Comments Posted By headhunt23
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IF IT WASN'T SO FRIGHTENING, I WOULD LAUGH
bsjones:
I don't necessarily have a problem with regulation, surely there are portions of the financial markets which are under regulated (and there are undoubtably portions which are over regulated). I just have a problem with dumb and/or non-sensical regulations or regulations being applied without proper common sense.
I'm not so foolish as to believe that people will usually do the wright thing, particularly when information is asymetrical as it is in financial markets. It's just that the pesky question of "how" keeps popping up.
Comment Posted By headhunt23 On 19.02.2009 @ 12:29
bsjones - I wrote that based on the assumption I was operating on earlier (erroneous) that the investmetn houses were just acting as clearing houses and not spot checking the individual loans. As you pointed out my fallacy, I no longer agree with that statement.
As to your follow on question, it is my understanding that the federal oversight was authorized, but just not exercised - the rating agencies were just slapping "AA", "A" and "BBB" ratings without adequate checking. So, kind of like lots of other crimes, it is more of a matter of government properly executing their duties rather than creating new laws and agencies to respond to the question (not that the SEC couldn't/shouldn't be expanded [although I'm not saying that]).
Comment Posted By headhunt23 On 16.02.2009 @ 14:41
bsjones - thanks...I appreciate that.
I'll have no problem saying that the people who put the bad apples back in should be held accountable (although I must confess I'm not sure what that means as i don't know the law in this area).
Throw them, the borrowers and the mortgage brokers in jail.
Comment Posted By headhunt23 On 15.02.2009 @ 20:57
bsjones...
"The Wall Street investment banks knew everything you described."
I'm not saying you are wrong here, but I'd like a link with an insider saying this. I just find it rather hard to believe that Wall Street Investment bankers were pulling out 50 or so of the mortgage packets on every bundle of 20K mortgages to check the income and the appraisals for verification.
Did the bankers know the mortgages were "subprime"? Absolutely - that's what they were billed as when they were resold. The problem was the investment bankers assumed that those mortages were verified by the lending institutions for the necessary income and enough equity in the property. We now know it was a bad assumption, but I think if I was an investment banker it might be one I'd make too.
Yes, there had to be failures at multiple levels - as I very clearly stated in my post. But the further up the loan chain you went, the failures were less and less (although the repercussions of those failures kept becoming greater and greater).
Comment Posted By headhunt23 On 14.02.2009 @ 21:36
To Chuck:
People made the choice to buy homes they couldn't afford. They when then abetted by a mortage industry (mortage brokers more than traditional banks) which didn't enforce loan standard, and those loans were sold to banks who were too lazy to check the loans, verify income or even apply common sense, as they assumed the mortgage brokers had done so.
Those loans were then bundled together by the Wall Street types and sold to people looking for mortgage exposure. THIS IS NOT BAD. These people/institutions looking for mortage exposure are who inject liquidity into the market and allow people living in poorer areas to have access to more captial (as opposed to the old days when banks could only access the capitals available in their community and therefore captital was much harder to attain).
But of course, the problem was the individual loans were crappy. And, the rating agencies were criminally negligent and kept slapping A and AA ratings on these funds without any due dillegence, leading investors to believe these loans were safer than they were. Most of the crap about Wall Street being to blame is just that - crap. What Wall Street did was SPREAD the virus, but they weren't the cause of the virus. The cause of the virus was the stupid people that took loans they couldn't afford, the mortgage brokers who falsified (either by commission or ommission) a lot of documents to get those loans thru, and the federal auditors who flat out weren't doing their jobs.
Comment Posted By headhunt23 On 13.02.2009 @ 20:47
Rick - your comments to Chuck.
I'll disagree despite Chuck's general populist ignorance on the causes and effects and the proper placement of blame of the crises..
If the banks need to call in the feds and take a bunch of tax payers money, then they need to pay a price for their negligence. Most companies, we'd just let go out of business, however letting a bunch of banks go out of business would be disasterous for the economy. Money is, afterall, to businesses essentially a utility, no different then electricity or phone service.
So, if we can't let them fail, how should we punish failure to ensure we do not create a moral hazzard? By butting into their affairs and making it painful for them to operate.
So, to answer your question, if your business demands taxpayer assistence, then I do favor the government dictating your worth.
(I realize there is a bunch of different scenarios that could be played out. Perhaps exceptions could be made for bringing in an exec that wasn't part of the melt down)
Comment Posted By headhunt23 On 13.02.2009 @ 15:00
I'm just wondering...are we at the point with "24" that bitching about it is actually counterproductive (it just makes the show worse than it actually is) but actually bitching about it is so pleasurable the corresponding drop in enjoyment for the show itself is acceptable collateral damage?
Yeah, it isn't as good as the first two seasons or so, but better than the season 3 ebola virus (or whatever) being distributed to the Mexican mafia and the return of Nina with the kiss of death (FYI - Nina was way hotter than Jack's wife...he should have kept tappin' that as long as possible), or most of last season.
Anyway, just lower the expectation level and realize that you could instead be watching "2 1/2 men" "one tree hill" or "the bachelor".
Comment Posted By headhunt23 On 11.02.2009 @ 15:37
Doug,
I don't think they ever say "Democrat"...and, on David Palmer's bio on the 24 site, no party affiliation is given...I could be wrong...haven't seen that season in a few years, but I don't recall either the D or the R words used.
Comment Posted By headhunt23 On 31.01.2009 @ 00:49
On location....he may have said "ditch" at some point which would have clued in Cloe and Bill where to find them...or, bill and Cloe may have parked in a location to get a site line on the van and see where they were, which is how they were able to get there about 2-4 minutes after Jack and company left.
On the political affiliations...uh...I dont' think anyone shoud read too much into that. Why is it necessary to assume that David and Wayne Palmer were necessarily Democrats? Why can't they just all be of some nameless, faceless party? Personally, I would find it hard to believe that a guy like Noah Daniels could get the Veep nod in the same party that was nominating Wayne Palmer. I think you need to suspend analysis a little bit here.
Comment Posted By headhunt23 On 29.01.2009 @ 12:14
He may want to do it in private, but the new president assumes office at 12:00PM on the 20th of January, regardless of whether or not s/he has taken the oath.
Did you even bother to read the post? I said TWICE that he was president even if he didn't take the oath.
Read the goddamn article before commenting.
ed.
Comment Posted By headhunt23 On 21.01.2009 @ 13:56
