I don’t about what I am most outraged! I didn’t vote for this pay czar nor did he have to go through any Senate confirmation. This is nothing but gov’t take over of private business. The government “encourages” banks to loan to those who could never pay back the loan. Of course what follows are are numerous foreclosures which breaks the system and voila gov’t must step in and “fix” the problem. Anyone ever heard of the Cloward/Piven Strategy? When is GE’s pay structure going to be regulated; they got TARP money too? Oh that’s right they’re on board 100% with the Obama agenda so no regulation is required there. Goldman Sachs was allowed to pay back their TARP money but not Bank of America when they wanted to. Why?
LEM, you ask too many questions, we must therefore exercise our public obligation to restrict your ability to strive for a better living at the expense of those who will make no such effort. This, of course, is for the public good. We will be contacting you, comrade. Please do not leave the company.
I won’t buy a Chevy or Chrysler. Under no circumstance will I ever do business with AIG or any ‘private’ business OR BANK that the (my) government has ownership in. As a matter of fact…..cash them in – I WANT MY MONEY BACK!!!!!
Does anyone know or care that Goldman Sachs just got preferential treatment in the Bankruptcy case of CIT.
CIT recieved 3 Billion of TARP. and also had a 2 Billion loan from Goldman. In Bankruptcy “Law” The US Government is always primary in recieving compensation, ie taxes etc. In this case the US Treasury has allowed Goldman to receive its loan back first, before the US Tax payers.
WHY?!!!!!!
THERE IS A SECRET DEAL! NO ONE WILL TELL ANYONE WHY.
All the government did was deregulate. It was the folks on wall street that ran wild with it. It’s both their fault that the whole collapse happend in the first place.
Don’t you think that the government should start GOVERNING these institutions so this never happends again? After all, it’s your tax dollars.
I’m so tired of hearing how the government should step out of the way and let private enterprise do whatever the hell they want.
This is a bit loose but, if it wasn’t for some government intervention, you wouldn’t have some of the saftey features on you cars, the food and medicine you buy would be uter crap and lets not forget the D.O.I. that is there to regulate insurers and brokers from being fraudulent to consumers.
Or, you could just imagine that there was no government intervention at all. And I mean none! Everyone would be free to do whatever they wanted and run wild in the streets.
This is the BHO agenda. Take from the rich & give to the poor. Grow gov’t so the population is totally dependant. The only way to do this is to attack big business and the capitalist system. I hope last nights election results are a harbinger of what’s to come. The honeymoon’s over. The American people are finally waking up to realize the mistake they made last year. It is beyond my comprehension how with the economy the way it is and unemployment increasing, that the anointed one could even consider overhauling healthcare. What has been accomplished in the past 10 months? Endless and massive deficit spending, printing money we don’t have and devaluing the dollar.
How am I out there? Please explain. I take it you didn’t mind the deregulations that led to the Wall Street collapse? You’re OK with that?
I don’t like the bailouts anymore than anyone. And I’m for capitalism. I’m just saying that there has to be some safeguards in place to prevent something like this from happening again.
The safeguard is having a people that are morally rational and not atheistic/ communist. God is the answer. Hope you like my answer. In my opinion our great country historically has liked the answer and it has worked well.
Alan the reason you are out there is this, deregulation did not get us into this mess the following did.
In 1979 the Community Reinvestment Act under Carter was inacted from pressure from ACORN, A 1995 strengthening under Clinton of the Community Reinvestment Act required banks to find ways to provide mortgages to their poorer communities. It also let community activists intervene at yearly bank reviews, shaking the banks down for large pots of money.
Banks that got poor reviews were punished; some saw their merger plans frustrated; others faced direct legal challenges by the Justice Department.
Flexible lending programs expanded even though they had higher default rates than loans with traditional standards. On the Web right now, you can still find CRA loans available via ACORN with “100 percent financing . no credit scores . . . undocumented income . even if you don’t report it on your tax returns.” Credit counseling is required, of course.
The bundling of loans into mortgage backed securities would not have been a problem, had the loans been of any quality at all. Blame your Butt Buddy, Barney Frank from MA, who’s boyfriend works at Fannie Mae making mid 6 figures for all this mess.
Bill got it right!!!!! It was the Dems mandating that the banks give loans to folks who should not have been eligable, and they having Fannie and Freddie cover them so the banks said no risk keep giving loans to those who can’t pay.
I want to know how much we taxpayers are paying this PAY Csar! Anyone know?
And don’t forget these three.
Jamie Gorelick
Franklin Raines
Daniel Mudd
As far as I know not even a subpoena.
So, Allan, would you like the above three investigated?
PS Bill, very well summarized.
Corruption is rampant. How do we possibly clean house? It seems so utterly hopeless. Is there a way to stop this careening runaway train that is filled with leftist radicals? King Obama’s entire domestic agenda is focused on healthcare reform/overhaul. He has failed in all of his other endeavors since taking the oath. His presence in NJ spelled doom for Corzine, although that state is rife with major issues. He didn’t get the Olympics for Chicago even though he made a special trip there. Do you think he will let healthcare issue die? I doubt it, after reading Cloward-Piven. He’s going to shove it down the throats of the American people so that he can say he accomplished something in addition to furthering his left wing agenda. Are we powerless to stop it?
Ok, I’m not doubting you. It actually makes some sense. But you can’t blame ALL of it on ACORN (even though they are corupt in their own sense). The government didn’t have to go along with them.
So who is to blame? There’s plenty of blame to go around, and it doesn’t fasten only on one party or even mainly on what Washington did or didn’t do. As The Economist magazine noted recently, the problem is one of “layered irresponsibility … with hard-working homeowners and billionaire villains each playing a role.” Here’s a partial list of those alleged to be at fault:
The Federal Reserve, which slashed interest rates after the dot-com bubble burst, making credit cheap.
Home buyers, who took advantage of easy credit to bid up the prices of homes excessively.
Congress, which continues to support a mortgage tax deduction that gives consumers a tax incentive to buy more expensive houses.
Real estate agents, most of whom work for the sellers rather than the buyers and who earned higher commissions from selling more expensive homes.
The Clinton administration, which pushed for less stringent credit and downpayment requirements for working- and middle-class families.
Mortgage brokers, who offered less-credit-worthy home buyers subprime, adjustable rate loans with low initial payments, but exploding interest rates.
Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who in 2004, near the peak of the housing bubble, encouraged Americans to take out adjustable rate mortgages.
Wall Street firms, who paid too little attention to the quality of the risky loans that they bundled into Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), and issued bonds using those securities as collateral.
The Bush administration, which failed to provide needed government oversight of the increasingly dicey mortgage-backed securities market.
An obscure accounting rule called mark-to-market, which can have the paradoxical result of making assets be worth less on paper than they are in reality during times of panic.
Collective delusion, or a belief on the part of all parties that home prices would keep rising forever, no matter how high or how fast they had already gone up.
The U.S. economy is enormously complicated. Screwing it up takes a great deal of cooperation. Claiming that a single piece of legislation was responsible for (or could have averted) the crisis is just political grandstanding. We have no advice to offer on how best to solve the financial crisis. But these sorts of partisan caricatures can only make the task more difficult.
—by Joe Miller and Brooks Jackson
Sources
Benston, George J. The Separation of Commercial and Investment Banking: The Glass-Steagall Act Revisited and Reconsidered. Oxford University Press, 1990.
Tabarrok, Alexander. “The Separation of Commercial and Investment Banking: The Morgans vs. The Rockefellers.” The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 1:1 (1998), pp. 1 – 18.
Kuttner, Robert. “The Bubble Economy.” The American Prospect, 24 September 2007.
“The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999.” U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. Accessed 29 September 2008.
Bartiromo, Maria. “Bill Clinton on the Banking Crisis, McCain and Hillary.” Business Week, 24 September 2008.
Standard and Poor’s. “Case-Schiller Home Price History.” Accessed 30 September 2008.
“Understanding the Tax Reform Debate: Background, Criteria and Questions.” Government Accountability Office. September 2005.
Bianco, Katalina M. “The Subprime Lending Crisis: Causes and Effects of the Mortgage Meltdown.” CCH. Accessed 29 September 2008.
Alan, your right as well a lot of corruption has destroyed our government. But the motives to help the under priveledged by these mega rich democrats (John Kerry, Kennedy’s Corzines)are at best a mask, in order to get votes for re-election. It never was or is to help the working class. I think it was shameful. At least the conservatives know that the jobs if ever will be created by small and mid sized business and not union mob bosses. ACORN, SEIU, and the establishment of the Community reinvestment has never truly been beneficial to minorities or poor americans. Google- Cloward and Piven! you will see what the far left wing is doing to our nation and the true democratic party on the backs of the poor. It is a plan with the intention of redistributing some wealth to the poor and making us all poor in the process. This plan is nothing new it has been around under the surface since the 60s exposed in the 90’s by Guliani in New York and now in the White house.
Allan, I do want to say that the Democrats do not have the market cornered on corruption. Republicans are just as corrupt. They look to large corporations in back rooms to get reelected as well as Democrats in back rooms with Union Mob bosses. Something truly has to change structuraly in the way we elect our politicans to change this. I dont think we will ever live to see it though.
I don’t about what I am most outraged! I didn’t vote for this pay czar nor did he have to go through any Senate confirmation. This is nothing but gov’t take over of private business. The government “encourages” banks to loan to those who could never pay back the loan. Of course what follows are are numerous foreclosures which breaks the system and voila gov’t must step in and “fix” the problem. Anyone ever heard of the Cloward/Piven Strategy? When is GE’s pay structure going to be regulated; they got TARP money too? Oh that’s right they’re on board 100% with the Obama agenda so no regulation is required there. Goldman Sachs was allowed to pay back their TARP money but not Bank of America when they wanted to. Why?
Lets just call these 20 or 30 people “Dictators” Instead.
LEM, you ask too many questions, we must therefore exercise our public obligation to restrict your ability to strive for a better living at the expense of those who will make no such effort. This, of course, is for the public good. We will be contacting you, comrade. Please do not leave the company.
I won’t buy a Chevy or Chrysler. Under no circumstance will I ever do business with AIG or any ‘private’ business OR BANK that the (my) government has ownership in. As a matter of fact…..cash them in – I WANT MY MONEY BACK!!!!!
Does anyone know or care that Goldman Sachs just got preferential treatment in the Bankruptcy case of CIT.
CIT recieved 3 Billion of TARP. and also had a 2 Billion loan from Goldman. In Bankruptcy “Law” The US Government is always primary in recieving compensation, ie taxes etc. In this case the US Treasury has allowed Goldman to receive its loan back first, before the US Tax payers.
WHY?!!!!!!
THERE IS A SECRET DEAL! NO ONE WILL TELL ANYONE WHY.
All the government did was deregulate. It was the folks on wall street that ran wild with it. It’s both their fault that the whole collapse happend in the first place.
Don’t you think that the government should start GOVERNING these institutions so this never happends again? After all, it’s your tax dollars.
I’m so tired of hearing how the government should step out of the way and let private enterprise do whatever the hell they want.
This is a bit loose but, if it wasn’t for some government intervention, you wouldn’t have some of the saftey features on you cars, the food and medicine you buy would be uter crap and lets not forget the D.O.I. that is there to regulate insurers and brokers from being fraudulent to consumers.
Or, you could just imagine that there was no government intervention at all. And I mean none! Everyone would be free to do whatever they wanted and run wild in the streets.
Chaos?
Allan, You are way out there. Follow your Comrades to Cuba if you wish.
The US has been a free market capitalist society for a long time and I dont know if you know it or not, but most of us like it that way.
This is the BHO agenda. Take from the rich & give to the poor. Grow gov’t so the population is totally dependant. The only way to do this is to attack big business and the capitalist system. I hope last nights election results are a harbinger of what’s to come. The honeymoon’s over. The American people are finally waking up to realize the mistake they made last year. It is beyond my comprehension how with the economy the way it is and unemployment increasing, that the anointed one could even consider overhauling healthcare. What has been accomplished in the past 10 months? Endless and massive deficit spending, printing money we don’t have and devaluing the dollar.
Cloward and Piven Strategy – Google it!
This is their plan. It is scary this could actually be happening.
How am I out there? Please explain. I take it you didn’t mind the deregulations that led to the Wall Street collapse? You’re OK with that?
I don’t like the bailouts anymore than anyone. And I’m for capitalism. I’m just saying that there has to be some safeguards in place to prevent something like this from happening again.
Do you understand me?
The safeguard is having a people that are morally rational and not atheistic/ communist. God is the answer. Hope you like my answer. In my opinion our great country historically has liked the answer and it has worked well.
Alan the reason you are out there is this, deregulation did not get us into this mess the following did.
In 1979 the Community Reinvestment Act under Carter was inacted from pressure from ACORN, A 1995 strengthening under Clinton of the Community Reinvestment Act required banks to find ways to provide mortgages to their poorer communities. It also let community activists intervene at yearly bank reviews, shaking the banks down for large pots of money.
Banks that got poor reviews were punished; some saw their merger plans frustrated; others faced direct legal challenges by the Justice Department.
Flexible lending programs expanded even though they had higher default rates than loans with traditional standards. On the Web right now, you can still find CRA loans available via ACORN with “100 percent financing . no credit scores . . . undocumented income . even if you don’t report it on your tax returns.” Credit counseling is required, of course.
The bundling of loans into mortgage backed securities would not have been a problem, had the loans been of any quality at all. Blame your Butt Buddy, Barney Frank from MA, who’s boyfriend works at Fannie Mae making mid 6 figures for all this mess.
Bill got it right!!!!! It was the Dems mandating that the banks give loans to folks who should not have been eligable, and they having Fannie and Freddie cover them so the banks said no risk keep giving loans to those who can’t pay.
I want to know how much we taxpayers are paying this PAY Csar! Anyone know?
And don’t forget these three.
Jamie Gorelick
Franklin Raines
Daniel Mudd
As far as I know not even a subpoena.
So, Allan, would you like the above three investigated?
PS Bill, very well summarized.
Corruption is rampant. How do we possibly clean house? It seems so utterly hopeless. Is there a way to stop this careening runaway train that is filled with leftist radicals? King Obama’s entire domestic agenda is focused on healthcare reform/overhaul. He has failed in all of his other endeavors since taking the oath. His presence in NJ spelled doom for Corzine, although that state is rife with major issues. He didn’t get the Olympics for Chicago even though he made a special trip there. Do you think he will let healthcare issue die? I doubt it, after reading Cloward-Piven. He’s going to shove it down the throats of the American people so that he can say he accomplished something in addition to furthering his left wing agenda. Are we powerless to stop it?
Ok, I’m not doubting you. It actually makes some sense. But you can’t blame ALL of it on ACORN (even though they are corupt in their own sense). The government didn’t have to go along with them.
There is this as well: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/who_caused_the_economic_crisis.html
The Real Deal –
So who is to blame? There’s plenty of blame to go around, and it doesn’t fasten only on one party or even mainly on what Washington did or didn’t do. As The Economist magazine noted recently, the problem is one of “layered irresponsibility … with hard-working homeowners and billionaire villains each playing a role.” Here’s a partial list of those alleged to be at fault:
The Federal Reserve, which slashed interest rates after the dot-com bubble burst, making credit cheap.
Home buyers, who took advantage of easy credit to bid up the prices of homes excessively.
Congress, which continues to support a mortgage tax deduction that gives consumers a tax incentive to buy more expensive houses.
Real estate agents, most of whom work for the sellers rather than the buyers and who earned higher commissions from selling more expensive homes.
The Clinton administration, which pushed for less stringent credit and downpayment requirements for working- and middle-class families.
Mortgage brokers, who offered less-credit-worthy home buyers subprime, adjustable rate loans with low initial payments, but exploding interest rates.
Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who in 2004, near the peak of the housing bubble, encouraged Americans to take out adjustable rate mortgages.
Wall Street firms, who paid too little attention to the quality of the risky loans that they bundled into Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), and issued bonds using those securities as collateral.
The Bush administration, which failed to provide needed government oversight of the increasingly dicey mortgage-backed securities market.
An obscure accounting rule called mark-to-market, which can have the paradoxical result of making assets be worth less on paper than they are in reality during times of panic.
Collective delusion, or a belief on the part of all parties that home prices would keep rising forever, no matter how high or how fast they had already gone up.
The U.S. economy is enormously complicated. Screwing it up takes a great deal of cooperation. Claiming that a single piece of legislation was responsible for (or could have averted) the crisis is just political grandstanding. We have no advice to offer on how best to solve the financial crisis. But these sorts of partisan caricatures can only make the task more difficult.
—by Joe Miller and Brooks Jackson
Sources
Benston, George J. The Separation of Commercial and Investment Banking: The Glass-Steagall Act Revisited and Reconsidered. Oxford University Press, 1990.
Tabarrok, Alexander. “The Separation of Commercial and Investment Banking: The Morgans vs. The Rockefellers.” The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 1:1 (1998), pp. 1 – 18.
Kuttner, Robert. “The Bubble Economy.” The American Prospect, 24 September 2007.
“The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999.” U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. Accessed 29 September 2008.
Bartiromo, Maria. “Bill Clinton on the Banking Crisis, McCain and Hillary.” Business Week, 24 September 2008.
Standard and Poor’s. “Case-Schiller Home Price History.” Accessed 30 September 2008.
“Understanding the Tax Reform Debate: Background, Criteria and Questions.” Government Accountability Office. September 2005.
Bianco, Katalina M. “The Subprime Lending Crisis: Causes and Effects of the Mortgage Meltdown.” CCH. Accessed 29 September 2008.
Alan, your right as well a lot of corruption has destroyed our government. But the motives to help the under priveledged by these mega rich democrats (John Kerry, Kennedy’s Corzines)are at best a mask, in order to get votes for re-election. It never was or is to help the working class. I think it was shameful. At least the conservatives know that the jobs if ever will be created by small and mid sized business and not union mob bosses. ACORN, SEIU, and the establishment of the Community reinvestment has never truly been beneficial to minorities or poor americans. Google- Cloward and Piven! you will see what the far left wing is doing to our nation and the true democratic party on the backs of the poor. It is a plan with the intention of redistributing some wealth to the poor and making us all poor in the process. This plan is nothing new it has been around under the surface since the 60s exposed in the 90’s by Guliani in New York and now in the White house.
Allan, I do want to say that the Democrats do not have the market cornered on corruption. Republicans are just as corrupt. They look to large corporations in back rooms to get reelected as well as Democrats in back rooms with Union Mob bosses. Something truly has to change structuraly in the way we elect our politicans to change this. I dont think we will ever live to see it though.
Finally, some middle ground and not one side or the other. Good post Bill. I agree with a lot you had to say.