I Don't Get It I Guess

[AquaMan]

I would think thats a pretty common look for a Cosmetologist, especially one under 25 yrs of age.

[guido911]

As the late Clara Peller famously asked, "Where's the beef?"  There's been no criticism of the OWS central tenet - that Wall Street should be held accountable for crashing our financial system and the resulting nationwide havoc.  I've seen lots of snide pokes at individuals, but not much about the message. 

Are you kidding? Since when is Wall Street crashing the financial system the central tenet of OWS. Those people are going after everything from banks to health care to education to infrastructure, and to eating the rich in general. The message itself cannot be articulated, and those advancing whatever the message, are hampered by the behavior of most unsavory elements of our society.

[guido911]

When I was once dragged to Ihloff, I saw much weirder looking people working there.

Suuurrreee you were "dragged" to Ihloff.  I was once "dragged" to Night Trips".

[Red Arrow]

I would think thats a pretty common look for a Cosmetologist, especially one under 25 yrs of age.

I guess every generation has their special look.

[Red Arrow]

Rachel Maddow..who, by the way is Rhodes Scholar.

Just knocked my opinion of Rhodes Scholar down another notch.

[guido911]

Just knocked my opinion of Rhodes Scholar down another notch.

And W graduated from Yale and Harvard Business School and we all know what a dumb@ss he is/was. Other notable Rhodes scholars: Kris Kristofferson, Gov. Bobby Jindal, and the Clenis.

[carltonplace]

As the late Clara Peller famously asked, "Where's the beef?"  There's been no criticism of the OWS central tenet - that Wall Street should be held accountable for crashing our financial system and the resulting nationwide havoc.  I've seen lots of snide pokes at individuals, but not much about the message. 

+1

at the very roots I agree with the tenents of both movments:
TPM- Government: Stop being so big and stop being wasteful with my money
OWS- Coporations: if you are people then why do you like money more than other people?

I think the TPM is better at identifying the government as a collection of humans, while the OWS sees corporations more as nebulous entities. 

[Gaspar]

As the late Clara Peller famously asked, "Where's the beef?"  There's been no criticism of the OWS central tenet - that Wall Street should be held accountable for crashing our financial system and the resulting nationwide havoc.  I've seen lots of snide pokes at individuals, but not much about the message.  

But isn't that deflection?  Wall Street was simply doing what Wall Street does, making money.  

Our financial system was set on a path to imminent crash by the inflation of a bubble in the housing sector that snowballed.

Our own federal government is to blame.  Policy was enacted to encourage banks to take on bad debt, and an assumption established that that debt would be guaranteed by the fed.  Banks that did not participate in the loan guarantee process through Fanny & Freddy were subject to investigation and prosecution by the justice department.

Banks have sold investment products on loans for ever.  Typically this is a good investment for those on Wall Street, because the elements of these products are vetted through the loan process and backed up by the lenders through collateral.

Investment products that contained loans with the Fanny & Freddy stamp were considered even better because after all, the federal government backed Fanny & Freddy.

Sure there were some speculators who were smart enough to understand that the government was creating a bubble, but there was nothing illegal in the trading of such assets.  In fact, the government needed these accomplices to make the scheme work for as long as it did.

It has already been established beyond a doubt that the OWS crowd is not intellectually equipped to understand this, so the deflection on Wall Street alone is easy.  Especially since good financial minds will learn to make money in good times and bad, and Wall Street has many such minds.  This makes them the easy target for the intellectually impaired.

Meanwhile the architects of our financial collapse slouch towards the exit as their scapegoats weather the storm.  I guarantee you that many OWS folks will decry the Wall Street banker, and then turn around and pledge continuing support for Barney Frank.

[AquaMan]

Well, at least you're posts are sort of entertaining.

So, OWS people are established to be "not intellectual enough" to understand what happened. Your usual arrogance. Who established that? You, Fox and Guido? Why didn't you include TP's as well? My lawyer friend in Washington walked among them with a banner touting single payer and was booed and yelled at. When he started talking to them they didn't even know what single payer was. In fact, most of them had no clear understanding of health insurance at all.

You say, the Federal Government Caused All This. So, since the federal government is made up of Americans from all walks of life, many political philosophies and spanning decades of different political party domination, are you saying that Americans are stupid, criminal, self serving scammers? What good does it do to blame something as amorphous as "the Federal Gubmnt"? The one thing you could have determined, with a little unaided personal reflection, was that Wall Street and the Federal Gubmnt share one thing. They depend on lobbyists paid for by Wall Street to write the financial legislation for politicians (whose campaign are funded by those same entities) that enables the whole process. But you only see the Feds as the problem because that is infinitely easier than creating solutions.  What're you proposing? Eliminate the Fed? Throttle it till it is easily ignored by Wall Street?

And, your legal mind is keen today as well. Nothing illegal occurred? I just doubt your expertise on these matters. I'll go with your insights on Q, but not law and politics. Nonetheless, that is what all these demonstrations are about. People who make the rules to benefit themselves and their pals, play fast and loose with them and when it all falls apart and the masses have to pay for their orgy, continue to live like Princes while alleging they did nothing illegal.

In your rush to absolve Wall Street of blame and dismiss OWS as looney, indulgent, undisciplined hippies, you deflect from the fact that our system is failing us. The perception of corporate America and Wall Street in particular as predatory and elitist will continue to drive demonstrations by those not invited to the party, in one form or another

[Gaspar]

Well, at least you're posts are sort of entertaining.

So, OWS people are established to be "not intellectual enough" to understand what happened. Your usual arrogance. Who established that? You, Fox and Guido? Why didn't you include TP's as well? My lawyer friend in Washington walked among them with a banner touting single payer and was booed and yelled at. When he started talking to them they didn't even know what single payer was. In fact, most of them had no clear understanding of health insurance at all.

You say, the Federal Government Caused All This. So, since the federal government is made up of Americans from all walks of life, many political philosophies and spanning decades of different political party domination, are you saying that Americans are stupid, criminal, self serving scammers? What good does it do to blame something as amorphous as "the Federal Gubmnt"? The one thing you could have determined, with a little unaided personal reflection, was that Wall Street and the Federal Gubmnt share one thing. They depend on lobbyists paid for by Wall Street to write the financial legislation for politicians (whose campaign are funded by those same entities) that enables the whole process. But you only see the Feds as the problem because that is infinitely easier than creating solutions.  What're you proposing? Eliminate the Fed? Throttle it till it is easily ignored by Wall Street?

And, your legal mind is keen today as well. Nothing illegal occurred? I just doubt your expertise on these matters. I'll go with your insights on Q, but not law and politics. Nonetheless, that is what all these demonstrations are about. People who make the rules to benefit themselves and their pals, play fast and loose with them and when it all falls apart and the masses have to pay for their orgy, continue to live like Princes while alleging they did nothing illegal.

In your rush to absolve Wall Street of blame and dismiss OWS as looney, indulgent, undisciplined hippies, you deflect from the fact that our system is failing us. The perception of corporate America and Wall Street in particular as predatory and elitist will continue to drive demonstrations by those not invited to the party, in one form or another

Wow.  You're going in all directions there.  Don't get dizzy.

[AquaMan]

Wow.  You're going in all directions there.  Don't get dizzy.

What, you're not intellectually equipped to keep up?

Just picked out a couple of egregious remarks you made and expounded upon them.

[nathanm]

But isn't that deflection?  Wall Street was simply doing what Wall Street does, making money.  

Our financial system was set on a path to imminent crash by the inflation of a bubble in the housing sector that snowballed.

Our own federal government is to blame.  Policy was enacted to encourage banks to take on bad debt, and an assumption established that that debt would be guaranteed by the fed.  Banks that did not participate in the loan guarantee process through Fanny & Freddy were subject to investigation and prosecution by the justice department.
...
Meanwhile the architects of our financial collapse slouch towards the exit as their scapegoats weather the storm.  I guarantee you that many OWS folks will decry the Wall Street banker, and then turn around and pledge continuing support for Barney Frank.

Government's role is to be the nag that keeps Wall Street from going overboard and tanking the economy. At that, they failed, but not for any reasons you list. Your reasons are complete revisionist history thrown out there by Erick Erickson and his ilk so as to deflect the blame away from his side's failed policies.

Here are the facts: Despite all the talk about subprime, subprime isn't what gave us this mess. Subprime originations were less than a fifth of the total mortgage volume in the vintages where mortgage losses are highest. Fannie and Freddie aren't what gave us this mess, either. They were losing market share like mad to other securitizers who had lower standards. In the worst years (for losses), they had less than 50% market share. It only went back up after everyone else got out of the business after the crash.

Fannie and Freddie did make mistakes. Their CEOs saw the declining market share not as a good thing, but as them doing wrong by their investors. They managed to keep out until almost the end, but couldn't help but buy some super-senior tranches of toxic MBSes. This is where most of their losses not attributable to the general downturn in the housing market came from. Keep in mind that Fannie and Freddie did not have the authority to relax their lending standards or increase the size of loan they could purchase, and Congress did not expand their role until after the meltdown, when they and FHA were providing all the liquidity in the mortgage market.

Remember, jumbo loans are called jumbo because neither the GSEs nor FHA can buy them. They got priced out of the vast majority of California and Florida before 2005, and that's precisely where most of the losses are.

Edited to add: Here's an image illustrating my point. There's something a little odd about the middle of the last decade...

[Gaspar]

What, you're not intellectually equipped to keep up?

Just picked out a couple of egregious remarks you made and expounded upon them.

The point is, if we can trace our economic failure to policy, then it is easy to remedy.  We simply recognize, and do not make such policies in the future.

When the Federal Government aspires to manipulate markets, there is a negative consequence.  A far reaching and powerful consequence that is difficult (if not impossible) to predict.

Why is that so hard to understand?  Why do we have to learn that again, and again, and again?

[nathanm]

Why is it so hard to understand? Because it's simply not true as a universal axiom.

[Gaspar]

Why is it so hard to understand? Because it's simply not true as a universal axiom.

Ahh, so that is why we are preparing to do it again.  Perhaps eventually we will get this market manipulation thing right.  Seems to permeate politics these days.

Recite the liberal mantra:

"If at first you don't succeed, try Keynes again."