I don't think it's any of the federal government's business who a bank lends money to. If they want to give a quarter of a million dollars to the guy on the corner with a squeegee and a bucket so he can buy a single-wide on a tenth of an acre of bare dirt in Love Canal Meadows, then that's between them and squeegee guy.
However, the idea that Jane Taxpayer is supposed to stand there and let her pockets get rifled by Congress in order to protect both the bank and squeegee guy from the hard lessons of their idiocy is just shameful.
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23 comments:
Are you sure you don't want to run for elected office? Your nation needs you! Your people need you!
I agree with you. The problem is that the banks were paying those same politicians millions to game the rules so we could be fleeced.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Regulation benefits political rent-seekers first, and anyone else strictly by accident.
Okay, so we throw the banker and the NINJA home buyer in prison for fraud and impeach the Congressman and put him in the same cell.
Next question?
The only question after that is, "How much for ring-side tickets?"
"However, the idea that Jane Taxpayer is supposed to stand there and let her pockets get rifled by Congress in order to protect both the bank and squeegee guy from the hard lessons of their idiocy is just criminal. "
There, I fixded it.
Sadly, Og, in today's world there are many things which, while criminal, are not at all shameful, hence my choice of the latter descriptor.
Infuriatingly true. When we bought our house twelve years ago, we spent one fifth the amount we were approved for by the bank as a measure of prudence in the event of financial trouble. Now, a big chunk of the money we're saving will go to taxes that instead pay for the homes of folks who weren't that frugal. No, that doesn't sound at all like socialism...
As someone who is currently trying to get an FHA mortgage from a large uncaring financial institution, and more importantly as someone who CAN AFFORD IT, I think these morons who screwed up a perfectly good banking and mortgage system should be hanged by their toes and left to rot.
After they're tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a rail.
OK, I'll give you that.
Pitiably, the folks in question are incapable of feeling shame for their criminality, and instead feel entitled to their criminal behavior.
I like Midwest Chick's method of rocking them to sleep with a baseball bat. Because, and I quote, "A bat's easier to hold than an actual rock"
"Financial reform" is strictly to benefit the party-in-power. The rest of us, the guys who worked like blazes for fifty years to get a nest egg? Nada, de nada.
The Dims want to Federalize all savings accounts, 401(k)'s and whatever. The wage slave's savings will get him 1% per year, no ability to tap the principal, and his or her heirs will not have an inheritance to worry about.
Stranger
Squeegee guy didn't "buy" his single-wide, he signed a note agreeing to.
Do you really think stock "players" who buy on margin are going to pay up when they find out Madoff cooked the books and their futures contracts are worth less than zip? And when gov covers the brokerages' loss because they're too big to fail, you think the individual investor is benefiting from your largess? How?
As I said elsewhere, when the fix is in, all bets are off.
AT
I used to laugh at the paranoid consperacy theorys, but now I truely believe that this was all done on purpose.
Follow the reasoning:
1) gov pushes for more home ownership.
2) gov relaxes the rules knowing that the banks (mortgage co, etc) won't be able to resist making the fast buck.
3) The whole thing comes down like a house of cards, which was inevitable.
4) gov steps in to help because it is all "too big to fail" (IMHO, the most idiotic consept in this entire century).
5) gov now has a "compelling government interest" in the banking industry.
Compelling government interest = control. It is a free pass to put their grubby paws into everything. Control is what it's all about and make no mistake, that control is Statist government control.
We live in a country with a two party system. The Repugnants are conservative authoritarians and the Democraps are socialist liberals. They work as opposite sides of the same ratchet to increase government power. There IS NO PARTY THAT CARES FOR THE RIGHTS AND LIBERTYS OF THE PEOPLE! Sure, there is the Libertarian party that doesn't have an ice cubes chance in hell of gaining any power whatsoever. The only thing the Republicans and Democrats work togeather on is making sure of that.
I think we have a concept of what the problem is, sure wish someone had and inkling on how to fix it.
s
Stuart
I honestly think you're giving them too much credit.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity or greed.
Yup; it's all about control of the banking industry. They screwed it up so they could take control of it. Nice, isn't it, that the Republicans played along the whole time? Bush actually bragged about it, saying how great it was that home ownership was at the highest levels ever. Well now you know how that happened. -- Lyle
bill; Yes-- greed. The Left, including leftist Republicans, are greedy for control. You could call it malice as well, but greed is a powerful force.
Not that I'm in the habit of defending bush, but he and Mc Cain were warning everyone of the Fannie/Freddie meltdown in 01 and 03, and were shouted down by that lisping retard Barney Frank and the whole dem group here.
It's even more fun when you realize that the GSEs were the first line of defense against the inflated-home-price-tax-revenue scam (aka the "American Dream" scam), and we're now being bilked a second time for the same non-asset assets. Or the third time if you count FDIC unsurance.
ToddG--
Yeah, that's the view from my porch, too.
More and more, I refer to myself as "the idiot that paid off his mortgage".
Yet another lesson entitled, "Why Ethics and Personal Responsibility are Crap." Unfortunately, I meet all sorts of people who are disturbingly comfortable with this lesson and, in fact, embrace it.
We're gonna need some serious mind changing in this country before we can pare down the fed.gov and punt the critters out of the areas in which they don't belong, like the financial industry.
Saying it's a conspiracy is like saying Ado Annie conspired to get Chlamidya.
Everyone playing was happy until the tests came back.
Karl Denninger has covered this topic for two years or so over at his spot at market-ticker.org.
The problem isn't really about foolish but voluntary market transactions - the problem is fraud, fraud on an absolutely massive scale. Squeegee-guy wants a house, finds a lender, the lender rigs the numbers in a "liar loan", SG signs the papers, repeat millions of times. Between the point in time it takes for folks to realize that, hey, SG really doesn't have the money, banks have packaged and sold these fraudulent mortgages to pension plans, retirement funds, state/city governments, and, ironically enough, themselves.
In other words, sure, if a lender and a borrower want to make a stupid deal, they should be able to do so. What they can't be allowed to get away with is trying to sell off that crap sandwich as a solid gold bar to passers-by.
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