Architects of Ruin - Real Culprits of the Financial Meltdown

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
41

[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
Yes, it was all the poor people’s fault. Those poor giant investment banks had NOTHING TO DO WITH IT, honest! They are the victims! There there, take a $1 billion bonus. That’s better. BAD POOR PEOPLE!

You guys are siding with the rapist. Not that this is new. Anything to justify privilege. Anyway, here’s an excerpt from a Wall Street Journal article:

Not that facts affect your analyses, but whatever.[/quote]

Now now,
Didn’t I go over this with you already. I shall simply have to reproduce that post here:

And why would our glorious government allow such an environment in the first place?
A quote should be illustrative. From Reuters October 13, 1999:

Bloomberg News March 12, 2008:[quote]
Freddie Mac Chief Executive Officer Richard Syron said he’s urging changes in federal rules that enabled too many low- and moderate-income Americans to buy houses they can’t afford. It’s ‘perverse’ that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the two biggest providers of money for U.S. home loans, have been encouraged ‘to put people into homes that they end up losing,’ Syron said at a meeting with analysts and investors in New York.
[/quote]
There’s plenty more which will not be difficult to find online.

42

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
Economically “connected” (rich) = politically well-connected. The rich are the government. Stop seperating the government and private industry, as the one exists to protect and serve the other.

Yes, and your ideology reinforces it.[/quote]

What else happens in this fascinating world you live in?

43

[quote]PRCalDude wrote:I think the person who uses a hammer and sickle for their avatar really isn’t worth much of a hearing. But to answer your point, of course foreclosures in “prime mortgages” are going to go up in a recession like this. People are getting laid off. You would expect to see people start to lose their houses if they have no money to pay for them, right? That’s some real good sleuthing you did there, komrade. We’re trying to get to the bottom of how the whole mess got started in the first place - the cause of the recession, not its effects.

You need to go read Solzhenitsyn and Suvorov and stop posting CYA idiocy from the open-borders rag the W$J who supported all of these illegals coming here in the first place. It’s nothing more than squid ink designed to distract us from noticing that all of these illegals coming here didn’t work out quite the way they told us it would.

So, which part of the USSR did you like the best: the millions killed in the gulag, the Cold War, the proxy wars with the United States, or the equality of outcomes (everyone poor except for those working for the Party, the KGB, or the higher-ups in the Army)?[/quote]

It’s OK, get it all out. Anger is step one. Or is it step two? I forget.

44

[quote]orion wrote:And that is why us libertarians want it small, so that the inevitable corruption is kept to a minimum because they have very little to be corrupt with.
[/quote]

They have everything private companies want to give them. What are you talking about?

45

[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
orion wrote:And that is why us libertarians want it small, so that the inevitable corruption is kept to a minimum because they have very little to be corrupt with.

They have everything private companies want to give them. What are you talking about?[/quote]

He means if their was no central bank or fractional reserve lending or the authority to set prices, wages, labor laws, what you can put into your own body…
If there was no Patriot Act or war powers act or any interventionist military authority…
If there was no authority to intervene in the market through special tax provisions, incentives, or subsidies…
If the Federal Government didn’t grant themselves the authority to do much of anything to interfere with the private lives of it’s citizens…
There would be nothing to lobby the government for.
Businesses that were too big or inefficient or abusive would be dismantled and restructured in the free market because there would be no power in government to help them survive.

46

[quote]limitatinfinity wrote:
Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
orion wrote:And that is why us libertarians want it small, so that the inevitable corruption is kept to a minimum because they have very little to be corrupt with.

They have everything private companies want to give them. What are you talking about?

He means if their was no central bank or fractional reserve lending or the authority to set prices, wages, labor laws, what you can put into your own body…
If there was no Patriot Act or war powers act or any interventionist military authority…
If there was no authority to intervene in the market through special tax provisions, incentives, or subsidies…
If the Federal Government didn’t grant themselves the authority to do much of anything to interfere with the private lives of it’s citizens…
There would be nothing to lobby the government for.
Businesses that were too big or inefficient or abusive would be dismantled and restructured in the free market because there would be no power in government to help them survive.[/quote]

I love how so many “Libertarians” want to see an end to fractional reserve banking, not realising the fact that this would actually require government intervention.

47

[quote]Regular Gonzalez wrote:
limitatinfinity wrote:
Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
orion wrote:And that is why us libertarians want it small, so that the inevitable corruption is kept to a minimum because they have very little to be corrupt with.

They have everything private companies want to give them. What are you talking about?

He means if their was no central bank or fractional reserve lending or the authority to set prices, wages, labor laws, what you can put into your own body…
If there was no Patriot Act or war powers act or any interventionist military authority…
If there was no authority to intervene in the market through special tax provisions, incentives, or subsidies…
If the Federal Government didn’t grant themselves the authority to do much of anything to interfere with the private lives of it’s citizens…
There would be nothing to lobby the government for.
Businesses that were too big or inefficient or abusive would be dismantled and restructured in the free market because there would be no power in government to help them survive.

I love how so many “Libertarians” want to see an end to fractional reserve banking, not realising the fact that this would actually require government intervention.

[/quote]

WHAT? Seriously? That was a very good attempt at being cute, unfortunately, it’s 100% completely false. How do you live with yourself.

V

48

[quote]Regular Gonzalez wrote:
limitatinfinity wrote:
Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
orion wrote:And that is why us libertarians want it small, so that the inevitable corruption is kept to a minimum because they have very little to be corrupt with.

They have everything private companies want to give them. What are you talking about?

He means if their was no central bank or fractional reserve lending or the authority to set prices, wages, labor laws, what you can put into your own body…
If there was no Patriot Act or war powers act or any interventionist military authority…
If there was no authority to intervene in the market through special tax provisions, incentives, or subsidies…
If the Federal Government didn’t grant themselves the authority to do much of anything to interfere with the private lives of it’s citizens…
There would be nothing to lobby the government for.
Businesses that were too big or inefficient or abusive would be dismantled and restructured in the free market because there would be no power in government to help them survive.

I love how so many “Libertarians” want to see an end to fractional reserve banking, not realising the fact that this would actually require government intervention.

[/quote]

49

[quote]Vegita wrote:
Regular Gonzalez wrote:
limitatinfinity wrote:
Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
orion wrote:And that is why us libertarians want it small, so that the inevitable corruption is kept to a minimum because they have very little to be corrupt with.

They have everything private companies want to give them. What are you talking about?

He means if their was no central bank or fractional reserve lending or the authority to set prices, wages, labor laws, what you can put into your own body…
If there was no Patriot Act or war powers act or any interventionist military authority…
If there was no authority to intervene in the market through special tax provisions, incentives, or subsidies…
If the Federal Government didn’t grant themselves the authority to do much of anything to interfere with the private lives of it’s citizens…
There would be nothing to lobby the government for.
Businesses that were too big or inefficient or abusive would be dismantled and restructured in the free market because there would be no power in government to help them survive.

I love how so many “Libertarians” want to see an end to fractional reserve banking, not realising the fact that this would actually require government intervention.

WHAT? Seriously? That was a very good attempt at being cute, unfortunately, it’s 100% completely false. How do you live with yourself.

V[/quote]

Unless you make it illegal, fractional reserve lending will continue. This law would need to be enforced by the government, hence government intervention would be necessary to bring an end the practice.

50

[quote]Regular Gonzalez wrote:
Vegita wrote:
Regular Gonzalez wrote:
limitatinfinity wrote:
Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
orion wrote:And that is why us libertarians want it small, so that the inevitable corruption is kept to a minimum because they have very little to be corrupt with.

They have everything private companies want to give them. What are you talking about?

He means if their was no central bank or fractional reserve lending or the authority to set prices, wages, labor laws, what you can put into your own body…
If there was no Patriot Act or war powers act or any interventionist military authority…
If there was no authority to intervene in the market through special tax provisions, incentives, or subsidies…
If the Federal Government didn’t grant themselves the authority to do much of anything to interfere with the private lives of it’s citizens…
There would be nothing to lobby the government for.
Businesses that were too big or inefficient or abusive would be dismantled and restructured in the free market because there would be no power in government to help them survive.

I love how so many “Libertarians” want to see an end to fractional reserve banking, not realising the fact that this would actually require government intervention.

WHAT? Seriously? That was a very good attempt at being cute, unfortunately, it’s 100% completely false. How do you live with yourself.

V

Unless you make it illegal, fractional reserve lending will continue. This law would need to be enforced by the government, hence government intervention would be necessary to bring an end the practice.

[/quote]

It may continue, but it would be held in check by competition.

I might also choose not to use or accept a currency that is issued and used in such a way. The way and the extent it is used now is entirely dependent on government intervention.

Also, if there is only one government monopoly money, fractional reserve banking is essentially fraud, you promise to pay back more money than you have so there are good reasons to insist that that kind of fraud is prevented like all other kinds of frauds.

51

[quote]Regular Gonzalez wrote:
Vegita wrote:
Regular Gonzalez wrote:
limitatinfinity wrote:
Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
orion wrote:And that is why us libertarians want it small, so that the inevitable corruption is kept to a minimum because they have very little to be corrupt with.

They have everything private companies want to give them. What are you talking about?

He means if their was no central bank or fractional reserve lending or the authority to set prices, wages, labor laws, what you can put into your own body…
If there was no Patriot Act or war powers act or any interventionist military authority…
If there was no authority to intervene in the market through special tax provisions, incentives, or subsidies…
If the Federal Government didn’t grant themselves the authority to do much of anything to interfere with the private lives of it’s citizens…
There would be nothing to lobby the government for.
Businesses that were too big or inefficient or abusive would be dismantled and restructured in the free market because there would be no power in government to help them survive.

I love how so many “Libertarians” want to see an end to fractional reserve banking, not realising the fact that this would actually require government intervention.

WHAT? Seriously? That was a very good attempt at being cute, unfortunately, it’s 100% completely false. How do you live with yourself.

V

Unless you make it illegal, fractional reserve lending will continue. This law would need to be enforced by the government, hence government intervention would be necessary to bring an end the practice.
[/quote]

The Fed could be ended just by legalizing competition. That is the exact opposite of intervention.

What the government does now is exactly intervention.

And besides, you miss the fact that “intervention” is okay when one has to apprehend criminals. So what!?

52

[quote]orion wrote:
Regular Gonzalez wrote:
Vegita wrote:
Regular Gonzalez wrote:
limitatinfinity wrote:
Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
orion wrote:And that is why us libertarians want it small, so that the inevitable corruption is kept to a minimum because they have very little to be corrupt with.

They have everything private companies want to give them. What are you talking about?

He means if their was no central bank or fractional reserve lending or the authority to set prices, wages, labor laws, what you can put into your own body…
If there was no Patriot Act or war powers act or any interventionist military authority…
If there was no authority to intervene in the market through special tax provisions, incentives, or subsidies…
If the Federal Government didn’t grant themselves the authority to do much of anything to interfere with the private lives of it’s citizens…
There would be nothing to lobby the government for.
Businesses that were too big or inefficient or abusive would be dismantled and restructured in the free market because there would be no power in government to help them survive.

I love how so many “Libertarians” want to see an end to fractional reserve banking, not realising the fact that this would actually require government intervention.

WHAT? Seriously? That was a very good attempt at being cute, unfortunately, it’s 100% completely false. How do you live with yourself.

V

Unless you make it illegal, fractional reserve lending will continue. This law would need to be enforced by the government, hence government intervention would be necessary to bring an end the practice.

It may continue, but it would be held in check by competition.

I might also choose not to use or accept a currency that is issued and used in such a way. The way and the extent it is used now is entirely dependent on government intervention.

Also, if there is only one government monopoly money, fractional reserve banking is essentially fraud, you promise to pay back more money than you have so there are good reasons to insist that that kind of fraud is prevented like all other kinds of frauds.

[/quote]

I will respond to this later, but I don’t buy the argument that it constitutes fraud.

53

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Regular Gonzalez wrote:
Vegita wrote:
Regular Gonzalez wrote:
limitatinfinity wrote:
Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
orion wrote:And that is why us libertarians want it small, so that the inevitable corruption is kept to a minimum because they have very little to be corrupt with.

They have everything private companies want to give them. What are you talking about?

He means if their was no central bank or fractional reserve lending or the authority to set prices, wages, labor laws, what you can put into your own body…
If there was no Patriot Act or war powers act or any interventionist military authority…
If there was no authority to intervene in the market through special tax provisions, incentives, or subsidies…
If the Federal Government didn’t grant themselves the authority to do much of anything to interfere with the private lives of it’s citizens…
There would be nothing to lobby the government for.
Businesses that were too big or inefficient or abusive would be dismantled and restructured in the free market because there would be no power in government to help them survive.

I love how so many “Libertarians” want to see an end to fractional reserve banking, not realising the fact that this would actually require government intervention.

WHAT? Seriously? That was a very good attempt at being cute, unfortunately, it’s 100% completely false. How do you live with yourself.

V

Unless you make it illegal, fractional reserve lending will continue. This law would need to be enforced by the government, hence government intervention would be necessary to bring an end the practice.

The Fed could be ended just by legalizing competition. That is the exact opposite of intervention.

What the government does now is exactly intervention.

And besides, you miss the fact that “intervention” is okay when one has to apprehend criminals. So what!?[/quote]

Fractional reserve lending only survives with government fiat “reserve” currency.
Any lending not based on existing savings(gold, silver, fish, etc…) collapses when enough people recognize the fraud and collect on their deposits.
Only a mandated “legal tender” can extend the life of the pyramid scheme at that point.

54

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Regular Gonzalez wrote:
Vegita wrote:
Regular Gonzalez wrote:
limitatinfinity wrote:
Ryan P. McCarter wrote:

Unless you make it illegal, fractional reserve lending will continue. This law would need to be enforced by the government, hence government intervention would be necessary to bring an end the practice.

The Fed could be ended just by legalizing competition. That is the exact opposite of intervention.

What the government does now is exactly intervention.

And besides, you miss the fact that “intervention” is okay when one has to apprehend criminals. So what!?[/quote]

Please elaborate on exactly what you mean by “legalizing competition”.

Also a central bank is not automatically required for fractional reserve lending to occur.

55

[quote]Regular Gonzalez wrote:
orion wrote:
Regular Gonzalez wrote:
Vegita wrote:
Regular Gonzalez wrote:
limitatinfinity wrote:
Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
orion wrote:And that is why us libertarians want it small, so that the inevitable corruption is kept to a minimum because they have very little to be corrupt with.

They have everything private companies want to give them. What are you talking about?

He means if their was no central bank or fractional reserve lending or the authority to set prices, wages, labor laws, what you can put into your own body…
If there was no Patriot Act or war powers act or any interventionist military authority…
If there was no authority to intervene in the market through special tax provisions, incentives, or subsidies…
If the Federal Government didn’t grant themselves the authority to do much of anything to interfere with the private lives of it’s citizens…
There would be nothing to lobby the government for.
Businesses that were too big or inefficient or abusive would be dismantled and restructured in the free market because there would be no power in government to help them survive.

I love how so many “Libertarians” want to see an end to fractional reserve banking, not realising the fact that this would actually require government intervention.

WHAT? Seriously? That was a very good attempt at being cute, unfortunately, it’s 100% completely false. How do you live with yourself.

V

Unless you make it illegal, fractional reserve lending will continue. This law would need to be enforced by the government, hence government intervention would be necessary to bring an end the practice.

It may continue, but it would be held in check by competition.

I might also choose not to use or accept a currency that is issued and used in such a way. The way and the extent it is used now is entirely dependent on government intervention.

Also, if there is only one government monopoly money, fractional reserve banking is essentially fraud, you promise to pay back more money than you have so there are good reasons to insist that that kind of fraud is prevented like all other kinds of frauds.

I will respond to this later, but I don’t buy the argument that it constitutes fraud.

[/quote]

You’re right. It’s not fraud because the reserve lending practices are public and legalized.
It’s actually theft through inflation facilitated by government mandate.

56

[quote]Regular Gonzalez wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Regular Gonzalez wrote:
Vegita wrote:
Regular Gonzalez wrote:
limitatinfinity wrote:
Ryan P. McCarter wrote:

Unless you make it illegal, fractional reserve lending will continue. This law would need to be enforced by the government, hence government intervention would be necessary to bring an end the practice.

The Fed could be ended just by legalizing competition. That is the exact opposite of intervention.

What the government does now is exactly intervention.

And besides, you miss the fact that “intervention” is okay when one has to apprehend criminals. So what!?

Please elaborate on exactly what you mean by “legalizing competition”.

Also a central bank is not automatically required for fractional reserve lending to occur.

[/quote]
Competition is allowing people to exchange any currency they want for any good or service.

The problem is not necessarily fractional reserve lending it is the fact there is fractional reserve lending and no competing currency.

If there were more than one currency then most banks would have to exercise caution in how much they lend with respect to reserves because a customer could always just switch currencies. Furthermore, a threat of a bank run would be enough to keep bankers at least thoughtful about their business practices.

As it is now they know they are going to be bailed out with paper by the Federal Reserve. There is no accountability for many of the big banks.

57

[quote]Dedicated wrote:

Now all that being said, there are white individuals, who if they present themselves a certain way will also get similar treatment from myself. There are white douchebags, black douchebags, mexican douchebags etc… Because the douchebags tend to look and act a certain way, it is not racism for my brain to be aware of that.

V

V, that is the point. I agree the human race is filled with good and bad and everything in between. This applies to all races. What stimulated my input were namely a couple of posters who to me were attributing negative and hostile attributes to a whole race of people. It’s as silly as if I made a judgement on the white/anglos based off of the aryan brotherhood or klu klux klan or Italians on the behavior of the mafia.

How do you think I felt as someone of Mexican heritage reading the following which was posted in another thread:

"you are right, many Latino cultures despise Mexicans because they give all Latinos a bad names. Typically speaking, they are the most crass, crude, an vulgar of the Latino people. I have known many people from Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua who are very nice and pleasant people. They do not like to be associated with people of Mexico. "

This isn’t calling out the behavior of ignorant people ie gangsters, criminals, or loan cheaters, this is painting a whole race of people under a vile and ugly brush. If that isn’t bigoted I don’t know what is. I’d be just as offended If someone from Mexico made a negative generalization about a white person like that.

Poverty a lack of education, ignorance, affects people the same whether their white, brown, black, or yellow.

D[/quote]

QFT

58

[quote]valiant knight wrote:
Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
Yes, it was all the poor people’s fault. Those poor giant investment banks had NOTHING TO DO WITH IT, honest! They are the victims! There there, take a $1 billion bonus. That’s better. BAD POOR PEOPLE!

You guys are siding with the rapist. Not that this is new. Anything to justify privilege. Anyway, here’s an excerpt from a Wall Street Journal article:

Not that facts affect your analyses, but whatever.

Now now,
Didn’t I go over this with you already. I shall simply have to reproduce that post here:

And why would our glorious government allow such an environment in the first place?
A quote should be illustrative. From Reuters October 13, 1999:

The mortgage industry intends to pursue minorities with greater intensity as federal regulators turn up the heat to increase home ownership in underserved groups. ‘We need to push into these underserved markets as much as we can,’ said David Glenn, president and chief operating officer of Freddie Mac.

Bloomberg News March 12, 2008:
Freddie Mac Chief Executive Officer Richard Syron said he’s urging changes in federal rules that enabled too many low- and moderate-income Americans to buy houses they can’t afford. It’s ‘perverse’ that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the two biggest providers of money for U.S. home loans, have been encouraged ‘to put people into homes that they end up losing,’ Syron said at a meeting with analysts and investors in New York.

There’s plenty more which will not be difficult to find online.
----------[/quote]

Exactly! If the gov’t was not involoved, the free market would have not allowed people to buy houses who couldn’t afford them. Had the Federal Reserve not artificially held down interest rates, there never would have been a housing bubble and subsequent crash. Don’t point the finger at people trying to work the system, point the finger at the system! We get the gov’t we deserve. If you are pissed of, VOTE! Vote for smaller less intrusive gov’t. Vote for personal responibility over the nanny state. Throw the bums out, regardless of party. It’s time to start over.

59

[quote]limitatinfinity wrote:
Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
orion wrote:And that is why us libertarians want it small, so that the inevitable corruption is kept to a minimum because they have very little to be corrupt with.

They have everything private companies want to give them. What are you talking about?

He means if their was no central bank or fractional reserve lending or the authority to set prices, wages, labor laws, what you can put into your own body…
If there was no Patriot Act or war powers act or any interventionist military authority…
If there was no authority to intervene in the market through special tax provisions, incentives, or subsidies…
If the Federal Government didn’t grant themselves the authority to do much of anything to interfere with the private lives of it’s citizens…
There would be nothing to lobby the government for.
Businesses that were too big or inefficient or abusive would be dismantled and restructured in the free market because there would be no power in government to help them survive.[/quote]

This is all utterly irrelevant. “The government” is not the source of coercive power. Large concentration of wealth is. As long as you leave the concentration of wealth intact, all you’re really doing is changing the frame on an ugly picture.

60

[quote]reddog6376 wrote:Exactly! If the gov’t was not involoved, the free market would have not allowed people to buy houses who couldn’t afford them. Had the Federal Reserve not artificially held down interest rates, there never would have been a housing bubble and subsequent crash. Don’t point the finger at people trying to work the system, point the finger at the system! We get the gov’t we deserve. If you are pissed of, VOTE! Vote for smaller less intrusive gov’t. Vote for personal responibility over the nanny state. Throw the bums out, regardless of party. It’s time to start over.
[/quote]

The free market DID allow people to buy houses who couldn’t afford them. The federal funds rate has virtually 0 to do with long term interest rates.

Try again.