The Monster That Ate Wall Street

This isn't a financial Rescue Bailout Plan. This is a Financial Sellout Plan for the American Taxpayers.

Great just read about McCain's irrational gambling habit - that's all we need: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/us/politics/28gambling-web.html?_r=2&th=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&emc=th&adxnnlx=1222625553-B/EspAkRai+7+m5Q9Iz65Q&oref=slogin

Big Oil and Haliburton who have been gouging us for years - should bail us out...with no strings attached.

The only people I see wanting this bailout are Wall Street, the Politicians, and those few who think it will make their retirement safer.
Wall Street and the Politicians are nothing but parasites that have been living
off the middle and working class for years. Those who think this will shore up their retirement are not thinking about the affect this will have on the value of the dollar.

Extremely pooly written article. The author understand precious little about the CDS market and how it operates. Wall street problems have NOTHING to do with CDS, but with current lack of liquidity.
In the last half a year we had 2 very active CDS dealers collapse : Bear and Lehman. Together these two had written TRILLIONS of notional CDS contracts . Did the dissapearance of these banks collapse the CDS market? NO. CDS market keeps on growing without BSC and LEH. Why? Because it's proven that it's resilient and liquid and will survive the default of one of the counterparties
.
About the regulation. Most of teh CDS contracts are written by entities already residing in London, not NY. NYState cannot regulate these contracts. If they try to do it even more finance jobs will go to UK, like they did after 2002 Sorban oxley.

This was never a smart bet . It is merely an attempt to sidestep fiduciary responsibility. Much like a small child sidestepping his mother's authority and getting his hand, full of cookies, caught in the cookie jar. Then demanding dad's help while refusing to let go of the cookies. This child is due to be punished by mom, dad, or reality. Deferment of punishment now means learning comes later.

Why don't many people just blame themselves. Many people here are part of the problem as well. How many of you did see that your house price just went too high and the housing bubble was deemed to burst? How many of you got so excited and claimed 50 or even 100% increase of your home price and got carried away? How many of you would blame the bank for discrimination on the poor if they reject or give you lower amount of loan than you expected? No politician would take the risk being blamed "not allowing poor people to buy a house" or blamed as "talking down housing price". Not Bush, not Clinton, nor Obama. In fact, no one would do that in current political environment. And media has been part of the problem as well. In 2003, when an economist wrote a book called "the Coming Crash of the Housing Market", mainstreet media and talking heads laughed him as an idiot. What is so difficult to people to understand it is the biggest bubble in history has just burst. It started as the dot-com bubble, when it burst, the hot money switched to housing market, and average people saw their home price went up, got carried away. With the help of greedy wall street, everyone thought it's easy money and they were rich by just living or flipping their house. Now, the biggest and longest last bubble finally burst. No pain no gain. I am afraid that is not the lesson people are learning now.

Don't blame other people. Because blame others will never solve your problem. For those of you who did no wrong and play with the rule, saw the crash coming, my advice is taking advantage of it. Every crisis will create a lot of opportunites for people who can see clearly.

Why don't many people just blame themselves. Many people here are part of the problem as well. How many of you did see that your house price just went too high and the housing bubble was deemed to burst? How many of you got so excited and claimed 50 or even 100% increase of your home price and got carried away? How many of you would blame the bank for discrimination on the poor if they reject or give you lower amount of loan than you expected? No politician would take the risk being blamed "not allowing poor people to buy a house" or blamed as "talking down housing price". Not Bush, not Clinton, nor Obama. In fact, no one would do that in current political environment. And media has been part of the problem as well. In 2003, when an economist wrote a book called "the Coming Crash of the Housing Market", mainstreet media and talking heads laughed him as an idiot. What is so difficult to people to understand it is the biggest bubble in history has just burst. It started as the dot-com bubble, when it burst, the hot money switched to housing market, and average people saw their home price went up, got carried away. With the help of greedy wall street, everyone thought it's easy money and they were rich by just living or flipping their house. Now, the biggest and longest last bubble finally burst. No pain no gain. I am afraid that is not the lesson people are learning now.

Don't blame other people. Because blame others will never solve your problem. For those of you who did no wrong and play with the rule, saw the crash coming, my advice is taking advantage of it. Every crisis will create a lot of opportunites for people who can see clearly.

Comment: Here is a link to a list the top 25 in Congress who got contributions from the folks at Fannie and Freddie. Obama is listed second, after Dodd, even though Obama is just a junior Senator. http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=16&artnum=1&issue=20080918

How we got into this mess:

THE FEDERAL RESERVE

The Dems have always been a "worrisome lot" and todate, to use a now infamous phrase, "a do nothing Democrat Congress" whose only talent is no talent except to take money from the hardworking American people.

How big a factor was the 2007 repel of the "uptick rule" on short sales?

Great article. Wouldn't it have been nice if our elected representitives saw this comming and did something to mitigate or stop this crisis? I really don't see this as an ideological problem but rather a failure with what our political system has become. Maybe the good that emerges from this situation will be that politicians begin representing the people rather than their party or their reelection.

Here's the lead of a New York Times story on Sept. 11, 2003: "The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago." [link below]

McCain said in co-sponsoring the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, "If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system and the economy as a whole."

What was Barney Frank and fellow Democrats saying at the time? According to reports, Representative Barney Frank(D-MA) claimed of the thrifts "These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis, the more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing." Representative Mel Watt (D-NC) added "I don't see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing."

See:

http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=16&artnum=1&issue=20080918

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act

http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=M2QwNDhkZTg2OGYzZjkzM2E2NDEwM2U5OGVkNTc0YzU=

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06E3D6123BF932A2575AC0A9659C8B63

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122247015469280723.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Actually, it is a fact that Prez Clinton signed into law with Democrat backing the deregulation of the financial institutions...let's see, how many years ago was that? Oh, yeah, during the "stained dress" incident.

I find it interesting that liberals want to put the primary blame on unregulated markets, credit default swaps and legislation that was passed in 1999 and 2000 such as the Commodities Futures Modernization act. Conservatives want to place most of the blame on bad housing loans and the failure of democrats to properly regulate Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac in 2005 and 2006. Each side wants to blame the other. Neither side wants to take responsibility. There are these competing narratives and any attempt at accurately understanding the situation gets lost in spin, propaganda and polemic. What about an honest, non-partisan attempt to really understand the situation?

Here's the lead of a New York Times story on Sept. 11, 2003: "The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago."

McCain said in co-sponsoring the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, "If Congress does not act," McCain said in 2005, "American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system and the economy as a whole."

What was Barney Frank and fellow Democrats saying at the time? According to reports, Representative Barney Frank(D-MA) claimed of the thrifts "These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis, the more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing." Representative Mel Watt (D-NC) added "I don't see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing."

See:

http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=16&artnum=1&issue=20080918

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act

http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=M2QwNDhkZTg2OGYzZjkzM2E2NDEwM2U5OGVkNTc0YzU=

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06E3D6123BF932A2575AC0A9659C8B63

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122247015469280723.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

** Where was Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, the Democrat heavy weights, during the last eight years, pray tell? **

Until the past year and a half, powerless and in the minority is where. Interesting that your list of heavyweights "sitting on their ass" includes only Democrats.

Bailout Wall Street and Main Street means bailing the water out of the boat back into the ocean on the heads of and into the open mouths of drowning middle class americans gulping for everyday survival of burdened taxation.European families left England and France due to 18% and more taxation without representation.We fought off Napolean (French) and England to gain our independence and freedom of religeon with fair taxation.Affirmative Action is the ultimate handout to civil service and education socialists who have become those in endentured servitude to the federal and state government through affordable housing along with DMV, Postal System, Prisons System, and Public Education handout of the best civil service jobs.A Kenyan as Commander And Chief of US Armed Forces and Police as-well-as Fire Departments will be a disaster we will not survive.Blacks will indeed be in endentured servitude and slaves to their own criminal RAP, HIP HOP, breeding and succumb to breeding more of the same with permissiveness and fornication to the frenzied beat of African drums.Our military will be sent to Somalia, Darfur, and Kenya and become a drop in the ocean of African decline - we cannot save them all.Obama is the Malcolm X, Lucifer follower who will lead blacks to their most horrible nightmare - a deep, dark, and sinister abyss with gnashing of teeth few will survive.Oh - Obama is not Lucifer but one of his weakest followers as their are more powerful than him to come perhaps of a differtent race.Obama is chump change compared to the next ones who follow him.