jjamie12

Finally. First of all, there were no good actors in this mess and the federal government deserves its share of blame, but in my mind, they are way down on the totem pole of people who were playing 'huge' roles in this. (I'm assuming, of course, that your primary beef here is the nature of CRA loans and the stated goal of homeownership by the government, and not the whole "Government is supposed to regulate commerce and they did a really piss-poor job of regulating the mortgage market" Side note -- Really, the mortgage market was one of the most heavily regulated markets in the US and our response is, you guessed it, more regulation. That makes sense.) Given the assumption above -- Community Reinvestment Act loans are a pittance compared to the size and scope of the nonsense that was coming out of Option One or Fremont in the bad old days. FNMA didn't create Pay Option ARM's. FNMA didn't create CDO's. FNMA didn't create CDO^2's. FNMA didn't sell CDS on CDO^2's. Rating agencies had NO idea what was going on. None. All of these things were way, way, way more important to the collapse of the market than anything the federal government did (that's not to say that the federal gov't is innocent in this. I agree with you that they aren't. They just aren't (in my opinion) anywhere near the top of the heap of the blame game in the way that you want them to be)

Then stop buying so much effing gas! Organize car pools, take mass transit, walk somewhere. Stop going out 5 times a day for everything. Everything isn't supposed to be easy. Sometimes you have to make a choice. If people stop buying so much gas, I promise you, Pbills, the price will go down.

Boy, I sure hope so! Well, Rob - I'm going to point out that I haven't attacked you or your position. Of course, you'd need to have a position on this for me to attack it but, unfortunately "...If you're talking about Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, then yes, I think Taibbi is fine with letting them "solve" the problem." isn't actually a position. I'm just trying to understand who I'm talking to, because the things I would say to, for example, GG if he were to respond with the quote you did would be miles apart from the response I'd have for Keukasmiles or RKFast if they said the same thing. In other words, I'm trying to understand what your knowledge of the mortgage markets is. Fair?

Just so I understand: What kind of expertise do you have in the mortgage markets?

I'm going to go ahead and play Devil's Advocate here. A couple of things: 1- Giving Taibbi just a little bit of credit yields the following -- Perhaps Taibbi is using the most egregious of things (the Mack and Karches wives Club) to illuminate the absurdity of the situation. The very same people (often literally as GG explained above) who packaged, structured and sold our way into the crisis are the ones profiting from the programs created to solve the problem! 2- We put taxpayer dollars at risk (or more precisely, we gave banks liquidity for awhile -- and at a steep price, I have to add; there was always a good chance we'd make money on that part of the deal) and didn't do any real reform. If anything, we codified the idea that if any of these large institutions fails (or is in danger of failing) we'll take care of them! Not only that, but we do lend them all sorts of money (at near-zero interest rates -- hopefully to spur commercial and consumer lending) and what do they do with it? They sit on it, lend it back to the gov't and take a risk-free 3% -- with the magic of leverage, banks are now back to making big $$ and paying out huge bonuses to the same people (remember - there were no real reforms here) who put the rest of the economy into the tank in the first place! Whether he explains the purpose of TALF or not, whether or not there were any other choices that the government could make is beside the point. The result is: The very same people who created the mess (save for a few folks at Bear and Lehman) are the ones making bank off the programs designed to fix that mess. Again, whether or not there were better options out there is somewhat beside the point of the narrative. Taibbi leaves the larger macro-economic reasoning and discussion to those who are more able to really understand the ripple-effects of Fed and Treasury policy and explores a few absurdities of the results of those policy initiatives. Frankly, I find it a compelling narrative as more people should have a firmer grasp on what, why, and how this whole thing went down. One of my best friends created ~30 2nd lien mortgage deals that have all (every single one) blown up. He got financial backing to get in on TALF and is making a ton of money to do so. Is that right? wrong? A good outcome? bad? I don't know, and I don't much care... The big guys said this was the best option, so I tend to side with them, however I recognize that there's a chance they were wrong and that we're enriching people on the backs of the taxpayers and can understand that there are many people out there who find it wrong. Anyway -- that's my Devil's Advocate view. Tom and GG need to be challenged around here more often by people who aren't morons or ego-maniacs.

He's not exactly *wrong*, though, is he? I mean -- in general what he says is true (it's too bad he doesn't understand the difference between the Fed and the budget, but hey-- who's perfect?) The really big problem I have with him is that he's not one to follow this to its logical conclusion -- he's one to argue for MORE government oversight. For MORE unintended consequences, for MORE of the exact thing he claims to be upset about. I mean, really -- this whole article is about how the *government* is screwing over the little guy. The response to that? More government. It's too bad he doesn't seem to get it, because he really is the only person (I've seen) writing about this stuff...

I love B-School... With time to create stuff like that, who wouldn't?!?! Check out "Dean Dean Baby" and "Baby Got WACC". My personal favorites. Edit: M-R-S is making me re-think my top 2. That one is pretty excellent.

Seriously. He's such a low-key, Warren Buffet kind of guy... this seems so out of character.

The most likely (in my mind): C- He has absolutely no interest in running, he's just marketing himself and his brand right now. If Trump had any interest in running, he wouldn't be out there talking nonsense about 'Certificates of Live Birth' and saying he has 'no interest in Libya unless we get their oil'... These are not the things someone who ACTUALLY wanted to run for President would be saying. These are things that someone who wants publicity would be saying.

To be fair, you can't make up those half-truths without understanding the 'half'. I marked him down because in a 'bailout' rant, he's complaining about the Fed Funds rate. However, I did mark him up for understanding that bailing out AIG helped to funnel money back to the banks.

That was a bunch of nonsense. I would rate this person's level of knowledge about this particular subject at something like 40%. Plus, you've posted this before.

Who says there's a problem? Why not? I've seen plenty of thoughtful people propose just that.

I am going to try and respond (against all of my better judgment) to you like you're actually asking me this question, rather than making a statement. The part that he is making up is the part where he says England is socialist. I thought it was pretty obvious since I posted a reply directly to that quote, but maybe not. Fair enough.

Is everyone allowed to just make **** up now?

Not true.

It's amazing how absolutely wrong someone can be inside of one post. 1- GM has absolutely NOT paid their bailout money back. They've paid a piece. 2- Most 'Wall Street' (maybe all -- not completely sure) HAVE paid ALL of the money back, WITH the required interest. The US Treasury has actually MADE money on most of the 'bailouts'. It is highly likely that the US Taxpayer will have made a ton of money 'bailing' out the banks. 3- 'Bailed out' banks -- who haven't paid their 'bailout' money back -- are under very, very strict regulation as to what their compensation packages can be. No huge bonuses for them. To recap -- wrong in the first sentence, implied something incorrect in the first sentence, completely wrong in the second sentence. It is really amazing. I don't think I've ever actually seen a post that was so thoroughly wrong as this one above. You should really, really, try and learn something, pbills. We are 3 years deep into this -- the least you could do would be to learn something about the things you so adamantly advocate. It's time for you to grow up and have real conversations -- your emotional reactions are so infantile.

Yes it does. For some reason, you are under the impression that 'success' means the exact same thing for every classroom everywhere. Since schools don't have 'profits', I don't know what you're talking about. Who's talking about capitalism? I'm referring to people responding to incentives. Do you agree or disagree that people respond (sometimes to the detriment of society, for sure) to incentives? What an odd thing to say... do you suppose there is anyone, anywhere who would disagree with this?

Ha! Nice job, sir... well played. No one in their right mind would define 'success' as some sort of absolute number on a test, and compare those scores across school districts. Stop it with this nonsense. Discuss this or don't, but don't be intentionally obtuse. I do and I think that's EXACTLY what we should do. We could make teaching a highly competitive career with tremendous pay and benefits to those teachers who do the best job. If there is anyone in society that should be making well into the six figures it would be an excellent teacher. Unfortunately, we seem to be going the other way. We'll all be worse off for it.

No. Is there any job in the world in which the sole reason for 'success' depends on one individual?

How is it that after years of talking about the Financial Crisis you are still under this impression? How is that possible? Have you learned nothing about the financial sector over the past few years of public conversation? You realize that banks were, are and always will be one of the most heavily regulated industries in the U.S., right? RIGHT? For God's sake man... Get a grip.

... and poison pills and golden parachutes and boards stacked with buddies of the CEO and countless lines of middle management protecting their little fiefdoms... I mean, I get it -- you don't like what's going on in a compay, don't invest. Now, try and not 'invest' in the state and see where that gets you. I get that. Screaming about individual cops and teachers just seems a little over the top, I guess. That's all.

Do you honestly think this doesn't happen in the private sector, too?

I don't know how much you've looked into this one, but the Durbin Amendment is poised to do way, WAY, more damage to banks than this credit card stuff...

Then why do I always hear about how "It's a complete waste of money! It will never work!"? Is it just equally ignorant people with their fingers in their ears yelling na-nana-boo-boo?

I'm super-ignorant on this stuff -- Is that a wrong presumption?