Here is the mother of this Crisis (Washington, Roosevelt: appointed, credit)
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Boring, I expected it would be a piece from Fixed (I mean Fox) News. If ever there was a biased (Propaganda) news organization, it is FOX.
This crisis will pass, and things will start to get back to some semblence of normal. I forget who I was reading, but they seemed to believe that once things settle down, you will see homes which are priced within the conforming loan limits start to preform better, but homes which are above the conforming loan limits, will do crappy because it will be very difficult or expensive to get financing which is sufficient. We shall see though, as there is no deal worked out yet.
Oh, everything passes in time. I just don't want to see MORE folks out of work, MORE folks foreclosed on, MORE businesses shutting down...
The thing that is HOPEFULLY good is I'm hoping at the end of this road people will start focusing more on what is important and less on the BS material stuff that's been so big...but who am I kidding?
The lines betwen Washington and Wall Street started to be blurred thanks to Freddie and Fannie
Ah. Well then, you can place blame on Roosevelt for that problem. Since, you know, he made the Fannie thing happen.
Or maybe you want to blame LBJ for semi-privatizing Fannie, and Nixon for getting Freddie together? Or maybe you want to blame LBJ for Ginnie? Or perhaps for having Sallie for education loans? Maybe thats a bad idea too?
Blame is silly. I could put blame all over the place for all kinds of reasons. I could blame everyone who bought a mcmansion and supported massive developments. I could blame advertisers. I could blame the poor for thinking they could own a home. I could blame the rich for thinking they should have even more home. I could blame real estate investors, consumers, offshoring, the CDF for not wanting 4yr olds to work in factories, and pickles.
Get over it. Blame is useless. Eveyone who says they couldn't see it happen is lying - people do that. Constantly. For their own benefit. There is no single source, no one point, one person, that could have or will solve the economic dilemmas we are currently facing. I'll tell you what though... I'll be ok, and damn right I'm happy about that. Its why I bought when I did, where I did, for the price I did, etc, etc, etc.
My family has been through economic crises before, and we'll face them again. Anyone can get through it, and come out ahead, with a level head and a plan. I hope everyone here can get a plan to better their position until the curve flips the other way.
In 2004 politicians on both sides were talking about what was going down in Freddie and Fannie. Everyone jumped in to rape the system they knew was going down but had to get profits out like everyone else while it was going down. The lines betwen Washington and Wall Street started to be blurred thanks to Freddie and Fannie, (and R. Rubin bailing out Goldman Sachs Mexican Bonds and killing the mexican economy for Goldman's sake when he became treasury Sec under Clinton after leaving Goldman himself) Washington and Wall Street should not be so mingled for this very reason. Now we are stuck with their f'd up marriage of convenience and we will suffer more-no doubt.
Ah. Well then, you can place blame on Roosevelt for that problem. Since, you know, he made the Fannie thing happen.
Or maybe you want to blame LBJ for semi-privatizing Fannie, and Nixon for getting Freddie together? Or maybe you want to blame LBJ for Ginnie? Or perhaps for having Sallie for education loans? Maybe thats a bad idea too?
Blame is silly. I could put blame all over the place for all kinds of reasons. I could blame everyone who bought a mcmansion and supported massive developments. I could blame advertisers. I could blame the poor for thinking they could own a home. I could blame the rich for thinking they should have even more home. I could blame real estate investors, consumers, offshoring, the CDF for not wanting 4yr olds to work in factories, and pickles.
Get over it. Blame is useless. Eveyone who says they couldn't see it happen is lying - people do that. Constantly. For their own benefit. There is no single source, no one point, one person, that could have or will solve the economic dilemmas we are currently facing. I'll tell you what though... I'll be ok, and damn right I'm happy about that. Its why I bought when I did, where I did, for the price I did, etc, etc, etc.
My family has been through economic crises before, and we'll face them again. Anyone can get through it, and come out ahead, with a level head and a plan. I hope everyone here can get a plan to better their position until the curve flips the other way.
This post is one of the best and most truthful and intelligent posts in a long, long, time. I'm sick and tired of hearing it was Clintons fault, Bush's fault, Dems fault, Repubs fault. It was mostly each and everyones fault and its time to stick together as americans and stop playing the name game and pointing fingers. This is why we have mirrors in our houses. It's easy to point, but not too easy to step up to the plate and accept responsibility.
Blame game again. The Republicans hands are at least as dirty in this mess. If they had not pushed so hard for deregulation in the 90's when they controlled congress for all but the first 2 years of Clinton, this mess likely would not be upon us.
It was warned that if you allow banks to be insurance companies, and investment houses, and bond dealers, and ... that you would be creating institutions which would become to big to fail, not because they could not fail, but because if they did, they would take down the economy with it.
Now we have a situation where credit is tight and likely to get much tighter. If your carrying credit card balances watch out, you will likely see your issuing companies cut your credit limit to the amount you owe, then what are you going to do. My father in-law just got a notice yesterday, that his home equity line of credit (which he really does not need) is canceled. If he needed it, he would be in big trouble, as where else is he going to come up with 150K for his small business.
This post is one of the best and most truthful and intelligent posts in a long, long, time. I'm sick and tired of hearing it was Clintons fault, Bush's fault, Dems fault, Repubs fault. It was mostly each and everyones fault and its time to stick together as americans and stop playing the name game and pointing fingers. This is why we have mirrors in our houses. It's easy to point, but not too easy to step up to the plate and accept responsibility.
You are so right JM! As soon as each and everyone of us "owns" our share... then we can begin to repair the damage!
Blame game again. The Republicans hands are at least as dirty in this mess. If they had not pushed so hard for deregulation in the 90's when they controlled congress for all but the first 2 years of Clinton, this mess likely would not be upon us.
It was warned that if you allow banks to be insurance companies, and investment houses, and bond dealers, and ... that you would be creating institutions which would become to big to fail, not because they could not fail, but because if they did, they would take down the economy with it.
Now we have a situation where credit is tight and likely to get much tighter. If your carrying credit card balances watch out, you will likely see your issuing companies cut your credit limit to the amount you owe, then what are you going to do. My father in-law just got a notice yesterday, that his home equity line of credit (which he really does not need) is canceled. If he needed it, he would be in big trouble, as where else is he going to come up with 150K for his small business.
I don't disagree with any of this.
However, I will put this out there: today, my job, people are going about business as usual. The end of year fiscal calendar for the federal government is today, tomorrow starts the new FY. There is absolutely nothing here to suggest the client (in this case, NASA) is in any type of panic mode. Business is being conducted as usual. Not one word of financial panic being bandied about at the water cooler.
I have a theory, and I hope I am wrong about it. Should Obama be elected, I think this crisis, or the perception of the crisis as being as dire as it is, will dissipate. Why? I think the perception of crisis begets government intervention. This, in turn, begets the masses demanding that our elected officials intercede in some manner. When I say 'the masses', I mean people who are somehow feeling insecure, or dependent on someone or something else, other than their own actions. Independent people feel no such insecurity. And, not coincidentally, independent people don't need politicians or government programs to assist them in their pursuit of happiness. I think, being this is an election year in the presidency and both houses of congress (well the 1/3rd of the Senate anyway) you are witnessing the posturing of both political parties, with a big assist from the media, ramping up real fear.
Me, personally? I think these businesses shouldn't be bailed out. I am steadfastly opposed to it. That is a consequence of capitalism, namely winners and losers. Sure, government regulations led to some of this failure, but with that said, trying to retrocatively wag fingers will make an advocate of their political philosophy feel better, but its not going to solve problems. Similarly, having government insure that business not flounder (through our tax dollars) is not the answer either.
Wiley's short post is the best: "this too shall pass."
The problem with home loan foreclosures - which is only part of the problem - isn't that they relaxed income requirements or credit scores, it's that they let people with low incomes borrow too much money. When my wife and I were house shopping the banks were ready to give us a mortgage for twice what we could reasonably afford. We were smart enough to say 'no thanks'.
I'm far from a conservative but I've never been a fan of Clinton. The reason the Republicans hated him so much is because he stole their platform and put a happy face on it. NAFTA, repealing Glass-Steagall, the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (which did more to take away civil liberties than anything else), and in his own words "ending welfare as we know it." The DLC, of which Clinton and Lieberman were both a part, was the laissez-fare/capitalist/neo-liberal economics wing of the Democrats.
The repeal of the most important part of Glass-Steagall in 1999 was roundly criticized at the time . . . if you were paying attention. The Act was passed in 1933 to prevent a repeat of the great stock market crash of 1929 that precipitated the Great Depression. The provisions in the Act that prohibit a bank holding company from owning other financial companies were repealed in 1999 . . . and that's exactly why we have a problem in one sector of the economy threatening to drag down the whole thing. We've built a house of cards.
People often confuse a free market with capitalism. Capitalism is when incredibly wealthy institutions and individuals manipulate markets and governments to their own gain and walk away with unfathomable piles of cash while average people wonder if they'll be able to retire when they're 70. When we're on the hook for $2300 each (probably a lot more) there's nothing free about it. It infuriates me.
I don't put the blame on a party - i put it on an ideology. It's this trickle down BS that says, "oh, this is going to make me really rich so it'll be good for you too." I started my own business almost 3 years ago. I haven't lost anything and I'm shutting it down before I do. So now, instead of being my own boss, I'm back in an increasingly crowded job market. Maybe someday I can come back to it. Who knows now.
I'm not at all optimistic. I think some people are being incredibly naive about what's going on. This is turning into a global crisis. At this point, best case scenario is that we have a repeat of the 1970s. In all reality we're probably headed for something that looks more like the 1930s.
If we're going to spend $700 billion why don't we spend it on infrastructure instead? Spend the next decade rebuilding our deficient highways and bridges, invest heavily in the transmission lines we'll need for solar and wind power, and start building transit in our cities and suburbs and a real national rail system. Instead of bailing out the uber-rich who got us into this mess we'd be creating hundreds of thousands of jobs for blue-collar workers as well as all the engineering and admin jobs that would go along and all the secondary and tertiary jobs that would be needed to service those industries. We'd also be stimulating demand for the raw materials necessary for all of that construction.
Last edited by solibs; 09-30-2008 at 11:23 AM..
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