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Rented Tritium wrote:They're not serious enough to get themselves arrested. They just want to live in tent cities and complain that everyone doesn't love them for it.

Apart from maybe the protesters that got... you know... Arrested?

I think they might've been serious enough to get themselves arrested.

Melissia wrote:Considering the bankers were lobbying congress to do this very thing, I hardly find it surprising that the majority of the blame lay on bankers, as opposed to you whom seems to think they are completely blameless.

I didn't say that. I said there's more than enough blame to go around. You're putting it all on the bankers.

Yet banks are laying off too...

Frazzled wrote:
You're right. Its all the evil Bankers fault. Once we exterminate them, er put them in camps, then Detroit will hum with manufacturing, HP will make computers in Alabama, and the economy will boom. Every man will have his correct portion of prosperity and freedom.

Nuts.

Melissia wrote:Considering the bankers were lobbying congress to do this very thing, I hardly find it surprising that the majority of the blame lay on bankers, as opposed to you whom seems to think they are completely blameless.

Arggg, it is so frustrating being right between you guys.

I don't want to blame the banks, the banks are just doing what comes naturally, but we didn't FORCE them to make bad calls, they contorted themselves into business arrangements that made detecting bad calls impossible. The repeal of GS is the PRIMARY issue here and you know what? Both parties participated in that little gem.

Well yeah, but a serial murderer is also only doing what comes natural to him, but we punish them for it despite that.

Certainly boundless greed combined with zero responsibility is less punish-worthy than murder, but the copmarison is still apt.

Melissia wrote:Well yeah, but a serial murderer is also only doing what comes natural to him, but we punish them for it despite that.

Certainly boundless greed combined with zero responsibility is less punish-worthy than murder, but the copmarison is still apt.

It's not, even a little. Serial murder is unlawful. The dangerous banking practices that partially are responsible for our current situation were not only lawful, but strongly encouraged by both congress and the executive, Democratic and Republican administrations.

Melissia wrote:Well yeah, but a serial murderer is also only doing what comes natural to him, but we punish them for it despite that.

Certainly boundless greed combined with zero responsibility is less punish-worthy than murder, but the copmarison is still apt.

I agree, and its entirely appropriate to compare hundreds of thousands of people to serial murderers.

Ouze wrote:It's not, even a little. Serial murder is unlawful. The dangerous banking practices that partially are responsible for our current situation were not only lawful, but strongly encouraged by both congress and the executive, Democratic and Republican administrations.

Oh yes quite a bit in fact. The fact that the government encourages the latter only means the government itself is fethed up, like a serial murderer's parents if they decided they wanted to give them the tools they needed to apply their trade out of a misplaced sense of familial love.

Melissia wrote:Well yeah, but a serial murderer is also only doing what comes natural to him, but we punish them for it despite that.

Certainly boundless greed combined with zero responsibility is less punish-worthy than murder, but the copmarison is still apt.

What? No. Businesses are greedy by design. That's how capitalism works. We WANT them to be. A CEO actually has a LEGAL responsibility to maximize shareholder value. They can be SUED if they sandbag performance. A world where private companies hold back on profit is a world FULL of collusion and laziness. Innovation grinds to a halt when companies aren't battling it out on the burning edge of design.

The government is supposed to just be a sheepdog here. Keep certain very specific types of thing from happening. See, certain business behaviors appear to be in the short term interest of the player, but are awful for the market and we NEVER want to tell a business that they're responsible for babysitting the whole market. That's why we regulate those few key things.

The issue is that the banks asked to be let off that hook and in 1999 congress was like "sure". Congress should have known better and said "no, that has market consequences, we're sorry"

Thus, it is almost entirely the fault of the 1999 congress.

The title of the thread threw me off... I thought people were getting evicted from their apartments because instead of working for money to pay rent they were protesting... but I think I understand the title now...

...also I read the whole thread so far. I don't normally read threads like this. I deserve a cookie... or maybe a bailout.

I thought we were talking about the OWS protests and the tent-cities. I didn't even mention housing.

But since you mentioned it... The deregulation of the "banking industry" directly allowed the unchecked (unrestrained free, loose, rampant, unbounded, unbridled, uncurbed, unhampered, untamed, untrammeled, wild) greed of the banks. The housing crisis is a byproduct of the banking industry since mortgages (loans) were given to people who really couldn't afford them at high interest rates for the greedy purpose of collecting those interest dollars from those loans. It was an unsustainable short-term boom in business, with total disregard for the possible repercussions. It had no "insurance policy" just in case it failed (which it did). That is not opinion, that is fact.

There was never a "law" that banks HAD to provide those unsustainable loans, I'm not sure where that idea came from. the Banks did what they did because deregulation came in the form of payback from politicians who took the bank's campaign money.

I know it's not nice to just plant a youtube link in a thread, but we all gotta respect The Hannon.

dsteingass wrote:I thought we were talking about the OWS protests and the tent-cities. I didn't even mention housing.

But since you mentioned it... The deregulation of the "banking industry" directly allowed the unchecked (unrestrained free, loose, rampant, unbounded, unbridled, uncurbed, unhampered, untamed, untrammeled, wild) greed of the banks. The housing crisis is a byproduct of the banking industry since mortgages (loans) were given to people who really couldn't afford them at high interest rates for the greedy purpose of collecting those interest dollars from those loans. It was an unsustainable short-term boom in business, with total disregard for the possible repercussions. It had no "insurance policy" just in case it failed (which it did). That is not opinion, that is fact.

There was never a "law" that banks HAD to provide those unsustainable loans, I'm not sure where that idea came from. the Banks did what they did because deregulation came in the form of payback from politicians who took the bank's campaign money.

So the Banks, in addition to being just like serial killers, are the only greedy parties here, and not the people trying to get the loasn in the first place. Gotcha

Again, please explain how this relates to over 9% unemployment?

dsteingass wrote:mortgages (loans) were given to people who really couldn't afford them at high interest rates for the greedy purpose of collecting those interest dollars from those loans.

That's not quite right.

What actually happened was one unit of a (now combined) bank would make a mortgage, then they'd package up a whole ton of them to sell as one unit. See when you take a bunch of individual investments and package them like that, the final product can be a lot more consistent. 1000 mortgages can provide a reasonable average return even though 50% of them lose money.

Well the thing is, the guys packaging it were selling them to the other half of their same bank. Since they were in the same company, the other half was just buying them without really checking things. They would just trust the self-reported rating.

Now if it had been ANOTHER BANK selling them, the buyer would be suspicious and dig into the product before dropping cash, but they trusted it because they were in the same company.

So fast forward a bit, the half making the mortgages sees the value of their packages increasing because the bubble is making them pretty profitable, so they start REALLY cranking them out. The buyer is like "oh man sweet, gotta get more of those sweet packages, they did GREAT last time" and this cycle is so strong that the guys making the mortgages stop checking so well. The ones they've done so far were SO AWESOME that it almost doesn't MATTER what they do, SOMEONE will buy the crap out of them.

So they continue like this until the bottom falls out and everyone is stuck sitting on these packages that have all lost HUGE megatons of value.

No single person in there was like "lets make crappy mortgages and get interest off poor people, hooray", it was a series of very small miscalculations stemming from the fact that there was no longer a wall between the guys making the mortgages and the guys buying the packages. If each one being bought had been fully researched (and it would have been if they were buying from another bank), they would not have paid as much for the packages and the market would have stayed rational.

So as you can see, dsteingass, it's a LOT more complicated than "banks greedy, make bad loan"

Rented Tritium wrote:What? No. Businesses are greedy by design. That's how capitalism works.

And taht's also why we have regulation, to prevent uncontrolled greed without responsibility from harming the nation.

Melissia wrote:

Rented Tritium wrote:What? No. Businesses are greedy by design. That's how capitalism works.

And taht's also why we have regulation, to prevent uncontrolled greed without responsibility from harming the nation.

Yes. As I said in that post.

Rented Tritium wrote:

dsteingass wrote:mortgages (loans) were given to people who really couldn't afford them at high interest rates for the greedy purpose of collecting those interest dollars from those loans.

That's not quite right.

What actually happened was one unit of a (now combined) bank would make a mortgage, then they'd package up a whole ton of them to sell as one unit. See when you take a bunch of individual investments and package them like that, the final product can be a lot more consistent. 1000 mortgages can provide a reasonable average return even though 50% of them lose money.

Well the thing is, the guys packaging it were selling them to the other half of their same bank. Since they were in the same company, the other half was just buying them without really checking things. They would just trust the self-reported rating.

Now if it had been ANOTHER BANK selling them, the buyer would be suspicious and dig into the product before dropping cash, but they trusted it because they were in the same company.

So fast forward a bit, the half making the mortgages sees the value of their packages increasing because the bubble is making them pretty profitable, so they start REALLY cranking them out. The buyer is like "oh man sweet, gotta get more of those sweet packages, they did GREAT last time" and this cycle is so strong that the guys making the mortgages stop checking so well. The ones they've done so far were SO AWESOME that it almost doesn't MATTER what they do, SOMEONE will buy the crap out of them.

So they continue like this until the bottom falls out and everyone is stuck sitting on these packages that have all lost HUGE megatons of value.

No single person in there was like "lets make crappy mortgages and get interest off poor people, hooray", it was a series of very small miscalculations stemming from the fact that there was no longer a wall between the guys making the mortgages and the guys buying the packages. If each one being bought had been fully researched (and it would have been if they were buying from another bank), they would not have paid as much for the packages and the market would have stayed rational.

So as you can see, dsteingass, it's a LOT more complicated than "banks greedy, make bad loan"

Don't forget the bundled mortgages, after warehousing, were then sold to other financial institutions, insurance companies, and investors (including you and me).

Frazzled wrote:
So the Banks, in addition to being just like serial killers, are the only greedy parties here, and not the people trying to get the loasn in the first place. Gotcha

Again, please explain how this relates to over 9% unemployment?

Are you even making an argument here? I didn't pipe in at all about serial killers or unemployment.

Economics 101 teaches us that there are always unemployed, even in strong economic times. This is known as Structural Unemployment and always present due to inefficiencies inherent in labor markets including a mismatch between the supply and demand of laborers with necessary skill sets. 10% unemployment is considered part of the "normal" threshold at any given time. You are forgetting that the economy is Globalizing all the time. Looking at US Unemployment rates since 1945 doesn't apply to a 2011 economy, it is like comparing apples to oranges, literally. There is no stopping Globalization whether you like it or not.

Frazzled wrote:

Rented Tritium wrote:

dsteingass wrote:mortgages (loans) were given to people who really couldn't afford them at high interest rates for the greedy purpose of collecting those interest dollars from those loans.

That's not quite right.

What actually happened was one unit of a (now combined) bank would make a mortgage, then they'd package up a whole ton of them to sell as one unit. See when you take a bunch of individual investments and package them like that, the final product can be a lot more consistent. 1000 mortgages can provide a reasonable average return even though 50% of them lose money.

Well the thing is, the guys packaging it were selling them to the other half of their same bank. Since they were in the same company, the other half was just buying them without really checking things. They would just trust the self-reported rating.

Now if it had been ANOTHER BANK selling them, the buyer would be suspicious and dig into the product before dropping cash, but they trusted it because they were in the same company.

So fast forward a bit, the half making the mortgages sees the value of their packages increasing because the bubble is making them pretty profitable, so they start REALLY cranking them out. The buyer is like "oh man sweet, gotta get more of those sweet packages, they did GREAT last time" and this cycle is so strong that the guys making the mortgages stop checking so well. The ones they've done so far were SO AWESOME that it almost doesn't MATTER what they do, SOMEONE will buy the crap out of them.

So they continue like this until the bottom falls out and everyone is stuck sitting on these packages that have all lost HUGE megatons of value.

No single person in there was like "lets make crappy mortgages and get interest off poor people, hooray", it was a series of very small miscalculations stemming from the fact that there was no longer a wall between the guys making the mortgages and the guys buying the packages. If each one being bought had been fully researched (and it would have been if they were buying from another bank), they would not have paid as much for the packages and the market would have stayed rational.

So as you can see, dsteingass, it's a LOT more complicated than "banks greedy, make bad loan"

Don't forget the bundled mortgages, after warehousing, were then sold to other financial institutions, insurance companies, and investors (including you and me).

Yep, they went EVERYWHERE.

And the rules you were talking about earlier, that encouraged them to give out more crappier mortgages? They sucked. They sped this up a LOT. We might have had another couple years before the burst if it wasn't for them, but the crash was inevitable as soon as glass-steagall was repealed.

Details, shmetails...Everything is more complicated when you look at the details. You might see a Leman Russ as just a tank, I see a Leman Russ as an artistic collection of pointless rivets, it's still a tank! lol
From a high-level view though, everything you said still fits into "banks greedy, make bad loan" statement, you just expanded on my simplistic description with correct details. It is still a bad loan.

dsteingass wrote:

Frazzled wrote:
So the Banks, in addition to being just like serial killers, are the only greedy parties here, and not the people trying to get the loasn in the first place. Gotcha

Again, please explain how this relates to over 9% unemployment?

Are you even making an argument here? I didn't pipe in at all about serial killers or unemployment.

I wasn't posting to you DS.

oh sorry, you quoted me when you said that, that's why I thought you were posting to me

dsteingass wrote:

Frazzled wrote:
So the Banks, in addition to being just like serial killers, are the only greedy parties here, and not the people trying to get the loasn in the first place. Gotcha

Again, please explain how this relates to over 9% unemployment?

Are you even making an argument here? I didn't pipe in at all about serial killers or unemployment.

Economics 101 teaches us that there are always unemployed, even in strong economic times. This is known as Structural Unemployment and always present due to inefficiencies inherent in labor markets including a mismatch between the supply and demand of laborers with necessary skill sets. 10% unemployment is considered part of the "normal" threshold at any given time. You are forgetting that the economy is Globalizing all the time. Looking at US Unemployment rates since 1945 doesn't apply to a 2011 economy, it is like comparing apples to oranges, literally. There is no stopping Globalization whether you like it or not.

Find the economist that thinks 10% unemployment is normal and I will show you an economist that needs to go back to stripping.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the number we are looking for is really 3ish.

Well yeah, but a serial murderer is also only doing what comes natural to him, but we punish them for it despite that

A serial killer though knows right from wrong though

Jihadin wrote:

Well yeah, but a serial murderer is also only doing what comes natural to him, but we punish them for it despite that

A serial killer though knows right from wrong though

I don't want to argue about serial killers, but honestly one may or may not know right from wrong.

It's a lot more like a wild animal than a serial killer. It's not that a bear "doesn't know" right from wrong, it's that "right" and "wrong" don't really exist for bears if that distinction makes any sense.

Normal in the US is between 5% and 6.7%. The economy is now GLOBAL. That means there are now much bigger piles of everything. Normal for the GLOBAL economy is 10%
Believing that we are still in our little postwar US-only economy is like believing in the Easter Bunny.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2129rank.html

dsteingass wrote: Normal in the US is between 5% and 6.7%. The economy is now GLOBAL. That means there are now much bigger piles of everything. Normal for the GLOBAL economy is 10%
Believing that we are still in our little postwar US-only economy is like believing in the Easter Bunny.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2129rank.html

The global economy is counting some horrible places though. While GLOBAL unemployment may be normal at 10, AMERICAN unemployment IN a global economy is not normal at 10. Globalization doesn't mean that geographical areas suddenly merge and stop having local economies, dude.

And man, I looove me some globalization. I believe globalization is the perfect realization of capitalism.

No it doesn't, but once you include places other than the US, you cannot compare past US-only numbers with new Global numbers. It is a different game from that point on, the local economies no longer exist in their previous isolated states. And as we all saw, once the US economy tanked, soon followed the rest of the world's economies.

Is there a reset button?

dsteingass wrote:you cannot compare past US-only numbers with new Global numbers.

I agree?

I don't think anyone is doing this though.