Please sign it and pass it along to as many people as you can.
The bailout bill goes before the house tomorrow. They want to take 800 billion taxpayer dollars and give it to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Please.
http://financialpetition.org/

What's your alternative action?

Leave the two mortgage companies that hold a combined 50% of the mortgages in the U.S. go under? Then what?

I hate bailouts as much as anyone, however I don't see much of a choice in this one.

Help me with the math here.

We lend you the money to buy a house

You pay us 3 times the amount that we lent you for that house

We still lose money...

It just don't add up.

No shiat B-run. That is about as good as I have heard it put. Somewhere there is some shady dealing going on with these companies. They want to give you five dollars, collect ten and then ask for fifteen more because they waisted seven on B.S. No accountablity. Somehow I dont think that is how the system was designed to work.

What happens is that the original bank that gives you a mortgage doesn't really care if you can pay it back or not...and since deregulating it, there's no oversight to make sure that only those who can pay back their loans get loans.

They sell the loans to FM/FM, who also don't bother checking to see if the loans they are buying will ever paid back...guess why they don't have to check anymore?

They're not too worried about it...because when the housing bubble bursts and thousands of the loans go into default, they just take the properties...but if that's not enough to get them out of trouble, then they can just rely on their buds in the government to bail them out...

...with TAXPAYER dollars...

...the same buds who deregulated them and caused this problem in the first place.

How much of the profits are spread to the taxpayers when things are good and the loans are being paid off? None, beyond the same taxes we all pay.

It's called Socialism...spread the costs to all of society.

Unfortunately, it's a special kind of Socialism...Corporate Socialism...where the costs are socialized to the taxpayer, but the benefits are kept privately by the corporate entities, and, of course, their deregulating lapdogs that they fund in Congress.

Corporate Socialism (private benefits/socialized costs) goes by another name, too...it's calld fascism.

Fish on...

Todd

This is from a previous diatribe of mine on an earlier thread about this problem:

...it is important to note that (Phil) Gramm got the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (a 262 page document)attached to the already contentious $384 billion budget spending package hammered out at the last minute. No one read it or really knew what was in it (ignorance is no excuse) so it passed as an attachment. Among other things, the bill did the following:

Exempted energy trading from regulatory oversight. As a result, Enron wrecked the California electricty market and cost consumers billions before it collapsed. Approximately eight years before this, Gramm's Wife, Wendy Gramm was Chairperson of the Commodity Futures Trading Commision. She pushed through a rule excluding Enron's energy futures contracts from government oversight. Wendy later joined Enron's board and received anywhere between $915,000 and $1.8 million.

Made Credit Default Swaps unregulated. These are essentially insurance policies covering losses on securities in the event of a default. With no regulation, no one made sure that banks and hedge funds had the assets to cover the losses the CDS's were to guarantee. This was supported by Alan Greenspan and Fed Chairman Larry Summers - a $62 trillion market which is about four times the size of the stock market. If this doesn't scare you, you are beyond reach.

The best punishment for these people would be taking away their money - make them live on a paycheck, do their own grocery shopping, pump their own gas (if they could afford it on their McDonald's salary), etc.

I DO NOT ADVOCATE VIOLENCE - but I wonder what would happen if these people started turning up "expired" - would the system change?

Mikespike
You make it sound as if Gramm put this through on his own and that is not true. Try looking up jim johnson. He put it into action and greased the pockets of those involved with sweet little loan deals that other dont get. He is just as responsible as Gramm. There is plenty of blam to go around here and not just Gramm as you try to make it look. This is a big scandle and goes all through congress and elsewhere such as the corp fat cats.

And STILL the majority here apologize for "their" guy who f*cked the whole thing up and blame the "other" guy who f*cked the whole thing up.

Why must the majority of you contuinue to apologize for and even lube up HALF of those who have been bending you over the barrel the last 30 years?

Party first, country second, huh?

Well, pay the man. You asked for it.

Apologize for Gramm, docspud........defend him. WTF? Does he have to bang your mom and kick your f'n dog to get you to say something bad about him? Or will that just be an opportunity for you to point out a Democrat who banged 3 dude's moms and kicked 7 dogs?

I'm about ready to just withdraw from politics altogether. I can't f'n STAND the whole process any more. It's beyond my ability to tolerate.

I have no apology for Gramm. The peice of shiat deserves what he gets and I will never say he is in the right for what he did. i think the SOB should loose his home for the whole F-ing process...........But there have been so many bitching about Gramm and giving these other peices of crap a pass because they belong to the others guys, their guys campagn. All I said was there are many involved and to try to put this as a rope around McC neck by attaching gramm to him is sticking your head in the sand and avoiding the true depth of what happened. I apologize for none of them.

Well, then accept my apologies for inferring otherwise.

Freddie and Fannie hold 12 trillion worth of paper in this country. That's 3 trillion more than our national debt. This bailout is going to hurt........and it should.

Maybe, just maybe, someone will be held accountable........but I'm not holding my breath.

I am afraid the only people to be held accountable will be each and ever one of us that pay taxes. Shiatty day for america.....We seem to have a lot of them these days.

This is all painful to see. I don't follow the politics of the matters much. I just wait until someone posts something about it, read everything and then bitch about it. If the numbers that are being thrown around here are true then we are screwed. I would say that a recession would be best case scenario. Depression more likely, and a serious crash in the economy the given. Ofcourse, alot of these things are already starting to manifest themselves. Thank god I work for the government.

Nice first post, jerkoff.


This is all a direct result of the banking deregulations of the 90's under the Republican's Contract with America (remember that? It also made us pay $20 each to get into our Nat'l Parks) that was all signed into law by a grinning Bill Clinton.

Considering the two options between bailout and letting them sink, I choose bailout, because the other option isn't an option at all, only economic suicide.

Hey docspud-

Later in that post I clarified that Phil Gramm is not smart enough to do this on his own. However, he has worked RELIGIOUSLY on behalf of the banking and finance entities his entire political career and still does.

This guy helped bankrupt America, OUR country, yours and mine, and he will never suffer for it.

Now selling tickets for "The Great Depression, Part II"

He is a piece of shiat Mike and I hope he goes down for it. The list will be long a distinguished with those involved if this ever gets iorned out. Sadly it probably won't and every tax payer will pay the price for it.

Regardless of party or affiliation, the creators of this mess ought to be held accountable. Taking their homes and letting them try to survive on McDonald's wages is far too good for them. You guys are such bleeding heart liberals! How's bout putting them up in public square pillories and let every American screwed by them come by and carve off a piece of flesh, while it lasts. Make 'em wish they could only be waterboarded.

Vengence done right prevents recidivism.

Sg

Indeed.

They should be lined up on death row right behind computer virus writers.

How many punks do you figure will write computer viruses or bad legislation after the first half-dozen are stoned to death?

Get some rocks!

This whole thing is a glaringly obvious example of what happens when there is no oversight of an important industry.

How many of you will jump right on the bandwagon, however, when the next industry screams bloody murder that they're being regulated right out of business?

Fish on...

Todd

Banker speaking here.

What you have is a number of folks at the big banks that thought they were smarter than everyone else, so they built a house of cards that fell.

Us folks in the little community banks saw what was going on and decided to stay out of it, because when we looked at the entire process, it didn't make sense. Maybe we "lacked the vision" or "weren't smart enough" to understand the products, hedges, and such.

WAMU's stock has lost about 88% of its 52 week high value, and they have lost money, lots of it, and will continue to hemorage more of it. We have lost 21% of our 52 week high stock value, and continue to be very profitable, even with some net interest margin compression. Net interest margin is how community banks make their money, while big banks make it elsewhere. Unfortunately, our stock gets lumped into all bank stocks.

We saw the writing on the wall, just like the tech boom, and every other fad scheme to make money over the past 20 years. Take this into account when the next craze to make money overnight rears its ugly head.

I guess we weren't that dumb afterall, not making a single sub-prime loan. Looks like the smartest guys in the room really weren't.

We are the most regulated industry in the US, and yet people in the big banks still figure out a way to screw it up.

Dogfish +1

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

Look at us agreeing!