bostonbubble.com

[balor123]

I, uh, seem to be doing more work at work these days, which unfortunately means I need to make a lot of posts when I get home

[mpr]

[GenXer]

I don't want to get into a debate on global warming, but there is no consensus. There is evidence that global warming is caused by the sun, and in any case, it has been shown that the paper which Gore pushes is a hoax (i.e. there is a consensus among those who disagree that the data used int he paper is flawed, and the model used to propagate that data forward is flawed as well). So, beyond 2 weeks ahead, our weather predictive ability is nil. We can predict solar activity, but not its magnitude. So the bottom line is, cap and trade legislation is built on a false premise.

I think it is in everybody's best interests to keep our environment whole. Its a myth that for some reason, corporations want to pollute. It has been shown that pollusion is actually extra waste, so in order to cut waste, many are cutting harmful pollutants for economic reasons, and of course to avoid very costly lawsuits, which more than any regulation are incentive enough to keep the environment clean. Any regulation based on shoddy science will end up costing us, and it will create and perpetuate beaurocracy which will never go away, even whent he hoax of man-made (vs. sun made) global warming is exposed for what it is.

[john p]

mpr:

My position is based on research and I'll try to give you some sense as to how that is structured.

Also keep in mind that because people scapegoated Bush, this election was the Democrats to lose. Because the election was going to go Democrat, the Primary voters selected our President and we didn't end up with a middle of the road kind of candiate, we picked someone who voted the party line 97% of the time. When you have someone on the extreme wing making policy of this magnitude this quickly what do you expect, no debate? Also keep in mind that Obama's Illinois is also a financial train wreck not to mention the most corrupt political area in the nation. Research "Tony Rezko" and look at Obama's house purchase, he had help getting his house from a convicted felon (16 COUNTS OF POLITICAL CORRUPTION). Oh, Baylor, Obama is a millionare because of his books. He wrote books about his favorite subject, himself. He started off intending to write about race relations and was so self absorbed that he decided to write about himself. The man is poisoned with vanity. He has no experience to back up any of his moves, and he is a fool with big plans. He does a great job reading a teleprompter and he learned his stagecraft from Reverend Wright. The Press isn't questioning anything he's saying and he is stirring the pot in the Middle East. There are the old school traditionalists and the younger generation that wants to embrace the modern world. Obama's speech seemed to weigh on the modern perspective. He did give references to their scripture which was good, but he needed to give enough wiggle room for the old guard to SAVE FACE.

Guys, I was a life long Democrat until Deval Patrick. It was my research that changed my position.

Here is a chart of the homeownership rates:

http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/homeownership_rates_chart1.jpg

Some context surrounding the chart:

http://blog.heritage.org/2008/10/21/the-mortgage-financing-game/

The Legislative Changes to the Community Reinvestment Act that I am referring to are in the early to mid 1990's, scroll down and read them.

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

And as far as someone's comment that said "When did these take place", alluding to the notion that because the correction took place under Bush, the seeds must have been sown under Bush. The connection I see is that socialistic policy seeds were sown in the early to mid 1990's under President Clinton with the "noble" intent of extending home ownership to poor people.

1992: (from the Wikpedia link above)

[mpr]

[john p]

Seriously, MPR- cut the smugness. Show me any research ANY. POINT OUT ANY F-ING THING THAT I SAID WAS WRONG. NOT YOUR SMUG OPINION, SHOW ME RESEARCH THAT DEMONSTRATES ANYTHING THAT I SAID WAS WRONG.

Your response to Tony Rezko is that I'm listening to too much talk radio? That's your rebuttal? Tony Rezko is a convicted felon and he bought the lot next to Obama, he sold a slice of the lot he bought to Obama rendering the remaining piece of land unbuildable based on local zoning (it was too small to build a house on). Now why would Tony Rezko, a felon buy a piece of land and then sell a small portion giving him something that would be useless as you could never build a house on it? The other thing MPR - NO TONY REZKO, NO BARACK OBAMA. Without Rezko, Obama would have never navigated through Chicago Pay to Play. Oh, Obama said NOTHING about the corrupt Governor. If Obama had shown courage he would have been out of the game politically, so he PAID TO PLAY with Rezko. And this is the guy who's lecturing the Middle East.

THANK F-ING GOD FOR TALK RADIO TO POINT THAT OUT. What do you listen to MSNBC where you get Chris Matthews talking about how he gets a tingle up his leg when Obama speaks? How about the dozens of reporters who went up to find out dirt on Palin, spreading rumors about the father raping the daughter, or how about he New York Times printing a story about McCain cheating on his wife when they had no evidence, yet held the story about John Edwards who was cheating on his wife who had cancer. If the New York Times had printed THAT story, Edwards would have been out of the race and his votes most likely would have gone towards Clinton. So yes, the left wing media had a big hand in picking this socialist president. Our media is not that evolved, and the reason why a lot of right wing talk radio is so popular is that when people research a lot of what is said IT IS TRUE! When I watch FOX news and they run a clip of Reverend Wright bashing America and then Michelle Obama saying that she is for the first time proud of her Country, and then you find out that Rev. Wright christened Obama's kids, and gave the blessing prior to him announcing his candidacy, IT IS HARD TO BELIEVE THAT OBAMA HAD NO IDEA ABOUT THIS MAN'S DISPOSITION. Now this isn't right wing lies, these are videos that you can look at. The left wing bashes the right wing for running footage of Obama and Wright. That isn't spreading lies, that is spreading the truth that is being filtered from you. Once the love spell is over and people understand what Obama is it will be too late as he is charging hard at changing policy. Again, I was a Democrat and I was taught to hate the right wing talk show people, but once I looked at the research, I found out that they were right. I mean you haven't seen the video of Barney Frank saying that there was no housing bubble? Are you saying that Obama and Dodd didn't get the largest sums of money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Do you think that they got that money for no other reason than to provide political cover and protect them from reform legislation (that McCain proposed)?

The propaganda that you're parotting is the left wing trying to diminish the role of the Community Reinvestment Act in our recent downfall. The Democrats were pushing for home ownership. They set the ground rules, they paved the way for others to follow. They allowed too much slack in the system for the system to correct itself naturally. If the FED raised the reserve rates there would be less money available for lenders to lend out. By flooding the economy with borrowed money, it created asset bubbles that create huge problems. The left wing is trying to convince you that it is only the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans that you can take into account relative to the responsiblity of the CRA and that is completely wrong. That legislation legitimized the behavior of others. If the government was guaranteing similar mortgages, how was it wreckless for other investors to do the same thing. If it was the greedy banks who were wreckless, where was Obama raising the flag, oh, no he was suing banks for not issuing more sub prime notes. You can research that.

[john p]

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/does_obama_have_a_real_estate_problem.html

Obama did not break the law in this real estate deal, just like Bill Clinton did not break the law when he was with Monica Lewinsky. The point is, you have to be a complete moron not to think that Obama and Rezko did not plan their moves together. This begs the question "Why was Obama dealing with this hoodlum?"

If Obama knows how to cloak and artfully dodge his moves and feather his nest with convicted felons, he isn't clean, he's dirty. Chris Dodd has got some shady deals surrounding him as does Charlie Rangel.

The risk Obama is putting out there is that he is charging up the Middle East, giving a lot of power to Government and he has a history of dealing with shady people and people with extreme perspectives. The people who control Iran and their nuclear weapons development program HATE Israel. He better know what he is doing because he's pushing a lot of stuff.

So what do your left wing friends tell you about the GLOBAL Financial Meltdown, do they tell you that it was George W. Bush's fault?

[GenXer]

Obama is a socialist. He was part of the clique that pushed for subprime loans in his time as a 'community organizer'.

Now, granted, there were some creative products made by Wall Street, and it is possible that we may have had this recession, but if you do some research, its easy to find that banks were routinely sued for 'racist' practices of denying loans to those whom they considered undeserving (primarily 'minorities'). So, if anything, government is responsible for forcing risk upon banks. The products created by Wall Street are risky, no doubt about it! But the misrepresentation of risk happened while the government looked the other way (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), and was pushed and shoved unto the unwilling bankers by the likes of Obama and Frank, who beat them with legislative and legal sticks until they submitted, for the fear of being accused of racism (and possibly sued and regulated even more by the goverment).

The 'explosive' products such as CDOs were passed quietly and signed by Clinton into law without much debate:

http://social.stocktock.com/profiles/blogs/synthetic-cdo-time-bomb

So, let us stop blaming Wall Street and Capitalism. The problems we are facing today are more often than not an unintended side effect of the feel-good legislations and regulations which are done for political purpose more than for the purpose of solving problems, which in most cases can simply be solved by not trying to solve them in the first place.

[samz]

[GenXer]

I don't disagree that there is a need for laws (i.e. using insideer information for trading, etc.). There are some laws that are definitely necessary. But I don't think we are talking about the same laws here. Socialists are trying to get control of as much of the private sector as possible to impose their redistributionist policies.

Nobody wants to be regulated. Just ask anybody in the industry. For one, I don't want more regulation. I already have to comply with so much crap that it makes my business very hard to maintain by myself (not to mention expensive). Why should I be regulated if I didn't do anything wrong? Just because one guy scammed a bunch of investors doesn't mean all investment advisers are doing the same, and I don't want to be penalized. Punish him for what he did, don't impose regulations on the rest of us who did not do anything bad. A big firm can afford the price of regulation much better, but they do not provide the same level of service I can provide to my clients, but of course they can survive because they are big. Regulation hits small businesses the worst, and if you were a small business owner, you'd know that right away, as soon as you tried hiring an employee (not a contractor), for example.

I'm not familiar with the concept of computability. A search revealed the following:

[Boston ITer]

[GenXer]

You have a point. Ironically though, there are plenty of products on the market which will lose tons of money for investors, yet nobody is suggesting more regulation of leveraged ETFs or naked puts. You can not regulate stupidity. You can not give every person a condensed course on personal finance and hope that they make the right choices. This is by far the most prevalent 'problem' which I'm sure the socialists will try to tackle by blaming anybody but the people who are losing money because they did not do their research.

Nobody is calling for regulation of real estate brokers because their 'advice' lost people their houses and their savings. Real estate brokers can give investment advice, even though legally it is not (and they are not liable for lying). Investment advisers, for example, can not claim that their clients will achieve a particular portfolio performance, because that would put the adviser directly in violation of current regulations, and they could be liable for damages (no LLC will save their butts). Compare this to claims about real estate performance ('don't worry, you'll always get inflation').

[samz]

[samz]

[mpr]