I guess it is the taxpayers who are going to be taking it in the ass again with another big bailout:
Stocks snapped a five-day losing streak on Wednesday, with the Dow surging nearly 300 points on optimism that a government plan to rescue ailing bond insurers is taking shape and could prevent billions more in credit losses.
The market also drew support from growing confidence that aggressive interest-rate cuts by the Federal Reserve could help stabilize the economy and support the beleaguered banking sector.
I need to get into this line of work. Make all sorts of crazy big commissions on knowingly bad and reckless business transactions, make the bad decisions on such a scale that the entire economy is fucked if the government does not bail me out, and then take big bucks from the government. All I need to do is hold my head low for a few years after the bailout, and I can get back to business as usual. I guess when they said invisible hand, they meant the one robbing the taxpaying public. Free market, bitches!
The underpants gnomes have to be kicking themselves- why didn’t they think of this shit? Seriously, I understand the benefits of a free market, but this is out of control. Someone explain to me if I am reading this all wrong.
Grand Moff Texan
make the bad decisions on such a scale that the entire economy is fucked if the government does not bail me out
Make with the handout, or the economy gets it!
See? Capitalism works, you libbyruls!
U – S – A !!!
U – S – A !!!
U – S – A !!!
.
EdTheRed
Phase 1: Bundle bad debt together with good debt and market it on a massive scale.
Phase 2: ???
Phase 3: PROFIT!
Svensker
Is this what Michelle meant when she said Suck. It. Up. ?
Zifnab
Remind me again. What exactly would happen if we just told all the big Wall Street tycoons to go suck an egg? Is recession really that bad?
Fortunately, we have brave and daring men like Harry Reid on the job, who will have the good grace to step out of the way of the Republican Endless Filibuster Brigade, but doesn’t put up with Chris Dodd’s shit when it comes to obstructing big fat legal handouts to Telecomm companies.
If this is how Democrats handle the Judicial System, I’m comforted to know that our economy is in good hands.
guyermo
and here I thought republicans were anti-welfare
Ninerdave
Deregulation at it’s finest.
Meanwhile people loosing their houses will be SOL.
Zifnab
This is different, because they are leveraging in the billions necessary to take advantage of the economics of scale.
Raka
Looks about right to me. Don’t forget that people generally prefer to inflict substantial losses on the system as a whole rather than accept lesser losses (or even reduced gains) themselves. Which is sorta a no-brainer, but high-velocity global transactions and the commoditization of abstractions (such as “risk” and currency itself) manifest those tendencies as a sort of blind, bi-polar juggernaut. The investor class pursues short-term advantage and demands safety-nets and bailouts at the expense of the infrastructure that supports them. And everyone talks about the movements and effects of “the market”, as though it weren’t made up of people making conscious (and usually very basic and easily explicable [albeit not particularly predictable]) decisions.
Not that I have any better ideas. Deny these bail-outs and “the market” will punish the economy with more short-sighted selfishness that might be even more destructive. Individuals can’t buck these trends without putting themselves at a terminal disadvantage. Government can’t legislate sanity without crushing vitality. Improved exposure, oversight, and regulation can help; but that’s just a verbal dodge for saying “do it better and it won’t be as bad”. Which is true, but neither profound nor helpful.
I’m hoping someone else has some more educated and less depressing perspectives.
Dantheman
“Someone explain to me if I am reading this all wrong.”
Nope. That’s why I go into convulsive laughter when I hear Republicans talk about the virtues of the free market. Most of them don’t want a free market, but rather one which distributes benefits to the rich. And then they whine about their opponents engaging in class warfare.
Ninerdave
Only when it comes to work-a-day Americans. Corporations welfare, investor bailouts, credit lenders bankruptcy, all them are ok.
guyermo
lol…and who says economists aren’t funny?
The Grand Panjandrum
John I highly recommend you read David Cay Johnston’s book Free Lunch. The deck is stacked against small businesses and middle class taxpayers. Its been that way for a long time. Bush, et al, in cahoots with the Republicans in Congress didn’t start the mess, they just made it worse.
In a previous post you mentioned tightening or refining regulation, and it could be that the regulations and laws are insufficient for this area of the mortgage and securities industry. But the most pressing and obvious problem is that their has been no Congressional or regulatory oversight. None. So unless the Democrats grow a pair and force the Administration to actually enforce regulations, these industries will skip along the path to profit and we (the taxpayers) have little hope of anything positive happening.
Tlazolteotl
Wait! Wait! I know! We had that one in Economics class:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
jrg
Here’s the real kicker – Bush is blaming the problems in the lending markets on a lack of financial literacy
Yeah. That’s the problem. A bunch of mortgage brokers misrepresenting or omitting facts to get a commission, and somehow it’s the homeowner’s fault for taking the broker at his word and not reading the fine print.
How about “don’t lend money to a homeowner at an interest rate you know they cannot afford”?
Every day it seems that finance becoming more and more like politics… The people who are most drawn to the financial industry are the same ones who are the most morally and intellectually unfit for the job.
A homeowner who gets a bum loan burns himself, not the entire country. To blame this problem on the borrowers is just about as dishonest as you can get.
“lack of financial literacy”, my ass.
Tlazolteotl
Here’s another one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard
Conservatively Liberal
Privatize profit, socialize losses. That is the mantra of business. Who needs regulation of the markets when there are all of these honest people out there ready and willing to make money just for you. Those darn pesky regulations only hinder the operation of the free market, and they hurt more than they help.
If you are not buried up to your ears in debt then you are nothing more than a terrorist. Why do you hate America? If you supported America, you would be out shopping right now. Good Americans have a home that they are upside down on, five or ten credit cards that are maxed out, a HELOC that is maxed out and their retirement accounts are 100% in stocks.
People who are not in debt now ought to be given some of the debt that others have been racking up for the last few years. Oh, that is what the government is doing with the bail out?
Never mind, nothing to see here.
Face
Eggs-actly. The poor bastids who lost their house are fizz’ucked, while the fucktards who sold ’em down the rivah walk away with free gov’t handouts.
That’s like patting a rapist on the back while handing him a box of condoms that says “please use these next time so you dont hurt nobody”.
Raka
Zifnab: Remind me again. What exactly would happen if we just told all the big Wall Street tycoons to go suck an egg? Is recession really that bad?
Actually, it is. Or can be. The problem is that the “Wall Street tycoons” wouldn’t suck eggs. They have other options that would do better at preserving their individual financial-well being. Investment would move to other markets. Stockholders in companies would force lay-offs and conservative drawbacks to preserve stock value. The net effect would be worse for the tycoons as a group than if they all just agreed to take it in the teeth for a bit until the wobbling settled down, but they all know that if most of them take it in the teeth any selfish exceptions will make out like bandits– a classic Prisoner’s Dilemma scenario.
The bailouts still involve Joe Average paying to keep Boss Moneybags comfortable, but Joe is more likely to keep his job and his home than he would if he tried to stick it to the Man when the Man still held all the power.
Jim
You have it exactly right John. Meanwhile, anyone who tries to talk about the middle class getting a bum deal in this country is immediately accused of instigating class warfare. The next time Kudlow talks about the virtues of free market capitalism, someone needs to take a baseball bat up the side of his head. There is no such thing.
D. Mason
Not to rain on your anti-free market parade, but the banking market hasn’t been free in almost a century. If these CEO’s had to worry about being homeless after making some bad decisions they would step more carefully. These government bailouts eliminate the free market risks and encourage reckless banking practices. Not that I believe free markets will solve everything or that the government shouldn’t regulate. I’m just saying that you can’t blame this on a failure of free market ideas.
Actually, this seems to be caused by a phenomenon that is the antithesis of freedom in trading. The fed used artificially low interest rates and banks loosened lending policies to help offset(in an illusionary sense) the massive inflation caused by Bush’s print and spend economic policies. This, along with the governments encouragement to spend spend spend, led people into a false sense of security even while their non-credit based buying power plummeted.
That’s a recipe for disaster no matter what ideology the economy is based on. Of course I would guess that a truly free banking market would lead to a different but not necessarily better set of problems where the limits fractional reserve banking were thoroughly tested.
The Other Steve
The best business is to buy a sports team for $100 million, convince the state to spend $500 million building a new stadium, and then sell your team for $600 million. :-)
anon
The first rule of making money in the free market:
Break it in your favor.
Fe E
Hey, I resemble that remark. Awesome.
By the way–I AM about to go shopping; can anybody explain to me why I forgot to pick-up burrito shells, soy sauce and diet root beer yesterday?
And no, those aren’t all for the same meal!
fester
John — this field is not for you. You had one word in your description of the business model that has no place for a successful business. Guess what that word is — SHAME!!!!
If you have the concept of shame, you won’t make any money holding the economy hostage. Get rid of shame and your plan will work
[/snark]
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Well, all you need to do is
1.) make an armful of millions of dollars
2.) make friends among presidential candidates
3.) take directions on whose campaigns to donate your millions of dollars to
4.) when the market does something you don’t like, complain about it.
5.) ????
6.) Profit. Literally.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Watch more CNBC, you’ll understand the revision :)
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
No, there’s a serious difference.
It’s the market’s fault the broker destroyed the home-buyer, and he needs some money to understand the error of his oopsies.
It’s the rapist’s fault he’s a rapist, he needs to be killed to understand his atheist, nazi, communist evil.
IanY77
Thanks, Conservatively Liberal, you just saved me some typing.
caustics
Adam Smith was a dork. I prefer the Invisible Hand of Tom Waits
Pooh
Since John didn’t see fit to link it after I emailed it to him (he said huffily), here’s a pretty fascinating semi-insider account of how it all happened (via Ezra):
Read the whole thing, was very educational to me…
4tehlulz
I fucking lol’d when I read this. Bailouts only encourage bad market practices because the US Treasury will always be there to
keep the Mansion from being repo’dprevent corporations from feeling the consequences of their actions.Ex: See Airlines, U.S.
IanY77
And yes, Caidence, you’re right. After watching him scream “LIBERAL!!!” at Ezra Klein for 10 minutes, I don’t know why anyone bothers coming on that show. Whether or not you agree with Ezra, he’s a smart, reasonable dude (not Estrich/Colmes “reasonable liberal” reasonable, just reasonable). Kudlow just wanted to yell at someone for a while.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
BMW driving welfare queens.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
John chose well. “Hedge fund manager” is a very loose term. It can mean “Trust-fund baby with a wallet”, it can mean “Market bulldog with a sense of ethos”. Thankfully, my boss is further to the latter end of that scale, but that’s not common.
This guy could just be saying things to look special. They lurrrrrv to look special.
Wanna know if he’s for real: get his earnings statement. It could very well be a stain of red-ink, proving he’s all show.
Dreggas
Republicans believe in Welfare, Corporate Welfare. See Savings and Loan Scandal in the 80’s see other business scandals.
Welcome to reality.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Hmm, he said something about Highbridge taking a hit, and we have a bit of a joint venture with them. I’ll have to look into that.
Peter Johnson
So you’re all going to put your desire to punish the “evil” capitalist bond dealers ahead of your desire to have a strong economy? Another reminder of why the Soviet Union fell.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
OK, I’m about 2/3s through that article. He’s definitely been around; he’s talking about issues and techniques I’ve never been introduced to. He can definitely pwn me any day.
I think he’s just a smart guy hacking it out without any underlying theories. He may not be a guy at the top of the hedge fund world, but his head certainly seems to be screwed-on snugly.
Conservatively Liberal
No prob. I have more but I let it out in bits to keep from overloading. ;)
Shorter Dick Johnson:
If you don’t save these rich people with a bailout, they are going to make you regular people suffer for their poor decisions. Commie.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
You ever hear of “moral hazard”? Look it up. It’s what everyone is worried about.
Paying off the market provides incentive for the market to get screwed up again, which is exactly what we’re worried about preventing.
The market does not feel pain, so it can’t tell what is dangerous behavior. It just expels the failed speculators into the humdrum middle-class and continues to take in new blue-bloods with money.
AkaDad
Why does the invisible hand always slap me across the face?
grumpy realist
Peter, you make no sense. How does not bailing out the bond insurers equal the mechanisms by which the Soviet economy was run?
In fact, I would think that you Free Market types would be screaming bloody murder about the bail-out, because it’s rescuing people from the consequences of their mistakes.
Fiat justicia, ruat coelum….
Pooh
Caidence, that may or may not be true, but in terms of the mechanism for how it happened his account seems plausible-to-likely, tell me why it’s wrong.
Incertus (Brian)
Fixed.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
I’m not saying it’s wrong, I’m just showing what all the hand-wringing is about.
Market may go kaplooie if we don’t give it some free money, but if we give it free money, it might like to go kaplooie again later. The true definition of a dilemma.
No easy answers here; I hope didn’t think I had any.
wingnuts to iraq
Peter Johnson should kill himself and save the world of his blather. He is such a fucking moron, or the best troll ever.
What the fuck do poor people have to lose? What home? What car? What job? What land? They’re poor. They don’t have shit.
Bring on the depression. And the guillotine. We should hang out side wall street and kick the shit out of some mo fos.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Oh, nm, you were talking about the article.
Again, didn’t say he was wrong. I’m (again) just warning that while there are some spiffy hedge-fund managers, a lot of them are fit for the Douchebag All-star game.
Like I said above, as best I can tell, he’s appears to be a functioning human being with experience. He could very well have been a dipshit trader with a couple of his friends’ trust fund dividends, working 12-3 and trying to act wise to the ways of Finance.
(I worked for a version of one of those once.)
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Right on! Just lemme find… my bags here… and cash out my bank account… nothing big… just want to…
HEY WHAT’S THAT OVER THERE?? /DASH!!
(I like my neck just as it is, thank you!)
Digital Amish
It’s kind of a Bizzaro World Pottery Barn analogy (h/t Colin Powell) They break it, we buy it.
Dave L
“Someone explain to me if I am reading this all wrong.”
Actually, you ARE wrong right now, but you’ll be right eventually.
What happened today is that the NY insurance commissioner tried to get a group of banks to put up THEIR OWN money to shore up the monoline insurance companies’ finances. That is going to be a tough sell.
Assuming (reasonably) that this effort fails, the NEXT step will probably be a state takeover. At that point, feel free to recycle your commentary.
Bubblegum Tate
And yet, to steal from R. Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket, it doesn’t have the decency to give you an invisible reach-around.
Dennis - SGMM
Look up the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, signed into law by none other than Bill Clinton in 1999. It repealed provisions of the Glass-Steagall act that prohibited banks from consolidating and from offering insurance underwriting and investment services.
No, I’m not saying that it’s Clinton’s fault. I am saying that repealing financial regulations after the S&L collapse was really stupid. Like, Republican stupid.
D. Mason
Actually theres only 2 options for the government. They can bail out the banks or they can bail out the consumers. Doing nothing is not really on the table. Lack of intervention will eventually lead to mass forclosures and eventually violence. Cops will grow tired of throwing their friends and neighbors out onto the streets to cover some reckless banks bottom line and things will get more snowballish from there.
The government knows it must avoid ruling over a nation with nothing to lose at all costs. Desperation is the most dangerous thing a tyrannical government can face. Iraq is a perfect example.
libarbarian
1. Would the homeowners still owe their money? If so, doesn’t that mean somebody is actually getting paid twice – we’re covering the debt but the debtor still has to pay? What am I missing?
2. Send it over to SadlyNo as another example of “Conservative Communism”.
Damn straight.
The sad thing is that, while I can understand why those who benefit would defend such a system, I can’t see why their average joe supporters, who get the royal screw job, do. I hope Peter Johnson is a troll because otherwise the kind of servile mindset that his comment embodies would be most depressing.
How do you justify blaming the poor victims of Katrina while excusing the manifest personal irresponsibility of the rich in a case like this?
This is TEXTBOOK case of “personal irresponsibility” on the part of the lenders and investment professionals and, as always, somehow they will profit from it at our expense. ARG!!!
libarbarian
Letting someone deal with the consequences of their own actions is …… punishment?
I didnt know you were a liberal.
r€nato
You know, if they do bail out Big Shitpile (or at least, those who insured it), I don’t ever fucking want to hear shit again about our mixed economy from Cato Institute, AEI, Hoover Institute, Wall Street stock and bond traders, and all the other cultists worshipping at the altar of laissez-faire free market economics.
Either you believe in that shit for EVERYBODY – especially the Wall Street geniuses who preach that shit more fervently than a Pentecostal at a tent revival – or you believe that it’s OK for government to occasionally smooth off the rough edges of capitalism for everybody. Whether that takes the form of halfway-decent unemployment insurance, universal health care, or as in this case, the government bailing out industry to avoid a widespread economic panic.
Personally, I believe in the latter. If entities like Citibank go under, we all suffer. I’m not such a partisan class warrior that I’d cut off my nose to spite my face, in order to stick it to the big boys on Wall Street. But the people who believe in economic Darwinism just better STFU forever if a bailout goes through. Nothing could more clearly state that they believe in a different set of rules for themselves versus the regular joe.
wasabi gasp
He’s clearly a man who would be apprehensive about privatizing Social Security.
Tax Analyst
Wall Street? Oh, yeah…aren’t they the same folks that “cheer” and rally when companies lay-off hundreds or thousands of workers. Gotta trim that fat, ya’ know. That’s ALWAYS good for the economy, right?
An investor bail-out would be the height of irresponsibility. Not doing so? Yes, it may cause some serious problems. But doing so reinforces the type of Free-Market Piracy that put us in this position. Letting those Free-Market Buccaneers dangle by their Financial Instruments would serve to discourage this type of unrestrained Free-for-all practice in the future.
But that won’t happen…our duly elected Representatives will solemnly invoke the “greater overall good” and bail-out every fat-assed fat cat in sight…get your check books and vaseline out, my friends – you’re likely to need both before this is over.
Peter Johnson
No, I’m not saying that it’s Clinton’s fault.
Though it probably is. Bush could have undone Clinton’s damage, had he acted swiftly, but by the time the problem was clear, the Dems were already in power in Congress and there was no way to get it done.
And…I know it’s hard for you non-investing, or at best apple-stock-owning, types to understand but when the markets rally, that means something good is happening. And that’s precisely what this bailout is.
Tax Analyst
Because you keep asking dumb questions. NEXT time it’s going to be much harder.
Smarter people have decided we need to pony up for Wall Street. If we don’t do as we’re told they will hurt us worse.
…and don’t forget to smile, cuz without them you might not even have your miserable job.
Tax Analyst
Peter, left to his own devices Dubyah probably has trouble getting chewing gum out of the wrapper. He probably has Condi do it for him.
Now PLEASE go shopping or watch televison or whack off or do whatever it takes to make you stop posting such dumb-ass shit here.
F. Frederson
And Perfectly Legal – with a drink in hand, however. Without a sedative you’ll be throwing breakable things after about 20 pages.
Tax Analyst
Oh, Peter…you’re SO financially sophisticated. Without you us poor, under-educated folks wouldn’t know how grateful we should be for the constant fucking-over we’re getting from this administration.
A bailout is an artificial device to get someone of out the shit they’ve fallen or tossed themselves into. Whether they deserve to be there or not doing a bailout is not “something good happening”, it’s a last resort when a segment of the economy has fucked things up beyond ordinary correction.
Put a sock in it.
D. Mason
That’s right folks, you read it here first. Dubyas sole responsability for our economic woes lies in his failure to undo the damage done by the Clenis in the 90’s. This is not a major responsability however since he couldn’t have possibly seen this coming before it was too late anyway. Damn that Clenis!
Peter Johnson
A bailout is an artificial device to get someone of out the shit they’ve fallen or tossed themselves into.
How is that different than rebuilding New Orleans so it can get flooded again? Or giving welfare to people who don’t want to work? Or affirmative action?
D. Mason
It’s not. I assume you support all of the above as fully as you do corporate welfare right?
r€nato
So long as a single Democrat is elected to any office anywhere in this country, Republicans will always have someone to blame for their own failings.
r€nato
What’s wrong with owning AAPL? It’s one of the best-performing stocks over the last several years, and if you got in early enough, you made a great decision. I bought at $9.75 (split-adjusted) and my only regret is that I didn’t bet the farm on it.
Tax Analyst
Peter Johnson exposed – just another Socialist Dick.
Oh, wait…this goes back to the, “If we don’t bail out Wall Street we’ll all be hurt real bad”, mode of existence. Ya’ gotta love the implied subservience. I know that’s how the Founding Fathers wanted it.
Pardon me if I tell you I’d rather see how this all shakes out if we DON’T bail out Wall Street. I know the idea of using sound economic fundamentals is a radical one, but hell, if we gave it a shot it might just work out better than the clusterfuck-free-for-all rigged game we’re currently staggering under.
Yeah, there might be some hurt of there if we do this…as if there isn’t already, but you can’t cover over the smell of bullshit by dumping more on top of it.
wasabi gasp
The dogcow flips for you.
Conservatively Liberal
Shorter Dick:
Look! A jackalope!
OxyCon
Whenever a Bush is in office you can count on three things happening:
1) a needless war
2) a recession
3) a ginourmous banking failure
Remember the S&L crisis?
I wonder how soon it will be before we find out that the entire Bush family is involved in this latest banking scandal the way Neil Bush was with Silverado S&L.
Peter Johnson
. I assume you support all of the above as fully as you do corporate welfare right?
It’s not welfare if it helps the economy. I support rebuilding NO with better levees if a study shows that it will increase growth.
magisterludi
I am going to interject “underpants gnomes” in every conversation I have from now on.
LiberalTarian
Well, at least we still have good old nuclear power …
stickler
It’s not welfare if it helps the economy.
Shorter Dick Johnson: “We are all Keynesians now.”
J. Michael Neal
Look, this is a stupid, horrible idea. In fact, it’s just about as stupid and horrible as that stupid, horrible idea for the SuperSIV (M-Blech, or whatever it was) fund last fall that was going to bail out all of the off-balance sheet vehicles the big investment banks weren’t carrying on their balance sheets. This stupid, horrible idea has just about as much chance of becoming reality as that stupid, horrible idea did.
The “plan,” as I’ve seen it so far, involves getting the banks to bail out the monoline insurers, so that the monoline insurers can pay out to the banks when the various bonds go bad. It really is that dumb and circular. The point of this isn’t to actually bail out the insurers. It’s to slow the whole process down so that the unwinding can take place at a pace that doesn’t cause everything to crash. I’m pretty sure that we’re going to end up right where we would have without anyone floating this idea, but without quite the chaotic destruction that would occur without people kicking it around for a couple of months before letting it expire.
Needless to say, my shorts took a hellacious beating today, but I’m holding onto them, because I’m betting that I’ll get it all back and more.
wasabi gasp
The underpants gnomes are holding onto my shorts.
Chuck Butcher
Look, the next half-wit who brings up free market economy as if it has ever existed deserves a boot up his ass. For pete’s sake Adam goddam Smith didn’t believe in it and if you want US history go look at Jefferson v. Hamilton. The argument wasn’t about free market but who would manage the market to their benefit.
The fucking deal is rigged, pay attention, it is and has been. How badly rigged is the question not whether it is. Bailing out the investors won’t do shit for the economy at large, giving some protection to borrowers in danger might. Investing in the infrastructure addresses some current problems and would provide paychecks. (sure cheney would see haliburton got as many no-bid contracts…)
Peter Johnson (resident asshole)talks about welfare that’s good for the economy, the economy, fuckwit, is the people of the US, not the goddam investors. The reason there is an economy is the people of the US. Ask the investors of 1929 about what happens when the people’s world falls apart.
If you’re rich enough to be insulated you don’t give a rat’s ass, you’ll make it back next go-around.
There is a problem with that mindset…violence. This nation has been on that tight rope before.
Tax Analyst
Chuck – my personal preference would be addressing the infrastructure – but with none of that “no-bid” bull-shit. I’m wondering if the employment situation is going to get bad enough where a version of the old WPA projects might be the best answer – I was reading that long-term unemployment is on a steady rise again and that’s never a good thing. A big stumbling block is that the current version of the Republican Party is not likely to let something like the WPA come to pass. But, anyway, the infrastructure is long past due for a LOT of serious attention and expenditure. If managed right those expenditures would be extremely productive…look at how much we lose every day from ill-maintained public highways – and that’s just one area. There are a lot of things we could spend money on here at home that would facilitate improved productivity, offer decent employment and improve the quality of life of our citizens (and resident visitors, as the case may be). But it has to be managed right – and that means it can’t in any way be TOUCHED by the Bush Administration and their associated cronies…which means it could not be implemented until ’09 at the earliest.
DonkeyKong
Behold apes, the great middle finger of the free market towers like a monolith.
Now start beating each other with bleached gazelle femur bones.
p.a.
“Here’s the real kicker – Bush is blaming the problems in the lending markets on a lack of financial literacy”
2 comments. 1: As to the quote above, let’s cut W some slack. If anyone is qualified to comment on financial illiteracy, he is.
2: ‘In America, we have socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor’- attributed to MLK.
Xenos
How do you mange to take a bath without drowning yourself? That statement is the best evidence of profound mental retardation I have ever seen.
Give me a million bucks and I promise to spend it, too.
RobR
But all those Harlem queens haven’t been able to buy Cadillacs since the mid-90s, which hurts the economy.
What do you have against the good, hard-working people of Detroit who build Cadillacs, you unbelievable prick?
Besides: how dare you come here and suggest that it’s good policy to let the government put their hands all over the economy for the good of the people? Go back to Guatemala and lay a sloppy one on Hugo, you filthy pinko.
Svensker
Peter Johnson Says:
Please. Stop. I can’t take this much laughing before breakfast.
Shygetz
A guy comes in here and names himself “Penis Penis” and you guys expect sincerity from his arguments?
zmulls
Yes, thanks, Other Steve, people keep forgetting about that one. You forgot that it’s best to borrow the money to purchase your share in the business, taking out a loan from a bank where you used to be on the Board of Directors…..
I’m glad people are still bringing up the S&L bailout. That’s when I gave up on the whole “free market/deregulation” philosophy. I’m still pissed off I had to pay for that, while a relative handful of people got houses on the Riviera….
crack
My 10th grade Econ teacher was named Peter Johnson.
My Truth Hurts
Providing health, education, job training and infrastructure for the poor would also help the economy. A healthy, educated and mobile populace will buy goods and services. Sick, dumb and stranded folks won’t.
jrg
Peter J, how is it that you find the will to come here, day after day, and spew such complete nonsense?
I grew up around financial experts, including fund managers and stock brokers. I used to be a licensed securities dealer. There are a number of people on this site who know more about finance than I do. You are not one of them.
What I can’t figure out is if I’m wasting my time on a spoof troll, or if I’m wasting my time on an 18-year-old who hasn’t been around long enough to figure out how much he doesn’t know.
louisms
There’s a fundamental difference. One involves the government giving money to the rich- an entirely proper use of government intervention to the conservative mind. The other benefits the disadvantaged, and so is the ultimate no-no. Because the poor, being, by definition, morally inferior, must be made to face the consequences of their actions, while the rich deserve government largesse when their shortsightedness gets them in hot water. Haven’t you read the right-wing playbook Peter?
Fledermaus
Bailouts for everyone!
Link
But ya gotta wait for the punchline:
Yeah don’t all of you know how hard it is to find people that can lose that much money?
libarbarian
A good blog on this stuff is The Big Con
This describes the attitude exhibited by Peter “It’s not welfare if it helps the economy” Johnson:
Brachiator
If you think the US “free market” is fun, take a look at what is happening in France:
PARIS — The French bank Société Générale said Thursday that it had uncovered “an exceptional fraud” by a trader that would cost it 4.9 billion euros, or $7.1 billion, and that it was raising about 5.5 billion euros in fresh capital to shore up its finances…. Société Générale also said Thursday that it would take a write-down of 2.05 billion euros, including 1.1 billion euros related to the United States housing market and 550 million euros related to American bond insurance companies. It said it was setting aside an additional 400 million euros in provisions against the risk that losses in those two areas would grow.
The full story here:
Fraud Costs French Bank $7.1 Billion
Peter Johnson
So even those bastions of social enlightenment have fallen victim to evil, evil capitalist greed.
TenguPhule
Only if you’re a fucking moron. The broker managed to get past five different checks against fraud. That’s not greed, that’s being a criminal asshole and the US doesn’t exactly have a leg to stand on when it comes to criticizing others on that.
TenguPhule
I think it’s long overdue. And at this point the legal system is a sick joke.
Kat
This is banking – but not as we know it
excerpt:
In [Société Générale’s] latest report, it boasts of being voted “Best Private Bank in Europe” and “Global Equities Derivatives House of the Year”. With so many bright sparks on its 120,000-strong payroll, you might have expected one of them to spot a hole in the books the size of the Massif Central.
Sadly not. This banking lark is, evidently, a jolly tricky business. Gone are the days when it involved little more than borrowing at a low rate, lending at a high one, and charging customers the price of a decent meal for sending them a reproachful letter.
“It’s now so complicated that not even the brightest stars in Wall Street’s firmament – Tom Wolfe’s Masters of the Universe – who are paid hundreds of millions to administer our funds seem to know what’s really going on. As a result of America’s mortgage crisis, we have learnt that, to play in banking’s premier league, you need much more than a degree from Harvard Business School, the morals of an alley cat and an unbridled lust for riches. These attributes help, but the sine qua non of a seat at the top table is a willingness to suspend disbelief until junk loans to trailer-dwelling welfare claimants can be diced, sliced, spiced and resold as triple-A securities. This takes some doing, as the business – quite clearly – makes no sense.
“It is like a restaurateur opening up cans of dog-meat, sprinkling it with herbs, presenting the mix as steak tartare, and charging £25 a portion for something that will poison most of his customers. The difference is, passing off chopped donkey for Aberdeen Angus would be illegal; the repackaging of toxic sub-prime mortgages as high-quality investments was not.”
The article is followed by loads of comments, if you’re curious what the British think about this mess.