Message 166 of 208 (643841) 12-12-2011 11:10 AM

Reply to: Message 162 by Artemis Entreri 12-12-2011 10:16 AM

So what if you got 50 opinions, then? Remember how there was basically only one guy back then who said that housing prices couldn't go up forever, that the enormous mortgage-backed securities market was a ticking time bomb, that every major financial institution was leveraged up the wazoo thanks to the credit default swaps necessary for those securities to have AAA rating? Remember that guy? Remember how he's the economist conservatives can't stand, Paul Krugman?

Now, of course, I think the responsible thing to do is almost always to listen to Paul Krugman because he has a Nobel Prize (sort of). But somehow I don't get the impression that's the kind of "responsibility" you had in mind.

Calling average Americans "irresponsible" because they didn't somehow magically turn out to be better and smarter at economics and finance than America's economists and financial experts strikes me as the height of victim-blaming.

Sometimes things are other people's fault! I know it's a radical concept to most conservatives that bad things happen to good people but it's nonetheless frequently true.

Don't forget to renew your subscription!

Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

Message 167 of 208 (643851) 12-12-2011 11:51 AM

Reply to: Message 166 by crashfrog 12-12-2011 11:10 AM

Funnier yet is the idea of labeling people as irresponsible when all they wanted was to live the American Dream..... and they were told by the experts that this "dream" was within their reach.

{abe}
Crash, your pic isn't working.

Edited by hooah212002, : No reason given.

Edited by hooah212002, : No reason given.

Message 169 of 208 (643856) 12-12-2011 12:21 PM

Reply to: Message 162 by Artemis Entreri 12-12-2011 10:16 AM

But everyone wanted to make bad loans. The second opinion would have been: "You don't want to let them give you a mortgage, you want us to do it."

And really, how was an ordinary American to realize that people wanted to offer him a loan that they believed he wasn't good for? That's not the sort of thing you'd suspect, is it? If I loaned you money, you would suppose, wouldn't you, that I expected you to be able to pay it back? --- not that I'd come up with a clever scam whereby I'd make money if you couldn't.

Instead of putting the blame entirely on the customers, here's some people you might think about blaming:

Kroft: How much fraud was there at Countrywide?

Foster: From what I saw, the types of things I saw, it was-- it appeared systemic. It, it wasn't just one individual or two or three individuals, it was branches of individuals, it was regions of individuals.

Kroft: What you seem to be saying was it was just a way of doing business?

Foster: Yes.

In 2007, Foster sent a team to the Boston area to search several branch offices of Countrywide's subprime division - the division that lent to borrowers with poor credit. The investigators rummaged through the office's recycling bins and found evidence that Countrywide loan officers were forging and manipulating borrowers' income and asset statements to help them get loans they weren't qualified for and couldn't afford.

Foster: All of the-- the recycle bins, whenever we looked through those they were full of, you know, signatures that had been cut off of one document and put onto another and then photocopied, you know, or faxed and then the-- you know, the creation thrown-- thrown in the recycle bin.

Kroft: And the incentive for the people at Countrywide to do that was what?

Foster: The loan officers received bonuses, commissions. They were compensated regardless of the quality of the loan. There's no incentive for quality. The incentive was to fund the loan. And that's-- that's gonna drive that type of behavior.

Kroft: They were committing a crime?

Foster: Yes.

After Foster's investigation, Countrywide closed six of its eight branches in the Boston region and 44 out of 60 employees were fired or quit.

Kroft: Do you think that this was just the Boston office?

Foster: No. No, I know it wasn't just the Boston office. What was going on in Boston was also going on in Chicago, and Miami, and Detroit, and Las Vegas and, you know-- Phoenix and in all of the big markets all over Florida.

After the Boston investigation, Foster says Countrywide's subprime division began systematically concealing evidence of fraud from her in violation of company policy ...

Now me, I think that the people who deliberately perpetrate criminal fraud are more blameworthy than their victims. But then, I'm one of them liberals.

Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Message 170 of 208 (643864) 12-12-2011 12:56 PM

Reply to: Message 162 by Artemis Entreri 12-12-2011 10:16 AM

Love to take you up on this offer.

Amazing how you claim so much and your actions belie everything you say. You want to win an internet argument by beating someone up. What a man.

You know what would happen after you tried to kick my ass. I would have you arrested and thrown in jail for a while. You see that is how civilized people act. We allow the laws and the courts to handle petty thug wannabe's like you.

And believe me it would be more than a fine. I am sure we could make a good argument for felony assault.

Message 171 of 208 (643870) 12-12-2011 1:13 PM

Reply to: Message 170 by Theodoric 12-12-2011 12:56 PM

A little bit more on topic;

Edited by rbp, : No reason given.

Edited by rbp, : No reason given.

Message 172 of 208 (643899) 12-12-2011 6:23 PM

Reply to: Message 157 by Buzsaw 12-11-2011 9:18 PM

That is simply not true: rarely has one man's post been so wrong about so much.

I've challenged you on this claim before, and you have never offered any proof or analysis to support it. Meanwhile, the Social Security Administration's calculations show, as crashfrog has stated, that SS contributions are exhausted in an average of less than five years.

Got evidence? No? I didn't think so. You'd rather keep claiming the same falsehood, over and over.

We call that propaganda, Buz.

Medicare is health insurance for all elderly, just as Social Security is retirement income for all elderly.

Do you truly believe that only people who fail to take proper care of their bodies develop illnesses or injuries?

What? Are you slipping into senile dementia, Buz? Maybe you will need that Medicare after all.

First, I'm not a "young 'un"--gas was 25 cents a gallon when I first started paying taxes on income. At that time, the SS payroll tax was about 4%; now it is 12.4% (lowered to 10.4% by Pres. Obama, though the GOP is determined to bring it back up).

So, like you, I earned SS credits while paying a much lower tax rate than the "young 'uns" do now. Unlike you, I know that gas will probably cost $35/gallon when the young 'uns retire 40-45 years from now...though the GOP wants to raise the retirement age to 70, so maybe that's $40 a gallon 50 years from now.

The fact is, Buz, that you made out like a bandit on Social Security. You got the lower tax rate AND the lower retirement age. It's that no-account black kid flipping burgers in Herkimer who is paying your Social Security stipend, not you.

So all those people who haven't been protected from harm and loss didn't pray right, or hard enough, or something.

This sanctimony is the slimy underbelly of all world religions: if you were right with God, this bad thing wouldn't have happened to you. Whether it's karma or "blessings on the righteous" or Allah's will, the bottom line remains the same: I know how to push God's buttons, and He takes care of me--too bad for you, and your misfortune proves your apostasy.

Apparently you read Job without any understanding. To summarize: The most righteous man on earth is tested by God. All is taken from him: his family, his flocks, his health. His wife tells him to curse God and die; his neighbors tell him that he must have offended God in some way--he must be guilty of something to have earned this horrible fate. Job tells them, no, I did not, misfortune rains on the just and unjust alike, and he demands that God answer for this state of affairs.

God appears in a whirlwind, chastens Job with His vastness and mystery--and then tells Job's neighbors that Job spoke the truth.

However righteous you think you are, Buz, and whatever good fortune in health and security you enjoy, you didn't earn it--just like you didn't earn your Social Security.

I'd have thought a Christian, of all people, would understand that.

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This message is a reply to:
	Message 157 by Buzsaw, posted 12-11-2011 9:18 PM		Buzsaw has not yet responded

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Message 173 of 208 (643900) 12-12-2011 6:55 PM

Reply to: Message 156 by crashfrog 12-11-2011 8:57 PM

Ahem.

I'd just like to point out a few things.

1. I respect immensely the work you've done in this thread. I sometimes play with calling you brashfrog in my head but your energy and directness are also what I like. You've become one of my favorite posters here.

2. Buzsaw is not a Baby Boomer.

3. Most Baby Boomers do not yet collect Social Security, and the age at which we can collect keeps moving up--and its value keeps moving down.

4. Polls show that 70+ percent of Americans want to preserve Social Security in its current form--of necessity, that includes a lot of Boomers.

5. The U.S. can certainly afford Social Security, Medicare and world class education for all. It's that gaping wound in our psyche that hemmorhages money to the Pentagon that cripples the attempt.

6. A lot of us really did try to change the world, but I guess we didn't sing loud enough, or something. Also, contrary to rumor, we didn't invent sex, but we did give it a damn good shot in the arm when it was desperately needed.

I share your moral horror at elderly Americans who embrace the GOP's Faustian bargain--don't worry, vote for us and you'll still get yours (paid for by your children and grandchildren), but we're gonna cut those youngsters off entirely.

The choice has never been so clear, at least not in my lifetime. I think most elders (and most Boomers) who like that generational warfare deal would vote for the bastards who conceived it anyway--but I don't think most Boomers will.

Edited by Omnivorous, : No reason given.

Edited by Omnivorous, : "short in the arm" heh

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This message is a reply to:
	Message 156 by crashfrog, posted 12-11-2011 8:57 PM		crashfrog has not yet responded

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Message 174 of 208 (643913) 12-12-2011 9:52 PM

Reply to: Message 162 by Artemis Entreri 12-12-2011 10:16 AM

One of the ideas presented, I believe it was Cashfrog's (if not let me know) was that capitalist consumer societies can no longer take advantage of other nations. Capitalist consumer societies have begun feeding from themselves and each other.

This does seem to be an accurate assessment of what is occuring. It is what is happening here in Australia also.

to something even less pleasant...

I do my share of name calling and swearing in my posts but this -

People resort to violence when they are not smart enough to come up with any other means to debate.

The threat of violence immediately advertises that you are not smart enough to continue the discussion.

It would be better if you took your bat and your ball and went home.

The adults are talking.

Edited by Butterflytyrant, : No reason given.

Message 175 of 208 (644126) 12-15-2011 11:43 AM

quote:

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No one could have known that when a Tunisian fruit vendor set himself on fire in a public square, it would incite protests that would topple dictators and start a global wave of dissent. In 2011, protesters didn’t just voice their complaints; they changed the world.

Once upon a time, when major news events were chronicled strictly by professionals and printed on paper or transmitted through the air by the few for the masses, protesters were prime makers of history. Back then, when citizen multitudes took to the streets without weapons to declare themselves opposed, it was the very definition of news — vivid, important, often consequential. In the 1960s in America they marched for civil rights and against the Vietnam War; in the '70s, they rose up in Iran and Portugal; in the '80s, they spoke out against nuclear weapons in the U.S. and Europe, against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, against communist tyranny in Tiananmen Square and Eastern Europe. Protest was the natural continuation of politics by other means.

There were a few exceptions, like the protests that, along with sanctions, helped end apartheid in South Africa in 1994. But for young people, radical critiques and protests against the system were mostly confined to pop-culture fantasy: "Fight the Power" was a song on a platinum-selling album, Rage Against the Machine was a platinum-selling band, and the beloved brave rebels fighting the all-encompassing global oppressors were just a bunch of characters in The Matrix.

(See pictures of protesters around the world.)

"Massive and effective street protest" was a global oxymoron until — suddenly, shockingly — starting exactly a year ago, it became the defining trope of our times. And the protester once again became a maker of history.

Read more: http://www.time.com/...28804,2101745_2102132_2102373,00.html #ixzz1gcZFMdSR

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This is an international movement of people who want justice and respect.

Enjoy.

Message 177 of 208 (644876) 12-21-2011 11:04 AM

Reply to: Message 170 by Theodoric 12-12-2011 12:56 PM

i knew you were a pussy.

Message 179 of 208 (644890) 12-21-2011 12:11 PM

Reply to: Message 176 by Artemis Entreri 12-21-2011 11:02 AM

I think you'll find that 99% of people will agree with me that fraudsters are more culpable than their victims.

As for "beachfront property in Alaska" the analogy is inexact. It's just common sense that beachfront property in Alaska isn't going to be warm and sunny. It is not common sense that a businessman out to make a profit would lend us money with the expectation of not getting it back. That's the opposite of common sense. The average American knows that Alaska is cold, but did not know and could hardly be expected to know that our economy was designed by a collaboration between Rube Goldberg and M. C. Escher.

As to whether it was caused by someone else, I, like most people, neither made nor accepted a bad loan. The sub-prime crisis really was caused by people other than me; but I still have to suck on the consequences of fraud and incompetence on the part of others. I think it is not unreasonable for me to be peeved.

Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Message 180 of 208 (644898) 12-21-2011 1:15 PM

Reply to: Message 176 by Artemis Entreri 12-21-2011 11:02 AM

Indeed you are. Whatever you think of the protestors you can't really fault them on grounds of exclusivity.