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All you can say in this site's defence is that it, rather than reality, occupies the warped minds of some of the planet's most twisted people; gods know what they would get up to if it wasn't here.  In these arguably insane times, any lessening or attenuation of madness is maybe something to be thankful for.

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Financial fuckery thread

Started by Cain, March 12, 2009, 09:14:45 AM

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Mesozoic Mister Nigel

 Is that why I randomly had $800 in orders on Sunday? Because that was really confusing.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Elder Iptuous

Do you guys feel Quantitatively Eased?!  :eek:

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/090318/fed_interest_rates.html

ONE TRIIIILLLLLLION DOLLARS!
This isn't gonna be your grandpappy's Depression (deflationary), I don't think....

ironically announced on the same day as this:
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/600/42/375364.htm

Honey

QuoteSubprime Bailout: Good Idea or 'Moral Hazard?'
by Eric Weiner

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16734629

What might look like prudent financial first aid is, in reality, bad medicine. It's called "moral hazard," and it's a concept any parent of a 5-year-old can understand: Bail out someone who has engaged in risky behavior and you're likely to encourage that behavior in the future. Or, as The Wall Street Journal once put it, moral hazard is ''the distortions introduced by the prospect of not having to pay for your sins.''

We've Been Here Before & we'll be there again & again & again ...  Monkey see, monkey do. 

QuoteWe've Been Here Before

In the past, Congress and the Federal Reserve have shown a willingness to rescue ailing industries, and even individual companies. There was the Chrysler bailout of 1979, the savings and loan bailout of 1989, and the airline bailout of 2001, among others. In each of those cases, proponents of intervention argued that the bailouts were necessary to ensure the health of the economy as a whole.

That's the same argument made by some economists now, but not everyone is buying it. "The banking system is in difficulty, but it's not in danger of collapse by any means," says credit analyst Stracke. "It's not as if this is a true emergency."

In fact, the kind of bailout being discussed for the subprime lenders and borrowers is very different from the one that, say, was put together in the 1980s to rescue the failed savings and loan industry. That bailout involved taxpayer money; this one does not.    (I am confused here?   :?)

Rather, under discussion are changes to the bankruptcy laws, the rules that govern the Federal Housing Administration or action by the Federal Reserve. The central bank has already cut interest rates several times in the past few months. That spurs economic activity and softens the blow of the bad loans. Wall Street, and some economists, applauded the interest-rate cuts, but not everyone thinks it was a good idea.

"By encouraging risky behavior, he [Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke] was asking for trouble—and he'll probably get it," wrote William Bonner and Lila Rajiva, in The Washington Post. "Bad investments do not become good ones just because a central bank lends more money to the investors who made the rash choices."

What is different here in the current scheme, is that the American people seem to be more aware, i.e. we didn't just elect the father or brother of someone (Neil Bush) who just barely escaped criminal prosecution for his part in the Savings & Loan bailout or John McCain who had his hand slapped by the Senate Ethics Committee for exercising "poor judgment."

QuoteLincoln Savings and Loan
The Lincoln Savings led to the Keating five political scandal, in which five U.S. senators were implicated in an influence-peddling scheme. It was named for Charles Keating, who headed Lincoln Savings and made $300,000 as political contributions to them in the 1980s. Three of those senators – Alan Cranston (D-CA), Don Riegle (D-MI), and Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ) – found their political careers cut short as a result. Two others – John Glenn (D-OH) and John McCain (R-AZ) – were rebuked by the Senate Ethics Committee for exercising "poor judgment" for intervening with the federal regulators on behalf of Keating.[11]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_loan_crisis

Why not a bailout for the American people (& others) who have been taken in (big time) by the Con Artists (bigger time)?  Hopefully history will correct this omission.
Fuck the status quo!

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure & the intelligent are full of doubt.
-Bertrand Russell

Xooxe

Quote from: Iptuous on March 18, 2009, 08:07:29 PM
Do you guys feel Quantitatively Eased?!  :eek:

It always sounds like Quantum Touch for banks.

Cain

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/business/economy/18leonhardt.html?_r=1  Someone is trying to play "heads I win, tails you lose" and the NYT is calling them on their bullshit.

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2008/wp08224.pdf an IMF paper that, if read carefully, suggests the US and UK are going about this all wrong

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/03/on-feds-shock-and-awe.html Excellent analysis of what the Fed is actually doing

I_Kicked_Kennedy


Tell me you guys have seen Songs from the Second Floor?

So funny it'll make you drink bleach and mop the floor with your tears.
If I had a million dollars, I'd put it all in a sensible mutual fund.

Honey

Quote from: Cain on March 19, 2009, 02:46:31 PM
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/business/economy/18leonhardt.html?_r=1  Someone is trying to play "heads I win, tails you lose" and the NYT is calling them on their bullshit.

I found it interesting to listen to the below while reading the above.  "As above, so below."

Quote from: Cain on March 13, 2009, 06:35:48 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHRppvbiahM

Tigerhawk's anger at the proposed tax hike on people making more than $250,000 a year results in a remarkable video, in which he complains with frightening, quiet intensity that he and his rich friends "have worked harder and longer in their entire careers than most Americans understand and can even conceive." He himself has spent 100 hours in the office this week; "I wrote the notes for this video at three in the morning on a Sunday night, having been there all weekend."

If you can continue watching through your tears, you will see Tigerhawk explain that the rich "work harder than everyone else doing things that cannot be done by other people who have not earned the same skills because they did not expend the same effort" and "are both more productive with their time and more energetic than average people." And "they will never be romanticized by Hollywood... but they are far more important to the prosperity of the United States and a future worth living for than the people who are put on a pedestal" - by which he presumably means folks who are not rich but are still admired; I wished he'd taken time to tell us who these wastrels are. Schoolteachers, perhaps.

Also, Obama is a class traitor.

Quote from: Cain on March 19, 2009, 02:46:31 PM
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2008/wp08224.pdf an IMF paper that, if read carefully, suggests the US and UK are going about this all wrong

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/03/on-feds-shock-and-awe.html Excellent analysis of what the Fed is actually doing

Thanks for these, gonna read them when I have more time.
Fuck the status quo!

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure & the intelligent are full of doubt.
-Bertrand Russell

Cain


fomenter

"So she says to me, do you wanna be a BAD boy? And I say YEAH baby YEAH! Surf's up space ponies! I'm makin' gravy... Without the lumps. HAAA-ha-ha-ha!"


hmroogp

Cain

It is.  I've linked it twice, but it may deserve its own thread. 

Elder Iptuous

Quote from: Cain on March 23, 2009, 03:11:13 PM
It is.  I've linked it twice, but it may deserve its own thread. 
Does it deserve to be copypastad for those of us behind nannywalls at work?

Cain

Oh yes, most certainly.  Hold on, I'll give it its own thread in TFYS.

Iason Ouabache

#27
Dow Jones currently up 313 points.  Oh wait... I'm in the wrong thread.
You cannot fathom the immensity of the fuck i do not give.
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Faust

Quote from: Iason Ouabache on March 23, 2009, 04:59:44 PM
Dow Jones currently up 313 points.  Oh wait... I'm in the wrong thread.
give it a day or two.
Sleepless nights at the chateau

Cain

Quote from: Iason Ouabache on March 23, 2009, 04:59:44 PM
Dow Jones currently up 313 points.  Oh wait... I'm in the wrong thread.

In other news, frat boys like free beer and get out of jail free cards.

If I was told I was gonna have a sugar daddy take care of my problems, I'd be gambling like crazy, too.