"No domestic terror attacks under Bush"

[Jim in Anchorage]

Oh I buy that Clinton screwed it up (POS that he was); my point is that the Republicans probably played a role in his thought process.

Well thats ridiculous. Clinton was in his second term, a lame duck with a blank check. His only thought process was"wow pres. for 4 years-lets party!"

[ExiledInIllinois]

Well thats ridiculous. Clinton was in his second term, a lame duck with a blank check. His only thought process was"wow pres. for 4 years-lets party!"

 

 

These arguments that you make are the same thing the Dems were saying when Bush(s) and others were in... It was stupid then as it is now. Clinton has been out of office for almost 10 years now... Not saying that he wasn't to blame... But it takes two to tango (Dems and Repubs).

[ExiledInIllinois]

Oh... Can we agree that term limits may be a problem?

[Booster4324]

Well thats ridiculous. Clinton was in his second term, a lame duck with a blank check. His only thought process was"wow pres. for 4 years-lets party!"

 

That could be true, but at least I am willing to entertain the possibility of something else. Sad you cannot return the favor. The world is very black and white for you isn't it?

[Magox]

Even if you keep repeating it it won't make it any more true. Deposit taking institutions fared the best in the recent crisis, while the investment banks and AIG were destroyed. How would Glass Steagall have protected Bear, Lehman, Merrill & AIG? It wouldn't have.

 

The only reason BoA is on your list is because they had to absorb Merrill' losses. Wachovia went under because of the Golden West purchase, which again would have been ok under GS.

 

I know that there's a chorus of people screaming that GS should have never been repealed, but if there's one thing that this crisis isn't lacking it's people opining on things which covers their arses or demonstrates their lack of understanding.

 

Glass Steagall had nothing to do with how investment banks funded themselves and how all financials starting looking at their risk management which was starting to come under common Basel standards. Nothing. Zero. Zilch.

 

If you eliminate value at risk models, CDS, and the securitizations, then this crisis doesn't happen. And none of those have anything to do with Glass Steagall.

And just because you oppose what I am saying doesn't make it any more false either.

 

Glass Steagall wouldn't of directly of protected Bear, Lehman and Merrill since they weren't depository institutions. But indirectly it would of, and let me explain.

 

I've gone through this a thousand times over and I see this as an odd situation where Heightened supply led to Higher demand.

 

As you know, I've on more than a few occassions have cited there being numerous reasons for our downturn, from too low for too long interest rate policies, lax mortgage standards, government intrusion and pressure on the GSE's, and the casino like mentality in the MBS and Subprime bond markets.

 

The super low interest rates and the full steam ahead attitude from the GSE's is what led to the rising home values and added demand for the MBS and subprime bond markets. When GS was repealed it added more players to the markets, in which some of these players weren't equipped with the right risk management practices in order to participate effectively.

 

Home prices were rising, interest rates were ripe for the taking and the overall environment was there for high risk taking. When these Banks like BofA and Citgroup and others started participating in the MBS subprime markets aggressively, what we saw was alot and I mean alot of money that was there for lending.

 

This is what I was referring to as Heightened Supply leading to Higher Demand. There was so much money that was entering into these markets for lending, that mortgage lending brokerages were popping up everywhere. Why? Because there was a tremendous amount of money there ready to be lent.

 

So all these brokerages were popping up, homes continued to rise, banking stocks were soaring, so that put added pressure for many of these banks to step it up a few notches in their risk taking and all of a sudden you have even more mortgage lenders popping up.

 

The more mortgage lenders there were, the more unscrupulous their lending standards were becoming. Of course, if they weren't going to lend the funds, some other company down the road was going to do it. Since there was virtually no oversight, these companies continued to lend to just about anyone and why not? Home prices were still rising, so the reprecussions hadn't been felt yet.

 

But the whole point I'm making GG, is that these depository institutions added more coals to the fire, which inflated the bubble even higher, which means that as a result of the bubble becoming as large as it was, it did have an indirect effect on the companies that weren't directly effected by the repeal of GS.

 

In essence this was a snowball situation, and the repeal of GS only added to the colossal size of that !@#$ing snowball.

 

 

You and I have gone through this before, and we will just have to agree to disagree.

[drnykterstein]

Ahh

 

I love it when we have ALL the retards singing in unison....so lets run with it....

 

Your biggest flaw is your inability to be even remotely critical of your own party.

[/dev/null]

Your biggest flaw is your inability to be even remotely critical of your own party.

[Magox]

If there was ever a time to use that emoticon, that was it.

[Jim in Anchorage]

That could be true, but at least I am willing to entertain the possibility of something else. Sad you cannot return the favor. The world is very black and white for you isn't it?

Facts are facts. Do some research before you claim, guess or entertain the thought that Clinton was hampered on national defense by the Republicans. At least I referenced a published, factual source.

[Booster4324]

Facts are facts. Do some research before you claim, guess or entertain the thought that Clinton was hampered on national defense by the Republicans. At least I referenced a published, factual source.

 

 

You referenced one guy. A book that IMO is sorta out of the box in that the man was very close to the president.

 

 

Fair enough though, he got his say even if completely wrong. He threw Clinton under the bus and frankly he is probably right. Still doesn't address how the Republicans attacked him for wagging the dog.

[Jim in Anchorage]

You referenced one guy. A book that IMO is sorta out of the box in that the man was very close to the president.

 

 

Fair enough though, he got his say even if completely wrong. He threw Clinton under the bus and frankly he is probably right. Still doesn't address how the Republicans attacked him for wagging the dog.

You are referencing a entirely different matter then when OBL was in plain sight and completely vulnerable to US attack and Clinton choose to ignore it.

And yeah I think the timing of his military action was highly suspect, given his situation domestically at the time. But he was commander in chief and the Republicans could not stop him, just criticize after the fact.

Worrying about opposing party criticism in national defense matters is a clear sign of a piss poor president, which of course Clinton was.

[GG]

And just because you oppose what I am saying doesn't make it any more false either.

 

Glass Steagall wouldn't of directly of protected Bear, Lehman and Merrill since they weren't depository institutions. But indirectly it would of, and let me explain.

 

Not it would not have, see below.

 

I've gone through this a thousand times over and I see this as an odd situation where Heightened supply led to Higher demand.

 

As you know, I've on more than a few occassions have cited there being numerous reasons for our downturn, from too low for too long interest rate policies, lax mortgage standards, government intrusion and pressure on the GSE's, and the casino like mentality in the MBS and Subprime bond markets.

 

The super low interest rates and the full steam ahead attitude from the GSE's is what led to the rising home values and added demand for the MBS and subprime bond markets. When GS was repealed it added more players to the markets, in which some of these players weren't equipped with the right risk management practices in order to participate effectively.

 

Home prices were rising, interest rates were ripe for the taking and the overall environment was there for high risk taking. When these Banks like BofA and Citgroup and others started participating in the MBS subprime markets aggressively, what we saw was alot and I mean alot of money that was there for lending.

 

This is what I was referring to as Heightened Supply leading to Higher Demand. There was so much money that was entering into these markets for lending, that mortgage lending brokerages were popping up everywhere. Why? Because there was a tremendous amount of money there ready to be lent.

 

So all these brokerages were popping up, homes continued to rise, banking stocks were soaring, so that put added pressure for many of these banks to step it up a few notches in their risk taking and all of a sudden you have even more mortgage lenders popping up.

 

The more mortgage lenders there were, the more unscrupulous their lending standards were becoming. Of course, if they weren't going to lend the funds, some other company down the road was going to do it. Since there was virtually no oversight, these companies continued to lend to just about anyone and why not? Home prices were still rising, so the reprecussions hadn't been felt yet.

 

But the whole point I'm making GG, is that these depository institutions added more coals to the fire, which inflated the bubble even higher, which means that as a result of the bubble becoming as large as it was, it did have an indirect effect on the companies that weren't directly effected by the repeal of GS.

 

In essence this was a snowball situation, and the repeal of GS only added to the colossal size of that !@#$ing snowball.

 

 

You and I have gone through this before, and we will just have to agree to disagree.

 

Everything you said happened, except for one thing - depository institutions' role in the crisis had nothing to do with their ability to sell investment securities. The timing may have been coincidental, but if GS was the culprit, why nothing happened between 1999 and 2006, and suddenly things blew up in 2007? The mortgage rise started in full swing in 2004, just as Fed was raising interest rates, so the claim that excess liquidity was the prime culprit also doesn't hold water.

 

The liquidity provided to mortgage originators all came out of securitizations. The big deposit taking banks sat on the sidelines for most of that action, and again that had nothing to do with new powers granted by GS. Interestingly, some data is filtering out that GSEs mischaracterized their mortgage holdings as prime, instead of subprime. If this is true, it has to be the biggest financial fraud in the history of the country. The ramifications are huge because if they were providing wrong information, then there's no way the Fed, other regulators, investors or rating agency had the correct assumptions on the subprime loans that were being sold. I'm not holding my breath on a Congressional investigation of that one.

 

If you truly believe in your theory, you should have no problem in coming up with backing data, such as the massive failures of deposit taking institutions and subsequent rescues of them to prevent a massive collapse, like the rescue of Continental in 1984. But, the largest bank that failed, IndyMac barely caused a blip on the radar, while the failures of Bear, Lehman & AIG were nearly catastrophic. None were depository institutions, so how does one make a leap that deposit taking banks drove the crisis or contributed to the run up?

 

As the mortgages were written, they were sold to the investment banks who then packaged them off as securitizations and sold to investors. Once the loans were sold, the mortgage originators went back to the well, wrote more mortgages and sold them again. Wash rinse repeat. But none of this was prohibited before GS, so its repeal had no effect on how this process worked. Zero.

 

That is my whole point. Even if GS was still in place, everything would have played out exactly the same, if not worse. Before GS was repealed, securitizations and CDSs allowed investment banks to obtain short term funding as cheaply as Fed banks. Plus, different capital requirements allowed them to extend credit and take principal risks that traditional banks could not. Without GS, traditional banks would have got squeezed out and would have been forced to take more risks to keep up. So imagine a scenario in 2007, where not only the investment banks are toast, but all major commercial banks.

 

You bring up BoA and Citi. Again, BoA was not a major player in mortgages & securitizations in the run up to the crisis. Citi was a major player, but that was only because the old Solomon bankers were major players in subprime. If there's an argument to be made you can say that Citi's risk managers got too complacent because they thought that by having a large deposit base and access to the Fed, they could manage their exposure. They were wrong.

 

Another hole in your theory is the role of foreign banks. Looking across the world, the biggest head cases were UBS, HSBC, HBOS, Northern Rock, RBS, ING and Iceland. All of the above required massive bailouts because they were major players in subprime. None were subject to GS.

[OCinBuffalo]

Your biggest flaw is your inability to be even remotely critical of your own party.

And which party would that be? I have never registered as anything.

[/dev/null]

And which party would that be? I have never registered as anything.

 

Consider the source

 

For Conner the are Democrats and non-Democrats

You are a non-Democrat. So to prove that you are not biased you must criticize all those who are not Democrats

[Booster4324]

And which party would that be? I have never registered as anything.

 

Is there a self absorbed party?

[DC Tom]

Is there a self absorbed party?

 

It's by invitation only, but I can probably wrangle you one...

[Booster4324]

It's by invitation only, but I can probably wrangle you one...

 

I am sure you can.

[RkFast]

"No attacks under Bush"

 

"The tea parties are full of ONLY white males who hate Obama becuase he's black."

 

Someone [with a brain] point out the difference.

[RkFast]

"No attacks under Bush"

 

"The tea parties are full of ONLY white males who hate Obama becuase he's black."

 

Someone [with a brain] point out the difference.

[RI Bills Fan]

"No attacks under Bush"

 

"The tea parties are full of ONLY white males who hate Obama becuase he's black."

 

Someone [with a brain] point out the difference.

 

One is the semi-official position of the Republican Party.

 

The other is something you pulled out of your A**.

 

Next question?