Bushes Speech Tonight

[hblask 1]

hblask I really wish you would read and post in the stock market thread some. I'd like to hear your opinions on WrongWay's tirades.kthnx.

WrongWay is one of the reasons I don't read that thread. He's a bit of a kook. He's spent the last couple of years acting like he has some secret insider information on this mortgage crisis. His proof? He links to articles in such secret sources as The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Money magainze, etc. He makes lots of bold predictions. Some of them are likely to be right. I can get 8 or 9 football picks right each week, too. The drama of his posts is just too much. That this was coming was obvious to most people for years, even while housing was still climbing. Nobody could predict exactly *when* the s**t would hit the fan, so people kept diving in and grabbing while the grabbing was good. Everyone knew *someone* would get burned, they just hoped it wouldn't be them. Now it's payback time.Is WrongWay always wrong? No. Is his drama over the top? Yeah.

[Nimue1995 1]

Bush's speech was Housing Economics for Dummies 101. It was built to be delivered to the stupid people who don't already understand what a fckn farce the USA has created and nobody can say the government had nothing to do with this mess. His delivery was meant to lull people into a false sense of security about how 700 BILLION dollars are going to be sucked out of your pockets and spent to save the country from themselves. Personally, I think someone should be ripping the SEC for not having more substantial controls over these mortgage based investments. In case none of you have noticed, the stock market is a virtual house of cards and this is a prime example of how fragile stock based economy is.It wasn't a bad speech. It just didn't tell anyone anything they shouldn't already know...If all those people who signed on the dotted line for mortgages and the underlying securities didn't read the fine print, then they deserve to sink and not be propped up like some kind of form of economic anti-euthanasia.I would have preferred a shorter speech that said: I'm sorry. We helped fck you over and now we have to fck you over some more to the tune of 700 billion. I'm also sorry we trusted companies called Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. I now realise they should have not been in housing and should probably have been baking pies somewhere in Georgia.

I do think that the subprime mortgages were at the bottom of this ie they were giving loans to anyone who could breathe. But that wasn't what made this thing so big. I read an article and I even hesitate to cite it because it's in a liberal website and even I am skeptical of a website that has an agenda. But they did explain it as well as any I've read. I'm sure the conservatives on here will flame it but here goes anyway:http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/2...4248/245/602838I did post a little from this earlier and I know there are those that see dailykos and immediately think it's a hit job on John McCain and it is to some extent as well as the Bush Administration. But for those like me who were confused as to exactly what this crisis was about, it did provide some information as well. I am well aware of their bias but that doesn't mean that they don't have facts in the article as well. (I don't read this website as a rule but got this from a friend who was trying to explain to me what exactly the crisis was about).

[Mercury69 3]

You hadn't typed that last part. They tried to pass legislation on that. It was blocked by democrats. He,or his advisors, were aware this was a problem.

By "we", perhaps I should have said the US Government in general. In no way am I absolving the Dems of fkcn things up. Nitpicking like this, though, is why your gov system is a very poor example of how things work and a good example of why many things don't.For the record, although I'dbe inclined to vote Dem, it's not even close to being a lock. Besides, I'm Canadian and I'm simply casting my critical eye south. Forgive me for sounding too much like a bleeding heart and occasionally overgeneralizing.

[hblask 1]

< I read an article and I even hesitate to cite it because it's in a liberal website and even I am skeptical of a website that has an agenda. But they did explain it as well as any I've read. I'm sure the conservatives on here will flame it but here goes anyway:http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/2...4248/245/602838

Lots of good information in there, but they come to the wrong conclusion. The article is a tale of how regulations can be perverted by political connections and money. Their conclusion? We need *more* of this kind of regulation. Huh?This speaks again to the transition issue. The reason all this started was because the US was losing its competitiveness against the world in the financial sector, because nobody wants to invest in low returns, and money can easily just go overseas. So instead of pulling the band-aid all at once, they pulled it little by little. And the results were worse. Twice. (S&Ls and now). The real world choice seems to be to accept socialized regulation and the associated corruption and economic malaise, or go free markets and allow poorly run businesses to fail, causing periodic slumps and adjustments. This intermediate sort of half-regulated/half-not always seems to turn out worse.

[El Guapo 8]

Ive been traveling and the 15 minutes spent on security lines in 3 airports has kept me from doing any research. I heard a claim on one of the talk shows (Savage?) that 700 billion is more than the total of subprime mortgages minus those directly owned by FNMA/FRE?

This is true. But it is also to provide liquidity for the CDS and the Alt-A and other loans that may be coming due here in the next couple years.

It wasn't "rampant deregulation" that caused this. Did you see Ron Paul's pleas back in 2002 to fix this? It was never deregulated. The govt told these companies "you may, and in some cases MUST, take on risky loans that no sane person would want. If it works, you keep the profit. If it doesn't, we'll back up the loans." That in no way resembles a free market. That's an example of everything that is wrong with govt regulation of voluntary transactions.

I agree Henry that the gov requiring low income loans is and was an idiotic thing to do, but a lot of what is going on is because mortgage companies leveraged the hell out of these loans with CDS and don't have liquidity. Read my post about 15 posts up or so where I talk about how this plan is supposed to work.

[Nimue1995 1]

Lots of good information in there, but they come to the wrong conclusion. The article is a tale of how regulations can be perverted by political connections and money. Their conclusion? We need *more* of this kind of regulation. Huh?This speaks again to the transition issue. The reason all this started was because the US was losing its competitiveness against the world in the financial sector, because nobody wants to invest in low returns, and money can easily just go overseas. So instead of pulling the band-aid all at once, they pulled it little by little. And the results were worse. Twice. (S&Ls and now). The real world choice seems to be to accept socialized regulation and the associated corruption and economic malaise, or go free markets and allow poorly run businesses to fail, causing periodic slumps and adjustments. This intermediate sort of half-regulated/half-not always seems to turn out worse.

Unfortunately, there are always going to be scum and con men that'll take all they can get and leave a mess behind. That's why I can't see there being no regulation (that is unless you believe every regulatory action should be passed into law). In Montana, we have something called the Berkley Pit that's basically a lake full of toxic residue from mining in the area. Do you really see ARCO or Anaconda Copper paying for cleaning the mess up without the government forcing them to? I guess that's my biggest concern along with worker protection that causes me not to be entirely for free markets. There has to be some way to hold companies accountable for their actions that harm the community they are located in. Just like W.R. Grace pulling out of Libby and leaving a large portion of the town dealing with asbestosis caused by their operations (especially since they do have company memos showing that they knew the harm asbestos could cause long before it was ever made public and didn't ever inform the workers or the town). If your free market could address these issues without having to wait for people to die or the land to be poisoned for it to happen then I could probably sign on. I think the artificial propping up of failing business sectors by the government is ridiculous. The businesses get the profits and the taxpayers get the shaft.

[hblask 1]

Unfortunately, there are always going to be scum and con men that'll take all they can get and leave a mess behind. That's why I can't see there being no regulation (that is unless you believe every regulatory action should be passed into law). In Montana, we have something called the Berkley Pit that's basically a lake full of toxic residue from mining in the area. Do you really see ARCO or Anaconda Copper paying for cleaning the mess up without the government forcing them to? I guess that's my biggest concern along with worker protection that causes me not to be entirely for free markets. There has to be some way to hold companies accountable for their actions that harm the community they are located in. Just like W.R. Grace pulling out of Libby and leaving a large portion of the town dealing with asbestosis caused by their operations (especially since they do have company memos showing that they knew the harm asbestos could cause long before it was ever made public and didn't ever inform the workers or the town). If your free market could address these issues without having to wait for people to die or the land to be poisoned for it to happen then I could probably sign on. I think the artificial propping up of failing business sectors by the government is ridiculous. The businesses get the profits and the taxpayers get the shaft.

This is what I was talking about earlier in regard to definitions of free markets. I don't think anyone believes that free markets should include the right to harm people or to commit fraud. So yeah, if a company intentionally pollutes a lake, they should be forced to clean it up. If they accidentally pollute a lake (say to a tank bursting or some accident) then the company's insurance company is probably liable for the cleanup. This is simple rule of law stuff. You can contract out your risks if you feel unable to assess them yourself.It gets more complicated when the company had no way to know about the harm. For example, say that a company typically dumps waste water into the local river. The EPA and all scientific bodies do all their tests and show that this is OK, there are no known risks. Now, 20 years later, it turns out one of the chemicals in there *is* a risk. Do we sue the company? That doesn't really seem fair if they were following best practices. Should their insurance company pay? Well, isn't that what insurance is for? It drives up the cost for everyone else, but now the insurance company knows to include a fudge factor for "things we never even thought about." (I assume most of them do that anyway).The issue of not having to wait for people to die is not very clear cut, for these very reasons. How do we know something is dangerous to the community until people die? We can demand due diligence testing, and once that is done things fall into two categories: 1. known risk, company is liable for this harm, and 2. presumed safe, if not, someone's gonna die before we learn it's not. All the regulation in the world can't prevent #2, and #1 is covered by simple rule of law regarding harming others. (I realize the "simple" in that sentence is not always simple, that's what juries are for.)

[Sheiky 0]

I'm really impressed at how 'honest' he was, I think it's really good that a politician is actually explaining something without falling back on emotive adjectives like 'greed and irresponsiblity'. That isn't sarcasm either, to me he really explained himself clearly and will help a lot of people understand what all this is about.

[akoff 0]

It wasn't "rampant deregulation" that caused this. Did you see Ron Paul's pleas back in 2002 to fix this? It was never deregulated. The govt told these companies "you may, and in some cases MUST, take on risky loans that no sane person would want. If it works, you keep the profit. If it doesn't, we'll back up the loans." That in no way resembles a free market. That's an example of everything that is wrong with govt regulation of voluntary transactions.

This was one of the Clinton's pet project i believe...along with cigars!! I don't make any claim to be a high finance guy. It is almost impossible for me to have a good opinion on this(along with most everyone else i just am willing to say it)...the details are still being figured out and the results are a best guess...and no better. I know people that crunch numbers for a living and they are slpit on if it will work.The bail out had better be the min amount not the max, shorter not longer, and as painful as possible to those who got themselves in this. True free and unregulated markets aren't going to work (ugh I hate typing that) but the bare min is the way to go. Moral of the story 999 times out of 1000 the government should stay the hell out, this may and I am not sure but it could be the one time they help.

[CaneBrain 95]

Bush did what he is supposed to do, which is be the guy up front. Whether it's the war or whatever no one will ever be able to say that he was afraid to put his mug out there.

I'll say it....he has been afraid for the last few years to put his mug out there. He rarely answers questions; most of his press conferences solely consist of him calling on Congress to do this or do that (like they are his personal valets). And he took zero personal responsibility for this situation. It is ironic he thinks that history will remember him fondly as it did for Harry Truman.....Truman understood that the buck stops with the president.Everything bad that has happened has always been someone else's fault. 9/11 was on Clinton, Lack of WMDs was on intelligence agencies, Katrina was on local govt, economy is on wall street greed, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.