I get a sense of some serious "inside Baseball" being played here, all the same. I think the whole bonus fiasco was just throwing a little red meat to the crowd while the real business is being conducted behind the scenes. I have nothing really concrete to base that on, it's just how it "feels". The numbers are so large for the "real" problem, and so inconsequential for the boner problem, but it makes good copy, no?
Well, since taking bonuses isn't illegal, here's an idea...
How about making all the Senators and Representatives who voted for the bill allowing the bonuses to pay for them? (While we're at it, we should include the President, since he signed it into law.)
Is that what your right wing blogs are calling it, OM, the Glass-Steagall Repeal? The one that Pelosi, Biden, and Clinton signed? Don't you mean the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act? That would be Phil Gramm (R-Texas, chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs 95'-00' and one time McCain campaign financial advisor), Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa, who chaired the Banking and Financial Services Committee), and Rep. Thomas J. Bliley, Jr. (R-Virginia, Chairman of the House Commerce Committee from 1995 to 2001). It is also known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act. What your link left out was that the bill's first round of votes went straight down party lines with the one exception of a Dem voting with the Repubs in the Senate. Clinton first said he "would veto any legislation that would scale back minority-lending requirements." It wasn't until the Repubs "agreed to strengthen provisions of the anti-redlining Community Reinvestment Act and address certain privacy concerns" that the Dems came on board and virtually all of them did, including President Clinton. Oh, and did I mention this was after 200 million in lobbying and 150 million in campaign contributions to targeted banking and finance committee chairs from the finance, insurance, and real estate industries. This was the last of 20 attempts in 25 years which rewarded "financial companies for more than 20 years and $300 million worth of lobbying efforts."
There is a lot more to the repealing of the Glass-Steagall than I or your blog mentioned. The pro-deregulation Greenspan's hands were far from clean in this repeal. Take a look at this: The Long Demise of Glass-Steagull. In fact, if there was one person that could have stopped this from happening it would have been the man dubbed by many, even in congress, as the Oracle, Alan Greenspan. Leach said Greenspan was highly regarded in congress. He also said, “You’ve got an area of judgment in which members of Congress have nonexistent expertise.” Iowa (D) senator Harkin said Greenspan had "a way of speaking that made you think he knew exactly what he was talking about at all times" "a way that made people not want to question him on anything, like he knew it all. He was the Oracle, and who were you to question him?” This act was on Greenspan and Ruben's recommendation. But it was the push of the private sector (the announcement of the merger of Citicorp and Travelers) that pushed it all to a boiling point.
Definitely read the Long Demise PBS link though, it's good... makes you sick to your stomach.
There is plenty of blame to go around, OM.
But as a MotleyFool article put it: blaming this all on the repeal of Glass-Steagull is like blaming the break up of The Beatles on Ringo. The already out of control leverage and derivatives trading was well established by the time the Act was repealed. At the same time the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act was being passed, Greenspan recommended that congress permanently strip the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) of regulatory authority. From the "Greenspan Legacy" article:
In 2000, Mr. Harkin asked what might happen if Congress weakened the C.F.T.C.’s authority.
“If you have this exclusion and something unforeseen happens, who does something about it?” he asked Mr. Greenspan in a hearing.
Mr. Greenspan said that Wall Street could be trusted. “There is a very fundamental trade-off of what type of economy you wish to have,” he said. “You can have huge amounts of regulation and I will guarantee nothing will go wrong, but nothing will go right either,” he said.
Later that year, at a Congressional hearing on the merger boom, he argued that Wall Street had tamed risk.
“Aren’t you concerned with such a growing concentration of wealth that if one of these huge institutions fails that it will have a horrendous impact on the national and global economy?” asked Representative Bernard Sanders, an independent from Vermont.
“No, I’m not,” Mr. Greenspan replied. “I believe that the general growth in large institutions have occurred in the context of an underlying structure of markets in which many of the larger risks are dramatically — I should say, fully — hedged.”
The House overwhelmingly passed the bill that kept derivatives clear of C.F.T.C. oversight. Senator Gramm attached a rider limiting the C.F.T.C.’s authority to an 11,000-page appropriations bill. The Senate passed it. President Clinton signed it into law.
Fully hedged were they, Mr. Oracle?
I could go on and on...
edit.
Waaaaait a minute, what are you blaming Alan for he's not even an elected official.
What I can only blame elected officials? Put blame where it is due, not just on your tired partisan politics. As I said, there is enough to go around on both sides.
Is that what your right wing blogs are calling it, OM, the Glass-Steagall Repeal? The one that Pelosi, Biden, and Clinton signed? Don't you mean the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act? That would be Phil Gramm (R-Texas, chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs 95'-00' and one time McCain campaign financial advisor), Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa, who chaired the Banking and Financial Services Committee), and Rep. Thomas J. Bliley, Jr. (R-Virginia, Chairman of the House Commerce Committee from 1995 to 2001). It is also known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act. What your link left out was that the bill's first round of votes went straight down party lines with the one exception of a Dem voting with the Repubs in the Senate. Clinton first said he "would veto any legislation that would scale back minority-lending requirements." It wasn't until the Repubs "agreed to strengthen provisions of the anti-redlining Community Reinvestment Act and address certain privacy concerns" that the Dems came on board and virtually all of them did, including President Clinton. Oh, and did I mention this was after 200 million in lobbying and 150 million in campaign contributions to targeted banking and finance committee chairs from the finance, insurance, and real estate industries. This was the last of 20 attempts in 25 years which rewarded "financial companies for more than 20 years and $300 million worth of lobbying efforts."
There is a lot more to the repealing of the Glass-Steagall than I or your blog mentioned. The pro-deregulation Greenspan's hands were far from clean in this repeal. Take a look at this: The Long Demise of Glass-Steagull. In fact, if there was one person that could have stopped this from happening it would have been the man dubbed by many, even in congress, as the Oracle, Alan Greenspan. Leach said Greenspan was highly regarded in congress. He also said, "You've got an area of judgment in which members of Congress have nonexistent expertise." Iowa (D) senator Harkin said Greenspan had "a way of speaking that made you think he knew exactly what he was talking about at all times" "a way that made people not want to question him on anything, like he knew it all. He was the Oracle, and who were you to question him?" This act was on Greenspan and Ruben's recommendation. But it was the push of the private sector (the announcement of the merger of Citicorp and Travelers) that pushed it all to a boiling point.
Definitely read the Long Demise PBS link though, it's good... makes you sick to your stomach.
There is plenty of blame to go around, OM.
But as a MotleyFool article put it: blaming this all on the repeal of Glass-Steagull is like blaming the break up of The Beatles on Ringo. The already out of control leverage and derivatives trading was well established by the time the Act was repealed. At the same time the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act was being passed, Greenspan recommended that congress permanently strip the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) of regulatory authority. From the "Greenspan Legacy" article:
Fully hedged were they, Mr. Oracle?
I could go on and on...
edit.
What I can only blame elected officials? Put blame where it is due, not just on your tired partisan politics. As I said, there is enough to go around on both sides.
What I can only blame elected officials? Put blame where it is due, not just on your tired partisan politics. As I said, there is enough to go around on both sides.
Since you said there is enough blame to go around, let's also reference some on the left with the "income inequality" rants of Barney Frank & Co. Here's an excerpt from "The Humble Libertarian" about how AIG failed in the first place:
Why was AIG in danger of failing in the first place?
Good question! Basically, throughout the 90s, the U.S. government decided it wanted to fuel a prosperity boom by strong-arming encouraging banks to lend to "sub-prime" mortgage candidates so they could buy houses.
"Sub-prime" credit is a euphemism for credit lent out to people who shouldn't be getting it because it's too risky for the bank (and consequently for the people whose money that bank is loaning out).
To manage the risk, a lovely thing happened called "the securitization of mortgages" -banks would take a bunch of these risky mortgages, bundle them together as an investment, and sell them to bigger banks and financial institutions.
There was so much of this going on that AIG had the bright idea of insuring all these risky investments, even if that meant stepping away from its successful core competency of providing traditional insurance policies to families and retirees.
How can't you believe in "trickle-down" economics? When people in the government have crazy ideas, the madness trickles down to the rest of the economy!
The AIG Bonus Scandal
Then after getting $85,000,000,000 in bailout money from taxpayers to reward and subsidize its failure and risky behavior, the story broke last week that AIG had added insult to injury by paying out $165,000,000 in bonuses to its top executives.
Our political leaders' outrage at the scandal should be directed at none other than themselves.
They are the ones who supported the financial bailout of AIG and who made this injustice possible.
If we as Americans are angry at AIG executives for wasting $165 million of our money, we should be furious at the politicians in Washington who made this possible by wasting $85 billion of our money in the first place.
And never forget who AIG's 1st and 2nd biggest beneficiaries are in terms of campaign donations: Senator Chris Dodd and President Barack Obama:
Obama may be grandstanding about AIG’s bonuses now, but it’s worth noting that Obama himself is the second biggest benefactor [sic] of AIG political contributions. Second only to Senator Chris Dodd, who is quietly trying to tip-toe away from legislation he inserted into Obama’s “stimulus” spending spree that protected AIG’s bonuses.
BTW I don't think the AIG bailout was necessary at all. Could have gone to Chapter 11 and reorganized like many private industries do. In the free market system, there MUST be consequences for failure else the government takes over like it has and you get socialism/fascism whatever you want to call it, it is another name for tyranny.
BTW I don't think the AIG bailout was necessary at all. Could have gone to Chapter 11 and reorganized like many private industries do. In the free market system, there MUST be consequences for failure else the government takes over like it has and you get socialism/fascism whatever you want to call it, it is another name for tyranny.
Please describe:
the impact this newly imposed "tyranny" has had on you personally.
your understanding of the ramifications, in as much detail as you can, of allowing AIG to "go Chapter 11," on the American economy and life in general.
your decision processes that allow you to decide in favor of said ramifications, instead of in favor of the dreaded (by you, apparently) "tyranny" that you believe is the alternative.
Rocky, I am not answering any more of your questions. I was dumb enough to try, then asked you to reciprocate, and got the back of your hand. No more ... don't keep asking.
Rocky, I am not answering any more of your questions. I was dumb enough to try, then asked you to reciprocate, and got the back of your hand. No more ... don't keep asking.
While you are obviously free to decide what to do about anything I post, I remain free to ask questions.
Frankly, the asking of the questions (specifically as done last night) in and of itself provides food for thought for any reader wishing to consider.
Your failure to reply responsively goes directly to my (implied) point that it's all in your irrational imagination anyway... that is, unless you explain otherwise what might actually be genuine tyranny of which you refer.
I'll bet you a dollar to a donut that Dood was paid off by AIG and others to omit the bonus rights out of the legislation.
Bingo.
Maybe the opposite was the case... Dodd, being the largest recipient of AIG contributions likely felt he needed to pay them back in some way, thus the bailout and bonuses. But with all the hoopla and pressure, now it appears he's giving the contribution money all back. Good. OBAMA should give AIG contributions back as well.
i'm quite relaxed thank you!.......dodd, geithner, have as much 'splainin' to do as paulson, bush, cheney, phil gramm, and boehner, et al........the entire mess is a testimony to the abject inequality of the financial "matrix" set up by all the "players of the last 20 years, imo...........as usual, the average working person winds up holding the bag.......which is so totally empty...........who do you think wasn't paid off by aiu?.........where'd you say this weekend's klan advance is?.........LHIM?
LOL!.........nope......no acorn for me.........i am a registered independent......as i have been since 1976.............i try to ferret through the gross propaganda from all sides..........difficult to do most times!..........but, i have noticed your proclivity for right-wingers like prager, o'reilly, etc.,.........and, unfortunately, i have witnessed you having posts deleted which were, at least in the mind of the moderators here, filled with hate speech and rhetoric inspirational to what some might consider far right-wing hate groups..........not legitimate libertarians.......but hate groups............that's why i was wondering if your next "advance" with some twi offshoot or the klan was coming up soon........just curious "bro"!............you have a nice weekend...........say hi to vic
Since you said there is enough blame to go around, let's also reference some on the left with the "income inequality" rants of Barney Frank & Co. Here's an excerpt from "The Humble Libertarian" about how AIG failed in the first place:
Plain and simple, here are the real problems as I see them. Note this is completely non-partisan blame I'm laying here:
1- a capitalistic system which feeds greed and produces what PMosh called a "me first" mentality among the rich and really anyone that wants to partake in that very accepted and pervasive world view. What many of these regulatory bodies are in place for is to curb the practices that result from this mentality. Your "humble libertarian" friend has a very naive view of what capitalism is. Strict libertarian views only work when everyone believes in those same views, but we are in a pluralistic society, in almost every sense. Even if capitalism is based on "love" (equitable exchange) as he says, now the only love it is based on is the love of money.
2- corporate influence in the political realm. This brakes down into two categories.
a- lobbying groups. On some level it is a good idea as a means to let legislators the needs of differing groups of people. Health groups lobby for funding needed for an array of different diseases that need money, for eg. Although, what has happened is it has also become a tool for big business to get congress to pass laws that favor them making more money and it is left to the legislators to figure out how this may or may not effect the everyday worker and the less fortunate.
b- campaign finance. This is an additional way that big business takes a government that should be for and by the people and makes it for and by corporate America by buying influence.
3- Elected officials that have a total "lack of expertise" concerning the economics of the country. They then defer to pro-deregulation regulators like "the Oracle" for what would be the best economic policies for our country. We then end up with this bloated, volatile, totally unregulated market of derivatives. IT is so out of control and complicated that most people including our "congress critters" (as Ron calls them) don't understand it. We end up with the likes of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. We then get pro-deregulation right wing/ libertarians like yourself and Mr. Humble Lib either ignorantly or divisively partisan complaining about Clinton deregulating a 60 year old act of regulation.
4- Poor or non-existent oversight by state and federal regulating bodies. They have allowed AIG, for example, to get so out of control. If we are going to have regulations, and I believe we do in fact need to, then we need regulating bodies that actually do their job. Derivatives for example needs oversight and needs more of an exchange setting to trade their contracts. Then you need people to run those bodies that are principally in agreement with the purpose of that body. This is the same as a person applying for a job and the employer is looking for someone that will help support the vision of the company. If the applicant isn't then it would be counterproductive and just plain stupid for the employer to hire that person. Lack of overseeing regulation already in place by a deregulating regulator is what got us to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.
As for your "Humble" link...
Why was AIG in danger of failing in the first place?
Good question! Basically, throughout the 90s, the U.S. government decided it wanted to fuel a prosperity boom by strong-arming encouraging banks to lend to "sub-prime" mortgage candidates so they could buy houses.
"Sub-prime" credit is a euphemism for credit lent out to people who shouldn't be getting it because it's too risky for the bank (and consequently for the people whose money that bank is loaning out).
Wrong. Banks were not strong-armed or encouraged to lend to people who were too risky. In fact, while the Community Reinvestment Act (which is what I believe he is referring to) was revised a number of times in the 90's it was specifically made clear that it was for getting rid of the practice of redlining but that it was not a suggestion or encouragement for a bank to take unnecessary risks. It was more about opening up geographical areas that had people that were worthy of loans but were denied strictly upon their location not wether or not they were able to pay back a loan. This would in fact fuel the economy by allowing worthy applicants the opportunity to invest in their community whether by creating a business, investing in real estate, or improving their local community and the local economy in other ways. It was a smart idea. Plus, it got rid of a practice that on face value looked racist in some incidences and doomed lower middle class and poorer areas to a much harder road to improvement.
What happened was banks (which had now become larger corporations than they had been once they were allowed interstate banking and branching in 1994) realized there there was money to be made here. Companies like Fanny and Freddie who were required to take on a certain percentage of affordable housing loans had business goals that went way above their requirements (at times only achieving half of what they were aiming for). No one was putting a gun to these banks heads. They saw a way to make a lot of money by taking on more and more risk and then trying to hedge that risk in the explosively growing derivatives market which is where we have what is called the "securitization of mortgages." Greed plain and simple. The bubble just kept growing from there. The market kept going up and "the Oracle" et al thought that the free private market had "completely hedged" itself from risk.
There was so much of this going on that AIG had the bright idea of insuring all these risky investments, even if that meant stepping away from its successful core competency of providing traditional insurance policies to families and retirees.
AIG's biggest problems is not with our housing market but with the fact that they insured a huge amount of mortgages in Europe. They are a global company and it is still being learned how far and extensive their reach is. This is why it is too big to fail. The government is the only one big enough to step in. Ch. 11 would not leave them restructured it would leave a world wide market shut down. This is the problem with the boom of the derivatives market and lack of regulation. It is unregulated capitalism gone wild.
How can't you believe in "trickle-down" economics? When people in the government have crazy ideas, the madness trickles down to the rest of the economy!
Misguided again. The way trickle down economics works is like this. Profit is a slow drip from an ever-increasing well, but when sh!t happens, as any plumber or civil engineer knows, it runs down hill, especially when the guy with the mansion at the top of the hill is flushing as much of it down the toilet as he can.
In the free market system, there MUST be consequences for failure else the government takes over like it has and you get socialism/fascism whatever you want to call it, it is another name for tyranny.
I'm all for consequences but who is really baring the brunt of it. The fat cats will find another way to make a crap loan of money. Meanwhile, the hundreds of thousands of employees they had are out of work as are hundreds of thousands of other people in related and unrelated fields. With a company like AIG we are then talking about millions of people around the world. These are largely people that performed their jobs admirably. Millions of people loosing their homes, and not just the sub-primers. Middle class hard workers that haven't done anything wrong living on the street. People like me getting affected because my renters, good long term consistently paying renters) loose their jobs and are unable to pay rent. People loosing their retirement. Their far reaching arm as we see brings the whole market down. People everywhere loose money and their futures are full of nothing but consequences from the greed of a few.
Is that your idea of justice in the free market? Is that your idea of consequences of failure? On a side note, I wonder if all this really lines up with your Christian beliefs and how?
when and where is your next klan meeting oldies???.......just wondering..........peace.
OM,
Is that your idea of justice in the free market? Is that your idea of consequences of failure? On a side note, I wonder if all this really lines up with your Christian beliefs and how?
Excellent questions. However, I would counsel you to not hold your breath waiting for OM to answer...
my hunch is he would have an extremely difficult time even allowing himself to become consciously aware of the ramifications of his political and economic beliefs as to how they would (mis)align with Godly wisdom/concepts.
LOL!.........nope......no acorn for me.........i am a registered independent......as i have been since 1976.............i try to ferret through the gross propaganda from all sides..........difficult to do most times!..........but, i have noticed your proclivity for right-wingers like prager, o'reilly, etc.,.........and, unfortunately, i have witnessed you having posts deleted which were, at least in the mind of the moderators here, filled with hate speech and rhetoric inspirational to what some might consider far right-wing hate groups..........not legitimate libertarians.......but hate groups............that's why i was wondering if your next "advance" with some twi offshoot or the klan was coming up soon........just curious "bro"!............you have a nice weekend...........say hi to vic
Well, the twi and klan references are red herrings that only try to cloud and silence legitimate issues, so its a waste of time using smear tactics like that. Regarding the deleted post, Paw contacted me during last years campaign and thought that 1 clip of mine was hate speech, so I deleted it. It simply was a comparison of Hitler and Obama in the sense they are both golden-tongued orators mesmerizing the public, which I thought was a legitimate political point. I was happy to delete it as Paw requested but also told him I didn't think it was a violation of the forum rules.
I do think President Obama is a socialist. That is not hate speech, I think that is a fact, as a man is defined by his actions. Socialists seek to redistribute wealth and control more and more of the means of production; which is exactly what he is doing through his massive legalized theft spending programs, and pursuit to seize private firms..
Plain and simple, here are the real problems as I see them. Note this is completely non-partisan blame I'm laying here:
1- a capitalistic system which feeds greed and produces what PMosh called a "me first" mentality among the rich and really anyone that wants to partake in that very accepted and pervasive world view. What many of these regulatory bodies are in place for is to curb the practices that result from this mentality. Your "humble libertarian" friend has a very naive view of what capitalism is. Strict libertarian views only work when everyone believes in those same views, but we are in a pluralistic society, in almost every sense. Even if capitalism is based on "love" (equitable exchange) as he says, now the only love it is based on is the love of money.
2- corporate influence in the political realm. This brakes down into two categories.
a- lobbying groups. On some level it is a good idea as a means to let legislators the needs of differing groups of people. Health groups lobby for funding needed for an array of different diseases that need money, for eg. Although, what has happened is it has also become a tool for big business to get congress to pass laws that favor them making more money and it is left to the legislators to figure out how this may or may not effect the everyday worker and the less fortunate.
b- campaign finance. This is an additional way that big business takes a government that should be for and by the people and makes it for and by corporate America by buying influence.
3- Elected officials that have a total "lack of expertise" concerning the economics of the country. They then defer to pro-deregulation regulators like "the Oracle" for what would be the best economic policies for our country. We then end up with this bloated, volatile, totally unregulated market of derivatives. IT is so out of control and complicated that most people including our "congress critters" (as Ron calls them) don't understand it. We end up with the likes of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. We then get pro-deregulation right wing/ libertarians like yourself and Mr. Humble Lib either ignorantly or divisively partisan complaining about Clinton deregulating a 60 year old act of regulation.
4- Poor or non-existent oversight by state and federal regulating bodies. They have allowed AIG, for example, to get so out of control. If we are going to have regulations, and I believe we do in fact need to, then we need regulating bodies that actually do their job. Derivatives for example needs oversight and needs more of an exchange setting to trade their contracts. Then you need people to run those bodies that are principally in agreement with the purpose of that body. This is the same as a person applying for a job and the employer is looking for someone that will help support the vision of the company. If the applicant isn't then it would be counterproductive and just plain stupid for the employer to hire that person. Lack of overseeing regulation already in place by a deregulating regulator is what got us to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.
As for your "Humble" link...
Wrong. Banks were not strong-armed or encouraged to lend to people who were too risky. In fact, while the Community Reinvestment Act (which is what I believe he is referring to) was revised a number of times in the 90's it was specifically made clear that it was for getting rid of the practice of redlining but that it was not a suggestion or encouragement for a bank to take unnecessary risks. It was more about opening up geographical areas that had people that were worthy of loans but were denied strictly upon their location not wether or not they were able to pay back a loan. This would in fact fuel the economy by allowing worthy applicants the opportunity to invest in their community whether by creating a business, investing in real estate, or improving their local community and the local economy in other ways. It was a smart idea. Plus, it got rid of a practice that on face value looked racist in some incidences and doomed lower middle class and poorer areas to a much harder road to improvement.
What happened was banks (which had now become larger corporations than they had been once they were allowed interstate banking and branching in 1994) realized there there was money to be made here. Companies like Fanny and Freddie who were required to take on a certain percentage of affordable housing loans had business goals that went way above their requirements (at times only achieving half of what they were aiming for). No one was putting a gun to these banks heads. They saw a way to make a lot of money by taking on more and more risk and then trying to hedge that risk in the explosively growing derivatives market which is where we have what is called the "securitization of mortgages." Greed plain and simple. The bubble just kept growing from there. The market kept going up and "the Oracle" et al thought that the free private market had "completely hedged" itself from risk.
AIG's biggest problems is not with our housing market but with the fact that they insured a huge amount of mortgages in Europe. They are a global company and it is still being learned how far and extensive their reach is. This is why it is too big to fail. The government is the only one big enough to step in. Ch. 11 would not leave them restructured it would leave a world wide market shut down. This is the problem with the boom of the derivatives market and lack of regulation. It is unregulated capitalism gone wild.
Misguided again. The way trickle down economics works is like this. Profit is a slow drip from an ever-increasing well, but when sh!t happens, as any plumber or civil engineer knows, it runs down hill, especially when the guy with the mansion at the top of the hill is flushing as much of it down the toilet as he can.
I'm all for consequences but who is really baring the brunt of it. The fat cats will find another way to make a crap loan of money. Meanwhile, the hundreds of thousands of employees they had are out of work as are hundreds of thousands of other people in related and unrelated fields. With a company like AIG we are then talking about millions of people around the world. These are largely people that performed their jobs admirably. Millions of people loosing their homes, and not just the sub-primers. Middle class hard workers that haven't done anything wrong living on the street. People like me getting affected because my renters, good long term consistently paying renters) loose their jobs and are unable to pay rent. People loosing their retirement. Their far reaching arm as we see brings the whole market down. People everywhere loose money and their futures are full of nothing but consequences from the greed of a few.
Is that your idea of justice in the free market? Is that your idea of consequences of failure? On a side note, I wonder if all this really lines up with your Christian beliefs and how?
In a free market economy, there must be consequences for failure.
The consequences should be letting the bad companies whose leaders made the bad decisions go into bankruptcy and reorganize, and come back stronger and smarter.
Not reward all the mismanagement and greed you talk about by throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at it or controlling it outright.
Where in the Constitution is that power given the federal government to be the "saviour" of private companies and guarantee their losses?
No private company is too big to fail ... I think that is the kool-aid the people are being fed from the statist propaganda department, to protect their interests.
There always is a free-market alternative.
Some will be hurt and some are getting hurt anyway regardless of all the billions being spent.
But the market will eventually recover, it always does. People will recover.
During these times, cutting personal and corporate taxes to build a stronger recovery will help, it has helped during recessions in the past and can today, with politicians interested in creating wealth.
In contrast, socialists do not create wealth, they seize and redistribute it.
Socialism and fascism, under the guise of "compassion" and "equality", will do all it can to redistribute the wealth and take control of the private sector. I think that is the mindset. "Compassion" at the point of a gun.
We are seeing that right before our eyes in varying degrees.
Is that YOUR idea of Christianity?
The socialists and statists are the greedy ones, taking advantage of this crisis.
What was it that Hillary Clinton and Rahm Emanuel said, never let a good crisis go to waste?
When the statists have the power, I think they will advance their cause of legalized theft, redistribution, and control of the private sector. They are doing that right now.
I think they are so power hungry that most everything they can get away with during this crisis they are going to try like hell.
I do think President Obama is a socialist. That is not hate speech, I think that is a fact, as a man is defined by his actions. Socialists seek to redistribute wealth and control more and more of the means of production; which is exactly what he is doing through his massive legalized theft spending programs, and pursuit to seize private firms..
Nonsense. The ONLY fact is that YOU BELIEVE President Obama is a socialist.
Even IF your statement that "a man is defined by his actions" were true and/or applicable to this, it is not YOUR interpretation of his actions that would define President Obama one way or the other.
This reminds me of Hitler and Volkswagen... a private company, being controlled by the state.
I think it'd be unfair to call this Hitlerian type fascism, I mean, it isn't like he threw this guy in a concentration camp...
But a softer fascism, yes. Socialism, yes. Marxist theory in action, yes.
Obama says he doesn't want to run GM, but his actions speak so loudly, I cannot hear what he is saying.
Where in the Constitution does a president have authority to control private industries?
From Websters dictionary:
Main Entry: so·cial·ism
Pronunciation: \ˈsō-shə-ˌli-zəm\
Function: noun
Date: 1837
1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3: a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done
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George Aar
LH,
I get a sense of some serious "inside Baseball" being played here, all the same. I think the whole bonus fiasco was just throwing a little red meat to the crowd while the real business is being conducted behind the scenes. I have nothing really concrete to base that on, it's just how it "feels". The numbers are so large for the "real" problem, and so inconsequential for the boner problem, but it makes good copy, no?
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GeorgeStGeorge
Well, since taking bonuses isn't illegal, here's an idea...
How about making all the Senators and Representatives who voted for the bill allowing the bonuses to pay for them? (While we're at it, we should include the President, since he signed it into law.)
George
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lindyhopper
OM, if nothing else, you are predictable.
Is that what your right wing blogs are calling it, OM, the Glass-Steagall Repeal? The one that Pelosi, Biden, and Clinton signed? Don't you mean the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act? That would be Phil Gramm (R-Texas, chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs 95'-00' and one time McCain campaign financial advisor), Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa, who chaired the Banking and Financial Services Committee), and Rep. Thomas J. Bliley, Jr. (R-Virginia, Chairman of the House Commerce Committee from 1995 to 2001). It is also known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act. What your link left out was that the bill's first round of votes went straight down party lines with the one exception of a Dem voting with the Repubs in the Senate. Clinton first said he "would veto any legislation that would scale back minority-lending requirements." It wasn't until the Repubs "agreed to strengthen provisions of the anti-redlining Community Reinvestment Act and address certain privacy concerns" that the Dems came on board and virtually all of them did, including President Clinton. Oh, and did I mention this was after 200 million in lobbying and 150 million in campaign contributions to targeted banking and finance committee chairs from the finance, insurance, and real estate industries. This was the last of 20 attempts in 25 years which rewarded "financial companies for more than 20 years and $300 million worth of lobbying efforts."
There is a lot more to the repealing of the Glass-Steagall than I or your blog mentioned. The pro-deregulation Greenspan's hands were far from clean in this repeal. Take a look at this: The Long Demise of Glass-Steagull. In fact, if there was one person that could have stopped this from happening it would have been the man dubbed by many, even in congress, as the Oracle, Alan Greenspan. Leach said Greenspan was highly regarded in congress. He also said, “You’ve got an area of judgment in which members of Congress have nonexistent expertise.” Iowa (D) senator Harkin said Greenspan had "a way of speaking that made you think he knew exactly what he was talking about at all times" "a way that made people not want to question him on anything, like he knew it all. He was the Oracle, and who were you to question him?” This act was on Greenspan and Ruben's recommendation. But it was the push of the private sector (the announcement of the merger of Citicorp and Travelers) that pushed it all to a boiling point.
Read this article too: "Taking Hard New Look at a Greenspan Legacy".
Definitely read the Long Demise PBS link though, it's good... makes you sick to your stomach.
There is plenty of blame to go around, OM.
But as a MotleyFool article put it: blaming this all on the repeal of Glass-Steagull is like blaming the break up of The Beatles on Ringo. The already out of control leverage and derivatives trading was well established by the time the Act was repealed. At the same time the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act was being passed, Greenspan recommended that congress permanently strip the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) of regulatory authority. From the "Greenspan Legacy" article:
Fully hedged were they, Mr. Oracle?
I could go on and on...
edit.
What I can only blame elected officials? Put blame where it is due, not just on your tired partisan politics. As I said, there is enough to go around on both sides.
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Rocky
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Mister P-Mosh
Although inconsequential, they do make little purple pills to help with that.
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polar bear
I'll bet you a dollar to a donut that Dood was paid off by AIG and others to omit the bonus rights out of the legislation.
Bingo.
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oldiesman
Since you said there is enough blame to go around, let's also reference some on the left with the "income inequality" rants of Barney Frank & Co. Here's an excerpt from "The Humble Libertarian" about how AIG failed in the first place:
BTW I don't think the AIG bailout was necessary at all. Could have gone to Chapter 11 and reorganized like many private industries do. In the free market system, there MUST be consequences for failure else the government takes over like it has and you get socialism/fascism whatever you want to call it, it is another name for tyranny.
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Rocky
Please describe:
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oldiesman
Rocky, I am not answering any more of your questions. I was dumb enough to try, then asked you to reciprocate, and got the back of your hand. No more ... don't keep asking.
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Rocky
While you are obviously free to decide what to do about anything I post, I remain free to ask questions.
Frankly, the asking of the questions (specifically as done last night) in and of itself provides food for thought for any reader wishing to consider.
Your failure to reply responsively goes directly to my (implied) point that it's all in your irrational imagination anyway... that is, unless you explain otherwise what might actually be genuine tyranny of which you refer.
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oldiesman
Maybe the opposite was the case... Dodd, being the largest recipient of AIG contributions likely felt he needed to pay them back in some way, thus the bailout and bonuses. But with all the hoopla and pressure, now it appears he's giving the contribution money all back. Good. OBAMA should give AIG contributions back as well.
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DontWorryBeHappy
when and where is your next klan meeting oldies???.......just wondering..........peace.
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oldiesman
DWBH,
I know, facts about Dodd Obama & Co. get you guys on the left all upset. Relax bro. Have a nice weekend. :)
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DontWorryBeHappy
i'm quite relaxed thank you!.......dodd, geithner, have as much 'splainin' to do as paulson, bush, cheney, phil gramm, and boehner, et al........the entire mess is a testimony to the abject inequality of the financial "matrix" set up by all the "players of the last 20 years, imo...........as usual, the average working person winds up holding the bag.......which is so totally empty...........who do you think wasn't paid off by aiu?.........where'd you say this weekend's klan advance is?.........LHIM?
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oldiesman
Are you with ACORN?
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RumRunner
Think they'll be singing some o' dose ole time klan favorites at the advance? Like...
There's room on a cross for you
What a friend we have in Dave Duke
Oh burning cross, oh burning cross, how you light the night sky
Onward sheet covered rednecks...
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DontWorryBeHappy
LOL!.........nope......no acorn for me.........i am a registered independent......as i have been since 1976.............i try to ferret through the gross propaganda from all sides..........difficult to do most times!..........but, i have noticed your proclivity for right-wingers like prager, o'reilly, etc.,.........and, unfortunately, i have witnessed you having posts deleted which were, at least in the mind of the moderators here, filled with hate speech and rhetoric inspirational to what some might consider far right-wing hate groups..........not legitimate libertarians.......but hate groups............that's why i was wondering if your next "advance" with some twi offshoot or the klan was coming up soon........just curious "bro"!............you have a nice weekend...........say hi to vic
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lindyhopper
OM,
Plain and simple, here are the real problems as I see them. Note this is completely non-partisan blame I'm laying here:
1- a capitalistic system which feeds greed and produces what PMosh called a "me first" mentality among the rich and really anyone that wants to partake in that very accepted and pervasive world view. What many of these regulatory bodies are in place for is to curb the practices that result from this mentality. Your "humble libertarian" friend has a very naive view of what capitalism is. Strict libertarian views only work when everyone believes in those same views, but we are in a pluralistic society, in almost every sense. Even if capitalism is based on "love" (equitable exchange) as he says, now the only love it is based on is the love of money.
2- corporate influence in the political realm. This brakes down into two categories.
a- lobbying groups. On some level it is a good idea as a means to let legislators the needs of differing groups of people. Health groups lobby for funding needed for an array of different diseases that need money, for eg. Although, what has happened is it has also become a tool for big business to get congress to pass laws that favor them making more money and it is left to the legislators to figure out how this may or may not effect the everyday worker and the less fortunate.
b- campaign finance. This is an additional way that big business takes a government that should be for and by the people and makes it for and by corporate America by buying influence.
3- Elected officials that have a total "lack of expertise" concerning the economics of the country. They then defer to pro-deregulation regulators like "the Oracle" for what would be the best economic policies for our country. We then end up with this bloated, volatile, totally unregulated market of derivatives. IT is so out of control and complicated that most people including our "congress critters" (as Ron calls them) don't understand it. We end up with the likes of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. We then get pro-deregulation right wing/ libertarians like yourself and Mr. Humble Lib either ignorantly or divisively partisan complaining about Clinton deregulating a 60 year old act of regulation.
4- Poor or non-existent oversight by state and federal regulating bodies. They have allowed AIG, for example, to get so out of control. If we are going to have regulations, and I believe we do in fact need to, then we need regulating bodies that actually do their job. Derivatives for example needs oversight and needs more of an exchange setting to trade their contracts. Then you need people to run those bodies that are principally in agreement with the purpose of that body. This is the same as a person applying for a job and the employer is looking for someone that will help support the vision of the company. If the applicant isn't then it would be counterproductive and just plain stupid for the employer to hire that person. Lack of overseeing regulation already in place by a deregulating regulator is what got us to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.
As for your "Humble" link...
Wrong. Banks were not strong-armed or encouraged to lend to people who were too risky. In fact, while the Community Reinvestment Act (which is what I believe he is referring to) was revised a number of times in the 90's it was specifically made clear that it was for getting rid of the practice of redlining but that it was not a suggestion or encouragement for a bank to take unnecessary risks. It was more about opening up geographical areas that had people that were worthy of loans but were denied strictly upon their location not wether or not they were able to pay back a loan. This would in fact fuel the economy by allowing worthy applicants the opportunity to invest in their community whether by creating a business, investing in real estate, or improving their local community and the local economy in other ways. It was a smart idea. Plus, it got rid of a practice that on face value looked racist in some incidences and doomed lower middle class and poorer areas to a much harder road to improvement.
What happened was banks (which had now become larger corporations than they had been once they were allowed interstate banking and branching in 1994) realized there there was money to be made here. Companies like Fanny and Freddie who were required to take on a certain percentage of affordable housing loans had business goals that went way above their requirements (at times only achieving half of what they were aiming for). No one was putting a gun to these banks heads. They saw a way to make a lot of money by taking on more and more risk and then trying to hedge that risk in the explosively growing derivatives market which is where we have what is called the "securitization of mortgages." Greed plain and simple. The bubble just kept growing from there. The market kept going up and "the Oracle" et al thought that the free private market had "completely hedged" itself from risk.
AIG's biggest problems is not with our housing market but with the fact that they insured a huge amount of mortgages in Europe. They are a global company and it is still being learned how far and extensive their reach is. This is why it is too big to fail. The government is the only one big enough to step in. Ch. 11 would not leave them restructured it would leave a world wide market shut down. This is the problem with the boom of the derivatives market and lack of regulation. It is unregulated capitalism gone wild.
Misguided again. The way trickle down economics works is like this. Profit is a slow drip from an ever-increasing well, but when sh!t happens, as any plumber or civil engineer knows, it runs down hill, especially when the guy with the mansion at the top of the hill is flushing as much of it down the toilet as he can.
I'm all for consequences but who is really baring the brunt of it. The fat cats will find another way to make a crap loan of money. Meanwhile, the hundreds of thousands of employees they had are out of work as are hundreds of thousands of other people in related and unrelated fields. With a company like AIG we are then talking about millions of people around the world. These are largely people that performed their jobs admirably. Millions of people loosing their homes, and not just the sub-primers. Middle class hard workers that haven't done anything wrong living on the street. People like me getting affected because my renters, good long term consistently paying renters) loose their jobs and are unable to pay rent. People loosing their retirement. Their far reaching arm as we see brings the whole market down. People everywhere loose money and their futures are full of nothing but consequences from the greed of a few.
Is that your idea of justice in the free market? Is that your idea of consequences of failure? On a side note, I wonder if all this really lines up with your Christian beliefs and how?
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Rocky
Excellent questions. However, I would counsel you to not hold your breath waiting for OM to answer...
my hunch is he would have an extremely difficult time even allowing himself to become consciously aware of the ramifications of his political and economic beliefs as to how they would (mis)align with Godly wisdom/concepts.
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dmiller
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oldiesman
Well, the twi and klan references are red herrings that only try to cloud and silence legitimate issues, so its a waste of time using smear tactics like that. Regarding the deleted post, Paw contacted me during last years campaign and thought that 1 clip of mine was hate speech, so I deleted it. It simply was a comparison of Hitler and Obama in the sense they are both golden-tongued orators mesmerizing the public, which I thought was a legitimate political point. I was happy to delete it as Paw requested but also told him I didn't think it was a violation of the forum rules.
I do think President Obama is a socialist. That is not hate speech, I think that is a fact, as a man is defined by his actions. Socialists seek to redistribute wealth and control more and more of the means of production; which is exactly what he is doing through his massive legalized theft spending programs, and pursuit to seize private firms..
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oldiesman
In a free market economy, there must be consequences for failure.
The consequences should be letting the bad companies whose leaders made the bad decisions go into bankruptcy and reorganize, and come back stronger and smarter.
Not reward all the mismanagement and greed you talk about by throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at it or controlling it outright.
Where in the Constitution is that power given the federal government to be the "saviour" of private companies and guarantee their losses?
No private company is too big to fail ... I think that is the kool-aid the people are being fed from the statist propaganda department, to protect their interests.
There always is a free-market alternative.
Some will be hurt and some are getting hurt anyway regardless of all the billions being spent.
But the market will eventually recover, it always does. People will recover.
During these times, cutting personal and corporate taxes to build a stronger recovery will help, it has helped during recessions in the past and can today, with politicians interested in creating wealth.
In contrast, socialists do not create wealth, they seize and redistribute it.
Socialism and fascism, under the guise of "compassion" and "equality", will do all it can to redistribute the wealth and take control of the private sector. I think that is the mindset. "Compassion" at the point of a gun.
We are seeing that right before our eyes in varying degrees.
Is that YOUR idea of Christianity?
The socialists and statists are the greedy ones, taking advantage of this crisis.
What was it that Hillary Clinton and Rahm Emanuel said, never let a good crisis go to waste?
When the statists have the power, I think they will advance their cause of legalized theft, redistribution, and control of the private sector. They are doing that right now.
I think they are so power hungry that most everything they can get away with during this crisis they are going to try like hell.
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Rocky
Nonsense. The ONLY fact is that YOU BELIEVE President Obama is a socialist.
Even IF your statement that "a man is defined by his actions" were true and/or applicable to this, it is not YOUR interpretation of his actions that would define President Obama one way or the other.
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oldiesman
President Obama fires GM boss.
This reminds me of Hitler and Volkswagen... a private company, being controlled by the state.
I think it'd be unfair to call this Hitlerian type fascism, I mean, it isn't like he threw this guy in a concentration camp...
But a softer fascism, yes. Socialism, yes. Marxist theory in action, yes.
Obama says he doesn't want to run GM, but his actions speak so loudly, I cannot hear what he is saying.
Where in the Constitution does a president have authority to control private industries?
From Websters dictionary:
Main Entry: so·cial·ism
Pronunciation: \ˈsō-shə-ˌli-zəm\
Function: noun
Date: 1837
1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3: a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done
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