Thank you for all your replies.
I admit it is my first post, but the I have been a lurker here for a while.
The whole reason for posting was to make people aware, as a free capitalist country, we are free to decide whether we care or not. If we care to do something about it or not. The discussion creates more awareness and on and on.
Again, thanks.

And.....





Snaggers

Dogfish...maybe you weren't so smart...they got all the money, f'd it up royally, and now are getting billions more to bail them out of their mistakes.

Consequence free gambling with other peoples' money...hard to argue with the effectiveness of that, so long as the bailouts keep coming...like I noted above, they weren't sharing the profits with us taxpayers when things were going well, but now they're sharing the costs with us when they lost...

Corporate socialism...where are all the "anti-Socialists" now? Oh, that's right...they're the ones getting the bailout.

Fish on...

Todd

Our money ain't worth squat abroad.. so we can just make more..

Bottom line.. anybody who does have some real hard cash.. the real stuff.. solid green not credit, is going to clean up on the scraps in the days to come.

The operative word is PAY. If your bosses customers refused to pay, your boss would need to get bailed out too. The house assets have been written down a bunch, otherwise, you just resell the house and get more money coming in. Banks owning the home is not the answer. If the bank borrows the money to loan it to you. They still have to repay THEIR loan, unless they sold that loan to someone else.

If my bosses customers refuse to pay, somebody pays them a friendly visit.........the first time.

Actually Todd, we took the high ground, never screwed anybody and did right by the communities we serve, don't have ANY lay-offs of employees, and the shareholders will still have a nice dividend. We're in the middle of our annual FDIC audit and all is going well, and all members of senior management will have the same job next year.

The same cannot be said of any of the major national or regional banks. Some heads are going to roll, and many shareholders will demand that there be some turnover on their respective BOD.

We just made good loans. I guess that is why I get to go to Alaska on my bank's dime this year for a week. Anybody else getting a week's paid vacation including golf and fishing, IN ALASKA, and not have to count a single day as vacation time? (Dave Vedder doesn't count)

Just goes to prove you can still make money and be a good person/company.

Just say no to corporate bailouts! Nuff said already!

Andy, I was being fascetious...there's plenty of money to be made by running a forthright and honest business...I was just pointing out that the banks that will need bailing out took unreasonable risks, lost their asses, and still get to get paid, only its by the taxpayers rather than from the corporate hacks who took the unreasonable risks.

Good work if you can get it, I guess...if you don't mind checking your integrity at the door.

Fish on...

Todd

Andy, I agree that's the way it should be. I'm financing my home construction through a local community bank that holds the notes on all its loans. I feel pretty secure, and the bank appears to feel the same. I used to have a home loan through WAMU, and at that time they held all their notes too. Apparently they changed their style of operation since then.

What fries me, and I think Todd was getting at, is that these major player bankers who exploited unregulated activity, aren't the ones who are losing money. What they did was at least unethical if not illegal, and they'll make more money from moving paper the past few years than you and I will make in a lifetime. And they will be rewarded for their behavior by getting rich and getting away with it.

Remember Michael Milken's SEC financial escapade in the 80s or 90s? He made $5 billion from illegal securities activities. He was fined $1 billion and got 5 years at Club Fed, but got to keep the other $4 billion he basically stole. The problem is that white collar crime pays, and it pays well, in this country. Hence my slightly barbaric attitude regarding appropriate consequences.

Sg

And then he wrote a book about it, I believe.

I know in my heart that he donated the profits to needy children. And I'm the queen of England

I read an article about this kind of thing in last summer. It was about the housing boom finally hitting the wall and the stocks associated with them followingclosely behind on the coat tails. Basically, what happened is that all these loans started floating around and being sold and bought, sold and bought, so on and so forth. Without a single penny of real money actually ever being exchanged. Just like the treasury does when there is not enough money, they just started printing more. Or in this case, giving out more loans and trying to get what little money they were actually going to get out of the folks who were obviously going to default. You would have better luck trying to get ahead on payday loans from money tree.

Kind of like lawyers?

It's funny how everyone who says that is the first one to call a lawyer when they get busted for a DUI, get divorce, get sued by one of their clients, or has to sue one to get paid...

Wouldn't it be funny if everyone who made a crack like that had to go to court on their own? It would be a bloodbath...

Fish on...

Todd

Todd-

It was so cold down here last winter that I saw a lawyer with his hands in his own pockets!

Sorry, couldn't resist.

I hope this makes up for it-

What do you call a lawyer with an I.Q. of 70?



























"Your Honor"

Todd,

We're both in professions where folks demonize us, but in essence we both chose our lines of work because we can make a difference. The same would go for police. It is the bad apples that garner all the attention.

Agreed.

What would you think of bailout legislation that restored some of the oversight to help keep some of those "bad apples" in check?

Fish on...

Todd

There needs to be some refinement of regulation, maybe rewriting existing regulations to replace old ones that have not kept pace with technology. That is the only additional regulation there needs to be.

Congress introduced new legislation a few years back that essentially ate up 5% of our net income due to additional costs to meet this set of regulations. We are a clean bank, I mean top 5% of our peer group, never an issue or a whimper from either the state of federal regulators, yet we get caught up in the messes that were caused in large part by Global Crossing, Enron, and the rest of the huge corporate greed scandals. That money could have gone into our shareholder's pockets, but instead it was wasted on duplicating documentation that is already covered by other regulation. Of course the new regulation has its own paper trail that can't just be handled by "see such & such TPS report mentioned in the memo".

Their needs to be extreme punishment for companies that cross the line, but for the companies that do everything right don't saddle us with undue burden. I'm talking forfeiture of all assets and life in prison for grievous violations, like Ken Lay, and others.

I get so sick and tired of the news media and their "there oughta be a law..." stories of outrage based on fringe events. While the failure of Indy Mac made the news, the media did little to tell depositors how people could really protect themselves. Did you know that a family of 4, through proper structring of accounts, could have $1.2 million or more in deposits fully insured at a single institution, not including IRA's. Add in husband and wife IRA's and you are up to $1.7 million or more. Becuase of the fear mongering tactics you have depositors demand $400-600,000 in cash so they can keep all of their money at home. Yes, this really did happen, and these folks paid heavily in early withdrawal penalties.

The media is not out there to help anybody. They are out there to scare people into watching the TV for the next great threat (that doesn't exist) so that their advertisers get a larger viewing audience. I say shoot a few media execs in the street for irresponsible reporting, and make them tell the whole truth, not just one segment of it.

For someone in the industry, and seeing what issues the media is causing, and knowing the truth behind the scenes, it is embarrassing to see that most of mainstream America falls for their sh!t.

First shoot those out there who are using the media to spread the "next great threat" that doesn't exist, then shoot the media members who are dumbass enough to continue spreading it.

If we could shoot all the folks who are dumbass to believe the non-existent threat, then we'd be left with the folks who aren't threatened by made up threats, and about a 95% reduction in news infotainment, both of which are just fine by me.

Fish on...

Todd