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The greed of the banks was just as critical. They're the ones who devised creative mortgages that adjusted and ballooned and exploded. The banks didn't care much if the mortgages were sound because they got their origination fees and quickly sliced and diced those mortgages into securities that were sold on a secondary market, often to each other. And then, when the whole house of cards toppled, even more people couldn't pay their mortgages. Even people with reasonable payments, because they found themselves unemployed due to the mess that the banks started. It'd be nice if people were more savvy and cautious about their finances, but blaming the public is ridiculous. The banks structure executive compensation based on short term performance, so, of course, the big boys don't give a crap about blowing the country as long as their bonuses are big this year. They're too big to fail and too important to jail. And a few regulations notwithstanding, nothing has really changed.
Absolutely correct!
Quote:
Originally Posted by eastmemphisguy
As it happens, we fixed this problem in the Depression with Glass-Stegall, but Bill Clinton and the Republican Congress were certain financial disasters were a thing of the past. The Internet somehow meant that everybody could be a millionaire. Absolutely ridiculous!
This part is incorrect/irrellevent. The irony is that even the libertarians are fighting the idea that deregulation caused the housing bubble. After all, their claim to fame is that ALL regulations are bad! Let the free market run like a wild and free pony!
"Glass-Steagall was enacted in 1933 to create a firewall between commercial and investment banks: commercial banks could not underwrite or deal in securities, and investment banks could not accept deposits. The Act also restricted commercial banks from being affiliated with any company that underwrote or dealt in securities. But by the 1990s, the affiliation provision was widely viewed as unnecessary and even harmful to financial institutions. In 1999, President Clinton signed GLB into law. Although it left the bulk of Glass-Steagall in place, it ended the affiliation restrictions, freeing up holding companies to own both commercial and investment banks.
There is zero evidence this change unleashed the financial crisis. If you tally the institutions that ran into severe problems in 2008-09, the list includes Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, AIG, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, none of which would have come under Glass-Steagall’s restrictions. Even President Obama has recently acknowledged that “there is not evidence that having Glass-Steagall in place would somehow change the dynamic.”
As for the FDIC-insured commercial banks that ran into trouble, the record is also clear: what got them into trouble were not activities restricted by Glass-Steagall. Their problems arose from investments in residential mortgages and residential mortgage-backed securities—investments they had always been free to engage in.
GLB didn’t cause the financial crisis—and, when push comes to shove, the regulatory evangelists must admit as much. Stiglitz, in the same Vanity Fair article, concedes that Glass-Steagall did nothing to “directly” cause the crisis. Warren, meanwhile, confessed to New York Times reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin that Glass-Steagall would probably not have stopped the financial crisis, but that she was pushing to reinstate it because, in Sorkin’s words, “it is an easy issue for the public to understand and ‘you can build public attention behind.’”
Can we please stop hurting their feelings?... I think someone needs to start a charity .
Can we please stop attacking these billionaires? It's getting out of hand.
I personally hate articles like this .....the billionaire is actually right but the author of the article is slanting the story so that wingnuts pick it up and run with it.
A. The guy created his own wealth (very American)
B. Somehow everyone is chastising the wealthy, like they should share (very un-American)
I am not a billionaire and don't see it happening in my future. I grew up in a middle class family, my parents were lower middle class. My parents both were the only two in their families to graduate from college (2 out of 10 kids total), they had 4 kids (all of which graduated from 4 year universities). Seems like a lot of drive going on here......Now my parents paid their own tuition as did I, not one dollar in student loans, no scholarships/grants etc. No govt. programs have helped them or myself (I will admit my first house was purchased on a FHA loan/3% down). How did all this happen? When do people take ownership of their own situation?
If it was up to me......lets look at who is costing the government money, not who can we take more from!
I personally hate articles like this .....the billionaire is actually right but the author of the article is slanting the story so that wingnuts pick it up and run with it.
A. The guy created his own wealth (very American)
B. Somehow everyone is chastising the wealthy, like they should share (very un-American)
I am not a billionaire and don't see it happening in my future. I grew up in a middle class family, my parents were lower middle class. My parents both were the only two in their families to graduate from college (2 out of 10 kids total), they had 4 kids (all of which graduated from 4 year universities). Seems like a lot of drive going on here......Now my parents paid their own tuition as did I, not one dollar in student loans, no scholarships/grants etc. No govt. programs have helped them or myself (I will admit my first house was purchased on a FHA loan/3% down). How did all this happen? When do people take ownership of their own situation?
If it was up to me......lets look at who is costing the government money, not who can we take more from!
You really think the billionaire is correct in comparing protests against wealth inequality to kristallnacht? I can't even . . .
I think he's paathetic. He's not feeling threatened at all.....guilty maybe!, for the very things he won't discuss.
He's living in a different world and can probably no longer comprehend how it feels to be compassionate.
He doesn't need to..he can buy anything he wants.
That's just my take from the video...course I don't know the man so it might not be right.
The whole article and that was the summary for you?
Rich guys aren't the issue, yet groups feel somehow they are entitled to someone else's money? WTF is that rationale?
The only reason this guy is getting any mainstream press is because he sent a letter to the WSJ and stated:
"Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its "one percent," namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the "rich." From the Occupy movement to the demonization of the rich embedded in virtually every word of our local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, I perceive a rising tide of hatred of the successful one percent. There is outraged public reaction to the Google buses carrying technology workers from the city to the peninsula high-tech companies which employ them. We have outrage over the rising real-estate prices which these "techno geeks" can pay. We have, for example, libelous and cruel attacks in the Chronicle on our number-one celebrity, the author Danielle Steel, alleging that she is a "snob" despite the millions she has spent on our city's homeless and mentally ill over the past decades.
This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendant "progressive" radicalism unthinkable now?"
they would have been super poor if we LET THEM FAIL.
but we let our corrupt government bail them out saying it will help the poor.
YEAH RIGHT?
the problem is super rich has super connections.
so they always make rules to benefit them and if there is a law that hurts them they make sure they are exempt.
so to most of the super rich they mostly need to shut up many are super corrupt.
as for the honest super rich you need to hunker down and avoid the masses.
smart and honest rich people are more hidden from the media and do not gloat they work hard and avoid too much luxury.
but most of the evil rich love to go on TV to gloat and lecture when they would have been bankrupt if not for manipulation and doing evil things behind the scenes.
everyone knows it too.
AHEM JON CORZINE is head of MYRA now? appointed by WHAT IDIOT IN CONGRESS?
buddy of Obama?
yes most of those that voted for Obama are a bunch of corrupt evil individuals.
as are most of those that voted for ROMNEY.
both sides need stop their own corruption.
yes that's right I am calling welfare queens evil and corrupt
and wall street welfare queens also evil and corrupt.
remember the middle class are whom INNOVATES AND creates jobs NOT THE RICH.
we do not need the rich.
wealth is not money.
they are resources and ideas with labor to turn these resources into useful items
depending on how useful it is to someone it is wealth to them.
you do NOT NEED RICH people to produce wealth they create NO WEALTH.
poor people that go on welfare ALSO CREATE NO WEALTH.
MCD workers also do not create much if any wealth.
MCD itself doesn't create anything of value IMO. except extremely bad tasting poison now but whatever poor people wanna eat is up to them. If they could at least make the poison taste better but they keep on lowering the quality of the ingredients so that you would throw up when eating them now.
so what is it that the economy needs now?
SOLUTION:
very simple DECENTRALIZATION OF ALL ECONOMIES.
let the best market win no more bailouts and patent trolls by any company either you create it and compete or you don't.
that would solve much of our employment problems.
the large companies would crash down but many people can open up shop and fight larger companies cheaply forging their own paths.
this is what the super rich is most afraid of.
they know they cannot compete in a real capitalist economy.
Why should they feel threatened when they got politicians pandering to them. Even Obama, as he talks about income inequity, is trying to find a sneaky way to benefit them. After all, who do you think he'll be working for after he leaves office?
The super rich have nothing to worry about, and 99% aren't worried about a thing. Sure, every once in a while one or two will make some noise, like that Tom Perkins bozo, but he is an outlier. The fact is, the class war has long been over--it ended sometime during Reagan's second term, and these guys are the runaway victors. It's not even close. There's never been a better time in America to be super rich. They have absolute control of both major political parties, and every branch of our government, as well as our media.
They've totally conned the majority of Americans into thinking that if you're not rich, it's only due to a lack of effort on your part. Americans will continue to vote against their own economic self-interest, and the chasm will only widen. Welcome to neo-serfdom, Americans. Just remember, you did this to yourselves.
All they have to do is continue the wealth sharing scheme longer to keep the bottom happy by raise what bottom is in paper money but certainly not wealth.Mkae them all millionaires and million is poverty I what it buys.
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When do people take ownership of their own situation? 
