DANIEL GROSS

The End of the 'BSD'

Wall Street bids farewell to conspicuous consumption

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  • Posted By: msoliman @ 03/15/2009 11:58:13 PM

    First , I cannot believe the comment entered below here. This is what will lead to somthing we never wanted to see again in the world. Anyway, the Federal Savings Banks are precluded from this type of lending - sub prime. The advent and devlopemtn of the mortgeg REIT, Pass through Trust and CDO products took the FSB back into the game and look what happened. The game is not over yet as foreclosure victims who are willing to fight back are getting their share and more. And untill the fat lady sings, I mean the SEC, no one has gotton away with anything. www.foreclosureinfosearch.com/

  • Posted By: MichaelX @ 02/13/2009 10:09:40 AM

    You're all going to hate this: Jews have been the problem with our finacial system all along. It has been in their interest only to manipulate, and manuver business dealings in favor of the Zionist attemp to take over America.Truth.
    This country is being sold off, and the Demoncratic machine is intent on this hostile aggression by foreign investments.
    I dont care if you dont like what I say. Of course you would be offended, you're a jew! You, by nature, are the most offensive creature on this planet. Check out history, ***.

  • Posted By: Davole @ 09/30/2008 7:21:03 PM

    A Proposal to Resolve the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Financial Fiasco

    In order to solve what has been termed the financial crisis, it is necessary to identify the cause of Fannie Mae???s and Freddie Mac???s catastrophic failure.

    The cause of their downfall is the partisan democrat pressure put on those companies to grant sub prime mortgages to persons who would be unable to repay those loans.

    The democrat senators and representatives, who mandated that financial background checks be considered unnecessary and unwarranted, facilitated that irresponsible granting of mortgages to those unable to repay. The motive of the democrat members of Congress was strictly and blatantly partisan - to buy votes, and to maintain years of party support.

    In 2005, John McCain co-authored a bill to investigate and regulate the faulty business practices of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but that was opposed and defeated by the democrats in Congress.

    On many occasions, President George W. Bush introduced proposals to regulate the mortgage lending companies, but those calls for regulation were opposed, obstructed, and defeated by democrats who were obsessed with the continuance of faulty lending practices.

    In order to reform the financial sector, it is necessary that the sleazy politicians and top administration of those 2 mortgage companies who perpetrated fraudulent activity be publicly identified, investigated, and severely punished for their undermining the national economy.

    It is only reasonable to expose the corrupt financial practices and their facilitators, and to remove them from any further activity, before any effort can be made to resurrect the American economy.
    Otherwise, any attempt to do so will be useless, because the problems and perpetrators would still be present to frustrate and obstruct any meaningful remedial action.

    • Posted By: ThePrairiePrankster @ 10/08/2008 2:47:02 PM

      Bush and the Republicans controlled Congress for the first 6 years of Bush's term. Why did they not take action then? Your braying about the Democrats being the sole cause of this debacle has ZERO credibility. You are part of the problem, you are nothing more than a dishonest shill, Davole. Rhymes with trashhole which rhymes with.....

  • Posted By: donmacb @ 10/04/2008 6:08:00 PM

    At last 'conspicuous consumption" gets a mention. I didn't waste my time in Economics 1 after all.

  • Posted By: Krohn @ 10/01/2008 9:02:45 PM

    A man of great wisdom:
    http://www.atlah.org/broadcast/manningreport.html

  • Posted By: Davole @ 09/30/2008 7:20:10 PM

    Continued - A Proposal to Resolve the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Financial Fiasco

    The first step toward economic recovery would be to isolate all sub prime mortgages from the assets of Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, and to group the remaining viable ones into several stock options to be offered for sale to the public, and also as a bailout measure.

    That would result in an immediate infusion of cash into the banking sector, thereby ensuring that credit could be granted to qualifying loan applicants.

    Individuals or organizations who choose to buy those stock options should benefit additionally from any profits later realized by their investments.

    Also, any profits resulting from the bailout option should be refunded to the INCOME TAX PAYERS only, since they would be the ones who would have financed the bailout.

    Likewise, but separately, the various questionable sub prime mortgages should be bundled together into other stock options which would be structured to contain a mixture of both somewhat and less redeemable loans.

    Those sub prime mortgage packages should be offered first to democrats, especially wealthy ones, who might be attracted to them by their being valued at a price of 80 cents on the dollar, based on the face value of the mortgages.
    .
    That would afford them the option to support what democrats viewed to be a noble cause (home ownership for the unemployed), and besides, it might enable the stock option buyers to profit by 20 percent if all of the sub prime mortgages would be somehow repaid by the homeowners.

    Thus democrats, especially the likes of George Soros, Barack Obama, Ted Kennedy, Chris Dodd, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Charlie Schumer (who supported the granting of sub prime mortgages irrespective of demonstrated ability to repay) would be able to ???put their money where their mouths are???!

    Lastly, there should be a guarantee that no further sub prime mortgages be granted.
    Home ownership is a GOAL for many financially responsible Americans - it is not a government sponsored RIGHT for all persons living legally and illegally in the US!

  • Posted By: Davole @ 09/29/2008 10:11:30 AM

    The DEMOCRAT party has demonstrated its complete disregard and disgust for the prosperity of the American population and its economy.

    It has put partisan politics above the welfare of the nation by its demonstrated sinister plan to decimate the financial industry.

    By infiltrating the administration of Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac with its own DEMOCRAT operatives and sympathizers, it has encouraged and even forced those 2 companies to grant mortgages to party sympathizers who could not afford to repay those loans.

    It managed to achieve that end by forcing those 2 entities to avoid conducting background financial checks and assessments into the status of applicants to repay those loans. As a result, mortgages were given to the unemployed, those on welfare, and even undocumented illegal immigrants.

    In effect, a significant sector of the housing industry became a deceptively subsidized housing market.

    Just as the radical group ACORN has schemed to flood the welfare system with applicants in order to undermine its ability to function, so also the DEMOCRAT party has schemed to undermine the ability of the financial markets to perform their vital roles.

    But the American public DOES HAVE AN OPTION TO REGISTER ITS DISGUST WITH THE DEMOCRAT party that is hell-bent on stealing this election in order for it to decimate the capitalistic system which has facilitated American prosperity throughout its history.

    Only 5 percent of the mortgages which have been granted by those 2 lending companies are uncollectible. They have become the financial sector???s Achilles heel because they have been repackaged several times as stock options, thereby multiplying their accumulative detrimental effect.

    The remaining 95% of those mortgages are held by families which have bothered to assess their financial positions, optimistically apply for and obtain their mortgages, and continue to repay them.

    But the responsible 95% are furious that whereas they have been financially responsible, they must now also subsidize the default mortgages of the irresponsible 5%.

    The DEMOCRATS have forced them into an untenable corner, but they can show their disgust for the oppressive DEMOCRATS by voting them out of office in the House and Senate, and by electing a REPUBLICAN president and VP who will reform Washington so that another disgusting massive DEMOCRAT extortion scheme can never be perpetuated on American citizens.

    • Posted By: HAL--- @ 09/29/2008 11:32:39 AM

      Prosperity is one thing, GREED is another. BTW, Republicans have had the ball for the last 8 years...blame Bush and his cronies.

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  • Posted By: FATJOEY @ 09/29/2008 7:30:41 AM

    i freaking love the genius strategy.....THROW MONEY AT THE PROBLEM!!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

  • Posted By: williambanzai7 @ 09/27/2008 10:36:11 PM

    TARP BAILOUT THRILLER NIGHT (Final version)
    (Michael Jackson's Thriller)
    WilliamBanzai7

    It's Midnight this late September night and the street is full of Politicians, Lurking in the Dark.
    Under The Moonlight, You See A Sight That Almost Stops Your Heart.
    You Try To Scream, But Terror Takes The Sound Before You Make It.
    Debt Markets Start To Freeze, As Horror Looks You Right Between The Eyes,
    Your Paralyzed

    You Hear The Door Slam, And Realize There's Nowhere Left To Run.
    You Feel The Cold Take Hold, And Wonder If You'll See the Mother of All Bear Runs
    You Close Your Eyes, And Hope That This Is Just Imagination,
    But All The While, You Hear The GOP Pachydermata Creepin' Up Behind
    You're Out Of Time

    They're Out to Get You, There's Demons Closing In On Every Side.
    They Will Possess You, Unless You Change The Number On Your Skype.
    Now Is the Time for You and Your Trading Quants to huddle Close Together
    All Thru The Night, It'll Save You From The Terror On The Reuter Screen,
    It'll Make You See:

    (narrated by Vincent Price)
    Darkness Falls Across The Land, The Asian Trading Day Is Close At Hand.
    Bottom Feeders Crawl In Search Of Blood To Foreclose on Your Neighborhood
    And Whosoever Shall Be Found Without The Soul For Economic Bust
    Must Stand And Face The Hounds Of Subprime Hell, And Rot Inside WaMu's Bankrupt Shell.

    The Foulest Stench Is In The Air The Funk Of 700 Billion Bailout Bucks
    And Shortselling Ghouls From Every Trading Room Are Closing In To Seal Your Doom
    And Though You Fight To Stay Alive Your Net Worth Starts To Shiver
    For No Investing Mortal Can Resist The Evil Of The TARP Bailout Thriller

    'Cause this Is Thriller, TARP Bailout make or break Night
    and No-ones Gonna Save You from the Beast about to Strike.
    You Know its Thriller, TARP Bailout Thriller Night
    You're fighting for Your Monetary Life inside a Killer, Thriller.

    Thriller, TARP Bailout Thriller Night
    'Cause I can thrill you More Than Any Market Ghoul Could ever try. (Thriller, Bailout Night)
    So Let Me Hold You Tight And Share A Killer, Chiller, Fiscal Massacre
    Thriller Here Tonight.

    'Cause this Is Thriller ,TARP Bailout Thriller night
    It Will Thrill You More Than Any Ghoul Could ever dare try
    Any Ghoul could ever Dare Try

    (Daddy, can I be TARP for Halloween? No deary...its too scary! Be something funny
    like the McCain campaign )

    http://williambanzai7.blogspot.com/

  • Posted By: thosfiore @ 09/27/2008 10:10:48 AM

    So maybe now we can get the best and the brightest--that may not include these BSDs--to work on building companies instead of just shuffling money around. If we can spend the next decade building an economy based on producing products instead of exchanging real estate with each other and sending our armed forces to police the world we will all be better off. The economy of the last decade has been structured to benefit the top few percent of wealth holders and what we have gotten out of that is the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Our goal should now and always to build and strengthen the middle class and let the wealthy take care of themselves.

  • Posted By: cani77 @ 09/27/2008 12:28:25 AM

    In a few weeks we will make a choice that will decide our future.
    I follow an economist named Bob Proctor. He has called the top and bottom of every market crash since the 70s correctly.
    Also, he perfectly predicted the current real estate market meltdown and the picture he paints about what will happen in the next couple years
    is terrifying.He thinks it will be worse then the great depression.
    The banks in the U.S. are going under one after the other. Countrywide the largest morgage bank in the world,Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch which are 3 out of the top 5 wall street firms. Also, Fanny and Freddy Mae which hold 50 percent of the home loans in the United States.
    The government took them over because they are essentially bankrupt.If they didn't the entire financially system would virtually shut down, the stock market would crash and we would suffer beyond what any of us have seen before.

    McCain just like Bush " doesn't understand the economy".
    That not just my opinion its his own words. Not only does he not understand how to fix it but he does not understand exactly what is broken.
    It is no surprise that he doesn't. The people that make up these securities use complex mathematical models very few people understand.
    Bush and McCain both can take the credit for this mess since they helped deregulate the laws that were protecting us.

    Bush's economic advisor Phil Graham wrote the deregulation bill that allowed banks to take huge risks with all of our future.
    Now, Phil Graham is the head of McCain's economic policy.He is also McCain's choice for the next secretary of the treasury.
    No one in this country can afford for that to happen. The last time Bush met with his economic advisors was in March. He either didn't care or didn't realize that anything was wrong. Phil Graham had the guts to say that we are in a mental recession after he helped create the worst economy meltdown in our lifetime.
    It will take the best and brightest minds in the world to get us out of this nightmare. As bad as Bush has done, McCain would be
    even more destructive because things are in much worse shape. The next president will not inherit a surplus like Bush did but a tanking economy and a 11,600,000,000,000 (trillion) dollars deficit. Most of it Bush created and it will take decades to pay it back.
    If you do what you have always done then you will get what you have always got.
    When it comes to policy Bush and McCain are the same 90 percent of the time.
    So why are the polls even close then ?


    The chairman of McCains campaign recently said that people don't vote on issues they vote on a personality composite. Which means he is trying to sell you personality instead of results.

    He believes people will vote against their own interests.

    Let's teach him we are smarter than that .

    Hold them accountable NOW! while it will still help.

    Elect Obama Biden 2008

  • Posted By: FATJOEY @ 09/26/2008 3:09:30 PM

    THE STOOGE FROM WAMU WAS ON THE JOB 17 DAYS,THEY GO OUT OF BUSINESS AND HE GETS 20 MILLION!!!...20 MILLION....17 DAYS ON THE JOB!!!

  • Posted By: olderwiser @ 09/26/2008 1:27:31 PM

    The market fell to the level of the compliment paid to those who screwed it up.

  • Posted By: TheVigil @ 09/26/2008 1:17:05 PM

    I'm sorry, I had to laugh at this.

    "Even if the Barclays deal would save many jobs, staffers were outraged at (former Lehman Bros. CEO) Dick Fuld. Since Friday, September 12, Fuld???s domineering presence had all but disappeared from Lehman???s headquarters, and he was assigned a security detail. ???They are sneaking him in and out of this place,??? a senior Lehman staffer said. ???They wouldn???t let him near this deal. It was for his own safety.??? Asked what Fuld could do at this point to make it up to his company, the Trader said, ???Stand naked in Times Square while I Tase you.???"

  • Posted By: TheVigil @ 09/26/2008 1:13:31 PM

    Welcome to "moving money around".

    I know banks are supposed to move money around, to a certain extent. But not like this.

    The New York magazine has a comment from someone who felt Lehman Bros. had "stolen her happiness" because her fiance's net worth had been wiped from millions to "a few hundred thousand". It's hard for me to restrain myself from hoping someone steals her car, wardrobe, and fiance in a spirit of completion.

    I have less than no sympathy for anyone who ties their net worth into their self-esteem. A lot of these guys weren't directly at fault - the bad decisions were made by relatively small parts of the companies involved - but still, the attitude that net worth = value as a human being is utterly the kind of thing that got us into this mess in the first place.

    I'll try to avoid wishing bad things on some of these guys, because honestly, even though most of them have enough money to find food and shelter (God forbid any of them should have to rent an apartment), they're mostly all in denial or depression right now due to the inability to have any self-esteem that's not tied to income. One can only hope some of them learn that life isn't a balance sheet, in the end equation.

  • Posted By: FATJOEY @ 09/26/2008 12:54:25 PM

    swinging dick"heads" is more like it?

  • Posted By: FATJOEY @ 09/26/2008 12:53:16 PM

    are we supposed to fell sorry for the PIGS?

  • Posted By: americandefender @ 09/26/2008 10:54:15 AM

    Beacouse of their greed generations of americans will be paying for this bailout, millions of americans will continue to lose their homes and if we are lucky we will avoid another great deppresion. Only to have these scam artists find another way to bilk the system beacouse our so called leaders let them act with impunity.

  • Posted By: Whiskeytea @ 09/26/2008 10:23:31 AM

    This says it all: http://www.t-shirthumor.com/Merchant2/products/nows.html?Category_Code=tops

  • Posted By: Omnius @ 09/26/2008 10:19:48 AM

    It's so gratifying to see the Big Swinging Dicks getting their Balls Busted with their self inflicted wounds of excess and largesse. About time these morons get their just desserts. They need to be paying more taxes that's for sure.

    I'm really peeved to hear of some BSD who had a consulting service contract structured so that he got his money as capital gains taxed at the low 15% tax rate instead of paying payroll taxes on his active earnings and paying a higher income tax rate. Where are the Bush administration and the IRS at? If I'm hearing this on the news then why am I not hearing about an IRS investigation to prosecute this obvious tax evader.

    Time to stop these BSD's from evading taxes and ripping the rest of us off.

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