Wall Street Socialism

This weekend, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, former head of the Goldman Sachs investment house, provided us with a perfect demonstration of Wall Street socialism.

[Lance Winslow]

Bush, Bernanke, Paulson and the Hugo Chavezization of Wall Street financial institutions.

[Larry]

Great article.

It's ridiculous that we are bailing out large corporations and their fat cat CEO's thanks to the Bush/Cheney administration Republicans and their horde of corporate lobbyists.

This is all happening at the expense of the American middle class.

Just imagine how far we could be with renewable energy if we invested in that instead of lining the pockets of CEO's all the time...

Larry,
Independent TX voter

[Mr_Bill]

Larry wrote:

Great article.
It's ridiculous that we are bailing out large corporations and their fat cat CEO's thanks to the Bush/Cheney administration Republicans and their horde of corporate lobbyists.
This is all happening at the expense of the American middle class.
Just imagine how far we could be with renewable energy if we invested in that instead of lining the pockets of CEO's all the time...
Larry,
Independent TX voter

And the Bush supporters, who would best benefit from the knowledge, will skip right over this article.

[Study your Government]

On the one hand: I'm not sure why the federal government subsidizes anything. Let the market reign, and it'll all wash out. However, we have become so used to being pampered and protected from market swings that we scream and cry and panic before we even hit all the requirements for a recession...

On the other hand: if the government allowed these monsters to fail, there'd be an outcry against the government for that. All the jobs lost! The mortgage crises created! The economic disaster! The sky is falling!

I'm amused when folks rail against 'corporations' as though they're some evil entity. They employ the majority of Americans, last time I checked. We provide them our labor and services, they provide us cash to put food on our tables. Hamstringing and limiting and regulating corporations only serves to string ourselves up, ultimately.

[Kimbefly]

The difference between Democrats and Republicans:
Democrats want to take money from rich people and give it to poor people. Republicans want to take money from poor people and give it to rich people.

[Communism vs Capitalism]

Communism for the rich! Capitalism for the Poor!

[Thoreauing]

Wasn’t it Stalin who predicted that socialism would replace capitalism? Wall Street socialized with mutual funds and investment banks keep out competition controlling the market just as Stalin said in 1929. Wall Street is out of stuff to sell they’re out of junk bonds and sub-prime mortgages. Wait there’s another scam on the horizon “Reverse Mortgages” look for reverse equity mortgage lines of credit to take the lead in greed. It’s coming to a bank near you. Caveat emptor

[Mr_Bill]

Study your Government wrote:

On the one hand: I'm not sure why the federal government subsidizes anything. Let the market reign, and it'll all wash out. However, we have become so used to being pampered and protected from market swings that we scream and cry and panic before we even hit all the requirements for a recession...
On the other hand: if the government allowed these monsters to fail, there'd be an outcry against the government for that. All the jobs lost! The mortgage crises created! The economic disaster! The sky is falling!
I'm amused when folks rail against 'corporations' as though they're some evil entity. They employ the majority of Americans, last time I checked. We provide them our labor and services, they provide us cash to put food on our tables. Hamstringing and limiting and regulating corporations only serves to string ourselves up, ultimately.

You have a basic, simplistic misunderstanding of economic reality.

No one is 'attacking''corporations' the criticism is about the corrupt way they do business.
Regulations don't hamstring corporations, they save them from themselves.

I suspect that you have little understanding of human nature either. That is what is behind deviant corporate behaviour.
In a word, greed.

[Study your Government]

Mr_Bill wrote:

<quoted text>
You have a basic, simplistic misunderstanding of economic reality.
No one is 'attacking''corporations' the criticism is about the corrupt way they do business.
Regulations don't hamstring corporations, they save them from themselves.
I suspect that you have little understanding of human nature either. That is what is behind deviant corporate behaviour.
In a word, greed.

And you make rather broad (and unfounded) assumptions based on a solitary post.

And you've made broad generalizations regarding corporations. Few corporations are 'corrupt', and 'greed' is not rampant in corporate America. A drive to succeed, certainly; but there is a distinct different between the two. And it's not necessary to be corrupt and greedy to be successful. And again, these corporations fund the majority of Americans' livelihoods. It's a reciprocal relationship, by and large.

Are there some corps that are unethical? Of course. Just like there are some people who need to check themselves and tend to their sweeping, error-filled generalities.

[Reciprocity]

Study your Government wrote:

<quoted text>
And you make rather broad (and unfounded) assumptions based on a solitary post.
And you've made broad generalizations regarding corporations. Few corporations are 'corrupt', and 'greed' is not rampant in corporate America. A drive to succeed, certainly; but there is a distinct different between the two. And it's not necessary to be corrupt and greedy to be successful. And again, these corporations fund the majority of Americans' livelihoods. It's a reciprocal relationship, by and large.
Are there some corps that are unethical? Of course. Just like there are some people who need to check themselves and tend to their sweeping, error-filled generalities.

When have the majority of Americans' workers in this reciprocal relationship had the ability to create the conditions for hostile take-overs/ out-sourceing/ use of illegal aliens to drive down wages/ ability to negotiate away factories and entire industries to the global economy?. When has the ordinary worker had the reciprocity of inflated salries, bonuses and Golden parachutes? Where is this reciprocity?

[Mr_Bill]

Study your Government wrote:

<quoted text>
And you make rather broad (and unfounded) assumptions based on a solitary post.
And you've made broad generalizations regarding corporations. Few corporations are 'corrupt', and 'greed' is not rampant in corporate America. A drive to succeed, certainly; but there is a distinct different between the two. And it's not necessary to be corrupt and greedy to be successful. And again, these corporations fund the majority of Americans' livelihoods. It's a reciprocal relationship, by and large.
Are there some corps that are unethical? Of course. Just like there are some people who need to check themselves and tend to their sweeping, error-filled generalities.

You really don't get it.

All corporations are not 'unethical.'

They have no ethics at all. They are not people, with ethical sysytems, and morals. They are corporations.

It is the officers of corporations who have standards. You talk of corporations as if they have personalities.

Greed is the standard we have seen most of recently from our corporations; selling huge gas-guzzler cars, ripping off the electricity users in California, providing unsafe & dangerous wiring in the facilities used by our troops in Iraq, knowingly selling trailers to be used by poor Gulf people, with no warnings at all...

I wish your Pollyanna world were reality, I really do. But we have been moved farther and farther from that ideal, since the age of Reagan.

[Study your Government]

Reciprocity wrote:

<quoted text>When have the majority of Americans' workers in this reciprocal relationship had the ability to create the conditions for hostile take-overs/ out-sourceing/ use of illegal aliens to drive down wages/ ability to negotiate away factories and entire industries to the global economy?. When has the ordinary worker had the reciprocity of inflated salries, bonuses and Golden parachutes? Where is this reciprocity?

Unions.

The demands of the unions have often (but not always) made American labor far more expensive than foreign.

Is that proper? Is it fair? I dunno. I just know that we are in a global market nowadays, and American workers seem to want to pretend that we're not.

Business, including major corporations, is about making money. And if someone can do your job more cheaply, any smart business will do so.

If we as a nation don't start understanding the global economy and what it takes to be competitive, we'll be sunk.

Do I think there's some evil CEO sitting atop a building somewhere, trying to come up with an evil master plan to torture all his employees? No way. I do think there's a CEO up in his office somewhere trying to figure out how to cut costs to make his company more cost-effective. And I know there are workers out there putting in their day of labor and getting paid.

There are also CEO's out there who don't give a damn if their workers are on the street if it saves money. But there are also workers who go in and don't want to do their job; they want to get paid for 8 hours but only really work 6. It cuts both ways.

[Consider the Source]

Lance Winslow wrote:

Bush, Bernanke, Paulson and the Hugo Chavezization of Wall Street financial institutions.

Blame the right people. Clinton and Jesse led are the ones who started this sub-prime, easy loans fiasco.
----------

September 30, 1999
Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending
By STEVEN A. HOLMES

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been UNDER INCREASING PRESSURE FROM THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.

''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer.''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''

Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.

IN MOVING, EVEN TENTATIVELY, INTO THIS NEW AREA OF LENDING, FANNIE MAE IS TAKING ON SIGNIFICANTLY MORE RISK, WHICH MAY NOT POSE ANY DIFFICULTIES DURING FLUSH ECONOMIC TIMES. BUT THE GOVERNMENT-SUBSIDIZED CORPORATION MAY RUN INTO TROUBLE IN AN ECONOMIC DOWNTURN, PROMPTING A GOVERNMENT RESCUE SIMILAR TO THAT OF THE SAVINGS AND LOAN INDUSTRY IN THE 1980'S.

''FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF MANY PEOPLE, INCLUDING ME, THIS IS ANOTHER THRIFT INDUSTRY GROWING UP AROUND US,'' SAID PETER WALLISON A RESIDENT FELLOW AT THE AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE.''IF THEY FAIL, THE GOVERNMENT WILL HAVE TO STEP UP AND BAIL THEM OUT THE WAY IT STEPPED UP AND BAILED OUT THE THRIFT INDUSTRY.''

Taken from: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...

[Thoreauing]

Consider the Source wrote:

<quoted text>
Blame the right people. Clinton and Jesse led are the ones who started this sub-prime, easy loans fiasco.

You won’t find Bill or Jesse’s name on any of those sub-prime loans. All they did was make money affordable so many more people could get into the American dream, which now for many is a nightmare. The sub-prime opportunity turned into a scam when unconscionable mortgage brokers played on the greed of a potential borrower and viola! Everybody made money. Unfortunate for those that got their loans- they are the only ones paying for it. The realtors and money brokers are living of the backs of those poor greedy small people who so desperately want to live large. Ignorance is really a luxury no one can afford.

[Individualist]

Thoreauing wrote:

<quoted text>
You won’t find Bill or Jesse’s name on any of those sub-prime loans. All they did was make money affordable so many more people could get into the American dream, which now for many is a nightmare. The sub-prime opportunity turned into a scam when unconscionable mortgage brokers played on the greed of a potential borrower and viola! Everybody made money. Unfortunate for those that got their loans- they are the only ones paying for it. The realtors and money brokers are living of the backs of those poor greedy small people who so desperately want to live large. Ignorance is really a luxury no one can afford.

Bill & Jesse are the ones who opened the door to abuse. They are the beginning, and if it were Bush & - say - Pat Roberson, instead Bill & Jesse, you would be calling for their heads - and you know it.

Whereas I agree some unscrupulous lenders added fuel to the fire, they were HIGHLY encouraged - at best - to make easy loans available.

I take it you don't have much experience with the undeucated poor. Well, more often than not, they are poor and uneducated for a reason. The make poor choices. Some out of ignorance, some becauses they have low IQs.

For example, there was a welfare mom in Denver, Colorado who won $50,000 from Lotto. The first thing she did was buy an expensive car and a color TV. Then, not did she didn't have enough money for insurance, when the tax man came around - and the welfare people wanted some of that money, too - she didn't have it.

Now, according to your thinking, it was the people who sold her the car and TV who are at fault for the mess she found herself in - RIGHT?

[Northie]

Communism vs Capitalism wrote:

Communism for the rich! Capitalism for the Poor!

Or, as Senator Dodd put it, we are socializing risks and privatizing rewards.

[Individualist]

Communism vs Capitalism wrote:

Communism for the rich! Capitalism for the Poor!

Capitalism is for those who want to live free and are willing to be self-reliant to do it.

Communism is for those who want to be told how to live, and those who want to tell others how to live...and who lives:
http://www.digitalsurvivors.com/archives/comm...

We are on the road from the former to the latter, from freedom to serfdom...and worse.

We got on this around the end/first of 20th century, and have been traveling it ever since.

[Thoreauing]

Individualist wrote:

<quoted text>
I take it you don't have much experience with the undeucated poor. Well, more often than not, they are poor and uneducated for a reason. The make poor choices. Some out of ignorance, some becauses they have low IQs.
For example, there was a welfare mom in Denver, Colorado who won $50,000 from Lotto. The first thing she did was buy an expensive car and a color TV. Then, not did she didn't have enough money for insurance, when the tax man came around - and the welfare people wanted some of that money, too - she didn't have it.
Now, according to your thinking, it was the people who sold her the car and TV who are at fault for the mess she found herself in - RIGHT?

To answer your question:“NO.”

There’s a huge difference between uneducated and being stupid. Being uneducated and poor are temporal conditions that can be corrected. Many of the wealthy start out as uneducated and poor. Genius has its limits but stupidity know no bounds. About that woman in Denver, she had $50k so she was reasonably wealthy and wanted to make an investment, which is equally prudent but to blow it all……well that’s just not smart.

[Individualist]

Thoreauing wrote:

<quoted text>
To answer your question:“NO.”
There’s a huge difference between uneducated and being stupid. Being uneducated and poor are temporal conditions that can be corrected. Many of the wealthy start out as uneducated and poor. Genius has its limits but stupidity know no bounds. About that woman in Denver, she had $50k so she was reasonably wealthy and wanted to make an investment, which is equally prudent but to blow it all……well that’s just not smart.

You reply makes no sense, so I assume you didn't read my post. The woman had been on WELFARE for years. You said:

"About that woman in Denver, she had $50k so she was reasonably wealthy and wanted to make an investment, which is equally prudent "

You call a welfare mother who goes out and buys a car so expensive she can't even afford the insurance, AND a TV to be prudent investments???

The rest of your post is equally...weird.

If you REALLY believe the actions of Bill Clinton - as laid out in thata 1999 NY Times article - in no way started the housing finance crisis we are know paying for, you are truly duped or a hardcore ideologue.

RIGHT NOW congress is talking about bailing out Fannie Mae, and the 1999 article - about Clinton's ORDERING the loosening of credit standards - said:

IN MOVING, EVEN TENTATIVELY, INTO THIS NEW AREA OF LENDING, FANNIE MAE IS TAKING ON SIGNIFICANTLY MORE RISK...THE GOVERNMENT-SUBSIDIZED CORPORATION MAY RUN INTO TROUBLE IN AN ECONOMIC DOWNTURN, PROMPTING A GOVERNMENT RESCUE SIMILAR TO THAT OF THE SAVINGS AND LOAN INDUSTRY IN THE 1980'S.

''FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF MANY PEOPLE, INCLUDING ME, THIS IS ANOTHER THRIFT INDUSTRY GROWING UP AROUND US,'' SAID PETER WALLISON A RESIDENT FELLOW AT THE AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE.''IF THEY FAIL, THE GOVERNMENT WILL HAVE TO STEP UP AND BAIL THEM OUT THE WAY IT STEPPED UP AND BAILED OUT THE THRIFT INDUSTRY.''

----------

And that is exactly what has happened. They FAILED.

This is just the latest Liberal intervention that has turned into a disaster and - AS USUAL - you Leftist bozos won't even acknowledge your part in it - much less take responsibilty.

Liberals cause FAR more problems than they solve.

[Individualist]

Thoreauing wrote:

<quoted text> Being uneducated and poor are temporal conditions that can be corrected. Many of the wealthy start out as uneducated and poor.

Temporal... of or relating to the sequence of time or to a particular time...then why hasn't Liberalism brought an end to this "temporary" problem?

Democrats have been promising to solve all the social problems for over 40 years. Since FDR, and particularly since LBJ - the man who spent the Social Security money, which by law was supposed to be invested for future retirees, on welfare programs.

All we have to show for Liberal intervention is problems,

from splitting society by focusing on differences instead of common ground

TO

broken black families where the males think manhood is measured by how many different women they can impregnant, leaving fatherless children, unwed mothers on social programs and Grandmothers having to raise their grandchildren

- not to mention the rampant black on black crime & murders that do more harm than the KKK EVER could.