OT Confiscatory taxation
 

On Sat, 21 Mar 2009 18:10:52 -0500, thunder
wrote:

On Sat, 21 Mar 2009 18:30:42 -0400, Keith Nuttle wrote:


Except the Clinton administration in forcing banks to make loans to
unqualified individuals because it was everyone's right to own a home.

I don't buy it. This was a market problem, not a political problem.
Fully 1/2 of sub-prime loans were from mortgage companies *not* covered
by the CRA. They didn't make those loans because of Clinton. They made
those loans because of greed and stupidity. The groupthink that's at the
root of all bubbles. The market will keep going up and up, and we'll all
get rich.

This wasn't about home ownership. It was about using houses as banks.
Sucking out any equity, to pay of credit card bills. Flipping houses
expecting a 10-15% return in a year. It was a bubble, and like all
bubbles, it burst. It wasn't Clinton's fault. It wasn't Bush's fault.
It was *our* fault.

Bull****. I had nothing to do with it.

--Vic

OT Confiscatory taxation
 

On Sat, 21 Mar 2009 17:31:56 -0600, Vic Smith wrote:


It was *our* fault.

Bull****. I had nothing to do with it.

--Vic

In your case, I apologize. ;-) I just find it humorous that we are all
looking for that *one* person to blame. It's a little larger than that.

OT Confiscatory taxation
 

On Mar 21, 9:28*pm, "Calif Bill" wrote:
"wf3h" wrote in message


they have been running it for the last 8 years. what planet did you
just come from?

They been running it longer than 8 years. *Was under Clinton's watch where
the worst thing happened, and it was Clinton's Sec of treasury that promoted
it. *Repeal of Glass-Steagall act. *Same Mr. Rubin who put Citigroup in such
peril.-

it was a republican congress, after they impeached him, and he was
weakened, that passed the 'plunder the middle class' bill. it was phil
gramm, whose wife was a high executive for enron (which reated the
middle class like the visigoths treated rome) that introduced the
fairy tale allowing credit default swaps to exist unregulated. this
was after the GOP for 30 years passed tax reduction after tax
reduction for the ultra wealthy and passed the bill to the middle
class.

as the nobel prize winning economist paul krugman pointed it, it's as
if for every year of the last 30, every middle class family sent a
check for $10,000 to the richest 0.1% of americans.

OT Confiscatory taxation
 

On Mar 21, 9:40*pm, "Calif Bill" wrote:
"Keith Nuttle" wrote in message


Except the Clinton administration in forcing banks to make loans to
unqualified individuals because it was everyone's right to own a home.

Clinton and Congress just elaborated on previous policies. *Worst was
Clinton and Rubin and removing Glass-Steagall act of 1933.

this was after clinton had been impeached and was severely weakened.
phil gramm, whose wife was a high executive at enron, wanted to
continue treating the middle class like a piggy bank. so he introduced
the bill allowing credit default swaps to exist unregulated. of
course, his wife made a killing in enron by deregulating energy
companies allowing her and her husband to swindle hundreds of
thousands of employees and stockholders of enron.

typical GOP economic policies.


*Allowed these
banks to become insurance companies, brokerage houses, etc. *Set us up for a
real economic disaster as there was no checks and balances between the
different factions. *Bank sells bad loans through their brokerage arm. *The
loans are insured by their inhouse insurance company. *As long as the
conglomerate made immense profits on the loan, who cares if none of what
they sold had any value? *Unfortunately all that profit from the excess cost
to insure a bad loan, and the selling of the bad loan all went back in the
same pot. *Now the loans tank, and the insurance company has no money to pay
the loss, as they have invested it with the same company brokerage house,
and paid a huge premium to the brokerage arm making all look like they made
lots of money. *But the underlying securities that the insurance company
bought were overvalued by the brokerage arm. *No checks and balances and
nothing to write out the loss check against.-

in 2000 right before bush took office, the total amount of credit
default swaps was $920 billion

when he left office, the amount was $62 trillion.

this happened under a republican president and a republican congress.

OT Confiscatory taxation
 

On Mar 21, 9:52*pm, "Calif Bill" wrote:
"wf3h" wrote in message

bush was president for about 2800 days.

obama's been president for 60.

even you should be able to do the math.

republicans reagan, bush and bush have nearly bankrupted this country.
clinton was the only president in recent history to balance the
budget.

bush starved the middle class to feed his friends at exxon. now we're
paying the price

Clinton did not balance the budget!!! *He looked like it, but even worse he
allowed spending to grow a lot more under his watch than it should of.

gee whiz...how much is 'than it should have'? because bush ballooned
the budget out of control with his war in iraq, his tax cuts for the
super rich, etc.


*He
was the fortunate recipient of tons of revenue from the Dot.com boom

that's called the 'economy'. it happens.

OT Confiscatory taxation
 

"wf3h" wrote in message
...
On Mar 21, 3:51 pm, BAR wrote:
wf3h wrote:
On Mar 21, 3:24 pm, BAR wrote:
thunder wrote:
On Sat, 21 Mar 2009 10:44:54 -0400, BAR wrote:
Are you more concerned with punishing individuals who work at AIG or
are
you more concerned with AIG becoming a healthy private enterprise
again?
I think AIG is done. I think it's on government life support until
they
can safely pull the plug. It was "too big to fail", it failed. Do you
really want to see that monster on the loose again? Break it up, and
sell the parts. Let them start over.
We, the US tax payers could have saved 150 billion dollars if we had
let

uh...no. the first AIG bailout happened under president bush and
treasury secretary paulson. and john mccain was the 3rd greatest
recipient of money from AIG.

You haven't been paying attention have you. I have always said McCain is
an idiot. I seriously doubt that McCain's mother voted for him for
President.

well, then, complaining about people who actually are trying to help
the middle class instead of destroying it as republicans have done for
8 years isn't getting you anywhere is it?


get your facts straight. the fact is, deregulation helped AIG get so
big that, if it failed, it would have destroyed the financial system
of the US.

Blame Congress, they are the ones who wrote the legislation that enabled
AIG to become as big as it did. When you let a company get into two many
different areas of financial products you get these behemoth monsters.

and the reason congress did this is that reagan and milton friedman
manufactured the myth of the 'free' market, unregulated, unhampered by
unions, would strengthen the US economy.

it had exactly the opposite effect. the middle class is being
destroyed. the rich got amazingly richer.


The free market folks, like me, wanted to clear a path for AIG and the
to the nearest bankruptcy court.

and since there is NO free market in the US, your grimm's fairy tale
view of the economy is touching. your mother read you milton friedman
at bedtime?

You want the same bureaucrats in DC who buy $600 hammers and $1000
toilets to run the economy?-

they have been running it for the last 8 years. what planet did you
just come from?

They been running it longer than 8 years. Was under Clinton's watch where
the worst thing happened, and it was Clinton's Sec of treasury that promoted
it. Repeal of Glass-Steagall act. Same Mr. Rubin who put Citigroup in such
peril.

OT Confiscatory taxation
 

"Keith Nuttle" wrote in message
...
thunder wrote:
On Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:21:18 -0800, Calif Bill wrote:


It started a lot further back than Bush, or Clinton, or Bush 1.

Bush Basher that I am, I can't blame this on Bush. I believe the
government gets too much blame, *and* too much credit, for the economy.
The government might have developed the framework that allowed this to
happen, but they didn't cause it to happen. No one put a gun to the head
of Wall Street's Masters of the Universe and forced them to make
incredibly risky decisions. No one told Lehman Brothers they had to
leverage themselves 33 to 1. Greed and stupidity did that. This is a
free market, after all.

Except the Clinton administration in forcing banks to make loans to
unqualified individuals because it was everyone's right to own a home.

Clinton and Congress just elaborated on previous policies. Worst was
Clinton and Rubin and removing Glass-Steagall act of 1933. Allowed these
banks to become insurance companies, brokerage houses, etc. Set us up for a
real economic disaster as there was no checks and balances between the
different factions. Bank sells bad loans through their brokerage arm. The
loans are insured by their inhouse insurance company. As long as the
conglomerate made immense profits on the loan, who cares if none of what
they sold had any value? Unfortunately all that profit from the excess cost
to insure a bad loan, and the selling of the bad loan all went back in the
same pot. Now the loans tank, and the insurance company has no money to pay
the loss, as they have invested it with the same company brokerage house,
and paid a huge premium to the brokerage arm making all look like they made
lots of money. But the underlying securities that the insurance company
bought were overvalued by the brokerage arm. No checks and balances and
nothing to write out the loss check against.

OT Confiscatory taxation
 

"wf3h" wrote in message
...
On Mar 21, 6:30 pm, Keith Nuttle wrote:
thunder wrote:
On Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:21:18 -0800, Calif Bill wrote:

It started a lot further back than Bush, or Clinton, or Bush 1.

Bush Basher that I am, I can't blame this on Bush. I believe the
government gets too much blame, *and* too much credit, for the economy.
The government might have developed the framework that allowed this to
happen, but they didn't cause it to happen. No one put a gun to the head
of Wall Street's Masters of the Universe and forced them to make
incredibly risky decisions. No one told Lehman Brothers they had to
leverage themselves 33 to 1. Greed and stupidity did that. This is a
free market, after all.

Except the Clinton administration in forcing banks to make loans to
unqualified individuals because it was everyone's right to own a home.

which had nothing to do with the current situation. countrywide
financial was the largest provider of mortgage loans in the US and was
not subject to the type of law (the community reinvestment act) that
you think had a role.

the real problem was credit default swaps. in 2000 the total amount of
credit default swaps was $920 billion. in 2007, the amount of CDS was
$62 TRILLION....or more than the entire output of all economies on the
planet. how did wall street propose to pay $62 trillion in exposure?

that's greed. it's stupidity.

california bill is right: the govt gave wall street a loaded pistol
via deregulation of derivatives.

wall street greed pulled the trigger.


And the Congress people who gave the gun to wall street cashed in huge
bribes, opps campaign contributions. And it was not under Bush's when the
majority of bullets for the gun were manufactured.

OT Confiscatory taxation
 

"thunder" wrote in message
t...
On Sat, 21 Mar 2009 17:31:56 -0600, Vic Smith wrote:


It was *our* fault.

Bull****. I had nothing to do with it.

--Vic

In your case, I apologize. ;-) I just find it humorous that we are all
looking for that *one* person to blame. It's a little larger than that.

It was us, and Vic, for allowing the same stooges to write laws year after
year.

OT Confiscatory taxation
 

"wf3h" wrote in message
...
On Mar 21, 5:34 pm, BAR wrote:
wf3h wrote:
On Mar 21, 3:48 pm, John H wrote:
On Sat, 21 Mar 2009 12:38:21 -0700 (PDT), wf3h
wrote:

Obama lied, the economy died.

Amen.

let's see....

bush was president for about 2800 days.

obama's been president for 60.

even you should be able to do the math.

$1.2 Trillion in spending above and beyond the normal budgets in less
than 60 days. Obama has set a record for all future Democrat presidents
to strive to beat. Obama has set the extra appropriations spending bar
very high.-

that's for the next year. you don't know about the budget process do
you?

republicans reagan, bush and bush have nearly bankrupted this country.
clinton was the only president in recent history to balance the
budget.

bush starved the middle class to feed his friends at exxon. now we're
paying the price

Clinton did not balance the budget!!! He looked like it, but even worse he
allowed spending to grow a lot more under his watch than it should of. He
was the fortunate recipient of tons of revenue from the Dot.com boom and
then bust. He also was hindered in excess spending for a couple years by
Newt and the Contract with America. Reason that California is bankrupt.
They grew spending and made it permanent during the same dot.com boom. Grew
government 10% a year over the last 8 years. One of the absolute worse
things in Federal government is totally the fault of Democrats and happened
under Carter. That is "BASE LINE BUDGETING"! Who runs a business with a
built in spending inflation of about 13%. The rate of inflation during the
Carter disaster. Is why Congress says they cut spending 5% but the program
still ends up with 8% more money. One of the first two things Obama should
do is lobby to remove Base Line Budgeting. Is a Legislative branch feature
and not an Executive branch feature. And the 2nd thing is to go to court
and get tossed out the court ruling that the Executive branch HAS TO SPEND
all money allocated by the Legislative branch. This says that the Executive
branch has no check on spending. Before Carter, the Executive branch just
did not fund these "earmarks" that Congress passed. Kept the money unspent.