BF2S Forums Modern Islam is a blight on humanity

Turquoise wrote:

lowing wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

What the people on top are doing is even worse.  As much as it costs us to keep up entitlement programs, what the financial sector gets away with has the very real potential to destroy our economy altogether.

Essentially, in America, we're putting everything at risk for cronyism.

kind of a broad statement there. example please. (not being a smart ass). What people and what are they doing that is illegal?

The fact that some of what they've done isn't illegal is the problem.

In the past, things like the Glass-Steagall Act prevented commercial banks from taking on huge amounts of risk the way that investment banks did.  Ever since its repeal by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, commercial and investment banking have been intertwined.

In the long run, this leads to a lot of problems involving things like people's retirement funds being exposed to much more risk than in the past.  Also, derivatives and leveraging are legal, but highly destabilizing for the economy in general.

Essentially, regulation needs to tighten up banking a lot more in order to preserve more market stability.  There would still be rises and falls, but they would be less dramatic in the long run.

Turquoise wrote:

lowing wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

The fact that some of what they've done isn't illegal is the problem.

In the past, things like the Glass-Steagall Act prevented commercial banks from taking on huge amounts of risk the way that investment banks did.  Ever since its repeal by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, commercial and investment banking have been intertwined.

In the long run, this leads to a lot of problems involving things like people's retirement funds being exposed to much more risk than in the past.  Also, derivatives and leveraging are legal, but highly destabilizing for the economy in general.

Essentially, regulation needs to tighten up banking a lot more in order to preserve more market stability.  There would still be rises and falls, but they would be less dramatic in the long run.

uhhh you realize not many people on welfare ( leeches and moochers) have retirement accounts right?

You want to demonize making money, an absurd amount of money, as worse than letting the society drag you through life. Sorry, can't agree with you there.

I'm not talking about people on welfare.  I'm talking about working class people who get dicked over by certain rich people in the financial sector when their retirement accounts are exposed to unreasonable levels of risk -- like when banks decided to maintain a 30:1 leverage ratio.

It's not making money itself that is the problem -- it's certain forms of making money that involve ridiculous levels of risk while credit agencies lie about the security of a fund.

People living off of the system is a problem, but banks fucking over the working class is far worse.

Turquoise wrote:

lowing wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

I'm not talking about people on welfare.  I'm talking about working class people who get dicked over by certain rich people in the financial sector when their retirement accounts are exposed to unreasonable levels of risk -- like when banks decided to maintain a 30:1 leverage ratio.

It's not making money itself that is the problem -- it's certain forms of making money that involve ridiculous levels of risk while credit agencies lie about the security of a fund.

People living off of the system is a problem, but banks fucking over the working class is far worse.

What you are talking about is illegal, and didn't people go to jail for it? Enron and what not?

With Enron, yes.  With what Goldman Sachs did, no.

Basically, none of Wall Street was held liable for the corruption that led to the most recent financial crisis.  Why?  Because Wall Street owns our government.  Even Enron didn't have the level of power in our system that companies like Goldman Sachs have.  They make the rules essentially.

Dilbert_X wrote:

lowing wrote:

Sorry Turquoise, there is too much blame to go around to blame the current crisis on Goldman Sachs alone. You seem to be forgetting this all started when people failed to make good on their mortgages. Sure, the banking industry coulda and shoulda done better in scrutinizing the handing out of loans to unqualified people. But remember, all of that came about to make sure everyone shared in the American dream "FAIRLY". The govt., not Goldman Sachs pushed for these bullshit loans to the "less fortunate" using the Community Reinvestment Act. Basically fucking us all. It succeeded because now we are all equally as fucked. CAn't get much "fairer" than that.

You really should read up on how the morgtgage market was working before the collapse.

Dilbert_X wrote:

lowing wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

You really should read up on how the morgtgage market was working before the collapse.

Yeah Dilbert, and you should read up on what happens when you take on a mortgage you can not afford.

Everyone knows that.

The part you're unaware of is why the banks, investment bankers etc sold mortgages to people who couldn't repay them.
Hint: Its nothing to do with the government.

Dilbert_X wrote:

My point is the govt didn't force them to give loans to crappy people, or force crappy people to take out loans.

Last edited by lowing (2011-04-09 02:31:44)

Turquoise wrote:

Jay wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

My point is the govt didn't force them to give loans to crappy people, or force crappy people to take out loans.

Sure it did. The Department of Housing and Urban Development had been pushing banks to make more loans to low income people for the previous three decades. Government officials from poor districts wanted everyone to be a homeowner, it was part of the plan. Get them out of the ghetto and into a home and the politician can brag about all that he's done for the po' folk. Too bad that part of being poor is being awful at paying your bills.

Banks were actually pressured by the government to be less conservative with their money when lending, even in the midst of the crash. The banks played their role but I'd lay most of the blame at the feet of politicians who played god and monkeyed around in the economy for the past thirty years. Barney Frank and Chris Dodd had more to do with the collapse than anyone else. At least one of them lost his job.

Goldman Sachs was more responsible than anyone else.  CDOs did far more damage than the CRA.

Derivative and leveraging limits were loosened.  Everything else was just icing on the cake.

But don't ever expect regulation in our economy to fix this.  The regulators themselves have been bought, and about 50% of our population is too fucking retarded to support sensible regulation.

In short, the rest of the world should seriously consider distancing itself from America's recklessness.  The good news is that it somewhat is.  The EU is somewhat doing this, and China is taking a cautious approach in buying our debt but still controlling certain aspects of their markets to lessen ripple effects on their economy due to our negligence.

13/f/taiwan wrote:

it seems every other thread in dst shifts from one generic topic(usually about the US) that's been discussed to death with the same old rehashed arguments to another generic topic about the US that's been discussed to death with the same old rehashed arguments.

5+ years and everyone is still at it. nothing really changes.

Spark wrote:

B.Schuss wrote:

13/f/taiwan wrote:

it seems every other thread in dst shifts from one generic topic(usually about the US) that's been discussed to death with the same old rehashed arguments to another generic topic about the US that's been discussed to death with the same old rehashed arguments.

5+ years and everyone is still at it. nothing really changes.

why would anything change ? after all, people don't change. ^^