How Much Blame Does He Deserve For This Mess?
Readers suggested a topic on the housing bubble and the outgoing President. “Since we are approaching the end of the Bush debacle, a very good topic would be how much blame he deserves for this mess. Throw out your shoes on the 20th. In the streets!”
“How many of us would it take to buy us some senators (like the bankers have been doing for eons)? Get em to stand up and speak for the Constitution! Well, it was nice to think about it anyway.”
The Virginian Pilot. “Foreclosure activity in Hampton Roads jumped in December despite some of the nation’s lenders suspending home repossessions. The number of foreclosure-related notices filed in December in Hampton Roads was 1,321, up 22 percent from November and 258 percent from year-ago levels, according to RealtyTrac.”
“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac recently announced that they would extend the moratorium to the end of this month, but that may make little difference when it comes to the pace of foreclosure, said James Koch, an economist at Old Dominion University in Norfolk. ‘None of this changes my viewpoint that we’re still headed for lots of grief,’ he said. ‘There are lots of potential problems out there. These problems are going to be exacerbated by the economy and people losing their jobs.’”
The Naples News in Florida. “Cape Coral-Fort Myers had the highest foreclosure rate in the nation for 2008. According to RealtyTrac, 12.03 percent of housing units received a foreclosure related notice last year. ‘It’s over six times the national average and over two times the state average,’ said Daren Blomquist, a spokesman for RealtyTrac.”
“In Lee County, 41,040 properties received foreclosure related filings last year, up 219 percent from 2007. California had the most properties receiving filings last year — at 523,624. Among the nation’s largest metropolitan areas, Stockton, Calif. had the highest foreclosure rate in 2008. In December, Cape Coral-Fort Myers had the second highest foreclosure rate in the country among the 230 metros — and the highest rate in Florida.”
The Review Journal from Nevada. “In one of the more ominous signs of Las Vegas’ crumbling housing market, foreclosures nearly tripled in 2008 from the previous year. Lenders took back 31,416 homes in Clark County during the year, compared with 11,509 in 2007. Preforeclosure filings nearly doubled to 67,314 from 33,953 during the period. It’s by far the highest numbers since Foreclosures.com began tracking the information.”
“Nationwide, foreclosures increased 63 percent for the year to about 1 million, plus 2 million filings that could lead to foreclosure.”
“Of the 22,000 homes for sale on the MLS, roughly 8,200, or 37 percent, are bank-owned, according to Applied Analysis research firm. ‘That’s a big number,’ principal Jeremy Aguero said.”
“Asking prices on homes continued to fall at the fastest rate in Las Vegas, according to (a) report. Prices were down 3.6 percent in December, the ninth straight month that Las Vegas has posted the largest decline among major markets, and down 6.8 percent during the fourth quarter.”
The Register Pajaronian from California. “A little less than half the homes for sale in Watsonville are owned by banks due to foreclosure. And much of the remainder are short sales, in which the lender agrees to accept less than the amount they own. In Santa Cruz County, the number of foreclosures jumped from 146 in 2006 to 506 in 2007 to 1,351 last year, according to the Santa Cruz Record. No spot in the county has been hit as hard as Watsonville, which has seen roughly the same number of foreclosures as the rest of the county combined.”
“‘That’s the market,’ Stephen Pearson, the immediate past president of the Watsonville Association of Realtors, said in an interview with the Register-Pajaronian. ‘Really, everything right now is a distress sale.’”
“The leap in foreclosures has put a glut of housing on the market, and has caused prices to further plummet. Watsonville’s high foreclosure rate has made it attractive to buyers, Pearson said, noting that 219 homes are currently for sale — compared to about 40 when the market was strong — and 49 have sales pending. ‘People are buying,’ he said. ‘We are a hot spot from the sales standpoint; (most of) the prices are in the 100 (thousand dollars), 200s, 300s.’”
The Merced Sun Star in California. “It’s another dubious distinction: Merced County led the state last year in foreclosure filings. One out of 10 houses in the county were in some stage of foreclosure, according to RealtyTrac. That 10 percent figure translated to 8,291 homes in the county.”
“San Joaquin County ranked second with 9.46 percent of its homes, or 21,127, in foreclosure. Stanislaus County was third with 8.9 percent of properties, or 14,883, headed back to banks.”
“Within those staggering statistics are people who are losing their homes either because of bad mortgages or predatory lenders. Rose Martinez is one of them. The 80-year-old Merced resident is on the verge of losing the West Avenue home she moved into on July 4, 1960. The four-bedroom, two-bathroom house cost $13,500 at the time.”
“She seems unnerved by the thought of losing it. Jeff, her 41-year-old son who lives at home to care for her, admits he’s more scared. ‘I thought I’d be dead by now,’ she said, a Virgin of Guadalupe necklace dangling on her sweater. ‘What can I do? I can’t do nothing.’”
“Forty-five years later — at the height of a housing boom that seemed endless — she took out a $175,000 loan. Martinez used the money to consolidate debt, buy new appliances, replace the roof and take a couple trips to visit her children. Close to that same time in 2005, she was diagnosed with a form of bone cancer, which has forced her in and out of the hospital. Her husband, an Army veteran who fought in World War II, had died four years earlier.”
“By winter 2007, she had begun falling behind on payments. Collecting about $1,500 every month through Social Security and her husband’s retirement, she felt comfortable with the $600 payments. Then they grew to $750 and later to $1,500. By May 2008, she had stopped trying to pay off the loan. A statement from the summer shows that she owes $191,819. That’s since grown to $212,000 because of lawyer’s and late fees.”
“Her home is set to be auctioned in front of the county courthouse in February. If that goes through, there’s a good chance she’ll be forced to move within 90 days. Her son has been trying with no success to strike a compromise with the lender. He’s also been lobbying state and federal representatives, suggesting that the government trade seized drug homes for bank-owned homes as a way to fight the foreclosure problem.”
“Banks, he argues, would still end up with a house, while residents could keep their home. At this point, he’s run out of options. Rose has applied for low-income housing. She’s on a long list, he’s told, though his dad’s military status may help her chances. Outside the home where he grew up, he sighed, ‘I don’t know what we’re going to do.’”
Both Bush due to his ignorance and Dick Cheney due to his ambitions to make rich richer are the causes for failure. And there was no check from anyone to all their policies. Regulations were overthrown. Outsourcing was at its peak. Sub-contracting from Govt. peaked at more than $400 billion per year making all corporations richer.
It will take at least 5-6 years to get out of this mess.
5 or 6 years? You are an optimist my friend.
Prostitutes aside
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021302783.html
Spitzer the Democrat has-been, Spitzer the Democrat big spender.
Spitzer the disgraced Democrat finds fault (surprise) with the Bush Administration. And the Obama-tons swallow it as learned fact; hook, line, and sinker.
What?!
Man, and the RePUBlicans have a corner on moral virtue/fiscal responsibility? The Repub…? THOSE guys?!
Don’t make me laugh, silly azure person.
Oh, wait, no, DO make me laugh, ’cause laughter is fun.
Anyway, moving on, hey, guess what everyone, I went to the Grotlet this morning and got a great deal on cheeses! For my party for tomorrow. Listen, if I don’t post for a few days past Tuesday, please send me some bail money, care of Ben Jones*.
*I know that’s presumptuous, Ben. I probably won’t need it, anyway. That’s the whole point of befriending cops; it’s not just the cute uniforms and handcuffs, it’s the ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card. Hahahahaahah!
* pats my own fluffy Olyhead in recognition of my stupendous smartness *
Don’t make me laugh, silly azure person.
Smurfs?
Snort, chuckle, giggle.
Oh my eyes are leaking!!!
S.T.O.P.
No offense Cobalt.
Oh, fluffy head.
Chortle!
Leigh
Well, what? My head IS fluffy, Mz. Leigh!
Are you disputing the allegations made by Spitzer or just flapping your gums. There are many other state attorneys general that state the same thing. I’m happy if you want to post some evidence to refute the allegations, most on this board will at the very least put together an arguement. If you can’t do either of these things than I suggest you keep quiet.
There are two parties to this housing disaster: the greedy folk who got into these loans in the first place, and the loan companies that enabled them. I dislike Bush as much as anyone else, but it’s something of a cop-out to keep blaming this man for every single problem this country currently faces. Spitzer is a hypocrite - the states, craving massive property tax revenues, played a massive role in keeping the real estate gravy train going long after it should have been halted.
I agree, Julius. Bush’s epic incompetence is exceeded only by his monumental hubris and complete absence of intellectual curiousity. I don’t need to recite all the fiascos, bungling, and abuses that occurred on his watch. While the fools he installed as economic advisers have done their bit to debase the coin of the realm and mortgage our children’s futures, the bottom line on the housing bubble is the millions of greedy, stupid people willingly signed contracts that committed them to taking on dangerous levels of debt while buying into the NAR snake-oil that housing only goes up.
With respect to “W”… I have one comment… His old baseball team faired better than the country.
History will indeed judge his gross incompetence.
George W Bush has been grossly under-rated by the press and the little people. He may have a very tiny little soul but he is and always as been, DEFINITELY a 5 shoe and a real “HEEL” of a President.
Dubya bush = ***** Heel rating
Not funny, well kind of -
Peace protesters in D.c. say goodby to Bush - leave shoes near White House.
I’ll post a link if requested.
Dang, this shoe thing is sad. President Bush ducked Iraqi journalist shoe thrown.
Having served in the M.E, I know the act of throwing a shoe at another - I have NEVER witness such an act, as it is considered the WORST insult.
I make no judgements.
I offer instead we understand the insult before applying said action.
Best,
Leigh
Eliot Spitzer editorial in Washington Post prior to prostitute and prior to crash
Febuary 2008
Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. Some were misrepresenting the terms of loans, making loans without regard to consumers’ ability to repay, making loans with deceptive “teaser” rates that later ballooned astronomically, packing loans with undisclosed charges and fees, or even paying illegal kickbacks. These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets.
Predatory lending was widely understood to present a looming national crisis. This threat was so clear that as New York attorney general, I joined with colleagues in the other 49 states in attempting to fill the void left by the federal government. Individually, and together, state attorneys general of both parties brought litigation or entered into settlements with many subprime lenders that were engaged in predatory lending practices. Several state legislatures, including New York’s, enacted laws aimed at curbing such practices.
What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge? As Americans are now painfully aware, with hundreds of thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure and our markets reeling, the answer is a resounding no.
Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.
Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers.
Let me explain: The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC has been in existence since the Civil War. Its mission is to ensure the fiscal soundness of national banks. For 140 years, the OCC examined the books of national banks to make sure they were balanced, an important but uncontroversial function. But a few years ago, for the first time in its history, the OCC was used as a tool against consumers.
In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government’s actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.
But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.
Throughout our battles with the OCC and the banks, the mantra of the banks and their defenders was that efforts to curb predatory lending would deny access to credit to the very consumers the states were trying to protect. But the curbs we sought on predatory and unfair lending would have in no way jeopardized access to the legitimate credit market for appropriately priced loans. Instead, they would have stopped the scourge of predatory lending practices that have resulted in countless thousands of consumers losing their homes and put our economy in a precarious position.
When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners, the Bush administration will not be judged favorably. The tale is still unfolding, but when the dust settles, it will be judged as a willing accomplice to the lenders who went to any lengths in their quest for profits. So willing, in fact, that it used the power of the federal government in an unprecedented assault on state legislatures, as well as on state attorneys general and anyone else on the side of consumers.
I’ll probably get labelled as a “conspiracy nut” for saying this, but could this (plus his other corporate crime-fighting efforts) possibly be the reason *why* Spitzer was “outed” and eventually ousted from power?
There’s nothing the Bush Administration –and banksters– loathed more than a competent whistleblower who actually stood up to them.
Harm,
Unfortunately Spitzer as well as Clinton only have themselves to blame on this. If both of them had kept their pants zipped, they wouldn’t have gotten into trouble.
C’mon! Who gives a rat’s @ss who zips down whose pants!?
Fellow SFers have got to stick together and let the freak flag fly, SFBAG!!
MrBubble
Mr. Bubble,
I believe in putting the blame where it belongs. Egos and zippers seem to get more male politicians into trouble.
‘If both of them had kept their pants zipped, they wouldn’t have gotten into trouble.’
Yeah, but who wants to stay out of trouble? No, really? The point is here, I believe, who ‘doesn’t want to get caught in a documentable fashion’.
See, it’s not the zipper, it’s the ‘getting caught’ thing.
Like with serial killers and war heroes. The best ones, the ‘real’ ones don’t get brought up on charges.
Right? Right.
‘C’mon! Who gives a rat’s @ss who zips down whose pants!? ‘
Me. If I’m doing the zipping. But that’s me. I’m critical that way.
Olympiagal,
You are a freak…and I like it!!!
The federal government’s actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.
which is part of the explanation of why Canadian banks were not affected
Don’t forget how they caught Spitzer. He moved $4k from one bank account to another. Because of this they tapped his phones.
I bet the FBI had more people working on this than working on predatory lending or mortgage fraud.
Its all about priorities.
What an extraordinary post, Measton.
Thank you so much for sharing this insight.
Quite simply, I think Bush is more responsible than any other one person. This whole meltdown is on him. He and Cheney, and countless others, should be imprisoned. I’m more than just a little disappointed by the fact that the Obama camp has all but ruled that out.
What about the Banking Queen and his Doddering friend? Surely they were highly complicit…
what about Chuck “sweet deal” Schumer and his ****buddy Angelo Mozilo?!?
there’s no info on Barney being bought. au contraire with Schumer!
(my take is that Frank is sadly deluded, not dishonest. he’s a really smart guy who can’t grok the idea that he’s wrong for once.)
Yes, they’re all complicit, including the lisping queen and his doddering cohort. But if ever one person should shoulder the blame it’s Bush- simply because he’s the top guy in a sea of sleaze.
If this mess is going to be placed on any one person, it should probably be Alan Greenspan.
You know, I think you’re right, Julius. There’s just tons of blame to go around, no doubt of that, and everyone was a REtard—except not us here, I mean everyone else, of course–just about everyone involved in this mess was lax and/or willfully inattentive, or else downright stupid, but the fact is, Ol’ Wobblechins was HIRED to understand this crap! To run stuff! To marry policy and money so they wouldn’t kill each other like hateful newlyweds with shotguns! To save us from dumb*ass*ery!
I think that all of us were hoping that someone, somewhere, sometime was the place that the buck stopped? This old guy ought to have been the highest money authority in the land, I mean, you know, such as it was and is…
And what did he do, this ‘Ol Wobblechins? He hunched forward into the mike, driveling arcane polysyllabic nonsense for a bunch of years, and then what? Jeebus, I don’t know. Probably went home and fondled his personally-signed copy of ‘Atlas Shrugged’ and drooled into the flyleaf while gumming on a biscuit.
Look, I’ll cut the rant short—let’s kill him. It couldn’t hurt. Plus he ought to be easy to catch, with all his former friends deserting him. I know I’m in the moo0d. I often am, though. But in this case, everyone should be.
WHERE is my post!
It was one of my finer rants, too!
I do not think that Presidents merit praise or scorn for the state economy.
Question his decisions, question his candor, be vigilant.
But whether Saddam Hussein purchased yellowcake uranium or whether KSM should have been waterboarded appear far removed from some dim bulbs borrowing a million dollars or more to buy a ranch house in San Diego, or dropping $300K in exurban Vegas or Phoenix.
He re-appointed Greenspan. That is W Bush’s liability, as well as Clinton’s, HW Bush’s, and Reagan’s.
Making this a Bush/Cheney issue is a gross oversimplification.
Even making it a bi-partisan issue is ignorant. What has happened goes to the very core of a much broader culture, and many layers of culture lacking moral restraint or ethical discipline.
Greed is bad. It infected so, so many.
‘Greed is bad. It infected so, so many.’
Yes, it did. Greed is very much a semi-bald monkey thing, but the point is, we HIRED PEOPLE to save us from ourselves? So where were they?!
Oly, that is such a great line! it encapsulates the essence of our culture/society. Personal responsibility is so..so… REPUBLICAN!!
The Chimp will go down as the worst president in our history. He reminds me of General Sherman riding thru the south during the Cival War. Everywhere he goes, he leaves a disater, from his foriegn policy to what he left of our economy. Everything is in chaos. I believe the democrats have as much blame as the republicans. We need a complete overhaul at the top. Corrupt and dishonest leadership has filtered down to our financial world and even in to our companies. Sorry for the rant.
“I believe the democrats have as much to blame as the republicans.”
They are as different sides of the same coin.
“They are as different sides of the same coin.”
Amen! This 2 party system needs some reorganization.
agree… lots of blame to go around with this one.. the guy at the top is not at the top of my list of those who should shoulder the brunt of the blame for this disaster… equal part democrat and republican.. fire them all…
Increasingly, they have seemed to me to be a two-headed (or two-tailed) coin, the only difference being the loser when it’s flipped.
Hoover = bad
FDR = good
media decides for the illiterate
they had the same policies
Hoover stayed the course. FDR turned over the entire society. Perhaps you have confused Hoover the American President with Hoover the beloved bringer of aid to a devastated Europe after WWI.
Actually, I’m sure a lot of Americans wondered why Hoover loved to bring food to starving French children while they huddled around bean-can fire pits in the jungles and wondered what had happened to America.
Got a funny family story for y’all…
It was the summer of 1932. Hoover was campaigning for re-election. And, if you’ve read the history of that campaign, it didn’t go well for poor old Herbert. From coast to coast, he was met with hostility.
And that extended to the home of my Aunt Jean’s neighbors. Mr. Hoover was a friend of the neighbors, and he stopped by a visit.
My aunt recalls that Hoover was wearing a white suit, and she never saw that get-up outside of church. Five-year-old Jean found this to be quite confusing. Jean also thought his presentation was boring (emphasis Jean’s).
The highlight of the visit was provided by the neighbors’ dog. Said dog walked right up to Hoover and lifted his leg on the President.
I hate it when I ruin a good story with an un-closed em tag.
+1
The President has both the legal and a moral Responsibility and Duty to follow the Consitution, the Laws of the Land and Protect and SERVE the United States and it’s people.
It is the bully pulpit and when the President speaks, it gets attention and people do listen for better or worse.
If President Lyndon Johnson had come clean and said that the PT attacks on the US ships Maddox and Turner Joy were a radar mistake or farse, we wouldn’t have CHARGED into Vietnam.
If Bush had come clean and said Saddam had NO weapons of mass destruction, clear ties to al-quada real intentions or realistic ways of attacking the US, we WOULDN’T have been in I
We would have still invaded.
There was a backup plan.
Don’t forget McCain going on Letterman and being the first politician to link Iraq with the anthrax letters:
LETTERMAN: How are things going in Afghanistan now?
MCCAIN: I think we’re doing fine …. I think we’ll do fine. The second phase — if I could just make one, very quickly — the second phase is Iraq. There is some indication, and I don’t have the conclusions, but some of this anthrax may — and I emphasize may — have come from Iraq.
LETTERMAN: Oh is that right?
MCCAIN: If that should be the case, that’s when some tough decisions are gonna have to be made.
http://www.youtube.com/v/tlAUj4s6sT0
The President has both the legal and a moral Responsibility and Duty to follow the Consitution, the Laws of the Land and Protect and SERVE the United States and it’s people.
It is the bully pulpit and when the President speaks, it gets attention and people do listen for better or worse.
If President Lyndon Johnson had come clean and said that the PT attacks on the US ships Maddox and Turner Joy were a radar mistake or farse, we wouldn’t have CHARGED into Vietnam.
If Bush had come clean and said Saddam had NO weapons of mass destruction, clear ties to al-quada real intentions or realistic ways of attacking the US, we WOULDN’T have CHARGED into Iraq.
Likewise, if the President had come clean and said, “Folks, my staff, advisors and indications tell me that we HAVE a couple of dangerous economic and RE bubbles building here and WE recommend you back off a little on the credit and wild speculative spending or we WILL regulate accordingly”, people would have listened.
Presidents Do have a lot of Power that is given to them by the Office and the People. It can be used without creating stupid wars or financial panics.
They just some how conveniently FORGET who they are suppoused to be WORKING FOR and have their own little agendas supplied to them by dangerous little friends and greedy special interests
And the first time President Obama states that no one should be foreclosed on, what are you gonna say? I mean, people do listen, for better or worse.
“The Chimp will go down as the worst president in our history. He reminds me of General Sherman riding thru the south during the Cival War. Everywhere he goes, he leaves a disater, from his foriegn policy to what he left of our economy.”
Well, I think Barky the Precedent will go down as a bigger flop. He reminds me of both Hitler and the Anti-Christ. From his inauguration costing FOUR times as much as the next most expensive, everything about him screams of fraud, waste and abuse.
Look for the complete and total disintegration of the economy and country to occur under his watch. Even the Hollywood liberals who now revere Him as the Messiah will soon disown and condemn the Annointed One.
“Look for the complete and total disintegration of the economy and country to occur under his watch.”
And it took him only 8 years to do it.
Mission Accomplished
The people who twice voted for Bush have always denied that he and his henchmen hold the lion’s share of the blame in ruining this country. They will pin the blame on anyone other than the one who deserves it, even a president who hasn’t taken office yet.
But I’m not surprised, when the same folks blamed Saddam for the work of Osama bin Laden…their inability to hold themselves accountable for their own mistakes makes them delusional.
It’s astonishing how BHO has wreaked so much destruction on the nation before he has even assumed office. I’m guessing you’re a GOP or Faux News operative?
It would be easier to just admit it and move on: Chimp = worst president in (at least) half a century.
“It would be easier to just admit it and move on: Chimp = worst president in (at least) half a century.”
Thanks for the succinct hip-tip, it is much appreciated. I’ll try to reform and do better.
Now, it would be easier for the Obama-tons to finally admit their man has no plan; he’s done nothing but further entrench the failed people and policies of
yesteryear in his pre-Inaugural speeches and appointments; and after Tuesday, he will just be another paid-for politico, ducking and weaving, stammering and stuttering, as events keep spiralling out of control. He may go through his first carton of Luckies fairly fast.
Disclosure: registered Libertarian, former (now thoroughly disgusted) Democrat.
Unfortunately, I did not have the option of voting for Ron Paul this election, and Bob Barr I do not find very appealing. So, even though I disagree with BHO on a number of important issues, I help my nose and went for “Change” as the lesser of two evils. I don’t sleep with O’s picture under my pillow, I don’t collect coins with his face on them, and I don’t refer to him as “The One”. But I wish him luck with the huge challenges ahead –he’s going to need it.
None of the above changes my deep feelings of disgust towards GWB and his Administration and their epic mishandling of major economic, foreign policy and civil rights issues.
It doesn’t strike you that whomever became President would not have an easy job ahead of him now?
You actually come across as full of hate unfortunately.
I’m thinking Barry likes him some Newport or Kools not Luckies.
Hmmmm now why might it be Newports or Kools and not, say Marlboro Lights?
Say, since you can see into the future, would you mind telling me who to bet on for the Super Bowl? I could use the extra cash, quite frankly. Actually, how bout just giving me the winning lottery number for the CA draw on 1/29/09 as I’ll be passing through the state? Thanks so much in advance, clairvoyant one.
Cobalt - as regulars know, I am a registered Libertarian and have no particular regard for the professed platforms of either “major” U.S. party. I am also a Southron - a term not universally used or accepted. I ask that you capitalize (in your context) South, since it is, in American-English usage/grammar to date, the proper way to denote the significant political area in which the cultural heritage is that of the southern United States. I’ll accept being tagged a culture-geek for that observation, but we Southerners receive precious little respect and I am as proud of my heritage as any Northerner, or Kenyan, or Hawaiian or African-American is of their own.
Redutio ad Hilterum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum
Now that’s good arguing!!
I’m sorry but I just don’t see this as a Alfred E. Newman/Darth Vader only issue. Clinton has his mits all over this, too. Oh my goodness, lest we forget: Dodd and Barney and everyone else!
What we are seeing is the collapse of our economy - and maybe worse! - because of corporate actions, Demo-Repub misguided attempts to steer and lead the country, our mistakes as a people, etc. This list goes on. I’m pretty sure that we are looking at a “basic system reset” after a “blue screen” event. Black swan? No, I used to think that but not any longer.
I want people to look at the 1929 crash and 1930’s Depression as linked events. I no longer think of them as separate like I used to. The link is not subtle either.
Way to much credit caused the Stock Market (think margin investing) to rise too high. It crashed, and then a Gov’t response to the natural business downturn (restricting credit, Smoot-Hawley, attempts to keep wages up, reflation :O ) made things much worse. The Gov’t response did this because of a woefully insufficient understanding of the economy at that time. On other words, the banks failed and failed and failed, the companies failed, the borrowers failed, the country failed.
This time around, the banks can fail but the deposits are more or less insured (not the big money anyway). Now we don’t have banks, we have Goldman, Lehman, Citi, Frannie/Freddie, etc. Different kinds of banks, but still failing, devaluation of currencies are replacing Smoot Hawley and the other “beggar thy neighbor” actions by world gov’ts of ’20s and ’30s, attempts to keep housing prices from falling and stop foreclosures replace ’30s wage support actions, and a general lack of real understanding of the whole situation in the world economy. This last item is EXACTLY THE SAME in the ’00s as the ’20s and ’30s. Some things aren’t different, are they?
Roidy
I do not know who to blame for foreign policy and other mess
But for financial mess has been created by only one person
and that Mr. Alan Greenspan who is the worst economist for
the whoe world he made financial mess not only for USA but
for the world financial system.
The world political leaders and fiancial leader gave too much
attention to his policy and he has only one policy thats is
If there is any financial crisis resolve it with one solution just
print the money. he must have printed as much money in his
@ 18 yrs as fedral reseve which rest of the world banker might
not have printed
He kept intrest rate too low so all the banker and financial institution and Individual took very high risk in their invesments Bank gave loan too pepople who were not creditworthy of $ 50,000.00 were given $ 500,000.00 loan
Think Fransisco d’Anconia when you review Greenspan’s actions and swap out a copper company with the US economy.
“I am destroying d’Anconia Copper, consciously, deliberately, by plan and by my own hand. I have to plan it as carefully and work as hard as if I were producing a fortune - in order not to let them notice it and stop me, in order not to let them sieze the mines until it is too late. I shall destroy every last bit of it … that could feed the looters.
…
for the spirit of what it was … and some day, will be again.” Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, Centennial Edition, pg 617.
Only a complete global collapse will highlight the differences between the creators and the looters. Watch who does what and you will see too.
And then perhaps you will become angry and things will change.
That is absolutely correct in my opinion, and I have said so in print (well, on the web, anyway) for years. Greenspan knew exactly what he was doing: bringing down the fiat paper money system.
Raj,
There is a lot in what you say. I should say that I don’t think Mr. Magoo was the sole architect, but he did play a huge part. This will be studied for a long time after the critical crisis is over… like several decades into the chronic crisis. Magoo did not have enough critical dissent to help him make a reasoned, sober policy. It’s not the people who agree with you who help you the most. It’s the ones who disagree. Magoo doesn’t like disagreement. Dissent would have helped if he had listened to it.
Roidy
Let’s not forget how many Presidents kept Greenspan in power.
Roidy,
I would guess you also have to link the roaring 20s with the bust as well.
Problem with people is we don’t often understand what is going on while its happening.
This blog has been a learning experince for me. I didn’t fully understand the broad breath of the credit bubble. I’m sure the people of the 20s-40s didn’t understand the bubble at first either. By the end of it everybody did though. Hence many of the regulations on banks.
I’m hopeful that stock options get outlawed again. Along with a castrated Fed that kills all the really big coporate flippers from causing damage. It will take a long time and perhaps a complete currency crash. But there is some hope.
I’m not expecting to be alive on the other side of this. However, there may be some hope for our kids.
‘Along with a castrated Fed that kills all the really big coporate flippers from causing damage.’
Awright! I’m there with yer! Say, I’ll bring my sheep shearing snips and also my heavy pinking shears from my sewing table…oh, wait. Was that metaphorical?
‘Cause I don’t hold with metaphor.
No question mistakes were made in a bipartisan fashion on some basic issues, but the vast majority of policies enacted by W and the Republican party as a whole were for the benefit of cronies and the uber-wealthy at the expense of the public interest. High crimes and misdemeanors include (but are not limited to):
1) Massive deregulation of not only the financial sector and SEC, but gutting of budgets of everything from enforcement to HUD and social programs during times of record economic prosperity.
2) A systematic lack of curiosity about clear regulatory lacunes that facilitated the collapses of Enron, Worldcom, and SEC conflicts of interest (as noted by Michael Lewis’ series of articles). This includes lame appointments of hypocritical idealogues such as John W. Snow and Hank Paulson.
3) Profligate spending without compensatory taxation. No country has borrowed its way into prosperity, but a flawed party policy dating to Reagan has refused to let go of this view.
4) Encouraging an environment of lack of transparency, accountability, and disinformation to promote “security”. There are so many examples of this that I don’t even know where to begin, but this facilitated the export of risk around the world.
5) A culture of corruption with the vast majority of political misbehavior coming from the Republicans. The only proven corrupt Democrat I can think of during the Bush years are Wm Jefferson and Chuck Rangel.
The sad thing is that the Republicans lost the White House and will continue to shrink in influence precisely because they refuse to be critical of themselves. Reagan’s mantra of “thou shalt not criticize another Republican” is a chicken that has finally come home to roost.
Yeah, but it is so much easier to just point the finger at one scapegoat right?
“Bush made me buy a house with no money down!”, bleat the clueless yet ever hopeful masses.
Going from blaming all your failures on one man and his actions to putting all your hopes on another is the hallmark of the stupid and lazy. God bless America!
Bush did not force anyone to buy a bubble-inflated, nor did he even start the ill-advised deregulation ball rolling. Nonetheless, he wholeheartedly endorsed banking deregulation, lax-to-no oversight when it might have made a difference, and *actively interfered* with states’ efforts to institute consumer protections against the subprime/no-doc onslaught (see Spitzer/OCC link above).
He is far from the only bad actor in this fiasco, but he most definitely deserves his fair share of the blame –along with Greenspan and Clinton.
Remember, Joe 6pack –despite all his laziness and ignorance– doesn’t get to decide what the rules of the game will be, the “regulators” do. And the game is called “financial Calvinball”.
Hey don’t get me wrong, I think all of our so called leaders are all just a bunch of muttonheads, and Bush is the king of sheep. I praise our troops for actually having the gumption to follow the orders of these civilian monkey suits as I wouldn’t go to battle for anything these idiots say.
Yes the rules change, but whose fault is that? People put their faith and trust that the game is fair and all dealings are above the board, but they are so foolish to do so as Joe six-pack is just as dishonorable as the financial manipulators. If lying on a mortgage app is par for the course for J6P then how can they act incredulous when it’s discovered that the entire financial world is a farce and the rulers change the rules? No, J6P is deluded. He believes that his lies and misdealings are just and they have no effect on the rest of the world. He believes that the rulers lies are the problem whilst denying he’s been playing footsie with them for years.
Now a new game will begin with different feet under the table.
I believe the majority of ‘bubble’ home buyers didn’t have a thought in their head beyond thinking they could get something for close to nothing - which is human nation after all.
For subprime, they were priced out of the market for so long, they didn’t even think “if its too good to be true, then it probably is”. Why would they?
So who made it possible for them to even get to that point?
Know your history.
Much of today’s housing-related banking deregulation came in 1998 with the end of the rules that kept banks, insurance companies and the like from co-mingling businesses and assets. The end of these regulations were the brain child of Phil Gramm and signed into law by Bill Clinton. The free-wheeling, free-for-all in the housing and credit markets were set in motion by those two, not Bush. Greenspan, of course, helped it mushroom.
What was under Bush’s watch were the rise of hedge hunds and the end of several rules on shorting the market.
Market-to-market is another problem, but guilt for that can be placed in the hands of corporations and lawyers, not Clinton or Bush.
Supported by Robert Rubin.
Nice post.
If DoughHead isn’t responsible for this (or anything else according to the knuts), just what is he responsible for? Anything? Nothing?
The bubble happened on his watch, irrespective of the conditions/circumstances/public policy that created it. Is it really too much to ask that the most powerful person on the planet intercede to prevent a problem from growing?
We elect a President to provide LEADERSHIP on issues important to the electorate. The bubble was fostered by this man and his minions. We were LED to the bubble.
And as another mentioned in this post, a great leader/manager/supervisor always credits his staff and takes a hit for them. To this day, that man has refused to acknowledge fault or wrongdoing in spite of the ruin surrounding him. For some, including Mr. Bush, it is just plain impossible to admit any inadequacy, error of judgement or even association with any flaw.
And this basic point is what is most disturbing. To imagine that a 60+ year old man still hasn’t discovered the power and freedom in admitting wrongdoing.
You overlook the fact that the bubble was/is worldwide, not, as real estate agents like to pretend, local. Bush could no more stop this than Obama can fix it. And the Obmania now sweeping the world may ultimately dwarf the real estate fiasco.
Since you blame Bush and conservatives for everything, how about blaming them for not having you re-educated in one of the alleged concentration camps your crowd claimed Bush built to house illegal aliens (yes, the same twenty or so million he and Obama both pander to)? When you’re praying to your new god, Obama (who voted for bailouts and promises many more to come, and whose inaguration is turning out to entail the most extraordinary expenditure for human-adoration in history), perhaps you could ask for a heart that has two sides, instead of just a left one, and a brain capable of sorting truth from hogwash.
Of course he’s not responsible. He’s never been responsible for a single thing and the housing disaster is no different. Thank you for establishing the fact that he’s irresponsible.
You overlook the fact that the bubble was/is worldwide, not, as real estate agents like to pretend, local. Bush could no more stop this than Obama can fix it.
I suspect that this is a US creation
1. Securitization MBS derivatives ect. created in the US were exported around the globe.
2. Hedge Funds used MBS with their AAA as security to borrow money to buy stocks ect overseas and around the globe.
3. The financial institutions have grown so large that they influence not only the US gov but others around the globe. They use the US gov to create similar opportunities in other countries. Just as the US gov is pressing gov’s to bail out banks ect they pressured them to adopt rules that allowed credit to explode.
4. Once enough of the heard starts moving it’s hard to change course as an individual country even if the heard is running off a cliff.
The very rich, as Hunter Thompson said, are not like you and me. W was raised from infant to adult with a level of freedom and lack of accountability the likes of which the ordinary person cannot imagine.
Nothing is his fault, no consequences will flow to him from his actions.
Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different.
-F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Rich Boy, All the Sad Young Men
That was so cool, here’s another one:
Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy.
-F. Scott Fitzgerald, Notebook E, 1945
“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me….”
F. Scott Fitzgerald in ‘The Rich Boy’ - 1926.
“The bubble happened on his watch, irrespective of the conditions/circumstances/public policy that created it.”
The logical fallacy of “post hoc, ergo propter hoc”. Translated from Latin: “After that, therefore because of that”. This is what I usually rant and rave about.
Exemplii gratia:
Every house bought was sold in some state.
Every state had a governor “on watch”. Therefore 50 governors all failed and are the worst chimps in 50 years…
or another variation -
Mt. Saint Helens erupted in 1980.
The housing bubble occurred after 1980.
Therefore Mt.Saint Helens caused the housing bubble.
or a favorite media theme:
Ever since Alan Greenspan left the Federal Reserve, conditions have worsened! What has Bernanke done?
According to your line of reasoning above -
” irrespective of the conditions/circumstances/public policy that created it… Is it really too much to ask that the most powerful person on the planet intercede to prevent a problem from growing” - now that the Democrats have complete control of House, Senate, and Executive office, they are the most powerful Party on the planet, and all that gets worse is THEIR doing, correct?
A word for word cut and paste from wikipedia?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc
I’m not impressed. You may well have said, “Doughead is responsible because blah blah blah blah”. It would have meant alot more.
Cobalt writes
Exemplii gratia:
Every house bought was sold in some state.
Every state had a governor “on watch”. Therefore 50 governors all failed and are the worst chimps in 50 years…
Ok so now it is obvious you didn’t read the spitzer editorial. 50 states attorneys general tried to stop the subprime no doc lending. The US government took them to court to prevent it.
We need a complete overhaul at the top. Corrupt and dishonest leadership has filtered down to our financial world and even in to our companies. Sorry for the rant.
I’m not so willing to let the American sheeple off the hook. The reason we have corrupt and dishonest leadership is because the herd creatures known as the voting public put them there. People continue to vote for Republicrat Tweedle Dees or Tweedle Dums, then can’t fathom why the country continues to go in the wrong direction.
As I’ve said before, today’s Democrat and Republican parties are like two hairy ass cheeks surrounding the same stinking bunghole: predatory capitalism. Both parties are on the make and on the take, devoid of any true principles or convictions, with the sole objective of conning 51% of the sheeple into voting for their whore and swindler rather than the other party’s whore and swindler, thus giving them another term at the trough and a few more years to screw the productive middle and working classes for the benefit of their K-Street shot-callers.
Spot on Sammy!
Blame for the party-on, who cares about tomorrow attitude of the United States is widely shared, but it reached its pinnacle in the Bush Administration. Rather than call for sacrifice in the wake of 9/11, he said go shopping, and he turned a fiscal structural surplus into a deficit.
Consider this. The Economist magazine is a pro-free market capitalist publication, suspicious of govenment activism, and says so up front. And at the time, it thought the war in Iraq was a good idea. It is almost always in favor of Republicans.
But in 2004 it “endorsed” Kerry. I put endorsed in quotes because it had not a single good thing to say about the man. That’s how upset it was about the fiscal recklessness and fecklessness of the Bush Administration.
Even acknowledging a tough hand, the Bush economic policies were a disaster. He doesn’t deserve all the blame, but I’m content to watch him take it.
Who’s to blame ?? This sums it up;
THE PARTY’S OVER! (by Linda Monk) | Gather
Dec 15, 2008 This is a “SHARE” article
I am certain that Bush and the 22% of the Faithful Brain-dead WILL continue ther search for Saddam’s WMD’s and Osama bin laden from their new Headquarters in Dallas.
It is a still a TOP matter of US National Security and upmost on the minds of their GOP Wall Street Investors, 6%er’s and all small time American credit addicts.
They will track the REAL culprits down and bring them to Justice… just like one time American hero, O J Simpson did
RE: the Bush economic policies were a disaster.
From a $236bil surplus to a $1.2 trillion deficit…
It’s a complete financial meltdown.
Blame Bush for what? Everywhere I turn, I see the cost of the policies of the DEMOCRATS in Congress coming due. Did Bush create Social Security? Did Bush create Medicare and Medicaid? Did Bush create the EPA and NAFTA? Did Bush create Fannie Mae and Countrywide?
Did Bush create entitlements for 30 million illegal immigrants? Did Bush create the Federal Reserve? If you want to blame Bush for everything you saw happen for the last 8 years, fine. Remember to blame Obama for everything you see happen after Tuesday!
I PRAISE Bush for being the greatest president in creating Underground jobs this country has ever seen.
Its scary how many “employers” refuse to pay you on the books today.
———————————————
Blame Bush for what
But all his policies were focussed on making all corporations richer even at the cost of middle class America. Why was he touting for home ownership when this bubble was brewing? Why was no action taken since 2006 when bubble became official? Why has no one still been jailed for all the financial wrongdoings?
Who brought the illegals here? Why was the fence not built? Who passed NAFTA in congress in nineties? Who promoted CAFTA?
The list goes on and on…Ihaven’t even touched Iraq and Haliburton. This is the worst US presidency. A lost decade.
The demoncrats have controlled the Senate since2004 when Jeffords turncoated and little tommy dashle became majority leader.2006 saw Pelosi and the dems take over the house. Dodd threatened a fillabuster in ‘05 when the Reps tried to get a handle on Freddie and Fannie. Don’t get me started on Barney Franks, Waters, or Schumer. Try to get your history and facts correct.
cobaltblue
“Blame Bush for what? Everywhere I turn, I see the cost of the policies of the DEMOCRATS in Congress coming due.”
-
Well, then you have a very biased an uninformed view of History.
The past 30+ years is a failed economic policy.
As to your comments on EPA and Social Security, you remind me of the “Christians” I meet in Central Fl. As I’ve said before, good people but more ignorant than coquina rocks on the beach at noon, they don’t know better.
Furthermore, the EPA worked at one time and did good, Social Security was never meant as a retirement plan, NAFTA was backed by every living President in a televised ceremony (I knew it was a real bad idea at the time, mot in hindsight)
And finally, FDR faced tens of thousands singing The Internationale on the streets to protest very real social abuses such as starvation and children working 15+ hours in factories as well as coal miners dying in their early 20s.
But I guess you didn’t know any of this.
The EPA was started by Richard M. Nixon IIRC.
“biased an uninformed view of History”.
Depends on who is judging.
One might ask; Is one biased and uninformed view better than others?
You think “Christians” are “good people but more ignorant than coquina rocks on the beach at noon”, yet you have the way, truth, and light at your command.
I might invoke “judge not, least ye also shall be judged” but of course that is a Christian homily and obviously invalid.
“Well, then you have a very biased an uninformed view of History.”
My view of history certainly is biased, just like everybody else’s; but I assure you I’m not uninformed.
“The past 30+ years is a failed economic policy” We agree on that. Let me take it a step further. The creation of the so-called Federal Reserve - a private international banking cartel that now controls this country’s money - has much more to do with our current mess than any President over the last 30 years.
Actually, I know that FDR first campaigned on a pledge to SHRINK the size of the Federal government. Once in office, that pledge went out the window. Did you know that?
Do you see any parallels with tomorrow’s Inauguration, historically speaking?
Obama campaign keyword: Change.
Obama administration directive: Change nothing.
guys, we voted for centrists. why is this a shocker?
were you expecting the leftist revolution? lefties lose primaries. And it looks like the US is also sick and tired of the far right (they’ll be back–Americans have short memories).
The ‘far right’ will be back in style if BO fails to protect the homeland. Given the right stimulus a poor memory can morph to total-recall in about a New York second.
Bush ran SEC, that did nothing to reign in securitization, derivitives or fraud.
Bush reappointed Greenspan in 2002, even though he’d already blown 2 huge bubbles.
Bush ran OFHEO, who should have been hard on the brakes in 2003, but instead Bush was hard on the gas.
Bush ran HUD, which also should have been working to put the brakes on the housing bubble, but was instead hard on the gas.
Bush fired O’neil from treasury because O’neil was trying to put the brakes on the bubble.
Bush ignored his own comptroller’s calls that we were blowing a huge debt bubble and needed to reign it in.
Bush was pro-trade, pro-illegal immigation, pushed Medicare perscription drug coverage, refused to raise Social Security issues, blew holes in the budget deficit with big spending and lower taxes….
Yes, this is the end-game of 75 years of bad economic policy. Yes, this is the end-game of Reagonomics. Yes, it is a perfect storm of bad-long-term economic policy and a disasterous short-term bubble.
But, Bush still deserve a HUGE share of the blame for how badit is going to be. We had the oppertunity for a slow decline with gentile landing, and Bush through that oppertunity away by blowing the largest bubble in the history of the planet.
I will blame Obama for everything after Tuesday. I will also give him credit if credit is due. Say the U.S. is attacked 8 months from now. Do you blame Obama. I would, and so would the GOP partisans. Course these are the same people that blame Clinton for 9/11. Guess that’s why they’re called partisans. And I give Bush full credit for keeping this country attack-free since 2001. I just hope it stays that way for a long, long time.
The problem is that we *weren’t* attack free. Remember anthrax?
Back when heavy metal music rocked loud and proud…
OH, you mean the Anthrax case that I believe was never solved, and disappeared out of the media. The one where it was US Gov’t brand weapons of mass destruction that were on the loose.
Thought they found the guy and he killed himself…was an inside govt scientist or govt contractor employee. Just going off my lousy memory on this.
So they say…but the guy in question had a alibi for the time period when the letters were mailed.
I’m going to portion out blame to the following
1. Phil Gram - For repeal of Glass Steagle and Commodities reinvestment act that lead to derivatives.
2. Clinton and Congress that voted for repeal of Glass Steagle and did not insist on some other strong regulatory framework. My understanding was that they left banks to regulate themselves. Well if your going to do this at some point someone needs to evaluate if the system is working.
3. GW and company - For curbing the SEC and state regulators, for not taking action on regulation of banks/financial houses even when it should have been apparent that the wheels were coming off the train.
Wikipedia has a list of arguements by those that were against the repeal
1. Conflicts of interest characterize the granting of credit – lending – and the use of credit – investing – by the same entity, which led to abuses that originally produced the Act
2. Depository institutions possess enormous financial power, by virtue of their control of other people’s money; its extent must be limited to ensure soundness and competition in the market for funds, whether loans or investments.
3. Securities activities can be risky, leading to enormous losses. Such losses could threaten the integrity of deposits. In turn, the Government insures deposits and could be required to pay large sums if depository institutions were to collapse as the result of securities losses.
4. Depository institutions are supposed to be managed to limit risk. Their managers thus may not be conditioned to operate prudently in more speculative securities businesses. An example is the crash of real estate investment trusts sponsored by bank holding companies (in the 1970s and 1980s).
Good post. And let’s not forget the new expanded role of Sallie Mae.
I had a friend that worked contract at Fannie Mae on, I believe - the restatement of the restatement of the restatement.
It took them 4 times to get the books right(if they are indeed correct).
This was 2005 -2007.
IMO, anybody thinking we will not get attacked again is a fool and blaming anyone for it is also foolish…1/2 dozen foreigners running around with box cutters executing a multi plane high jacking…What are the chances of that happening again ?? You can’t even pass methane at a airport without getting shook down…We will get attacked again, the only questions are where and with what…It would be wise to plan on it…Even Warren Buffet has said that he thinks there is a 100% chance of a nuclear devise being set off on our soil in the next fifty years…Personally I think it will come in the form of Bio…
I can very easily envision a “dirty bomb” in NYC. No mass casualties; just total devaluation of world’s most valuable real estate, lack of access to the books of all the moneymen who, unlike Madoff claimed, didn’t do the catastrophic/duplication/backup work. Hey– it will all be good: Let’s just reboot and start a new game.
I read somewhere the next attack will be at one of the ports.
There’s nothing at the ports that anybody is buying. Parking lots full of Beemers, etc. and the Baltic Dry off 96%.
And who cares if a port goes down? Really. This is all about actual risk vs. perceived risk. We only search about 3% of the containers as it is. “Ooh, but MrBubble, you’ll be sorry when they nuke your town!” “Oooh, I had friends in the Towers on 9/11. Did you?” My answer:
“They give us a toe and we’re supposed to sh1t ourselves in fear? Fooking amateurs!” Walter Sobchak.
We have changed our whole national attitude based on guys who had to borrow planes that they couldn’t land. You’re a total fairy if you buy into that shite.
MrDrunkBubble
Hold on there laddie, cut back on alcohol. No where did I say I believe this. Read my post again if you can see through the blur of your alcohol induced rant.
Why give credit to Bush for no new attacks? Anyone would have beefed up homeland security after the fact of 9/11. Anyone.
And if you’re going to credit him for no attacks post-9/11, then it’s right to blame him for 9/11 happening in the first place.
I agree. His presidency did not start on 9/12. And there were no attacks for 7 years prior to 9/11.
Terrorism is ineffective without the element of surprise. They will hit when we least expect it.
actually there were attacks. USS Cole. Clinton was castigated for trying (and failing) to bomb Osama.
we all know the report: that the Bush administration stonewalled the terrorism civil servants and went on vacation rather than listen to their reports. they deserve censure for this.
But let’s not forget, the incompetence and fence building/fortress building/me-firstism of the CIA and FBI must take responsibility too. FBI was a TOTAL mess under Clinton (and, of course, under prior mgmt too–remember “Whitey” Bulger?), Janet Reno was probably the worst … AG … ever. Until Ashcroft. And Gonzales, what a tool. Remember when US bombed the Chinese embassy. Oops?
It may be fun to blame Bush but this goes beyond Bush. CIA, FBI, military (various branches) won’t talk to each other, CIA is deep into destructive groupthink and generates useless intelligence, FBI can’t even track their damn computers, all of them distrust each other. We need a hell of a lot more transparency on how these organizations are run… secrecy has been the governmental duster beneath which the dust bunnies have multiplied.
Of course, Bush as exec had power to appoint fresh people at top of these civil service orgs. Instead his answer was to take away our civil liberties and create another useless bureaucracy, “Homeland Security”. But this does go back to Clinton. He seemed uninterested in being a manager and let the weeds explode all over the lawn. Granted, he was good at what he was good at, but he clearly wasn’t good at managing people. Bush thinks he’s a manager, but has no critical faculties and like most incompetents won’t have anyone answering to him who’s more competent than he is.
Don’t forget the servicemen that were killed in Lebanon when Reagan was President.
Don’t forget the memo he got:
Bin Laden determined to strike the US
blah blah airplanes blah blah New York blah blah blah.
Personally I blame the Islamic terrorist but that is just me. As far as the credit bubble goes just about everybody and I mean everybody had their hand in the cookie jar.
That is not true. Not everyone had their had in the credit cookie jar. I didn’t. Did you?
I blame the bush gang. It is rather amazing that these bank,corporations and financial fiascos explode when ANY Bush or their kissin’ cousins are in or around power.
ie. Neil bush and the Silverado Bank Savings and Loan Bust Era, Jeb and his pre-govenor Florida RE defaults, and jr in his 8 years of ” I see no evil, I hear no evil and I do no evil” when it comes to regulation or accountability in the REIC and FIRE taxpayer RIPOFFS !
Cobalt, you’ve been listening to the right wing talking heads on the radio and TV again.
I’m neither a Democrap or a RepubliCON so I’ll comfortable tell you that the right wing talking heads are the most obnoxious dividing personalities ever. They’ll say whatever is necessary to push the far right agenda rather than what they truly believe. Look at Rush and Hannity. They blasted McCain until it was obvious he would be the candidate and then sang his praises. Only Glenn Beck stuck to his anti-McCain guns.
It is the Bush policies that pushed Fannie and Freddie to make these insane loans and the private market that followed their insanity and continued to up the ante each time. It was bush that said, and I’m paraphrasing now, that he wanted to see everyone in a home…just because you aren’t of the means doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a great house. Irresponsible policies.
So it sounds like you are the pot calling the kettle black by blaming the Dems alone for this mess. There’s plenty of blame to share, but a great deal of it falls right on the Bush administration.
I’m an R, but I think this is right, he made those noises about an “ownership society” so own THIS. At the time I thought, that’s lame b/c he’s just describing something that’s already happening. But lending loosened up even more, got even more “better” and that part of this fiasco has to be his.
His MBA was clearly of no help to him. The idea that people with MBAs know more than the rest of us should be put to rest once and for all. Same with PhD economists, JD’s and all the other fools. It’s the old forest-trees problem, they’re so busy in the thick of things, hustle hustle, flying high on outdated or false assumptions, hearing only to the echo chamber, that they can’t see what someone like Ben on the sidelines can clearly see.
About those with MBA’s… I’ve heard that MBA really stands for “Must Be an A***ole”. And I have an MBA (not that it’s done me any good knowledge or career wise. If I were to go back in time, I would get some other degree).
LOL same here. Feel the same way about JD’s and I have one. To do over… just a good bachelors in a useful trade. Nursing, computer science, accounting.
Meh, no do-overs now.
I have a BSCS (computer Sci). I started an MBA program. I got about 25% of the way in, and just got toooooo frustrated with it. It was SOOOOO Bunk.
I decided it would be better to stay an engineer.
In Montana: Ditto. I probably spend more time than I should ridiculing for the 35 to 40 students I have per semester the bloviating of the lawyers who have most recently grabbed the national spotlight. Too many examples to cite. I deal with lawyers on a daily basis and despise their lies more and more each day. I tell my students, “Don’t take my word for what I’m telling you. But before you take the word of this-or-that talking head, check it out and decide for yourselves.” Unfortunately the response I get from vast majority of the students is, “Whatever. When do I get my B?”
just a good bachelors in a useful trade. Nursing, computer science, accounting.
This was exactly my thinking in undergrad. I felt CompSci was more a sort of “trade” and not some goofy abstract degree. I always heard people say “I’m getting a business degree”, wtf does that mean? What are you gonna do when you graduate, “do business”? I didn’t understand that at all.
My other interest was in business, in retrospect an Acct degree would have been good too but it got lumped in with the all-encompassing “business degree” in my mind. Economics and Finance are probably good to go along with Acct, but I still wouldn’t want to do just one of those without the Acct.
So now I’m doing a masters in Acct. Again, instead of an MBA it gives me some practical “trade like” opportunites to complement the CS degree (IT auditing) or can stand on its own going in a whole ‘nother direction (financial acct, tax, audit, etc). Especially the latter quality is something I didn’t feel I would get from the MBA or (to a lesser extent) the JD. (although the idea of being an IP lawyer intrigued me for a while)
People say what they want to hear. And hear what they want to say.
Give the man (or woman) a cigar!
RE: The idea that people with MBAs know more than the rest of us should be put to rest once and for all. Same with PhD economists, JD’s and all the other fools. It’s the old forest-trees problem, they’re so busy in the thick of things, hustle hustle, flying high on outdated or false assumptions, hearing only to the echo chamber, that they can’t see what someone like Ben on the sidelines can clearly see.
Amen, brother!
??? The entire housing bubble arose during the Bush administration. It had very little, if anything, to do with Democratic programs or policies, but instead, had everything to do with excessive debt leverage in an unregulated industry. Why do you keep asking what Bush did in this regard, when the real issue is why did his administration do nothing when faced with home appreciation in excess of 5%? By the time that it hit 10%, it should have been declared a freaking national emergency, at least behind closed doors. I would have had made sure that I understood the causes and ramifications, and would have taken appropriate action. At some point, ppl in positions of power need to be held accountable for inaction as much as action. There are lots of other positions he could have taken if he felt wanted to vacation and not have to get involved when crisis arose.
“The entire housing bubble arose during the Bush administration.”
If you believe that I want to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge that a poster sold me in yesterday’s blog.
“You’ve been listening to the right wing talking heads on the radio and TV again.”
Sorry, C-span is not right wing talkshow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs
“It is the Bush policies that pushed Fannie and Freddie to make these insane loans and the private market that followed their insanity and continued to up the ante each time”
Not quite. Try Barney Frank, Maxine Waters, etc. ALL DEMOCRATS
I see lots and lots and lots of economic prognastication about what happened here and what to do about it….. paaaleeze.. what happened is our fiscal and monetary policies and regulations let housing out of it’s bottle.. fix it.. put housing back in it’s bottle once and for all.. set interest rates based on home prices / rents and that’s it.. CPI is a joke.. so is the Fed and the Congressional sub-comittee on banking for standing by idly while this disaster unfolded..
But we needed the housing bubble to let consumers borrow, to give a place for all the Chinese debt to flow to.
We buy stuff from China. They loan us the money back. Repeat.
It only works if we can borrow. To borrow, we needed an asset to borrow against.
We certainly can’t live on our wages as a net import economy, so we need bubbles to reap capital gains from.
Housing is a symptom, NOT the problem.
In government, inaction and action are very much the same thing. It may not look like it from the outside, but inaction generally happens because people look at something, decide that intervening is contrary to curent policy and/or law, and decide not to try to change that policy or law. The inaction will tend to be impossible to see from the outside, but it is just as much a decision as an action that is taken.
I agree with everything you said except for this part:
“The entire housing bubble arose during the Bush administration. It had very little, if anything, to do with Democratic programs or policies,..”.
Note that I was not trying to be partisan but was responding to whether Bush deserved blame, as I would have blamed anyone in charge of the administration at the time (I can vote for either party, and have problems with both). As for the fact that some Democrats did support increased home ownership for certain low income groups and certain changes in lending in connection therewith, I note that they did so at a time that housing was affordable. Attempts to increase home ownership during affordable times should not be lumped into those attempting to increase home ownership when home prices are well above historical norms (and no I do not believe that home ownership for minorities or low income ppl was as much a factor in the bubble as excessive debt leverage through secondary market structures, insane lending regardless of class, race or other classification, and excessive investment purchases of real estate - in other words, I do not see promoting low income or minority housing programs at times housing is affordable to inevitably lead to a bubble of the type we experienced). Also, I do admit that prices did start moving up before he took office, but again at that time the deviation from historical norms was not substantial, and interest rates were low and thus, some deviation was justified. The crazy lending and appreciation that should have been addressed did in fact not arise until 2000 and after, before then there were rumblings indeed, but not enough such that inaction could be viewed in my mind as total incompetence.
It had very little, if anything, to do with Democratic programs or policies
Sadly incorrect. Fannie and Freddie helped in no small measure, and they were given reign to do so by misguided Democrats who thought home ownership was a right–including Clinton. Even during the peak of the bubble, high-level Dems were reported as calling up Fannie execs and exhorting them to lend more money to more people. Well-meaning idiots.
I strongly believe that but for the massive increase in home purchases that were not intended to be primary residences, wall street secondary transactions, “creative” mortgage products, and blind lending for all (i.e., not limited to targeted groups the Democrats my have been in support of assisting), we would not be in this mess. Can you point to any non-biased studies that can prove me wrong. Although Democratic support for minority and/or low income assistance in the housing arena has often been touted by Republicans as the cause for this mess, I believe that there is no evidence to establish the validity of this assertion. If you have sources to the contrary, I would be interested in reviewing the data and will reconsider my position with an open mind.
The fact of the matter it was greed. Neither Republican nor Democrat, but human. My point was not to remove the blame from blameworthy Democrats but to remove the blame from being unfairly shifted based on party lines.
Again GSE’s were not the cause of the problem, they were a symptom. The story goes like this.
Banks and investment houses want to steal money from conservative investors, pensions, gov. They can’t do it because these entities only invest in highly rated safe investments. How to get around that.
Step 1 - Securitization
Step 2 - Legally bribe rating agencies by giving them other lucrative business.
Step 3 - Sell AAA rated MBS to conservative investors pension and gov (via GSE’s)
Step 4 - When you run out of loans to sell, lower standards.
Step 5 - Collect your bunus, set up a contract with a golden parachute, sell your stock, go to cash.
Step 6 - Those too slow with step 5, get gov to bail you out.
Step 7 - Use free money from the FED to buy up smaller banks for the next run.
GSE’s were one of the many targets of this scam. They were not the cause.
BINGO! the ratings agencies. I’m too lazy to look this up, but IIRC, didn’t moody’s etc. go from non-profit to profit? Shouldn’t that be the event that started the ball rolling?
Clinton had a big hand in it. The following link (NY Times) is from 1999 and predicts the current mess and bailout.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260&sec=&spon
“It had very little, if anything, to do with Democratic programs or policies, but instead, had everything to do with excessive debt leverage in an unregulated industry.”
It had a huge amount to do with the $500K capital gains exclusion on a primary residence passed during Clinton’s tenure, which was the housing market equivalent to the Indian Ocean earthquake that provided the energy for the devastating December 26, 2004 tsunami. Fannie and Freddie also began to run amok on Clinton’s watch. The seeds of the bubble were planted and fertilized before W took office.
I’m happy to fry Clinton for Glass Steagall, but low interest rates, GSE’s, primary residence cap gains exclusions did not create this mess. How can we tell.
1. Interest rates are still low and the problem is not fixed.
2. GSE’s are still buying debt, even more than before and of lower quality and the problem is not fixed.
3. Primary residence still get’s cap gain exclusion and soon a $7500 tax credit and the problem still is not fixed.
All of these things may lead to higher home prices and if they were yanked away could cause home prices to fall, but they are not the cause of our current popping bubble. They are not responsible for the collapsing stock market. It’s all related to securitization, subprime, the rating agencies, and poor regulation of securitization, derivatives, leverage ect. This is what has broken and produced the mass desctruction.
Do you have any evidence of what the impact of these actions alone would have been if there was not huge increase demand for investment properties financed with easy money at interest rates kept artificially way too low - or that such actions were an inevitable consequence? The bulk of the crazy lending was post 2000.
“…when the real issue is why did his administration do nothing when faced with home appreciation in excess of 5%? ”
I think you’re being naive that any politician of any stripe could say or do anything here. Even with the 20-40% y-o-y gains it would be career suicide to tell greedy, money loving constituents that this is a bad thing.
Much of the problem is found in every day people looking in the mirror. No one forced anyone to buy.
I dont understand the point. You assume that the only way to let air out of the bubble was to announce a policy of quashing home appreciation which is inaccurate. Proper lending regulation, fraud crack downs and sound interest rate policy would have gone a long way.
Proper lending regulation, fraud crack downs and sound interest rate policy would have gone a long way.
Combine that with a crack down on securitization and the rating agencies and we would not be in the mess that we are in now.
As far as rating agencies, I am probably lots more aware than the average American yet still blissfully ignorant. I know of Moody’s, Fitch, S&P, and possibly others like Morningstar.
How close am I, and does (should) the SEC monitor?
- An ill-informed MBA
Excellent! the rating agencies will have a lot to answer for, when history writes this debacle.
Have you ever read non-biased materials on the subjects you mentioned? You appear brainwashed, and disjointed from the facts. Republican sound bytes aren’t enough here, nor is throwing mud to divert our attention. Most of us are educated.
I don’t blame Bush so much.
Congress and Senate have been the primary movers in all of this.
Bush was just not a match from a leadership standpoint and didn’t understand a thing. I blame us for electing these guys.
Anyone deciding to go all partisan… well go stick it up your backside.
Everyone had a chance to vote out the bailout guys and to reign in the Fed/banks. Most of you voted party line and incumbants.
There is an opporitunity right now, to hit the banks while they are weak and regain some control here. Not that I expect Obama is bright enough to see this.
“Close to that same time in 2005, she was diagnosed with a form of bone cancer, which has forced her in and out of the hospital. Her husband, an Army veteran who fought in World War II, had died four years earlier.”
I have seen a few more stories this week mixing the bubble with medical problems. The fact of the matter is that each one of us will eventually die, and if we live long enough will at some point have severe medical problems. This has always been the case. It has absolutely nothing to do with the housing bubble. Even during normal cycles medical bills are hard to pay. Is the intent to imply that because some ppl used equity to pay medical bills we need to fight to keep housing prices high for all? What about the younger generations who buy at high prices and will be in so much debt buying over priced housing they will never have equity or savings to pay their medical bills? When we are talking about the bubble do we really need to bring out those with serious illness or disability to dance for us and confuse the issues? Such stories are more appropriately addressed towards the national health care debate. My own personal belief that national health care is seriously needed (at least some form of insurance that is affordable and pooled to spread costs and risks because you can not assume that everyone has or will have a job anymore, much less one that offers health insurance). To even suggest that excessive appreciation should be encouraged or allowed to exist because a small percentage of ppl used it to fund medical treatment as opposed to buying a lot of expensive crap they didn’t need will always bother me, and brings nothing to the table. Such stories are the result of ppl with their own motives trying to use sob stories to manipulate the public and government into supporting positions that they feel will make them the most profit.
A+ for Tim
Very well put. These are my sentiments exactly. Everybody will get sick at some point in their lives. Health care should be available to all. Healthcare might not be a birth right as my doctor friends remind me. They usually say this because if healthcare becomes universal doctor’s salaries might be adjusted downwards. I have top of the line health insurance which I rarely use and I am willing to pay more if more sick people can have access to health care
Bush, Cheney and Greenspan should be ashamed of themselves. Their gangster mentality has ruined our country but I think we will survive this mess.
oh dear, they might have to live on $300,000/year, med school tuition might have to go down. oh gosh, ANYBODY might be able to get an MD. No more fancy new offices and teaching hospitals that look like Grand Sheratons.
Remember when hospitals were built to be durable and easy to maintain and frill-free? lino floors, waxed daily, light from windows, white walls, nurses brought in posters to cheer the kids up?
been in a new hospital wing any time since, oh, 1994?
I think there are better ways to spend the national wealth.
Tim:
This is what Heloc’s were for total complete emergency need. Like medical expenses..or to pay down high interest credit cards and CUT THEM UP. Otherwise its just more BS to keep prices high.
——————————————
Is the intent to imply that because some ppl used equity to pay medical bills we need to fight to keep housing prices high for all?
In spite of the fact that I have higher medical costs because of medical problems in the family ,I have always said that in the past people who
can’t find a job or people who have high medical bills often times can’t afford their homes anymore . The fact that a person has to down scale their life style because of unexpected expenses is a fact of life . In large part ,that is why people are suppose to have savings for a rainy day . It is true that medical costs can BK a family . So if a family has to move to a rental because medical expenses cracked their back ,its a fact of life .Unless this Society provides taxpayer funds for the long term unemployed and people who are medically under insured ,this fact of life will continue . At least in this Country we don’t put debtors in prison and they can get relief by BK . People who are in trouble because of over consumption are not the type of people that cause me to have
pity for their situation .
I have to admit some bias, as I have health problems that may grow more serious in the future, and it is something I think about whenever I make a major decision. Rather than buy an overpriced house I decided to rent. Those that benefited from the gain in housing prices and pulled excessive equity out to pay medical bills, even if they eventually lose their homes, actually came out ahead of their counterparts at different points in time, as unless housing becomes affordable again, those after them will not have similar sources of money (nor did those before them). It amazes me that many don’t see this simple fact. The goal needs to be affordable housing and national healthcare. There is so much disinformation out there. A few unexpected benefits that some might feel good about does not justify bad policy for the vast majority, and the red herring should be seen for what it is.
I think the push for national health care is as much about protecting real assets as about health. Maybe more.
It’s true. So many advocates (not all) of nationalized health care are irresponsible with money, and resent having to pay anything for health care, even higher taxes.
I support making health care more accessible as long as it isn’t at the cost of ruining the technological superiority and incentives for excellence that we have. I used to live in Canada and that country’s strikes by health care workers, long waits, crumbling infrastructure and unfunded mandates made their health care system too unwieldy to be practical, unbeknownst to the Hillarycare crowd.
The best thing about Canadacare was the fact that they had very few ambulance chasers and weren’t crippled by HIPAA, so the administrative costs were relatively reasonable.
Yep….
I live in Canada and have had 2 major health scares in the last 5 years. Both times I received great, immediate care with excellent follow-up support and surgery. Now I am pregnant, and don’t live in fear that if something goes wrong we will have to go massively in debt. I pay every month into the system (much, much less than any American plans I’ve heard of). I cannot imagine dealing with health problems and fearing bankruptcy at the same time.
Also, in both cases I had access to experts in their fields. (Apparently in Sweden you are not allowed to seek specialized care, which I find problematic.)
It may not be perfect, but I LOVE our healthcare system! Love may not even be a strong enough word.
Thank you for your insight ElIa. I have friends in Canada, and they all tell me they love their national health care. Obviously, anything government run has room for improvement, but in the real world we only have a choice of available alternatives and this is one worth serious consideration and implementation IMHO.
“Obviously, anything government run has room for improvement, but in the real world we only have a choice of available alternatives”
You put it very well, I think.
If you take the amount of money spent on health care in the US and spent it on a Canadian style system you would have much better outcomes. We waste vast amounts of money. Every dollar you spend supports an army of insurance agents and their overpaid CEO’s. It supports advertising. It supports an army to handle the paperwork and collections. It supports expensive ER’s that have to handle all of the uninsured. It supports all of the expensive care that could have been prevented with a trip to their primary. It supports a fractured health care system which overspends on technology in order to appear better than the competition. It supports advertising at these hospitals and specialty clinics and all of the excess overhead.
The best system is universal health care based on cost benefit analysis. Then if you want more you buy a secondary policy.
Anecdotes from individual patients are fine, but not as useful as someone who has seen thousands of patients.
As a physician practicing in Canada, it broke my heart to see patients being shortchanged in ways they often didn’t even comprehend, and overworked physicians being forced to make do with outdated tests and “clinical judgment” that they wouldn’t have to do in the US.
It’s a functional healthcare system, but not ponies and rainbows like some make it out to be. I don’t think the US system is great either, but throwing it out to model it after another dysfunctional one isn’t the way to go.
I’m a Canadian and agree with Ella, the strengths of our health care services outweigh the weaknesses. My experience has been with the Ontario system (health care is managed by the Provinces) and has been great. My wife and I had twin sons not so long ago and they came early. They spent a few weeks in a neonatal ICU and were treated very well (so were we.)
Overall, I think the key thing is to get a family doctor. They can get you to specialists if you need them or take care of the day to day stuff. If you don’t have a family doctor then it’s painful waits in emergency rooms until there is a lull in emergencies.
“It’s a functional healthcare system, but not ponies and rainbows like some make it out to be.”
Who is making it out to be ponies and rainbows, please? The fact that it is *functional* is why I like it so much. I used to work in a hospital (it was my intention to go into medicine and I was taken on as a research assistant before changing career paths) so I heard a lot of discussion about policy and so on and I also know nurses and doctors from Canada who quit jobs in American hospitals because they were horrified by the level of care in the US and the way patients were fleeced for every dime. So it goes both ways, anecdotally, doesn’t it?
I have heard stories about problems in the Canadian health care system, and all I am saying is that I have personally had very good experiences. I have lived in, and received healthcare in the UK, in Europe and I have lived in Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. My care in Canada was best. Specifically it was best in Vancouver where I currently live. I have never received healthcare in the US, so maybe it is really great. My friends who have moved to the US complain abou the level of care they receive, that is costs more for less service, but that is anecdotal. It does not sound like a system I would prefer, personally, because it sounds costly, complicated and hit-and-miss.
When anyone tries to scare Canadians that we need to privatize because it will be so much more efficient and fantastic then I think it is just because they want to make money, and in this case I prefer dealing with bureaucrats than with an army of middlemen.
Our system is not perfect but I love it and would move mountains to protect it from private interests. There is nothing I feel more strongly about than public health care. Nothing.
Here is a fact for Americans to think about:
Governments in the US (all levels combined) spend more per capita on health care than governments in Canada.
By per capita I mean per total population, not per person receiving government health care.
That’s right - governments in the US spend more per capita right now to provide health care to a fraction of the population, than governments in Canada spend to provide to the entire population.
I think you can also substitute most other industrial countries for Canada as well.
Ella, I have family and friends in Canada and I hear and see the exact opposite of what you say.
One example: Close friend, a medical doctor (headed MSF-Canada for some years), needed an operation. He had to wait three years for his “slot.” But in the interim had to undergo an unpleasant and invasive fluid draining procedure every six months.
Another example: A co-worker of my wife, now living here, used to live in BC. Had a serious accident. Needed a CAT scan. Found there were only three CAT scans in all of the province. Three. Didn’t get the scan he needed.
And then there’s incredibly cold and impersonal birth of a baby my cousin endured in TO, the mother of a friend who can’t leave Ontario to live with a daughter in Alberta because she would lose her place on assisted living list (can’t leave your province), and the parking lots by the border in NY and Mich crowded with Ontario plates… You see, it’s illegal to have anything but socialized health care in Ontario. (Which is to the left of Sweden, where it is allowed.)
I’m happy it’s working for you, but most people I know in Canada aren’t thrilled with their health care. (And when I hear what they have to go through I believe few here would put up with the same.) Finally, it’s very hard for most Canadians to admit to an American that there’s something wrong in their own “un-American” way of doing things. It, as well as many other issues, are extremely interlinked with national pride … which in Canada means they are better than us - true. I hear the North of the Border “we are better than you” mantra all the time.
It’s a functional healthcare system, but not ponies and rainbows like some make it out to be. I don’t think the US system is great either, but throwing it out to model it after another dysfunctional one isn’t the way to go.
1. How much do they spend per capita on health care?
From Wikipedia
In 2006, per-capita spending for health care in the U.S. was US$6,714; in Canada, US$3,678.[5] The U.S. spent 15.3% of GDP on health care in that year; Canada spent 10.0%.[5] In 2006, .
“it broke my heart to see patients being shortchanged in ways they often didn’t even comprehend, and overworked physicians being forced to make do with outdated tests and “clinical judgment” that they wouldn’t have to do in the US. ”
Now toss $2000 dollars per capita into the Canadian system and see if you fix these problems. My guess is yes with money to spare. You’d still be saving money over the US system.
PS how many times has your heart been broken working in the US when a patient works all of his life, has insurance, and is still financially destroyed by a medical problem, or when a insurance company denies coverage for a test you think is needed, you fight them tooth and nail and they eventually say yes but the patient has had to wait for weeks. What about when an insurance company pulls coverage on a patient and they can’t get replacement insurance? What about the massive deductables (5-10k) we are seeing, patients skimp on preventetive care or early diagnosis because of cost.
scare Canadians that we need to privatize…because they want to make money, and…I prefer dealing with bureaucrats than with an army of middlemen.
Geez, what would you rather do: earn a fair wage for an extraordinarily stressful and risky career, after hard schooling and being put into massive debt? or be told how much to work while the government cuts your salary because they need to fund timber subsidies and the highway beautification program?
The burnout for physicians is far worse in Canada than in the US. Any statistic you can google about Canadian medical personnel is that up to 50% of their trainees leave the country because of the awful working conditions and salaries. The worst of the worst tend to stay put.
The problem with Canada is they believe that shop clerks and nurses make almost the same salary since from each according to his ability, and to each according to his need. If they didn’t have an essentially open door immigration policy with the US, there would be rioting and massive unemployment because of their policies. They have their Worker’s Paradise because of the evil imperialists to the south who absorb their exports and defend their borders, as well as provide educational and job opportunity to their citizens. They know this.
The bureaucrats in Canada keep their jobs by convincing its citizens they can turn blood into wine, just like the Supply-siders in this country have done for the past 30 years. Denial is a strong narcotic.
“They know this.”
Wow. You are quite arrogant and are making a lot of assumptions about what we do and how we think. I also think comparing supply-side economists with bureaucracy is a very bizarre and false equivalency.
I am not interested in arguing the merits of the American medical system, but only rejecting the idea that our system is so terrible it needs to be overhauled and privatized. I am expressing my experience in response to a post about our problems. You are not the only medical professional who has ever worked here that I have heard from, so forgive me if I don’t take your experience as the ultimate and final word on our medical system. I will take an imperfect system which works any day.
This is not about patriotic Canadian awesomeness for me. I am not an especially patriotic person, and wasn’t even in Canada for a lot of my childhood. The reason I respond so fiercely is that I do not want your system imported up here. If it works for you, fantastic. I have a colleague whose wife was diagnosed with late-stage brain cancer 7 months into her pregnancy. They have a lot to deal with obviously. I found out about it while I was on a business trip in California and all I could think is “thank-God they aren’t living here”. The idea of him going through bankruptcy or struggling with private insurance claims and paperwork at this time makes me want to grow as big as the sky and fight anyone for his right to public healthcare. So you think I’m a sucker, but I don’t think you’re as wise as you think, either. Easy solution: you keep your system and we’ll keep ours.
Sorry if my post is a bit nasty but it is an emotional issue for me anyway.
“Finally, it’s very hard for most Canadians to admit to an American that there’s something wrong in their own “un-American” way of doing things. It, as well as many other issues, are extremely interlinked with national pride … which in Canada means they are better than us - true. I hear the North of the Border “we are better than you” mantra all the time.”
Well, sheesh. All I can tell you is that I have personally had good care and received surgery and medical attention very quickly. I am currently receiving wonderful care for my pregnancy. I can’t say your friends’ experience isn’t true, and I’m sorry for it. I do have the impression that medical infrastructure varies from province to province and it seemed worse to me in Ontario than BC, but that is just personal experience, again. I am all for improving our system, I am willing to pay more in taxes, too (honestly). What frightens me is when people use problems in our system to justify privatization. And that is why I respond so strongly, not because it’s hurting my national pride.
If you don’t mind me saying, the beating on the chest and the “We’re the greatest” attitude is all around the world (and, um, it’s not like we don’t hear you guys saying you’re the “greatest country in the world” once in a while :). The new BC license places say “the greatest place on earth” and for that I send infinite apologies to everyone. We’re quite boring, actually, and not the greatest place on earth. I just happen to like our health care system better.
I honestly wouldn’t lie about my experiences just to prove something about Canada. I don’t have an axe to grind about the US versus Canada, I never have. (Please note: I haven’t been jumping into the Bush fray on here, ’cause he’s not my president and we’ve got our own problems - I get very mad at Canadians who do this). However, I feel like many of my personal values work better in a Canadian context. I believe in pooling resources for the common good when it comes to life’s neccessities (food health and safety, drinking water, health care, fire and police) and everyone for themselves for private investment and enterprise.
Obviously this is massively simplified, but I fear my post is already long and boring. (Canadians are very boring and preachy and didactic, we would never produce a Faster, Pussycat or an Olympiagal, so I am starting with a handicap here.)
“Which is to the left of Sweden, where it is allowed.”
Oh I just saw this. Hmm. I have heard the exact opposite from my Swedish friends. I had specialized care for a condition which a Swedish friend couldn’t get, because she couldn’t pick her own doctor or get a specialist. I’m no expert on Swedish health care, but I heard it was to the left of Canada. But I’m in BC now, so…don’t know for sure. I haven’t lived in Ontario for a long time.
“Overall, I think the key thing is to get a family doctor.”
I completely agree with Al. You need a good family doctor to get you to the right place. I like that we can pick our own family doctor, because it makes all the difference. I love my doctor so much and she’s been treating my since I was a teen. She knows where to refer me and keeps tabs to make sure I’ve been seen in a timely manner.
(I’m sorry for posting so much about this. It just means so much to me.)
The problem with Canada is they believe that shop clerks and nurses make almost the same salary since from each according to his ability, and to each according to his need.
Oh, by the way, leave out the Karl Mark strawmen, please. We’re not communists and this is not reflective of the beliefs of anyone I know. Nor does it prove we should privatize our healthcare, it’s just offensive.
You seem pretty offended by any disagreement with your point of view. You accuse me of strawmen, I accuse you of ad hominems.
Relax, lady…the purpose of blogs is to air disagreements in civil fashion. It’s almost funny how fragile your superiority complex over us Americans really is.
“how fragile your superiority complex over us Americans really is.”
I don’t like being called a brainwashed communist, I think that’s a reasonable cause for offence. You directly attacked my values and my country. When Jas Jain gets on here and bashes Americans, I see nothing wrong with Americans being defensive.
I found your comments quite offensive and they upset me. I thought I made it clear that healthcare is something that personally means something, and I am frightened of it being taken away. It really has nothing to do with feeling superior over Americans.
I have never made nasty anti-American comments, here or elsewhere. I was specifically talking about our medical system. You brought up nationalism. It’s not about that to me at all.
Since, I’m pretty sure this thread is dead and no one will really need to read this, I am going to infringe upon Ben’s bandwidth for one more comment on this, because I wrote to hastily, and I want to say this properly.
It’s really lame if I can’t prefer one aspect of Canada (our medical system) to America, without being accused of having a superiority complex. One thing is just one thing. I just don’t want to replace our system with a priovatized one, that’s the extent of my “attack”.
On the other hand, nosingleone, you said this:
“The worst of the worst tend to stay put.”
In other words, you are insulting my doctors and caregivers, who have done so much for me. Yes, that makes me defensive.
“The problem with Canada is they believe that shop clerks and nurses make almost the same salary since from each according to his ability, and to each according to his need. If they didn’t have an essentially open door immigration policy with the US, there would be rioting and massive unemployment because of their policies. They have their Worker’s Paradise because of the evil imperialists to the south who absorb their exports and defend their borders, as well as provide educational and job opportunity to their citizens. They know this.”
You are calling Canadians communists and fools, as well as weak. And then you suggest that we’re here for civil discourse? And you think I have a superiority complex about my country? And I am staging ad hominem attacks? You need a new mirror.
Anyway, I said at the outset the medical care is an emotional issue for me, and you did rattle me very successfully. Congratulations.
‘Scale down their life because of medical problems????!!” Medical bills can decimate you. Scale down? What about the autism epidemic? What about chronic illness? When do these people ever achieve the type of lifestyle that will allow them to “scale down”. The little intro about family health problems doesn’t fit - YOU HAVE NO IDEA.
I guess your post was a response to my post above . I’m saying that the Medical system in the United States is such that it can
kill a family financially or require that they declare Bk or sell their assets or whatever . I wasn’t saying that I agree with a system that this could happen to people . I could find myself cleaned out eventually because of the medical bills I’m paying and I would have no choice but to “scale down my life style “.
Many people by the time they die use up every last penny they have on medical expenses .
I also have extra health insurance ,but that doesn’t matter when it comes to the system and there is a serious Gap in care for long term medical problems ,such as strokes .
I was simply just mentioning that the system has always taken the house from people who can’t pay ,regardless of the reason . I decided to not go into my opinions on how scr#wed it is that medical conditions could BK a person or force them into a lower economic position . I would like to scream about how bizarre it is dealing with insurance companies that do not seem to have the patients best interest at heart .I think the medical system in the US needs a serious overhaul ,but when mortgages aren’t paid, currently the lender has the right to take the house .
Don’t think that I don’t have sympathy for anyone that is in a position to be wiped out by medical expenses ,but the case we were talking about had a lot of other foolish decisions mixed up with it and it appeared that this women had already spent her equity on choices other than medical expenses .
I have the medical expense ax hanging over my head ,but at the same time I know that if it wipes me out ,I will have to change my life accordingly .
sorry - didn’t mean to jump down your throat,Wizard. Hope things work out for you.
“Such stories are the result of ppl with their own motives trying to use sob stories to manipulate the public and government into supporting positions that they feel will make them the most profit.”
As an 80 years old, Rose Martinez will likely (sooner or later) move into a nursing home and medicaid will pay for all of it. We can shake our heads over the financial illiteracy which got her into the mess she is in, but she will be sheltered and fed at the very least.
and probably drugged and abused … gah…
health insurance only works if everyone is in the pool.
as soon as BCBS was created, other groups turned up to snipe their most profitable (healthiest customers). they offer them a lower rate, suddenly BCBS faces higher rates for customers, less profits, customers start dropping–> death spiral. All legal.
this is why only employees of large employers have health insurance. ALL employees are covered, INVOLUNTARILY. they cannot shop around. this keeps costs low. (also provides incentive to employer to start a wellness program and keep those employees healthy!)
recent attempts at “reform” have actually created a perverse situation where the “insurers” are just servicers. Like Realtors, they make more money the higher the claims. They get a cut of the ridiculous demand of the hospital (which wants more per night than the Ritz Carlton and $200/pill for Tylenol 1). They are like the buyer’s agent who pays lip service to getting you a “great deal” but it really in collusion with the seller/health care provider.
Consumer Reports reported last year that doctor’s salaries are the #1 reason for health care increases in the past three years. NOT malpractice insurance. Not even medical claims billing. To bolster this, NYT independently reported on the higher-than-inflation salary increases of specialist doctors in the 2000’s.
Thanks to the “realtor” model of health “insurance”, the entire system is doomed. But it all goes back to the early days of BCBS. Single payer works. “Free market” leads to the death spiral. You can thank the AMA of the early 20th century, btw. Their greed knew no bounds. They even blocked allowing German-Jewish refugees into the US during the Nazi terror because they were afraid of the competition. Who knows how many families perished for their greed? (German MD’s were worth more than US at the time, lol.)
We’re stuck in independent healthcare premium h*ll right now, paying $838/mo for 2 adults, and the eye drops for Glaucoma, which was diagnosed after we were insured ,cost us $300/mo. We have Kaiser, an HMO.
Some risks can be controlled, others can’t. Since we treadmill daily, eat right, don’t drink or smoke, we feel we’re paying for America’s obesity epidemic in our premium. Our BMI is low normal. We take care of our bodies, its the only one we’re going to get.
I want nationalized healthcare. There is a documentary “Sick Around The World” online on PBS.It was on TV prior. It studies 5 countries (Canada excluded) that have national healthcare. The US is 37th in the world in healthcare. Shameful. Taiwan is # 1.
There is a documentary “Sick Around The World” online on PBS.It was on TV prior. It studies 5 countries (Canada excluded) that have national healthcare. The US is 37th in the world in healthcare. Shameful. Taiwan is # 1.
Thanks, that would be interesting to see. We have access to see which health care systems are working and why, so why not copy things that are working? I get the impression that smaller countries (by population) have an advantage. Instituting a working nationalized structure of any sort in a country with a large population sounds very challenging. I’ll be curious to see if they profile any larger countries?
I’ve been thinking about this, here’s the only difference between Dems and Repubs:
Dems get rich by claiming the poor people need help, and then hooking up their friends.
Repubs get rich by claiming the rich people need help, and then hooking up their friends.
That is why they are both called “parties”.
This may be the best description of the parties I’ve ever read.
elegant - balanced - accurate
Good one, Mug.
Actually that is incorrect. let me correct this for you.
I’ve been thinking about this, here’s the only difference between Dems and Repubs:
Dems want to to grow the size and scope of government and help their rich circle of friends.
Repubs say they want to reduce government waste, but actually grow it anyway and help their rich circle of friends.
This will never change because there is no incentive to do otherwise. The congress is slowly turning into a House of Lords.
You know, I finally caved to my “don’t throw your vote away” friends and voted for Obama. It’s obvious to me, now, none of it makes a difference. So, I voted for the black guy, because it’s “historic.” Stupid, but true.
I’ve seen some vitriolic political volleys on this board; we’re all kidding ourselves if we think the outcome is any different. Like Clinton wouldn’t have pimped “home ownership for all.”
They all suck.
“a House of Lords.”
Well, they ought to start being more amusing, then. The English House of Lords is quite funny, at least. And the House of Commons is very exciting, everyone is in a big fight and calling each other names all the time. If everyone in congress shows up a bit tipsy and full of vicious sarcasm, things could get quite exciting. Change we can believe in!!
I like the look at both sides of government passing deregulation around 1998 and what followed was a total breakdown of the sound laws and regulations that kept Wall Street and the Lenders in check . Nobody has explained why the FDIC, or government, allowed underfunding of FDIC ,or pension plans ,and various other insurance policies that would of usually been required . Wall Street investments became a big Casino that was based on fake pricing and unsound risk and leverage ,that was rated as if it was prime paper .
Why the lenders allowed low/no down loans ,without PMI insurance ,was another piece of the big set up for the fall . The crime wave of bad lending flourished as people took advantage of the mania that nobody in power or in business or the media apparently saw it coming .So if all these forces of check and balances didn’t see it coming ,how can we
expect that Bush would see it coming ,especially when Greenspan didn’t see it coming . Why there wasn’t alarm over the huge amount of funds
being filtered into lending is another question . Its not acceptable that lenders allowed this much credit card debt either, or equity loans .
Big Business seemed to control the air ways and law and order broke down as the mania was encouraged .I think this mania was a perfect example of what happens when Big Business/Wall Street has free rein
without the proper check and balances .Self-regulation does not work
because greed is short sighted .
I agree with everything you say Housing Wizard, but economies and regulations have run in cycles since the foundation of this great country. We’re exiting a period of very little regulation and we’re going to trade it in for too much regulation. Hopefully in 10 years we’ll find a happy medium.
“We’re exiting a period of very little
regulation”enforcement
So true ,why can’t we come up with a happy happy balance of regulations that encourages Capitalism and free enterprise but
discourages fraud ,crime ,manias and Ponzi-schemes ,and fake inflation . Currently we have not even exposed the extend of the foul play during this last business cycle . Lending and leverage is a special area that can’t be abused . During the last business cycle the risk-takers didn’t even know the extent of their risk . I just marvel sometimes at how many check and balance systems broke down during the last 10 years .
Any system you create, will instantly draw a crowd of people to “work it” for all they can get.
Yeah, I think that was what happened in Merced.
We have political systems, economic systems, and university systems.
I’d wager a lot of presumably artful people got upside down in Merced, a farming town where the state decided to build a new university, for one main reason. Carperbaggers with investment cash dove in and assumed values would soar. Bad timing, they got schooled. Feel no ill will for them, just that it was a losing gamble.
“It’s another dubious distinction: Merced County led the state last year in foreclosure filings. One out of 10 houses in the county were in some stage of foreclosure, according to RealtyTrac. That 10 percent figure translated to 8,291 homes in the county.”
Oops. Carpetbaggers.
Laptop screen flicker annoys.
The best watch-guard against fraud, bad investments, etc, is failure! If banks and companies were simply allowed to fail, then everyone would pay more attention to what their own money did, and less time depending on rating agencies and the Feds for their own lack of financial oversight.
More managers would lose their jobs. More “cheaters” would go to jail, etc.
If Pension funds, banks, companies, simply failed then their managers would lose their credibility and not be trusted to manage other people’s assets or money. And the holders of that wealth would change their habits of investing, forever. Bad systems need to fail, not be propigated by government programs and taxpayer dollars.
Yes, failure is an important part of life, but when we act to try and remove the most important result of failure (education) by oviating consequences, we destroy the real capacity of “the market” to operate efficiently.
Big Business seemed to control the air ways and law and order broke down as the mania was encouraged..
Big business got pounded. They are now suffering most of the pain. It makes no sense to say they engineered or encouraged the mania unless one believes they wanted to punish themselves.
The true cause was a sickness.. Call it mania or mob psychology or whatever you like. Being contageous there was no need for the media to deliberately spread it. It affected rich and poor, young and old, the wise and the fools..
Anyone who can place blame here or there has completely blown a rare opportunity to see a most peculiar facet of human nature exhibit itself, imo.
Big business got pounded. They are now suffering most of the pain. It makes no sense to say they engineered or encouraged the mania unless one believes they wanted to punish themselves.
Most of the CEO’s cashed out over the years. So yes the empty shell they left got pounded but the wealth extraction had already taken place. Those that were too slow to get all their cash out were helped by our Gov who bailed their companies out.
easy to call it a mania, take away blame from where it’s due.
the “big boys” thought they could handle it. made 2 and 20 running hedge funds and spent it all on homes in the hamptons, mistresses, divorces, and blow
when it all came down, the johnny-come-lately greater fools were holding the bag, wondering where their $300K bonus moneys went.
Jack Welch got out before the implosion. Alan Greenspan. Tangelo tried to. Plenty of people we don’t know about exited quietly with their winnings. (Chuck Prince, late of Merrill, hadn’t been CEO for long.)
Delay, Frist, Trent Lott, Newt Gingrich, Jeb Bush … they quietly left the scene, made hundreds of thousands on K street and hunkered down…
Those in the know knew exactly what they were doing. They just didn’t care. They passed on the costs to the next generation and partied as the sun went down.
Sure. Some people were immune.. recognized what was happening, kept their heads and were able to profit from the situation. This has to include lots of specuvestors-flippers, builders, developers, RE agents, Main Streeters and many others who rode the wave and bailed out in a timely fashion.
As long as they acted within the boundaries of the law, more power to them.
joey,
So true. My husband and son are constantly quizing me on who to blame.
It’s easy to explain what a mania is, but they still want to blame.
I gave them an examples of riots; or any large croud with a group think mentality. Ahem recent large group rallies.
Slowly the lightbulb warmed.
Leigh
Why the lenders allowed low/no down loans
1. Securitization, most of the risk sold to others.
2. CEO’s bonus tied to profits, they care little for what happens down the road.
3. Too big to fail - a belief that they could manipulate gov to bail them out when things crashed.
“The crime wave of bad lending flourished as people took advantage of the mania that nobody in power or in business or the media apparently saw it coming ”
Wrong - plenty saw it coming. There were several states that tried to crack down on this type of lending but the Federal Gov took them to court to prevent it. Other states probably saw this and decided not to procede with their own crack downs.
Big Business seemed to control the air ways and law and order broke down as the mania was encouraged .I think this mania was a perfect example of what happens when Big Business/Wall Street has free rein
without the proper check and balances .Self-regulation does not work
because greed is short sighted .
Agree 100%
I wanted Ron Paul. However, I have to comment on remarks (especially by Tim). Anybody that thinks it was not Democratic policy tht allowed this economic and housing crash is just plain ignorant ( do not mean that in a rude way). You need to search the filmed congressional records in 1999 and find a regulator explaining that Fannie and Freddie are gong to blow up (Raines of Fannie is one of Obamas economic advisors)and Barney Frank and Maxine Waters calling the guy a racist. You have no clue Tim. The fact is the Glass-Steagal act was repealed by Clinton and this allowed the banks to de-regulate (hence a casino). The fact is that Henry Cisneros pushed with Greenspan to give welfare loans to those that could not afford to pay for them. That is what these loans are Tim. By the way, politicians are politicians. We have just another political clown in the white house. We need less government, not more. Bush did no good, as did Clinton as will Obama. However, you need to know the facts. I will give you all a hint, the derivatives market has exploded and the exposure is 1.4 quadrillion dollars. What is lost? Nobody in the world has any accurate figures. It looks as though we will hyper-inflate.Good luck as we are all going to need it.
I thought the Reins Obama link was discredited?
It was. Here’s a link.
http://wire.factcheck.org/2008/09/24/obamas-connection-to-raines/
Who gives a damn whether or not Democratic policy enabled the housing bubble.
The fact is that the Republicans had full control of both the White House and Congress during the bubble years. If previous Democratic policy regarding housing had been faulty, they had both the power and duty to do something about it. Instead we got Bush’s “ownership society” - Bush not only had no problem with the situation when he took office, he wanted to go further.
It’s just mind-boggling how Bush’s apologists try to blame this debacle on the previous administration, as though Bush somehow had his hands tied. What happened to “the buck stops here”?
Both Bush himself and the whole Republican Party and its supporters have exhibited a total aversion to taking responsibility for anything.
The graph of the national debt versus year tells the whole tale, I think.
But of course, Grover Norquist and Ben Bernanke gave the whole game away–their stated intention was to destroy the federal government and to fight any deflation through rapid expansion of the money supply.
RE: politicians are politicians. We have just another political clown in the white house.
Nice post, pruvolo…you got the derivative thing nailed.
The financial fraudsters are still hiding the bombs, while looking for an offshore hole to crawl into to avoid the blasts to follow.
Aye hd,
But for, this is global and where to hide.
A nice - er - interesting news day for me, as Wall Street is shuddered today.
Scanning the financials, I noticed more “global” news today (I notice everyday, but today was different).
I thoughtfully wondered where one would hide, and contemplated on the world at large:
-weather
-potable water
-food
-industry
-stable government
-family/frienships
-health services
-freedom
-society norms
Introspective, in my calm state, I decided to make the best of the situation at hand.
On a one to ten scale, my family is near five.
I’m not a madmaxer, yet I do not deny others of this possible scenario.
Ah, what the heck is my point?
Something in your post made me think about you can run, but you can’t hide.
And for this, I thank you.
Regardless of ones economic standing, today this realization brought me peace.
Best,
Leigh
A great leader gives credit for success to others and credit for failure to himself. The fact that he was the leader of the country for the last 8 years makes him directly responsible. He chose plenty of the people in the chain and he was the main chain link. He’s responsible, and since I don’t see him putting any blame at his doorstep (quite the opposite) he is not a great leader.
The Gridiot?
Of course George Bush was not a great leader ,but Congress and the Senate and Feds and the Regulators and Wall Street and Lenders and Law enforcement ,the Judicial System ,and the People of the United States of America were not good
either . Had even the people of the United States refused to go into debt they couldn’t afford ,or refused to inflate their income on loan applications ,or told the Market Makers ,”No Thanks “,we wouldn’t be in this mess either .
“Had even the people of the United States refused to go into debt they couldn’t afford, or refused to inflate their income on loan applications, or told the Market Makers, “No Thanks”, we wouldn’t be in this mess either.”
+1,000
Exactly. Too many somethin-fer-nuthin-istas in our society as a whole. It erodes the value of activities that actually produce real wealth.
Bingo! Finally, we have the winner!
why would a great leader give all credit for success to others and take all failure blame upon himself?
that would be monumentally retarded and essentially valueless, as it would cause them to overthink every situation and never get anything done.
a great leader passes out credit to those who deserve it and is able accept mistakes while correctly assigning blame to those who deserve it, and get any problems fixed in a reasonable manner.
Blame shmame! It doesn’t matter now the results are what we are dealing with if we couldn’t stop this bailout with millions of phone calls and faxes what difference does it make? Nope, watching the dancing monkeys in congress and DC overall doesn’t make it right, this mess will end one day and it will be up to the survivors to rebuild if they want to. Continuation of government will try to replace anything with the old system. Wait a few years hence and our opinion and viewpoint on the world will be altered to take into consideration a new pardigm and the dancing monkeys will be out in force again. Remember hide the bananas.
Blame goes all around and should. Shrub pushing for an “ownership” society and pushing people to spend money since the 9/11 incident. Barney Frank who promoted Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - partly because he put his boyfriend in a high position at F.M. Christopher Dodd pushing Countrywide’s scam operation and getting special points for his real estate loans, Alan Greenspan who went against his capitalist economics (gold standard) and pushed interest rates artificially low. Real estate brokers who pushed homes on people who could not afford them. Greedy buyers and flippers who lied about their incomes. Mortgage bankers who defrauded to get low income people into real estate, the Community reinvestment act, which pushed minorities into neighborhoods they could not really afford.
This is a Republican and Democrat engineered mess. Everybody loses, including the only people who were not responsible at all - the real home owners (no mortgage payments) and renters who lived below their means and saved during the real estate bubble.
I’ll puke if I see someone blame only Republicans or only Democrats.
Nice 1998 article by William Saffire NYT
Far more troubling is the kind of marriage proposed by Citibank and the Travelers Group of insurance companies and stock brokerage. That would require changing the law that keeps banks — where individual deposits are insured up to $100,000 by the Federal Government — separate from other enterprises.
With remarkable chutzpah, these companies have embarked on a course that blithely assumes that change in law.
They think they can count on Republicans in Congress who say that the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act is a Depression-era relic. Fears that a market collapse could affect banks are old hat, these descendants of Dr. Pangloss insist. Break down the fire wall and let the Federal Reserve keep a benign eye on everything financial; we don’t even have to fear fear itself.
Not so fast. Suppose the Big Quake afflicts California. Or maybe a Category 5 hurricane, which comes every decade or so, rips along the expensive expanses of a place like Long Island. That would put a lot of pressure on even the most reinsured insurance company.
If you heard such news, and you could switch your money out of the bank affiliated with that insurer with a keyboard stroke, wouldn’t you be inclined to play it safe? And wouldn’t that Internetted panic cause a run on the superbank?
That’s being alarmist, of course. Such disasters are just as unlikely as a market crash (which we all assure each other can never happen again). But before the cash cow of Chase Manhattan starts making cow-eyes at the thundering herd of bulls of Merrill Lynch, Congress had better take a close look at the downside of upsizing across the old boundaries.
1. No private enterprise should be allowed to think of itself as ”too big to fail.” Federal deposit insurance, protecting a bank’s depositors, should not become a subsidy protecting the risks taken by non-banking affiliates. If a huge ”group” runs into trouble, it should take the bank down with it; no taxpayer bailouts should allow executives or stockholders to relax.
2. What about privacy? Our bank already knows the details of our buying habits. Won’t the affiliated stockbroker and insurance salesman have access to the superbank’s records? Do we want a bank that handles our credit cards to be calling us at dinner time as a financial-service telemarketer?
3. Let’s not be in such a big rush to knock down barriers. The Government’s biggest financial mistake of the past generation was to raise deposit insurance to $100,000 while allowing housing S.& L.’s to plunge into commercial lending. That all but removed the element of risk from foolish or corrupt loans and helped bring on the S.& L. debacle. Good fences make good banks.
4. Beware the slippery slope to crony capitalism. Paul Volcker, former Fed chairman, is less troubled than I am about an amalgam of financial services, provided the Fed is the supervisor. ”But there is an Anglo-Saxon tradition separating banking and commerce,” he says. ”I’d continue to draw the line between finance and business.”
There’s the rub. If commercial banks invade mutual funds, stock brokerage, investment banking, insurance sales and the like — or get invaded by them — that ”finance” is likely to spill over into ”commerce and industry.” That’s the seamlessly interconnected philosophy. And that’s the path of Japanese keiretsu, the cozy network of insider financial dealings that crushes competition and breeds inefficiency
While flawed, CRA’s intent was only to address discrimination and redlining (which does occur), not for encouraging banks to make loans unsupported by incomes to any demographic.
Banks did that to themselves: erasing rational lending standards for minorities and whites as a whole, since dividends increased by pushing for higher risk using artificially cheap money.
CRA did not encourage the rating agencies to call mortgage bonds to subprime borrowers ‘AAA’. While the intent was abused because of poor regulatory oversight, loans made under the program account for only a small amount of total loans made. However, they did account for a disproportionate number of the early defaults noted in late 2007.
Is the Kool-Aid tasty?
David Miliband criticises George Bush’s ‘war on terror’
George W Bush’s “war on terror” may have played into the hands of violent extremists, David Miliband has warned.
By Alex Spillius and Matthew Moore
Last Updated: 1:35PM GMT 15 Jan 2009
The timing of this critique could not have been more conspicuous.
The Ownership Society concept did not turn out so well…
BUSH SIGNS AMERICAN DREAM DOWNPAYMENT ACT
$200 million program will help tens of thousands of low-income families to become homeowners
{Photo: Acting Secretary Alphonso Jackson makes some remarks just before President Bush signed the American Dream Downpayment Act]
Acting Secretary Alphonso Jackson makes some remarks just before President Bush signed the American Dream Downpayment Act.
WASHINGTON - There is a reason why many American families can’t buy their first home - they can’t afford the downpayment and other upfront closing costs required to qualify for a mortgage. For as many as 40,000 low-income families, that will change as President Bush today signed The American Dream Downpayment Act into law.
Applauding Congress for authorizing the annual $200 million downpayment assistance program, Bush and Housing and Urban Development Acting Secretary Alphonso Jackson said the initiative will also help meet the Administration’s “Homeownership Challenge” to increase minority homeownership by 5.5 million families by the end of the decade.
“Today we are taking action to bring many thousands of Americans closer to the great goal of owning a home,” said President Bush. “These funds will help American families achieve their goals, strengthen our communities, and our entire nation.”
“This is a good day for thousands of families who have only dreamed about sharing in the American Dream of homeownership,” said Jackson. “Not only will this law allow thousands of hard-working Americans to unlock the door to homeownership, it will also help close the gap that separates minority households from the rest of the country when it comes to owning a home to call their own.”
Nothing wrong with ownership as long as one does not borrow beyond ones means. Build smaller houses rather than hand out subprime loans.
haven’t you heard? putting a family in a small house is CHILD ABUSE!
yeah, those who can’t save for a downpayment are a good bet for making their monthly payments….no wonder we are heading to a depression with this kind of logic!
FORECLOSURE ACTIVITY INCREASES 81 PERCENT IN 2008
By RealtyTrac Staff
Nearly 3.2 Million Foreclosure Filings on More Than 2.3 Million Properties Reported
IRVINE, Calif. – Jan. 15, 2009 – RealtyTrac® (realtytrac.com), the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties, today released its 2008 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report™, which shows a total of 3,157,806 foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — were reported on 2,330,483 U.S. properties during the year, an 81 percent increase in total properties from 2007 and a 225 percent increase in total properties from 2006. The report also shows that 1.84 percent of all U.S. housing units (one in 54) received at least one foreclosure filing during the year, up from 1.03 percent in 2007.
Foreclosure filings were reported on 303,410 U.S. properties in December, up 17 percent from the previous month and up nearly 41 percent from December 2007. Despite the spike in December, foreclosure activity for the fourth quarter was down nearly 4 percent from the previous quarter but still up nearly 40 percent from the fourth quarter of 2007.
Great to see the Virginian Pilot article linked! Still tons of denial here in Hampton Roads (Southeastern Virginia). Homes are often still up 80%+ in value. Everyone seems to think it’s different here because a large part of the good jobs are related to gov’t and gov’t contractors. Heck the Navy just got a housing allowance increase AFAIK. Rents are still insane (people asking $1800+/mo for a condo?). I’ve survived 3 rounds of layoffs at the small company I work for, but know I could be next. I’ve been saving, thanks to this blog. I’ll miss working for a private tech company. After working for the gov’t contractors and for a private company that makes things, #2 makes me feel much better.
I wish more locals read this blog, or would do a meetup.
Forty-five years later — at the height of a housing boom that seemed endless — she took out a $175,000 loan. Martinez used the money to consolidate debt, buy new appliances, replace the roof and take a couple trips to visit her children. Close to that same time in 2005, she was diagnosed with a form of bone cancer, which has forced her in and out of the hospital.
I am reading this with some sympathy and some shaking of my head. There is the standard thing here. The numbers don’t really add up. 175K tax free… roof was maybe 20-30K? New appliances had to be about 20-30K? Maybe a bit more, 70K? A few trips to see the kids sucked up 100K? How much debt was she in before this?
Then she is having expensive bone cancer treatments. Well, thats nice but probably gets thrown on medicare for the most part. She is probably well into her 70s here. I know its cold but that’s a lot of change to throw at saving someone that old who will probably not survive the treatments.
If this house is “saved” from forclosure then what? I guess the kids were hopeful to inherit the house.
How long has she been living on the government dime here? SS and retirement is only 1500$?
So many things wrong with this story. Wonder if a lot of stuff was given to the kids already and if they are working the system.
Don’t forget the kid who moved in to “take care” of her. No doubt she was the one taking care of HIM. I see it all the time, all the time.
“Then she is having expensive bone cancer treatments. Well, thats nice but probably gets thrown on medicare for the most part. She is probably well into her 70s here. I know its cold but that’s a lot of change to throw at saving someone that old who will probably not survive the treatments.”
If it were her own money she’d choose morphine. Europe doesn’t spend a fortune on it’s old folks because they don’t have it to spend. If they did have it a politician would buy votes with it…with medical care.
Heck,who gave this women a loan that big on her income for God Sakes .This women has spent her equity and she can no longer afford her fraudulent loan that she used in part for over consumption . To think that at one point in time this women has a paid for house . OK, the greedy lenders got a hold of her and urged her to go into debt for some good things in life, as well as paying some medical bills . Is this article suggesting that the government should keep her in her house at no cost ,based on the fact that she can’t afford the payment and she has medical bills ? Don’t they have some sort of State funds that help people on low income afford some medical costs that Medicare doesn’t cover ? I thought that there was Gap coverage for the low income .
Like I said though. It doesn’t add up to me. All the expenses shouldn’t have blown through all that money.
Now, if she blew all her money on medical treatment and she has to live in a small apartment after this, and you can on 1500$ per month, then so be it.
Its one of those choices you make to survive.
What can you do? The worst case we are looking at here is she lives in a less than prime area or out in the country on the 1500 per month. Looking on the internet… Scottsdale Az.. plenty of apartments for under 800$ per month. And it has a pool and sauna.
Places in LA. Not the beach but inland. michigan plenty. Plenty in PA.
Probably not all the best places but to heck with the house, if it bought you your life.
In the US medical “care” system, you may have to fight very hard to get morphine over agressive intervention, even though they have shown that it doesn’t prolong life in the very old and damages their quality of life. In my family I’ve seen members have to fight to be allowed to go home to die. Why? big payout to hospital for expensive interventions at end of life, no money if patient decides they want to go peacefully with their family around them.
Americans in general seem to want the aggressive intervention, no matter how ill-advised. Most were happy to see Kevorkian thrown in the clink. Americans are optimists. They want that 1/100 chance they will recover.
It doesn’t add up for me either. That sounds like a small house so the roof would be maybe $15K? Depends upon materials and whether a tear-off of the old roof was necessary. I did my own composition roof in San Jose back in 1993 and the materials were only about $3,500 total.
Appliances are cheap. Refer $1K range $800 dishwasher $450 washer/dryer $900. What’s that - $3,150 total? Throw in $800 for delivery and set up and you are only in for $4K.
We had a complete reroofing in 2004 for $6000 inclding taking out 2 chimneys. Maybe it was cheaper in SC.
Yes, James, your attitude regarding her cancer is very cold. You must be a young and healthy person. But what would you say if we were talking about your mother or grandmother? Given the state of Medicare, I agree that we may, at some point, have to look into not treating certain diseases in extremely old people. However, you may not realize it, but late seventies is not extremely old for an American woman.
You also wrote the following:
How long has she been living on the government dime here? SS and retirement is only 1500$?
First, you’re upset about the Social Security checks that she receives. Then, in your next sentence, you note how little money she actually gets. I saw on a web site somewhere that the typical Social Security recipient gets about $1,000 per month, so that $1,500 is quite believable.
This woman (and her son) appear to have wasted quite a bit of money, but your attitude regarding her cancer is incredibly callous and inhuman.
How about roof - $5,000 and appliances - $3,500 installed - that’s on the high end. There’s a bunch more to the story and I’d bet the adult children of this poor old woman were guilty of collecting their inheritance before the key trigger event.
Heck even “Nana” herself couldn’t believe she lived this long - and the kids couldn’t believe it either… and just would not wait.
yeah, the son is the one who is upset to lose his free rent location. She borrowed, spent the cash , and now can’t afford to repay the whole deal. and, then the trips….Oh let the sob story quit. there is alot of spending not covered in this article. Her mistake in life was borrowing a dime on a house that should have been paid off long ago. never borrow from a home to pay other debts..the home equity is shielded by the homestead exemption. anyhow, in the end HUD will cover her housing and the son will have to get a job and pay some rent. I have no sympathy for idiots!
I keep on questioning this mass brainwashing aspect of the housing bubble . If people are this subject to brainwashing ,than laws need to be passed to prevent the mass brain-washing of people .
Think about it ,any force that might gain power could brainwash the sheep to do anything if counter information is suppressed .Would the sheep know any better ? Is this a area that needs more regulation ?
People were walking around like zombies repeating the same talking points and myths about investing during the boom times. Who would of known
(unless you were in the business ) that they were making loans to anyone, that was creating a false demand for housing ,that the people could not even afford these toxic loans long term . Why didn’t you get very many questions from the media like ,”How are people affording these high prices ?” When the affordability index went down ,why didn’t anyone question why the sales went up in real estate ?
I know on the block I lived on people were questioning who were these buyers who could afford these prices . I asked my real estate listing Agent at the time who the buyers where and he was silent . At that point I insisted that I wanted to review any potential buyers income before I would go into escrow with them . As it turned out, I got a all cash offer so the issue didn’t come up about the buyer qualifying .
I believe the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the right to brainwash the sheeple. There have been few times in U.S. history when a good crap detector was a more valuable asset.
PB,
I was formulating a similar reply before I even noticed yours at the bottom…..
Freedom of religion protects the right of organized religion to brainwash the youth of our country.
The Constitution also protects the right to just say no to religious brainwashing. Thanks to our religious freedom, it is much hard these days for upright Christian folks to burn ‘heretics’ and ‘witches’ at the stake.
Thanks to our religious freedom, it is much hard these days for upright Christian folks to burn ‘heretics’ and ‘witches’ at the stake.
Amen! And thank Sweet Baby Jeebus for that!
(Hahahahaha! Get it? Hahahahaha!)
Say, speaking of, I’m having a bonfire tomorrow night, as part of my celebration party. I’ll think of you fondly, PB, as I’m jumping the flames.
I don’t think I was talking about religious freedoms ,but rather
consumer protections against false advertising and other misrepresentations on the future value of investments . Had the NAR and the REIC and the media not peddled their myths about real estate investments ,the mania might of not gained so much ground . Now you see the media giving all the great
investment advice in the world ,but a little late and the horse is out of the barn . In other words ,there ought to be a law against any kind of projection of future value of a investment ,but than again I guess everyone is entitled to make a opinion ,but don’t do under the cover of being a professional or a News Media that is considered factual in their assertions .
‘I don’t think I was talking about religious freedoms ,but rather consumer protections against false advertising and other misrepresentations on the future value of investments .’
Huh? Wha…? You mean, there’s a difference?
(Hahahahah! *snort *
Sorry. Having a fun day here in Olympia.)
Think of me, think of me fondly,
when we’ve said goodbye.
Remember me once in a while -
please promise me you’ll try.
When you find that, once again, you long
to take your heart back and be free -
if you ever find a moment,
spare a thought for me
Olympiagal,
Are you going to be burning an effigy of he who is gone in your bonfire?
“…In these honorable qualifications, I behold the surest pledges that, as on one side no local prejudices or attachments—no separate views, nor party animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests; so on another, that the foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the pre-eminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens, and command the respect of the world. I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my country can inspire: since there is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity: since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained: and since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”
Gen. George Washington
from his 1st Inaugural address
Yep entrusted to the 10% of American people that were eligible to vote.
Our founding fathers did not trust the mob.
Oh, my, how times have changed~!
“‘That’s the market,’ Stephen Pearson, the immediate past president of the Watsonville Association of Realtors, said in an interview with the Register-Pajaronian. ‘Really, everything right now is a distress sale.’”
Remember just a couple of short years back how the country was running out of land, if you didn’t rush out and buy you’d be “price out”??
What a bunch of useless scumbags!
These folks SOLD houses to people at inflated prices and assured them they were making a “great investment”.
Remember all the NAR hype??
EVERYTHING is a distress sale?
I am sure glad I didn’t listen to a single REALTOR(tm).
I would be bankrupt and house-poor.
I don’t understand why the poor woman doesn’t just give up the house and move in with her son.
As far as blame goes, It started back along time ago when the capital gains tax exclusion for RE was put in place. Instead of a level playing field where any gain was taxed, RE was given special status. I think this happened under Clinton. Of course there is more blame to go around after that fact, but it started the ball rolling.
Clinton passed the up to 500 k exclusion of real estate capital gains every two years on a primary residence . I don’t exactly know why they had to allow the clause that it could be every two years ,rather than a
one time exclusion ,but this act set the stage for real estate being turned into a short term flipping business with that favorable tax treatment ,IMHO .
Check the story again - HE already moved in with HER.
yes to take care of her and her HELOC money
……suggesting that the government trade seized drug homes for bank-owned homes as a way to fight the foreclosure problem.”
“Banks, he argues, would still end up with a house, while residents could keep their home.
Where’s my FREE house? I want one, too.
First let me re-fi mine, so I can spend all the money on trips and run up a bunch of debts. Then, i can default too and ask the government to give me one. Is this a great country or what?
Get ready for 4 (or 8 years) of Upside-Down world, where work and savings are bad, debt and poverty are good, and the more Upside-Down you are, the more you deserve!
Are you suggesting that privatizing profits and socializing risk had nothing to do with the previous administration? For 6 of the past 8 years they had the virtual mandate to do almost anything they wanted in the name of “security”. They chose to do nothing but attack people who questioned the underpinnings of the bubble.
I’d love to see proof that the last 8 years weren’t exactly what you are complaining about.
Of course the previous administration carries a lot of blame, esp. for allowing government backed mortgages to be issued and packaged up with no oversight.
But we’re not going to fix this mess by borrowing more money, and giving free houses to deadbeats.
Are you saying it was okay for Bush to borrow money but not for Obama? I don’t agree with him that bailouts are going to save this country, but I would rather spend trillions on helping impoverished Americans who are in dire economic straits because of Bush’s economic policies than on subsidizing tax breaks for robber barons, or an illegitimate war in a country that did nothing to harm us.
Also, which part of Obama’s bailout plan specifies free housing for anyone? I must have missed that in his economic platform.
How about deferring foreclosures? Or Cram-downs? That’s free housing.
‘I’d love to see proof that the last 8 years weren’t exactly what you are complaining about.’
Well, you ain’t gonna’ get any, especially from this particular poster, if observation serves me.
So, moving on… say! Nosingleone, it’s nice to see you back posting. You’ve been gone awhile, what, have you been busy sewing curtains for your new house? How’s that going? How’s your doggie? Have you planned a garden? What yer gonna’ grow: rocks and Eskimos?
‘What yer gonna’ grow: rocks and Eskimos?’
I’m not going to grow Eskimos or rocks, I’m going to grow even more tulips, and install another set of garden beds for tomatoes, because last year they did sucky— too much shade— and I’ll grow Jerusalem artichokes again, as I could not believe how well they did here. 12′ tall by October, and the whole garden box was packed full of tubers! There wasn’t even any room for dirt anymore! The worms was all squished in and complaining about it.
Hey Oly,
I’ve been in absentia because I’ve been frantic with work, holidays, tax stuff and setting up house. HBB is a luxury! I’ve done nothing with the garden…minus 20 temperatures made it a bit difficult, lol. But in the spring I want to plant basil, cilantro, and lots of other herbs as well as flowers. I’ll have a true opinion about the virtues and ignobilities of homeownership after my one year anniversary.
My doggie is great, but we have a difference of opinion about what constitutes good hygiene, and with her being a pound puppy we are still working through neediness issues and antisocial behavior. I’ve grown very fond of her though.
Well, I just don’t know…* reproachful sniff *
You do give good reasons, but all I know is, we have missed you, and you have spurned us whilst you fiddled about with your dumb old tax and work stuff….
* casts eyes aside sadly, blinks back tears rapidly as gropes in bra for hankie, in order to sop up the sorrow *
Look, NoSingleOne, if you cared, if you were a sensitive man, you would pretend to be working industriously and THEN you’d secretly spend a lot of time reading the HBB, and typing in your flitting random thoughts! And shouting at your computer screen.
Like me! Huh? Yes, that’s right.
But let us say no more about it.
I forgive you.
Moving on:
1. Basil is good! Cilantro is good!
2. What kind of flowers are you thinking of?
3. Well, you know what, ‘good hygiene’ is indeed an issue, and you didn’t get into details, so what do you mean? Like, dragging home pig heads? Which one of you does that? Ahhh.. I recall when my good dog did that. Those were the good days. I rarely would share, though, because it was disturbing to my sensibilities.
Oooh, I missed gardening season, it’s been crazy. Can I vote for a good flower to plant? Allium! It’s so cool, I always forget I planted it and springs up, higher than all the other flowers, like fireworks.
Also, hellebores. They flower in the winter, aaah.
Also, ornamental oregano, you can’t eat it (except with your eyes). It’s pretty and simple.
I know an awesome landscape gardener and her business is suddenly dropped down because the Vancouver RE market crashed (there I tied it to housing, right?).
If you are right, then further debauchery of the American work ethic is at hand!
Don’t worry, be happy. Why be a producer and pay all the bills? I am making plans now to join the crowd. If they are going to giving out free cheese so to speak I am going to get in line. The system collapses if everyone gets on the dole. The new revolution is hiding assets and signing up for all the handouts.
“The new revolution is hiding assets and signing up for all the handouts.”
New revolution? More like an old game of three card monte.
Hiding assets from shareholders and workers and corporate welfare is fundamental #1 under the corporatist supply side methodology.
If it’s good for them, its good for me too.
I know people who can afford to pay their obligations but no longer see any sense in it.
Their perspective is why, when the Government has changed the rules why play by the old ones.
Getting rid of debt by walking away is becoming the new black it seems.
Will people who choose to play by the old rules of paying off their debts be hurting themselves?
Say if I owned a boat, jet skis, a Harley, a timeshare etc and I quit paying and save the money…..those toys can be purchased for pennies on the dollar with the cash for less later on. I would win and still have money left over.
Disclaimer: I owe nothing to no one.
Her home is set to be auctioned in front of the county courthouse in February. If that goes through, there’s a good chance she’ll be forced to move within 90 days. Her son has been trying with no success to strike a compromise with the lender. He’s also been lobbying state and federal representatives, suggesting that the government trade seized drug homes for bank-owned homes as a way to fight the foreclosure problem.”
This is unbelievable! If I were 80 years old, didn’t have a penny to my name, and recently blew a lot of money for poor decisions, then came down with cancer….I’d be grateful to have a nice clean one-room apartment! Why does her son believe mom deserves a free house? Who’s going to pay to maintain this house?
She believed that she would die long before her money was spent. She also never forsaw what would happen, since property values always go up. Its another sob story for the masses, however, I doubt that she forsaw her current circumstances.
My boss never gives us MLK day off. That has always been fine with me, but I think he should have given us THIS MLK day off so we can celebrate the last day of Bush.
I agree with Arizona’s decision on MLK day. It was put to a vote. MLK lost, was enacted by the governor and then pulled out by the next gov. The Arizona tourist Boycott started and the Super Bowl would not be held. Voters passed the MLK day in 1992. I love blackmail and corruption. The NFL holding Arizona hostage for a special day, awesome.
i voted against it because of the nfl trying to influence politics in arizona. i don’t have a problem that we now have MLK day! I would not be blackmailed on the ballot that year!
Interesting topic, but hopefully the “spam” filters aren’t going to sink posts of a partisan nature. How can we discuss the last 8 years if we can only make nice-nice of them?
hmmm no attacks since 9/11?
anthrax
still unsolved
Solved. A researcher at Ft. Detrick, MD.
what I love about that whole thing is that it was clear from day one that they were mailed from within the US, but this FBI guy got on TV and made bald-faced lies asserting that the letters originated from outside the US and that they were written by a non-American.
He should have shown a fake envelope and letter, instead of the real ones, to TV news reporters.
2001 = 1984
“this FBI guy got on TV and made bald-faced lies asserting that the letters originated from outside the US and that they were written by a non-American.”
And to think some people wonder why the GOP backed Bush is viewed as the most dishonest crime syndicate to ever hit DC.
OUR OPINIONS
Intervention in market stirs Bush debate
By Jim Wooten
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, January 18, 2009
…
While I would be perfectly willing to allow companies to fail whose corporate culture encouraged recklessness in lending or borrowing, the country could not tolerate the economic suffering that obviously would have been wrought by the failure to arrest the panic. In hindsight, the intervention put the government in the position of picking winners and losers while doing little to keep the free market from taking its course.
The makings of President Bush’s legacy were bookends to his presidency. …
No action that he took caused or perhaps could have prevented Wall Street’s meltdown. He inherited a culture created by post-Reagan politicians who cleverly sought to hide in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac the social programs they lacked the courage or cover to create outright. Ultimately, that system evolved into one where, top to bottom, nobody suffered the consequences of irresponsible behaviors. Not lenders. Not borrowers. Not investors.
The pass-the-risk, borrow-to-get-rich culture collapsed on Bush’s watch. He responded as any president would: Put out the fire and worry about the drought tomorrow.
I agree with the writer. Bush is relatively less culpable for the collapse of the U.S. housing finance system than the herd of Clinton-era D-rats who used social engineering to jury rig the housing market in order to promote their wealth redistribution schemes. It is poetic justice that a very Clintonesque Obama cabinet gets to grapple with the fallout.
RE: Bush is relatively less culpable for the collapse of the U.S. housing finance system than the herd of Clinton-era D-rats who used social engineering to jury rig the housing market in order to promote their wealth redistribution schemes
Bravo, Professor “B”…
Man, some real heavy hitter stuff goin’ down on this thread.
Well, Alad, wherever you are, I give a nod to you today. I just got of the phone with my sister and she was on a rampage about the current state of affairs. Her husband finds out tomorrow if he loses his job - 3 in his group, 2 have to go.
Anyway, she threw “revolt” around a few times. This is pretty drastic for my sister, who usually just complains about the weather.
I’ll put Mad Max back on the table for a few months. The masses will finally be given a peek into their future - you know, what we’ve been discussing here for years. It will be interesting to see how they react.
So, should I be stuffing my pants with ingots?
I am still trying to work out of the anger phase of the housing bubble stages of grief. I take the fact that I am nearly there as a sign that the masses will soon enter this phase. I have advised a number of young couples who are thinking about when to buy a home to stay out of the market until there is blood in the streets.
Good point.
Denial: 95%
Anger:
Bargaining:
Depression:
Acceptance: HHB crew
A lot of room in between
It is an itterative process. I go through all phases, several times a day.
That’s pretty funny.
‘So, should I be stuffing my pants with ingots?’
Hahaha! You know, there is a really funny limerick in here somewhere.
Dang….what rhymes with ‘ingots’? Anyone?
Tlingit?
Promising, palmy.
Lemme go count syllables.
It’s funny. I thought of a relevant one for you to use The ringgit is the national currency of Malaysia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysian_ringgit
A man who went by the name Vance
Stuffed ingots of gold in his pants
‘Twas not to be frugal
For ladies did oogle
The thing the fat ingots enhanced.
So, should I be stuffing my pants with ingots?’
Hahaha! You know, there is a really funny limerick in here somewhere.
Dang….what rhymes with ‘ingots’? Anyone?
“You’re going to love my nuts” - the Shamwow guy
RE: So, should I be stuffing my pants with ingots?
Yeah, and hangin’ a few belts of 7.62×39* around your shoulders.
*(if you can find any)
‘Yeah, and hangin’ a few belts of 7.62×39* around your shoulders.’
*spits out all the beer in my head *
Okay, NOW I’m getting fascinated! Tell me more!
*sits up straight, wonders where leather tool belt is *
There’s still a lot of cheap 7.62 x 54R out there if you can lower yourself to Mosin Nagants. The Chinese Coms had Albania as a client state so they built up huge ammo factories there - Albania is exporting it all for hard currency.
I am a conservative independent, and I believe that government has an important but limited role, and it has generally outgrown it’s capacity to provide what it is best able to provide at the local, State, and Federal levels-
My blameogram:
1. Bush for his role as leader of the game. Good man, who ran as a fiscal conservative but acted like anything but…. He needs to shoulder his fair share of blame for allowing the idealogical fraud to continue; “that government can solve all problems and provide our basic needs”. He clearly helped outspend his supposed “liberal” predecessors.
2. Congress for abandoning fiscal accountability long ago, in the name of pork-barrell politics. He/She who can bring home the most bacon to his/her constituents gets reelected. The language “for the good of the country” has been lost somewhere in the thousands of pages of the mind-numbing tax code, which seem to be written to meet the needs of hundreds of special interests.
3. Americans who blame government instead of themselves for voting the continuation of the various State and Federal ponzi schemes. We were as complicit in the problems we now face as anyone.
4. Corporate leaders for abandoning any sense of morality when it comes to acting like leaders. From compensation, to stock valuations, to the long-term viability of their organizations, and their employees long-term welfare; anything with the words “long term” in them has been evicorated from corporate behavior and corporate propaganda. Long live the “short run” Gods!!! Who cares what will happen down the road!!!! The current stock market situation is a long-overdue reckoning of this “rape and run” corporate philosophy that began to take hold in the past three decades.
5. Media and Hollywood. For choosing agenda-driven sides and trying to “frame” public opinion rather than simply providing thorough information so that the public-at-large can frame their own ideas and opinions. We have gone from reporting news to sensationalizing, in the name of ratings and recognition.
Major Kudos to Ben, and other Blog providers who provide an informative and intelligent forum where people with varying experience, education, and perspectives can share, discuss, and debate the important issues of the day.
Shane,
I’m a liberal independent and I agree with everything you just posted. You were able to post your thoughts so much more succinctly.
Thank you.
Pictures of unsold new cars being stored around the world.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/gallery/2009/jan/16/unsold-cars?picture=341883529
Clinton had a big hand in it. The following link (NY Times) is from 1999 and predicts the current mess and bailout.
http://tinyurl.com/4o89pj
None of my posts are showing up. Only about 3 of them, and not even the pro*va*ca*tive ones. Maybe that’s because I’m more thoughtful and instrospective than usual.
Or maybe it’s the mist! It has been a very still, very misty, very calm entirely gray day here in Olympia. I can’t even see the water.
Oh, I just had a thought–if this day, of all days, on the HBB does not lure Alad out of his redoubt in the wilderness, then nothing will. He really has been eaten by trees. His pants is full of ingots, and weighted him down…
Hate to brag, but I will.
It has been a beautiful 70 degrees here in San Francisco today. Clear skies. Spent most of the day along the San Francisco/San Mateo county coast line (sigh - still looking for that rain).
Yeah, whatever! Rain, rain, you and the rainnnnnnnn…
‘Ms. I miss the rain, I love the rain, I miss the smell of it rolling over the hills….’
Now, you know I recall at this time only because I love you, now.
“Since we are approaching the end of the Bush debacle, a very good topic would be how much blame he deserves for this mess. Throw out your shoes on the 20th. In the streets!”
Not NEARLY as much as Greenie, that old, crusty b*st8rd.
Note to Ben Jones:
This was a most EXCELLENT choice! Many very good points and issues raised. Many points of view expressed on the most important financial topic of our time. And all of it was civil discourse. Be proud of that. This is the BEST BLOG EVER!!
I know many think I’m a right-wing douchebag, and they could be correct. In reality, I’m just an independent voting former Philosophy professor at a NY University, trying to do as best I can with my limited means.
Today I supported the blog with a logical check-up and a check. I beseech the other bloggers to contribute and donate what they can. Support this fine forum!
“I know many think I’m a right-wing douchebag”
Not me.
I don’t agree with your opinions however I do respect your right to voice your opinion cobaltblue.
It’s all well and good to blame Bush. Where were the congress members who are part of our check and balance system. There is plenty of blame to go around and lots of examples of greed on all levels.
The American people have developed an attitude of entitlements. When I was raised on the farm in rural Minnesota I was taught the value of hard work and reaping the results of my hard work. Today, all are “entitled” to McMansions, gigantic SUV’s, etc., etc.
We are in process of creating a national debt that will be paid for by future generations.
I wish president elect Obama well. He needs firm hands on the wheel of state.
Oh, this is 100% off topic, but I just found a little note in my paperwork with the to do list from JUNE the “donation to Ben Jones” unticked. Very shamefaced, but I just ticked it off. A friendly reminder to the disorganized :).
Ella - better late than never! Ben Jones has saved me, and countless others, big bucks through his unfailing and timely stewardship of this blog. I once was accused of being a Ben Jones suck-up and I admitted it immediately. Heck, I had less time to read Ben’s work than he took to create it. In terms of my modest net worth, Ben’s blog has been the best thing that ever happened to me. I cannot repay Ben except through my regular contributions, online kudos, heartfelt thanks and, hopefully, replies like this.
Your post is not at all “off topic” (the Bits Bucket is just fine for that.)
Thanks, Chip. Just thinking about my sad contribution history is making my cheeks burn. I have set up a paypal account (no, I didn’t have one!) so that I will be quicker, and not try to be fancy with a money order in a greeting card that I put off organizing for 6 months. I expect it is not too late for a New Year’s resolution!
I don’t understand how Frank can say, with a straight face, that Bush is responsible for the disaster of the first 350 billion. It was Frank and Co. who should have tabled a tighter bill. The banks and Paulson must be laughing their butts off.
From now on it’s Obama’s problem. Good luck.
“From now on it’s Obama’s problem. Good luck.”
Exactly. And I predict the next four years will be stinking miserable and at the end of that time, he’ll be viewed as a bigger loser than Little Caligula, because he’ll be sabotaged by his own party. Mark my words (copying from Biden). He won’t know what hit him, but I can just tell by his appointment of Geithner, for starters, there won’t be any economic recovery on his watch. Geez, Geithner couldn’t get his taxes together for four years and he’s heading up Treasury? More and more of the same stuff that results in failure will be thrown at the “problem”. Nothing intelligent, no change, except maybe for the worse. He will end up being crucified over the economy. And abroad? LMAO! Hillary as Secretary of State? WTF was he thinking? He really must be naive. She will eat him alive at the first opportunity. Why? Because in her eyes, he is an upstart who took what she felt was rightfully hers. And by all that’s holy, she WILL get even. She’s been known to be vindictive and God help us all if she runs State like she ran her campaign. And she will run State, just like that. It will be a shambles. He will get the blame for the problems at State, too.
Oh, and I forgot, we’re gonna have an AG who favors terrorists over American citizens (FALN).
Sit back and enjoy the show, folks. Because it is really gonna get vicious. I just hope there’s something vaguely resembling the US at the end of his term.
You can’t have a constructive discussion on the topic if you are going to present it like that. You’re not looking for debate or conversation you’re looking for a partisan Bush bashing fest.
I understand that politics and the housing bubble are related topics but one of the refreshing things about this blog it that it was never partisan. Let’s keep it that way!
“Since we are approaching the end of the Bush debacle……”
You can’t have a constructive discussion on the topic if you are going to present it like that. You’re not looking for debate or conversation you’re looking for a partisan Bush bashing fest.
I understand that politics and the housing bubble are related topics but one of the refreshing things about this blog it that it was never partisan. Let’s keep it that way!
I guess I just wanted to add another point to the discussion about blame .
During the housing boom it seems like unlimited funds were coming into America from all over the world . These excess funds were looking for a place to invest . It appears that Wall Street created a place for these investment dollars to go ,in spite of it creating a bubble of easy money directed toward real estate loans . The industry kept creating new types of loans to keep the party going and it reached the point where loans were just given based on real estate always goes up BS.
This boom was a Ponzi-scheme that used real estate as the so-called security for the loan with total abandonment of any underwriting standards . At some point in the mania renters were attacked for being commitment phobic for not getting on the bandwagon and people were being scared into buying with lines like ,”Buy now or be priced out forever .” Salespeople continued to seek out unqualified people to be the next round of “greater fools ” and the crime wave got more and more intense . Builder built tracts for speculators ,rather than end users
who planned to really occupy the property .
If the housing boom started with a intent to give opportunities to the
down trodden to own a home ,it ended with a crime wave of abuse by the speculators and builders and all parties trying to cash in on the frenzy of easy profits by a fake price bubble .
Bush’s stunning sub-par performance gave Obama the presidency. Had Bush performed even slightly better we would be swearing in McCain. What if Obama happens to be, relative to other choices, the one unique leader that begins moving the US economy in the right direction? Bush then becomes a significant contributor to helping end 20 years of economic nightmare.
“Civil order” and “government” are created by ruling classes to corral sheeple into believing it’s “better” to be ruled than to live free without interference.
Cake, anyone?