Not quite. High Finance, for some time, has been creating castles in the air, no relationship to the real economy, just making more and more money via something like Ponzi schemes. Not sure exactly how to trace this , or exactly where it all leads, but hedge funds were in on the game, too. Like pigs at a trough once the feeding frenzy got started everyone saw a great opportunity to gorge themselves and no-one the wiser. Common belief that it could go on forever. Make millions, or billions, and no need to worry about the actual economy. All done with deceptions. You are right about "lax oversight" --I'm being most charitable-- but in the early 2000s, one theory anyway, word was out from DC not to upset the apple cart. Not sure if this is God's own truth and maybe what it is, is simply one piece of the puzzle needing more pieces. Anyway, Greenspan was not exactly all that interested in doing due diligence, either. Have been looking into this and it is one helluva mess. Every rock you overturn and the spot is crawling with vermin. There are sons-of-bitches galore, in an out of gvt. But what am I saying ? Is there a difference between gvt and Wall Street ? Answer, as I see it, not since Clinton. Maybe not since Bush 41. But the crap Bush pulled, which I studied about 12-13 years back, was small stuff compared to what was happening in the mid 90s. Half a trillion here, half a trillion there, really petty by Clinton standards. Then came Bush-the-Less and now we're really talking money, and then came BHO and almost nothing has changed. A slap on the wrist to selected banks, etc, and "all right, boys, you can go back to wrecking the country. But don't get caught next time." I mean, if there is anything like a Radical Centrist economic theory to be written, there is PLENTY of blame to throw on both parties. Tons of it. To think the GOP will get out of this smelling like a rose, not a good idea to stake the ranch on it. Seems to me we have two gangs, Al Capone may be worse, but Bugsy Siegal is hardly Little League. Billy --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10/21/2011 10:38:15 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
It does leave out the derivatives mess. (But not in the article at IBD, 3rd paragraph from the end) Why?? If there were no problems with the underlying mortgages backed and approved by the federal agencies, there would not have been problems with said derivatives. It is the bad mortgages that served as the basis for the derivatives and credit default swaps that blew up in everyone's faces, with the corresponding ripple effect. The derivatives did not make the mortgages bad. The mortgages made the derivatives bad. That is NOT saying that derivatives are holy and "perfect." They probably should not have been used in the mortgage market. But all of the watchdogs did not bark (SEC, FDIC, Treasury, Federal Reserve) until after it all turned to shit. NOBODY stopped to think what mortgage derivatives would do and how they would behave in the market. Should the SEC have slapped folks around for this? Maybe. Derivatives are used and still sold on commodities. Some idiot decided that they would treat houses as commodities. BAD MOVE. I suppose (guessing here) that the good functioning and well behaved commodities derivatives gave regulators undue confidence with mortgage derivatives. Do you want your chicken or your egg first?? And the government should have given the AIG clients haircuts like they gave the bondholders of the car companies haircuts when they were bailed out. The AIG bailouts were practically dollar-for-dollar, not punishing the risky behavior at all. What message does that send? And who is sending it? David "Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine."--P. J. O’Rourke On 10/22/2011 12:10 AM, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) wrote: Uhhh, this leaves out the whole derivatives mess. Or did Uncle Sam force Goldman, Lehman, Bear Stearns, etc, and the banks, to create these halls of mirrors ? The derivatives markets created multiples of Trillions of Dollars in bad paper. All done with no help from Washington DC. Wall Street did it all by its sweet little self, no help from anyone. Any idea why critiques from the Right leave out this itty-bitty fact ? Anything to do with it bursting the "capitalism is perfect" balloon ? Ya think ? We have a dysfunctional system, not just a dysfunctional half of a system. What the Right says is approximately just as full of poop as what the Left says. Each wants all the blame to devolve on the other. That is more poop. It comes down to who you prefer getting screwed by. But either way you get screwed --the equivalent of violent rape : of your savings, home equity, and everything else. All for the sake of economic theories that are approximately just as false on the Left as on the Right To buy into either one of these theories is suicidal.. Billy 10/21/2011 7:45:45 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) writes: _INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY:_ (http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/588856/201110201854/Wall-Street-Did-It-.htm) “If Republicans are to take back the White House and Senate, they need to do a better job tying Democrats and Washington to the subprime crisis. It’s not hard, yet even their front-runner struggles to make the case.” Here’s a handy graphic: Posted at 10:44 am by Glenn Reynolds (http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/130125/) _http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/130125/_ (http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/130125/) Maybe "Occupy Washington" would be more in order. David -- "Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine."--P. J. O’Rourke -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
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