing. I see that you are the OP for a thread endorsing Ron Paul. No, I have not read it. I have been trying to take you seriously.

Man, you old socket wrench, if you're going to throw your vote away, why don't you do it right? Jot down LaRouche, and be done with it.

 

Huh?

"exceptions"? You don't really believe those decisions on the part of the Federal Reserve Board over the course of 20+ years were singular events do you? Do you really need a list of all the financial sector activity that flooded in after each of them to be convinced that my list was not a list of "exceptions", but steps specifically taken to undermine the restrictions put in place by Glass-Steagall? Every significant financial institution in the land jumped in with both feet immediately after each stage.

Of course she did - why wouldn't she? She was part of an administration that wanted to see the CRA enforced to it's maximum effect under the law. Are you proposing that the banks were somehow fighting to limit their risk during this same timeframe? If so, that would be pretty funny stuff right there.

No, it did not. Mr. Greenspan was the chief architect of the repeal - Clinton & pals let him set the agenda and accepted what was going down as passively as any President could - they paid lip-service to "modernizing" Glass-Steagall, but other than that, they did nothing. If anything, his administration's inactivity should be a target of criticism.

As I have clearly demonstrated, there were no parts of the act left that would prevent any bank holding company in existence at that time engage in any level of other financial sector activities available in the current market. None. The only thing that repealing it did was keep the banks from having to get the Federal Reserve Board's stamp of approval for anything that may have looked fishy.

 

And one of the causes, as Alan Greenspan would later admit, was he was fool enough to believe in Ayn Rand's fatally flawed ramblings and actually thought the financial industry would self regulate. So instead he gave them enough freedom to collapse the world economy and cause the US Great Recession.

 

What pisses me off the most is Greenspan - Bernanke & the Fed Res preach free market and then they manipulate the interest rates to be lower than what they would normally be......this was also a cause of the housing bubble.

The low interest rates are now penalizing those that have saved and are trying to live off of interest income from safe investment sources. The lower rates are making those that did right have to invade their principal savings rather than being able to leave that money to their kids at death.....these low rates are robbing your parents...you and your kids....

Banks are borrowing for .0025 and loaning for credit cards at 22% prime 6% or more and mortgages at around 5%....

Free market dictates unless you are a Bank.