The curruption will (did) prevail - rant
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@rickw said:
Actually, short selling is borrowing shares to sell immediately at the current higher price, then purchasing at a lower price to replace the borrowed shares. This involves as much (or more) risk as normal stock purchases, because if the price does not drop enough (or the price goes up) before the deadline to settle the short, the investor loses money.
One investor buys, expecting the price to go up so he can sell and make a profit. Another investor borrows and sells, expecting the price to go down so he can buy and return, and make a profit. In both cases, the goal is to sell at a higher price than the purchase price - one investor just buys before selling, the other after selling.
Isn't it still illegal to borrow money to buy stock? To gamble? So now you can even borrow stock to buy money?
Nonetheless: Isn't this the kind of thing that gets a gambler's fingers broken...? (Show me some fingers: I volunteer!)
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It's never been illegal to borrow money to buy stock--margin buying.
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It's worse than you think. This pig of a bill is over 400 pages; it started out with 3, from Paulson, grew to 106 at the House. Now it's bloated with pork spending. This is sickening.
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@unknownuser said:
It's worse than you think. This pig of a bill is over 400 pages; it started out with 3, from Paulson, grew to 106 at the House. Now it's bloated with pork spending. This is sickening.
Ron, now I agree with you.
Absolutely sickening!
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You know, had either Obama or McCain voted "NO" and come out and said: "Of all the bills the Senate has passed, this is NOT the one to contain pork", they would be the next president. The whole country should be pissed about this, and I think they are.
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I thought about that, and yes that would have been a real "maverick" move, however if indeed the bill does not pass and the 'DOOM' scenario they warned of did happen, then we would have a whole different scenario, who wants to chance that? Imagine if you are the candidate that voted against it and the economy did the belly-up, everyones 401's crashed, lending ceased, depression hit, brokers jumping from windows (you get the picture)... the gamble is too great, both candidates, hold on, all representatives hate the bill, but anyone got a better idea?
Personaly I have no debt, no mortgage, no credit card balances, a few blue chip investments (that seem safe so far) so why me worry?. I am a friggin liberal and I worry about the country as a whole, so yeah, I accept the losses and the hard to swollow tax increase (which will happen no matter who gets the White house)and hope that this is the last concession (seriously doubt it). I just want to see some regulation, some rules, some prevention for future situations. I am seriously pissed that it takes 'Pork spending' to pass this bill however.
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Your points are well taken.....but we need leadership not politicians, ya know? I say there is a decent chance the House will reject it because of public outcry and then we're back to square one for the second time...deja vu all over again.
The VP debate...................
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Don't forget the $500 or $600 billion we've already signed over in the past few weeks.
Even the economists who still don't think this will work are starting to climb on board the "hurry-up" wagon 'cause the gamblers are now jumping ship in droves...dumping what little assets that were left in the market into bonds. They think raising the FDIC safety net may at least stave off the JoeBlow bank runs that are just around the corner.
I swear, if my measley IRA drops any further I'm gonna start looking for yachts to defecate in...the simple pleasures my be all I have left.
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@tomsdesk said:
Rick, I believe you are reaching over all these recent morgage backed security shemes and scams that allowed outside individuals to skim off the capital that is needed now. I think you are ignoring the accompanying rut of fraudulant morgage qualifications, given to people who couldn't/shouldn't legally have been accepted into the programs you mentioned, in order to create more monopoly-money to play with.
I repeat: creed, fraud, and conspiracy! If you want to call the politicians stupid for not anticipating corruption...no argument from me. But this problem was caused by crooks!
Considering quite a bit of the fraud was occurring within Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (government entities), who were paying of dems like Frank to block oversight that would avert future fraud, then there's still political causes.
I agree with you that greed played a huge part. I'm not trying to sound like I disagree. But the origins of the problem are political. The crooks just took the situation to its inevitable conclusion.
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My feeling is that we should prosecute the theft before we persecute the stupidity...above all, this outcome, especially the corrupted misuse of the legislation, was not the intent of the politicians (one would hope)...they just wanted to help a few more good people to qualify for the American dream.
This recent pervading attitude that the victim is somehow always complicit in the crime is pure Horse-Pucky: without criminals there is no crime...and without this mindset there would be far fewer criminals. These guys walking away with millions from this mess should be treated as Enemy #1...and until they are history will repeat.
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@tomsdesk said:
These guys walking away with millions from this mess should be treated as Enemy #1...and until they are history will repeat.
Are you talking about CEO's or Senators?
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@unknownuser said:
@unknownuser said:
Are you talking about CEO's or Senators?
Not my question so forgive me but those I have come to know were one in the same and traveled in the same circles.
No problem. It was a tongue-in-cheek question to tomsdesk that seemed timely after all the pork that got added to the "bailout" bill.
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@rickw said:
Are you talking about CEO's or Senators?
HeeHee!
I'm talking about anyone involved in the fraudulant behavior! The real money didn't disappear, it's still out there somewhere...in the hands of crooks it doesn't belong to.
Can you imagine how the market would tank if prosecution had been promised in the bailout bill...?
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I don't think all the 700 billion has been handed out yet. Has it? But I get your point. There is none of the accountability they were talking about beforehand. Just one last handout from the Bush administration.
Also the point was that the banks were supposed to produce something: credit. Now you may think this is something made out of nothing, but that's what this country has been running on. Somehow the banks are not being any easier with the credit than they were, and no one's going to make them.
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@unknownuser said:
I'm talking about anyone involved in the fraudulant behavior! The real money didn't disappear, it's still out there somewhere...in the hands of crooks it doesn't belong to.
The fundamental reason for all the chaos is that the Capitalist monetary system is essentially a scam.
I strongly recommend listening to the following: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=z13TzFBtsWw
It lasts just over an hour, but it is an audio only clip so you can listen while you work etc.It as an explantion, in laymans terms, of how so-called "national" banks such as the "Federal Reserve" or the "Bank of England" are actually cartels and NOT national banks controlled by their respective governments.
You may not agree with all that he says, I don't myself, but a lot of it helps make sense of the boom and bust nature of the capitalist system.
If the monetary system used is, at root, dishonest then it follows that everything else flowing from it is corrupted.What does the future hold?
Well, we can all speculate, but what is certain is that no political or economic system lasts forever. As has been said before, "We live in interesting times".Regards
Mr S -
[quote="tomsdesk"]My feeling is that we should prosecute the theft before we persecute the stupidity...quote]
Great quote Tom, my feeling exactly.
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I would expect a Canadian to be more affected by what happens to Detroit than a Californian.
I, for one, am writing to my representatives. Just because no one's posting here, doesn't mean Americans are not trying to follow this and experiencing shock and awe.
It's not just a simple matter of rooting for a particular bill--but now this:
"Given the current weakened state of the US economy, we will consider other options, if necessary including use of the TARP program, to prevent a collapse of troubled automakers," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
This may be to your liking, but it underlines that somehow Congress has handed over more than 700 B to a lame duck administration to hand out at will. (and very lame--eats me up that we have to have yet another month of their stupefied dys-management and graft.)
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As I said in my previous post:
@unknownuser said:
If the monetary system used is, at root, dishonest then it follows that everything else flowing from it is corrupted.
The former chairman of the Nasdaq stock market has been arrested and charged with securities fraud, in what may be one of the biggest fraud cases yet.
Bernard Madoff ran a hedge fund which ran up $50bn (£33.5bn) of fraudulent losses and which he called "one big lie".For more info (and don't believe for a minute that this is a one-off) visit: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7779442.stm
The capitalist economic model is mostly conducted through the use of smoke and mirrors. We are all locked in to it, through no choice of our own, and because we have seen the collapse of various "socialist" economic systems we are all too scared to consider any alternatives.
We are in the horrible position of wanting to see the downfall of all these economic criminals but know that hundreds of millions of innocent victims (us!) could have our lives destroyed in the process.
Between a rock and a hard place comes to mind.
Regards
Mr S -
I would not go that far to blame Politicians for morgages given to people who do not have real means to repay. I am afraid all that is cooked by bankers. They have created model where they were betting on increase in productivity and prices steadily going up. It looked as easy win...but as capitalism is Sh**ty system which goes into boom and bust cycles then there is always one generation or two who do not remember last bust and they pay correction price...
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[quote="pbacot"]I would expect a Canadian to be more affected by what happens to Detroit than a Californian.
Why?
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