I takes a crook to know a crook..

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Spence
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I takes a crook to know a crook..

Postby Spence » Tue Mar 01, 2011 1:40 am

"History doesn't always repeat itself but it often rhymes." - Mark Twain

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Re: I takes a crook to know a crook..

Postby billybud » Tue Mar 01, 2011 8:19 am

Sure....we have acknowledged for decades that social security was a Ponzi arrangement.....the scheme has just now moved to the whole budget.
Last edited by billybud on Tue Mar 01, 2011 2:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: I takes a crook to know a crook..

Postby Spence » Tue Mar 01, 2011 9:08 am

billybud wrote:Sure....we have aknowledged for decades that social security was a Ponzi arrangement.....the scheme has just now moved to the whole budget.



That is exactly right and the whole federal government is complicit.
"History doesn't always repeat itself but it often rhymes." - Mark Twain

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Re: I takes a crook to know a crook..

Postby donovan » Tue Mar 01, 2011 10:01 am

...And I believe Madoff when he says the banks, etc, knew he was doing something wrong and said, "just don't tell us."
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Re: I takes a crook to know a crook..

Postby Spence » Tue Mar 01, 2011 1:22 pm

I do too and that is the big thing wrong with this country. We let people break the law as long as we are seeing a benefit. No one wants to do what is right because it is right.
"History doesn't always repeat itself but it often rhymes." - Mark Twain

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Re: I takes a crook to know a crook..

Postby billybud » Tue Mar 01, 2011 2:30 pm

The whole real estate bubble was a Ponzi type scheme...and like all Ponzi scheme's, it finally collapsed. As always, the first investors in a Ponzi scheme usually do all right while those late in the bubble get burned the worst.

if you bought and then sold before the collapse, you prospered.
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Re: I takes a crook to know a crook..

Postby Spence » Tue Mar 01, 2011 4:58 pm

billybud wrote:The whole real estate bubble was a Ponzi type scheme...and like all Ponzi scheme's, it finally collapsed. As always, the first investors in a Ponzi scheme usually do all right while those late in the bubble get burned the worst.

if you bought and then sold before the collapse, you prospered.


The real estate bubble was another government sponsored Ponzi scheme. Freddie and Fannie up to their neck in bad mortgages sold to people who were bad loan risks, with the "house flippers" and design - build guys making out like bandits. Banks giving people loans for two or three times what they could possibly pay back because the government underwrote the loans and we get to pay that back too.
"History doesn't always repeat itself but it often rhymes." - Mark Twain

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Re: I takes a crook to know a crook..

Postby Spence » Tue Mar 01, 2011 7:19 pm

The problem with the government being in things that should be left to the private sector is that the government is susposed to be a watchdog. If private business is corrupt the government can prosecute, if the government is corrupt it is hard to change.
"History doesn't always repeat itself but it often rhymes." - Mark Twain

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Re: I takes a crook to know a crook..

Postby billybud » Wed Mar 02, 2011 6:00 pm

And the problem with business is that it pays millions to control government. How does government perform its function when business is the primary financial backer for candidates in the election of "representatives of the public".

It used to be that what was good for business was good for America. Not any longer. What is good for business is increasingly often bad for the American worker, the American balance of trade, etc.... but is good for the business stockholder.

Business has no national boundry. Business cares not about a particular country's economy but rather about the business profit. Good for the the top 10% of the American people who hold the lion's share of the wealth and who are getting richer while the working class wilts. It's now about company profits as a multinational organization without allegiance to a particular country.

If we measure competitiveness by profits and cash balances, domestic companies have never been stronger. That's because they've earned record profits of $1.66 trillion in 2010 and held cash balances near a record $2 trillion. That competitiveness has come out of the hides of the country's workers -- nearly 15 million of whom are out of work.

American companies are achieving competitiveness by firing American workers and hiring foreign ones. Take GE as an example....According to its most recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing as reported by the Huffington Post, GE has eliminated 34,000 U.S. jobs while adding 25,000 overseas. It now employs 36,000 more people overseas than here. GE's overseas sales as percent of its total are rising -- from 50% in 2007 to 54% in 2009. And according to this filing, GE plans to invest outside the U.S. "indefinitely."

With US companies shifting market strategy to offshore sales in China, India, etc...there is no real incentive to see that Americans still have jobs, still can make a living.
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Re: I takes a crook to know a crook..

Postby billybud » Wed Mar 02, 2011 6:15 pm

Spence...it was "business" who lobbied, paid bunches of bucks and demanded that Freddie and Fannie back loans. Builders, bankers, realtors, developers, etc.

If loans were were not backed by the government, far fewer people could buy their products. We'd have a housing crunch much like the one we are currently in with credit dried almost completely up. Banks, without backing for a loss, would only loan to those who met stringent standards, a much, much smaller market.

With a standard 20% down for a conventional mortgage and housing costs averaging over $250,000 in many areas, business folks knew that far, far fewer people had the $50,000 in cash to pony up than had the $8,000 or so it would take for the 3% loan. So, business demanded government backing for loans to broaden their markets.....and it came home to roost.
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Re: I takes a crook to know a crook..

Postby Spence » Wed Mar 02, 2011 9:01 pm

billybud wrote:Spence...it was "business" who lobbied, paid bunches of bucks and demanded that Freddie and Fannie back loans. Builders, bankers, realtors, developers, etc.

If loans were were not backed by the government, far fewer people could buy their products. We'd have a housing crunch much like the one we are currently in with credit dried almost completely up. Banks, without backing for a loss, would only loan to those who met stringent standards, a much, much smaller market.

With a standard 20% down for a conventional mortgage and housing costs averaging over $250,000 in many areas, business folks knew that far, far fewer people had the $50,000 in cash to pony up than had the $8,000 or so it would take for the 3% loan. So, business demanded government backing for loans to broaden their markets.....and it came home to roost.



Business took advantage of government insisting every one be "able" to buy a house. The 20% down rule should have always have been enforced. People want everything right now. That is what is wrong with this country today. We have maxed out our credit card. A housing crunch is a way to bring prices in line with reality. If you can't get together a down payment for a house, you may not be able to afford that house.

If the government hadn't of underwritten the loans the banks would have have been responsible for their own bad business decisions. It doesn't matter what the banks "demanded", the government didn't have to allow it and they shouldn't have allowed it. It is like leaving your car unlocked in a parking lot with money on the seat. If enough people find out about it you are going to be robbed.
"History doesn't always repeat itself but it often rhymes." - Mark Twain

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Re: I takes a crook to know a crook..

Postby billybud » Thu Mar 03, 2011 3:41 pm

Don't be naive. Freddie and Fannie "bought government".

"Over the past decade, both Fannie (FNM) and Freddie (FRE) made the list of Washington's top 20 lobbying spenders. They spent a combined $170 million to cultivate allies during that period, a bit less than the American Medical Association and a bit more than General Electric. At the same time, their executives have consistently led the mortgage-banking sector in campaign giving to members of Congress, contributing a combined $16.2 million since 1997.

People who have lobbied on their behalf have played or are playing roles in the presidential campaigns of both Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama."


Link of payola below:
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/07 ... fanni.html
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Re: I takes a crook to know a crook..

Postby billybud » Thu Mar 03, 2011 3:45 pm

Only in 2008..after the disaster...did the lobbying get "fixed"..

http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2011 ... ohibition/
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Re: I takes a crook to know a crook..

Postby Spence » Thu Mar 03, 2011 4:10 pm

billybud wrote:Don't be naive. Freddie and Fannie "bought government".

[i]"Over the past decade, both Fannie (FNM) and Freddie (FRE) made the list of Washington's top 20 lobbying spenders. They spent a combined $170 million to cultivate allies during that period, a bit less than the American Medical Association and a bit more than General Electric. At the same time, their executives have consistently led the mortgage-banking sector in campaign giving to members of Congress, contributing a combined $16.2 million since 1997.

People who have lobbied on their behalf have played or are playing roles in the presidential campaigns of both Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama."
Link of payola below:
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/07 ... fanni.html[/quote]

Fannie and Freddie are the government. I am not naive. The are like the post office. A non government - government institution.

At the end of the day guys like Chris Dodd and Barney Frank got the rules through congress that let this happen. Did banks take advantage? Sure they did, but at the end of the day it was an unexpected consequence of bad lawmaking by government. They wanted everyone to be able to buy a house, the banks made the loans knowing the government was on the hook for the money. The people that ran Freddie and Fannie (hand picked by the government who created them) were corrupt. You can blame the banks if you like, but the government put in the rules that the banks used to write the bad loans.

The banks do have to own responsibility for not doing what is right, when they knew it wasn't right - but the government put the rules in place and then blamed everyone but themselves for the problem.
"History doesn't always repeat itself but it often rhymes." - Mark Twain

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Re: I takes a crook to know a crook..

Postby billybud » Thu Mar 03, 2011 5:24 pm

The government was "owned" by Fannie, Freddie, and their banking freinds...

Fannie and Freddie are private....but they and their budies bought the policies that they wanted.

For those that don't know this...

"240 former legislators, bank committee staffers, and Treasury officials deployed to lobby. $600 million spent in lobbying, trade association activity and political contributions since March 2008. And that is just from the six biggest banks. The entire financial industry is spending an estimated $1.4 million a day, hiring 70 former members of Congress to make their case."

Read on:

http://www.dailypaul.com/134327/banking ... g-congress
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