[RCCCB]

Originally Posted by cmist

They werent doing this type of thing when Bush was in office?

Im not republican or democrat so I dont care who the president is.

But from the wording it sounds like the banks themselves came up with this smoke and mirrors plan to fool their shareholders... and Obama just allows it?

Isnt it more of a republican trait to allow corporations free reign to do whatever they have to do for the sake of stockholders and wall street?

What would Bush have done?

Any President or the party in power in Congress can do a lot of things with laws to manipulate things like the bank accounting.
Bush didn't see the need (I guess) to use the accounting trick to make it look like banks were more solvent, but Obama's folks did.

The Republicans are basically Democrat-lite these days, but there were more big business (corporation) donations and big single money donors to Democrats than Republicans.

Republicans in general say you make a bill, you pay a bill.
There are laws to prevent individuals, corporations and businesses from doing illegal things. Remember all those accounting firms that broke the laws during the Clinton years that were prosecuted during the Bush years (like Enron). You had big accounting firms breaking the laws and NOBODY approved of it. They were being criminal.

Bush did as a matter of record go to the Democrats who had control over Fannie Mae and the like and told them they saw a massive crash coming. Barney Frank who for some reason is still there said everything was solid. So Barney who was in charge either lied or is incompetent. In either case you don't leave Barney there.

Bush would not have done another stimulus. Would have offered IMO more tax relief to grow the economy.
On the other end Obama wants to let taxes raise a bunch in 2010 by letting previous Bush tax cuts expire.

Bush would also not try and take a sixth of the economy from the private sector into the government in socialized medicine.
I don't think Bush would have ever taken over GM or turned it over to the unions without paying the stock holders who had invested in it.

The current President is the opposite of a business man. You heard how he stupidly spoke regarding Vegas to lose business for the city.

The banks can't sustain with Enron type of accounting.
The Democrats IMO should have never started forcing laws on banks making them give loans to people who couldn't pay the mortgage.

This wasn't a bank failure or a business failure, this was government forcing financial institutions to make bad loans by law and it crippled our financial system.

Growing government, raising taxes on everyone to give it to people who don't want to work as hard as others doesn't make for a solvent country either IMO.

Your going to see a lot of crash and burning if things keep going in this direction IMO.

[cmist]

Originally Posted by RCCCB

Any President or the party in power in Congress can do a lot of things with laws to manipulate things like the bank accounting.
Bush didn't see the need (I guess) to use the accounting trick to make it look like banks were more solvent, but Obama's folks did.

The Republicans are basically Democrat-lite these days, but there were more big business (corporation) donations and big single money donors to Democrats than Republicans.

Republicans in general say you make a bill, you pay a bill.
There are laws to prevent individuals, corporations and businesses from doing illegal things. Remember all those accounting firms that broke the laws during the Clinton years that were prosecuted during the Bush years (like Enron). You had big accounting firms breaking the laws and NOBODY approved of it. They were being criminal.

Bush did as a matter of record go to the Democrats who had control over Fannie Mae and the like and told them they saw a massive crash coming. Barney Frank who for some reason is still there said everything was solid. So Barney who was in charge either lied or is incompetent. In either case you don't leave Barney there.

Bush would not have done another stimulus. Would have offered IMO more tax relief to grow the economy.
On the other end Obama wants to let taxes raise a bunch in 2010 by letting previous Bush tax cuts expire.

Bush would also not try and take a sixth of the economy from the private sector into the government in socialized medicine.
I don't think Bush would have ever taken over GM or turned it over to the unions without paying the stock holders who had invested in it.

The current President is the opposite of a business man. You heard how he stupidly spoke regarding Vegas to lose business for the city.

The banks can't sustain with Enron type of accounting.
The Democrats IMO should have never started forcing laws on banks making them give loans to people who couldn't pay the mortgage.

This wasn't a bank failure or a business failure, this was government forcing financial institutions to make bad loans by law and it crippled our financial system.

Growing government, raising taxes on everyone to give it to people who don't want to work as hard as others doesn't make for a solvent country either IMO.

Your going to see a lot of crash and burning if things keep going in this direction IMO.

I agree that we are not on the fast track to recovery. Im not sure about the govt role in "forcing banks" to make bad loans. Havent heard that angle but its an interesting theory. If thats true than the Bush administration was forcing banks to loan to unqualified people?

Id be interested in reading more about this Obama law you are talking about.

Bush IMO ran things like the redneck he was, and its entirely possible he really was as clueless as he looked. Maybe he just expected the banks to understand their own business and left them alone. Or Maybe he was a REALLY good actor, but he never came across as intelligent to me.

Far as I know, they are the ones who bailed out the banks originally, so was done via a republican administration. Yet Republicans call the Democrats the socialists? I think you said it best by calling Republicans - Dem-lites.

More time needs to be spent on the actual issue itself, and less time gabbing about what president or political party is the best/worst.

[olecapt]

Originally Posted by cmist

I agree that we are not on the fast track to recovery. Im not sure about the govt role in "forcing banks" to make bad loans. Havent heard that angle but its an interesting theory. If thats true than the Bush administration was forcing banks to loan to unqualified people?

Nah. Just the libertarian/conservatives trying to explain why it was not a lack of regulation that caused the bubble and burst. It is all pretty much discredited nonsense dealing with the legislation that required positive dealings with the lower demographics. The fact that virtually none of the sxub-prime lenders were in the program phases them not at all.

Id be interested in reading more about this Obama law you are talking about

Bush IMO ran things like the redneck he was, and its entirely possible he really was as clueless as he looked. Maybe he just expected the banks to understand their own business and left them alone. Or Maybe he was a REALLY good actor, but he never came across as intelligent to me..

The fact that the banks have no sizable holdings continues to escape these folk. To hold it off the market you need to own it. They don't. Bank owned all together is around 15000 with over half on the market.

Far as I know, they are the ones who bailed out the banks originally, so was done via a republican administration. Yet Republicans call the Democrats the socialists? I think you said it best by calling Republicans - Dem-lites.

More time needs to be spent on the actual issue itself, and less time gabbing about what president or political party is the best/worst.

Effectively every administration since Reagan at least is a party to this problem. The belief that total deregulaton was the right way was pretty deep in all admins. That it is wrong has been testified to even by its father...Alan Greenspan. Ayn Rand was simply wrong.

[Swigchow]

Originally Posted by RCCCB

Your going to see a lot of crash and burning if things keep going in this direction IMO.

Geez, how soon people forget. It was only a year ago when the crash and burn occurred, 9/15/09 when Lehmon Brothers went down. The financial system was teetering on total collapse. There was widespread fear and panic, with the depression, soup lines, and dust bowls images pervasive.
Now, coincidentally after government intervention, the financial system has stabalized, there has been some taxpayer return on investment, and the stock market S&P is up 55%.
One can debate whether saving GM, AIG, and others was prudent, but at the time the entire nationwide psyche was in a panic. The crash and burn has occurred, the type of recovery going forward is the real question.

[Slim10]

Its not the govt that created the mess but it is the govt that has to fix it.

No one picked up the level of sub-prime and reacted to it before it burst. That it occured bet 2003 to 2007 in just 4 short bush years is super short from a regulators' pov.

Average folks focused on the prices but that's not the cause but the symptom of uncontrolled loans. Prices are way beyond income-price ratios in a lot of countries but it hasn't burst like in the US. Places like hong kong have $10k psf prices. Crazy. but that's driven by crazy money from China rather than sub-prime loans.

Its like saying bush (or clinton) should have known about 9/11 b4 it happened. There were signs but Humbug. No one predicted it would happen and there's always plenty of 20/20 vision from hindsight.

Blaming it on obama is just std rep politiks. The worry is electing dumb a**s that block the fix.