The Stupid Thread 2 (Part 1)

So they’re providing extra products!! That’s very proactive of them (I’m joking but they didn’t do this for everyone, they also didn’t do it for the majority of their customers … it’s very shitty they did it at all but they were still providing valuable services for other customers)

How so? There are plenty of competitors I can shift my mortgage to who’d be happy to take it…it’s inconvenient for me to do so…

Also, what’s the alternative? Are you just pointing out shortfalls of free market economics as you see them?

They’ve paid out $4B in fines since 2016.

The CEO, post scandal:

Amen. As a WF customer it seemed like I was getting apology letters for the newest scandal more frequently than account summaries. Someone felt the money was worth the risk.

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Well you could argue that nobody, ever… was forced to get a loan from WF. So they must have seen some value in the products they offered. People don’t buy products they don’t see value in.

And newsflash, if you don’t pay your mortgage they take the house away. It says so right in the loan documents.

It’s not like these people taking WF loans with no income didn’t know what was going to happen.

Sure there is. For thousands of dollars.

Free market principles that rely on supply and demand of consumers need the lynchpin of an informed consumer. You weren’t even aware of the WF scams until I brought them up

A bunch of companies that would do the same thing, given the mortgage industry is dominated by Titans that buy out competition to retain power.

Not trying to get all zeppy, but the mortgage world is OWNED by the worst of the worst. And due to govt influence that the free market can’t account for, it’s not going anywhere
Tldr: still like capitalism, but I acknowledge it’s glaring flaws

Is a 1.5% of revenues supposed to stop them in the future? If you look at the actual time periods, many of the fines news led to stock increases based on how little they mattered compared to expected fines.

Iirc a Goldman guy did a thing on how great those fines were

The only person at WF with incentive based pay structure is the CEO?

And he forfeit ‘much’ of his bonus after being held responsible for fraud that pulled billions in fines?

What’s the point? My parents are middle class. At best I’m getting a minivan, 2016 Toyato Coralla, and a house that’s pretty big but in a town of about 500 people at least 30 minutes away from a super Wal-mart.

That’s an interesting assumption considering:

when it happened. It was in all the papers I read. I was asking you a very specific question about details.

It also need less regulation than currently inhabits the financial sector for it to be considered a “free market” or operate as a free market is posited to operate lol

how can you talk about how these people operated in a free market when you just admitted here that they don’t operate in a free market? You’re all over the map now

I know you do, but we’re not talking about free markets anymore, we’re talking about a specific heavily regulated market…

Fair point. Point conceeded (sp?)

Is there a way in which less regulation would have prevented the recent WF events?

Good question. I don’t know about prevention. Anti-fraud laws are a deterrent and already on the books - make it easier for new entrants in the market? More choice for consumers? You’re right about a well informed consumer and finances can be tricky for the layman. Better education? Personal responsibility? Maybe if people didn’t think big gov was their pal they’d take more responsibility? Return to morals? Again, we’re dealing with flawed human behavior here … I do think more competition would help, though.

The free market concept doesn’t require or need competition when you talking about scaling at these numbers. Getting involved to any real extent in an industry with this much raw value behind it would take probably a trillion in liquid assets, and blinders being out on every large company so they don’t just crush the new player with their heel.

Not to mention when your talking about something like the finance industry, the only way someone could really compete is on rates, which small guys don’t have the ability to match that of the big guys.

But agreed, competition would help.

Imo the govt just needs to grow a pair and send a single executive to prison for fraud.

Or maybe even pretend like they would

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Yes. Banks won’t lend to people without incomes if there’s no banking cartel federal reserve and paid for politicians to bail them out once a generation when shit goes south.

The federal government sued banks to force them into making subprime loans.

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This is not what was being discussed

Ditto

I’m not sure what you are responding to.

Just making a trans connection between gender and race. Perhaps as an out for Warren’s identity issues. I’m a helpful guy.

I am pro free market, no arguments from me against that. Therefore I’m only responding to parts of your post

Close, but no - I’m assuming far less than that.

Whatever incentives are in place at any given setting are not guaranteed to remain.

In other words, maybe you are assuming the incentive structures are sufficient such that selfishness becomes a virtue, barely distinguishable from motivation itself. I disagree but wouldn’t argue it. What if those incentives were removed or altered, and the selfishness remained?

Further, people are incentived to alter the incentive structures. And if they do so selfishly, I would not be very hopeful for the long term.

I agree.

Selfishness doesn’t need to be grown, it’s already there.

There can be value to pointing out how efficiently free markets extract treasure from selfishness when talking with a socialist, which seems to be what you were doing.

Promoting greed and selfishness is another thing though which I have seen from free market… people - I think we can and should do better.

I read something from you that resonated with me in a way that produced a set of thoughts that I thought worth sharing - I can argue if we can agree on a set of things to argue on first, but I doubt we will be able to agree on something like that here

Hope I didn’t waste your time

What about when they do conflict? Which takes paramount?

Do we only not scam people because we aren’t sure we’re good enough to go undetected by the law (self interest)? Or, is it more than that for some of us?

Here’s an actual sentence from AOC’s Green Deal. “We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast,…”.

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Please be true.

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Rofl. She will be a fountain of material.

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