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mpr
Joined: 06 Jun 2009
Posts: 344
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 Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2009 9:17 pm GMT Post subject: |
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| john p wrote: | I won't repeat my earlier posts demonstrating that the Sub prime meltdown was a result of a primarily government intervention phenomenon (the Federal Reserve messing with rates and the Community Reinvestment Act which pushed for more lending in the Sub prime market).
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I dont know what you mean by the Fed "messing with rates". The Fed
sets rates and you can claim that they left rates too low, but if you
believe in efficient markets this should not have induced people to
make investments that actually lost a huge amount of money.
According to you the CRA not only induced all the lenders to make
subprime loans, but induced the ratings agencies to misrate them,
the investment banks to securitize them and the foolish/naive bond
investors to buy them. (This included some of the large banks).
That would indeed have been an impressive display of federal power.
Its nonsense, of course. The CRA has been around since 1977, and the
law suit against Citibank you mention was in 1994 with Obama as a
junior lawyer. No serious commentator believes that the subprime
bubble and meltdown was driven by the CRA.
| john p wrote: | You need to read the amendments to the Community Reinvestment Act which allowed the securitization of Sub prime loans.
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Which amendment are you refering too ? Which year ? |
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nickbp
Joined: 26 Feb 2009
Posts: 75
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| Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2009 11:02 pm GMT Post subject: |
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| john p wrote: | | Community Reinvestment Act |
passed in 1977.
When did this bubble start again? |
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nickbp
Joined: 26 Feb 2009
Posts: 75
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| Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2009 11:03 pm GMT Post subject: |
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| Whoops, looks like mpr is on the case. Didn't see that this had grown into a new page. |
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GenXer
Joined: 20 Feb 2009
Posts: 703
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| Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2009 11:25 pm GMT Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Yes, that would mean longer life expectancies at less cost.
How horrible. |
One year does not make statistics...back to stats 101...77 in US vs. 78 in EU, and 71 in Albania where they all chain smoke...heh, you really are fooled easier than I thought.
Oh yeah, in France they are overhauling their socialist benefits (while pissing off unions along the way) because it is losing money faster than you can say Mon Deu.
Oh really? Is that why 77% of US citizens are content with their health insurance? So you want to destroy that? How socialist of you! Cause that's what socialists do - they break things which ain't broken to suit some imagined cause that exists only in their heads.
I've been denied care and reimbursements. What did I do? Go to ANOTHER insurance company. What an American concept! There is still competition in this country, despite all of the regulations.
| Quote: | | Cap and trade is similar -- it forces the market to include the costs of pollution when selling goods which cause that pollution. |
I don't know what to say to that one, except that you need to do some research. Cap and trade is the quickest way to bankrupt our economy. If you knew what cap and trade will do to our competitive advantage, you wouldn't be so quick to embrace it. |
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nickbp
Joined: 26 Feb 2009
Posts: 75
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| Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2009 11:44 pm GMT Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Oh really? Is that why 77% of US citizens are content with their health insurance? So you want to destroy that? How socialist of you! |
Yet somehow 72% (and 50% of republicans!) want a public health plan to keep the bureaucratic private companies honest. You want to destroy that? How anticompetitive of you!
| Quote: | | Cause that's what socialists do - they break things which ain't broken to suit some imagined cause that exists only in their heads. |
Yes. Let's all resort to name calling. That'll solve our problems.
| Quote: | | I've been denied care and reimbursements. What did I do? Go to ANOTHER insurance company. What an American concept! There is still competition in this country, despite all of the regulations. |
Lucky you! You apparently got your employer to switch plans, or you were healthy enough to find an insurer to cover you privately (and good luck keeping them from dropping you when that first big hospital bill comes in). By the way, BCBS owns 75% of Arkansas.
| Quote: | | Cap and trade is the quickest way to bankrupt our economy. If you knew what cap and trade will do to our competitive advantage, you wouldn't be so quick to embrace it. |
Don't just state your opinion as truth, back it up with information. HTML supports links for a reason. |
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GenXer
Joined: 20 Feb 2009
Posts: 703
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| Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 12:07 am GMT Post subject: |
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Single payer plan. You get service - you pay. This was the model for many years before insurance companies. I have no problems with doing away with insurance companies. Will it happen? Probably not. Will government healthcare solve the problem? No, it will make the problem worse. If you think that denial by an insurance company is bad, try being denied by the government healthcare. This is a fact of life in the socialist Europe.
You have not proven that a problem with healthcare in this country exists, and that it has to be solved by socializing healthcare. BCBS is the carrier I dumped for United Healthcare. BCBS is fine if you plan to live your life by their book. Think of what the government will do. They have a lot more power, and once nobody else is competitive with FREE, they will own your life. Like I said, the problem the government is trying to solve does not exist. To solve it right, the government pretty much has to cut itself, which never happens.
Cap'n'trade:
http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA570.html |
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nickbp
Joined: 26 Feb 2009
Posts: 75
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| Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 1:01 am GMT Post subject: |
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From that page:
[quote]Congress is demanding "prompt, decisive action" even though there is still disagreement among scientists about the level, cause and consequences of global warming.[/url]
Not a surprising conclusion, given how much that particular organization is paid by Exxon Mobil. |
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nickbp
Joined: 26 Feb 2009
Posts: 75
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| Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 1:05 am GMT Post subject: |
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The groups named in the report are Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform; the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, which was co-founded by Norquist and Gale Norton before she became secretary of the interior; Citizens Against Government Waste; the National Center for Public Policy Research, a spinoff of the Heritage Foundation; and Toward Tradition, a Seattle-based religious group founded by Rabbi Daniel Lapin.
Whoops |
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Lawrence
Joined: 20 Jun 2009
Posts: 3
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| Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 2:35 am GMT Post subject: |
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This article references a petition that is widely known to have serious questions about A) it's authenticity, B) it's authority (PhD in what? Fine Arts?), C) it's age (10 years old... there's a lot more scientific data out there now)
| Quote: | | On May 19, 2008, for example, Dr. Arthur Robinson of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine announced that more than 31,000 scientists had signed a petition rejecting the theory of human-caused global warming. |
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Petition
It also claims there is still "disagreement among scientists about the level, cause and consequences of global warming" when the vast majority of the scientific consensus is that it's real, humans are more than casually the cause, and that the consequences are not minor or insignificant.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
However, the biggest issue I have with the article is that while it is quite liberal with cost "estimates" and dire warnings about the negative impacts, it neglects to even mention the benefits gained from a cap and trade system or the hardly insignificant costs to us from doing nothing.
-L |
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balor123
Joined: 08 Mar 2008
Posts: 1204
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| Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 3:52 am GMT Post subject: |
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| BostonITer wrote: |
The way I see it, propping up housing is in effect, destroying the net future of America for another quarter century.
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It's more than destroying the future. It's creating a generation of either non-home owners or indentured servants, except the period is 3 - 7 years but more like 40 years.
| BostonITer wrote: |
It's better to let a quarter of the foreclosed population live in tents |
It's worse than that. They probably won't be in tents. They'll just have to rent. You know, what the rest of us are already doing. Except we haven't "lost our homes". As a society we might almost be better if we encouraged people to leave their mortgages behind. It's fiscally responsible and those homeowners are doing the right thing for their families. The alternative is to wait until they are completely broke and jobless. How is that being responsible?
| BostonITer wrote: |
But instead, the govt implicitly knows that people & businesses need asset bubbles and will continue to search for new ones. |
There are two issues here. First, the economy without a growing debt bubble doesn't look so pretty. We'd rather double down and deal with it later. Second, we have so much leverage in this economy that unwinding it would be extremely expensive, which I'm ok with since my field of work is relatively low leverage, but which most Americans would be significantly impacted by. There's been a lot of talk about banks which are too big to fail but we seem to be making them bigger and solidifying their "too big to fail" positions. Now not only are Citibank and AIG too big to fail, but we also can't let them go under because we can't afford it! |
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balor123
Joined: 08 Mar 2008
Posts: 1204
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| Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 3:56 am GMT Post subject: |
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| nickbp wrote: |
You're ignoring the inherent costs of a fully unregulated market. What's the benefit of saving $5 on a toaster if it burns down your house, or food which poisons you? Regulation is not inherently bad. When done correctly, it's good for the consumer who depends on safe products, and it's good for the producer who doesn't want to sell unsafe products or else be priced out of the market. The tricky part is reaching a happy medium where those regulations are enough to keep everyone honest but not so much that they're an unnecessary burden.
Cap and trade is similar -- it forces the market to include the costs of pollution when selling goods which cause that pollution. |
I definitely agree here. Also, even when companies desire a change, it can't be implemented unless they know that everyone will be on board. I think all the airlines would love to move back to an amortized cost based price model but at this point none of them can make any changes because they can't afford to be the first one to try it.
Another externality that I would like the government to tackle is the supply of commodities. Markets tend to price commodities as if they can be mined forever until they run out, at which point they skyrocket like a step function. The timeframe is too long for arb to kick in. The government could fill that role but such measures likely wouldn't be popular as many people in this country don't like regulations that make things more expensive, regardless of the reasons. |
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balor123
Joined: 08 Mar 2008
Posts: 1204
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| Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 4:43 am GMT Post subject: |
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| john p wrote: | | What are next, free houses, free college? |
It doesn't need to be free it just needs to be fair. Stop restricting housing supply. Stop restricting number of doctors. Stop giving guaranteed job benefits. We've let the needs of a few dominate the needs of the many. The subprime loans were simply a patch to extend a broken system of ever increasing costs.
| john p wrote: |
We shouldn’t be taxing the few more, we need to make everyone pay for their own share so that they will at least value the services they are putting on the taxpaying segment of our population.
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Above all else, we need to make sure that everyone has a strong need to work. Fairness is nice and often helps achieve this goal but without it we are doomed to recessions and depressions.
| john p wrote: |
Lastly, socialism in the United States NOW is even more stressful because we're in a global economy. Regulations that make the cost of doing business more expensive make us LESS competitive globally.
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I'm with you here. However, as a homeowner in a supply constrained housing market, you should be pushing for the opposite. To be competitive, Boston needs to open up a lot more land so that it can grow at a cost competitive to that of developing countries and reduce the cost of living for the poor, thereby reducing your cost of living. Indians and Chinese have much less need for loans.
| john p wrote: |
He doesn't understand the burden of turning a profit and he sees people who go out and compete as the bad guys who exploit everyone as opposed to the government that exploits everyone.
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Which I don't get. How did he make millions again?
| john p wrote: |
If he truly meant the content of the words he spoke in Cairo, he would give more support to the people standing up for their rights in Iran. If he cared about the people, he'd give them tax breaks and not funnel the money through the greedy politicians. |
It seems that we're headed for war there anyway. It will be interesting to see if China and Russia will continue lending us money so that we can attack their allies. I don't think those people are fighting their government because they think it will please us. But if we start meddling in their politics we'll just fuel anti-America sentiment. |
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balor123
Joined: 08 Mar 2008
Posts: 1204
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| Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 4:57 am GMT Post subject: |
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| john p wrote: |
Our advantage is our foundation. For example, we have a variety of newspapers, internet sites and outlets for news.
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So does India, Brazil, and South Africa. Russia sort of does. China clearly doesn't.
| john p wrote: |
If someone flatly lies it is more easily picked up. Other nations don't have a free press or outlet for free thought.
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That can also be a competitive disadvantage. Of course, I still prefer the freedom.
| john p wrote: |
Because we have a majority of our society built on the religions that promote "treating others the way you would want to be treated" we have an ethical basis for fair transactions among us.
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I don't disagree but I don't see strong evidence that our religion is an advantage.
| john p wrote: |
Because other nations manipulate their currency, it is safer to do business here.
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To the contrary, it maintains our standard of living but it hurts businesses by keeping their costs high. That helps us retain talent but you need to have a balance, which doesn't seem to be on anyone's mind. China keeps buying US dollars primarily because they haven't sucked enough business from us yet. That won't last forever.
| john p wrote: |
Because we have a legal system that is evolved, people feel safer that they will get a fair deal and it won't be a kangaroo court.
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This is true. I don't know about China but in most countries you can't trust the mail. Most people in other countries figure insurance is a scam because they don't trust the company to pay out. I suppose it's often a scam here as well as it's a vehicle for sucking money out of Americans.
| john p wrote: |
Because we have a pretty good education system
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Not so sure about this. We have top notch universities but that advantage is disappearing. I think we've already lost below that level and at that level in the economically useful fields we are largely training foreigners anyway.
| john p wrote: |
and we have enough wealth, we have a ton of advantages to maintain our standing.
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Fortunes can easily change. Economically, we have a good image. Our biggest advantage is our history. People believe that America is the premier place to do business. Recent history is wiping out those gains though.
| john p wrote: |
My fear is that we are letting this foundation dissolve and with it the competitive advantage.
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I guess we see the same thing I just think the problems are a little more advanced than you. Simply put, we are spoiled, ignorant, and stubborn. |
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balor123
Joined: 08 Mar 2008
Posts: 1204
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| Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 5:01 am GMT Post subject: |
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| mpr wrote: |
I dont know what you mean by the Fed "messing with rates". The Fed
sets rates and you can claim that they left rates too low, but if you
believe in efficient markets this should not have induced people to
make investments that actually lost a huge amount of money.
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Rates control the amount of risk that the free market is allowed to take. Risk can lead to growth but it can also blow up in your face. |
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balor123
Joined: 08 Mar 2008
Posts: 1204
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| Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 5:15 am GMT Post subject: |
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| GenXer wrote: |
I don't know what to say to that one, except that you need to do some research. Cap and trade is the quickest way to bankrupt our economy. If you knew what cap and trade will do to our competitive advantage, you wouldn't be so quick to embrace it. |
Let's suppose that we could demonstrate that it would fix the environment but not be a competitive disadvantage to our economy. Would you then support it? I guess what I'm asking is, would you support a measure which requires you to sacrifice to leave a habitable planet for future generations?
I understand the Republican dislike of strong environmental policies - I especially hate how they are abused - but you have to admit that they often sound quite selfish. I'd like to hear a real conservative admit that at some point something needs to be done and that it might require a risk, whether it be the American economy, war, or something else.
I know a few engineers who adamantly believe that Global Warming is myth. I suppose it's always good to keep a few dissenting views but I hope it is for the right reasons (don't trust the evidence rather than disliking the implication). |
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