Occupy Wall Street Sept 17 2011

jacee · November 16, 2011

Seattle seems to have no problems dealing with their protesters: http://www.ballardnewstribune.com/2011/11/14/news/seattle-city-council-passes-resolution-support-oc

Seattle City Council passes resolution in support of Occupy movement Occupy movement

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Seattle makes sense.

Why make the cops fight and arrest? out in the streets ...

They're as peacefully assembled as almost any city block of people downtown.

It'll evolve into a continuing public forum so why get bent out of shape ...

Tear gas pepper spray rubber bullets batons cages wtf?!

Booorrring.

Stooopid.

Leave it to the courts for now.

GostHacked · November 16, 2011

The increase in money supply came from 2 decades of low interest rates, and got put on steroids in 2001,2002 when the bubble got inflated. The fed is just banging it's head against the wall rates near zero right now.

The Fed is about as federal as Federal Express. There may have been a budget surplus, but the overall debt of the nation still goes up.

Everybody hedges when they're speculating, that's how they stay in business. Hedging is taking the quick way out and prevents one from making too much and losing too much money. If there were fewer regulations,

Getting rid of regulations like the Glass-Steagal act was key in allowing this problem to run rampant. You also need a government with a backbone to not give in to these failing institutions who got into trouble through bad practices that were simply allowed because deregulation happened.

there would be no fanny and Freddie backstopping all the mortgages, no FDIC to backstop deposits, and no artificially low interest rates. Had the gov't not meddled in the market like that, we'd be a lot better off.

Ahahahahahahahhahahahahhaa.. Good one!!!!!

Edited November 16, 2011 by GostHacked

Shady · November 16, 2011

The Fed is about as federal as Federal Express. There may have been a budget surplus, but the overall debt of the nation still goes up.

Getting rid of regulations like the Glass-Steagal act was key in allowing this problem to run rampant. You also need a government with a backbone to not give in to these failing institutions who got into trouble through bad practices that were simply allowed because deregulation happened.

Ahahahahahahahhahahahahhaa.. Good one!!!!!

Nonsense. Lowering of lending standards in order for unqualified borrowers to obtain motgages was the key to the problem.

Edited November 16, 2011 by Shady

CPCFTW · November 16, 2011

They tried at the first month. Once again Peter schiff talking to OWS and a meeting of the minds...

:lol:

Great find.

6mins to 9mins is MLW in a nutshell. That one protester manages to embody all of our esteemed left-wing posters in a mere 3 minutes, complete with the requisite personal attacks.

His worship for certain public institutions is pretty comical as well. "The EPA and Board of Education are sacrosanct and anyone who wants to discuss their importance is a fool and an idiot!! Now hear me out while I propose an entirely new economic order!" :lol:

How can anyone not loathe these "revolutionaries"? :lol:

GostHacked · November 16, 2011

Nonsense. Lowering of lending standards in order for unqualified borrowers to obtain motgages was the key to the problem.

You've been schooled on this tip on more than 5 occasions. What you mention was one of the problems that stemmed from deregulation.

Shady · November 16, 2011

You've been schooled on this tip on more than 5 occasions. What you mention was one of the problems that stemmed from deregulation.

I haven't been schooled on anything. It's an undeniable fact that the changing of lending standards to facilitate motgages to unqualified borrowers was the primary precursor to the problem. Why are you being so obtuse?

GostHacked · November 16, 2011

I haven't been schooled on anything. It's an undeniable fact that the changing of lending standards to facilitate motgages to unqualified borrowers was the primary precursor to the problem. Why are you being so obtuse?

What do you mean obtuse?

Shady · November 16, 2011

What do you mean obtuse?

Exactly! :lol:

Boges · November 16, 2011

What do you mean obtuse?

Google and paying attention during Geometry class FTW.

Shady · November 16, 2011

There's a new poll out. OWS is now viewed favorably by only 33%!

GostHacked · November 16, 2011

Google and paying attention during Geometry class FTW.

What's Google?

Boges · November 16, 2011

What's Google?

A popular internet search engine.

Generally when people don't know things on the interwebs they go their to educate themselves on the issue.

GostHacked · November 16, 2011

A popular internet search engine.

Generally when people don't know things on the interwebs they go their to educate themselves on the issue.

I was just being more obtuse. I am quite familiar with the Internet and how it works. More so that most here on MLW.

dre · November 16, 2011

Nonsense. Lowering of lending standards in order for unqualified borrowers to obtain motgages was the key to the problem.

Problem is that didnt happen. WHich is why you keep fluffing when asked to show us the law that lowered standards.

The reality is that companies making all those subprime loans were completely unregulated. They arent banks, and they dont accept deposits. They take money from private investors and lend it out. If they wanted to give a 300 000 loan to rufus the stunt bum for 8% interest thats completely legal and always has been.

They made subprime loans because it was profitable.

jbg · November 16, 2011

I haven't been schooled on anything. It's an undeniable fact that the changing of lending standards to facilitate motgages to unqualified borrowers was the primary precursor to the problem. Why are you being so obtuse?

Equally to blame was the securitization of mortgages. Let me explain.

Back in the day, if a lender made a loan, it received the stream of payments from the borrower over the life of the loan. Thus the lender cared greatly if the borrower defaulted. The lender was quite interested in the borrower's credit rating, his standing in the community and other relevant factors.

Now, when a loan is made, it is parceled out to literally thousands of people in various mortgage pools. Thus, it is "securitized" and the lender has no concern about whether or not it is repaid. The lender, in effect, acts more as a broker, and benefits by rapidly making more loans rather than ensuring the soundness of the credit. Thus, it's as much the fact that the lender has no economic reason to care as any pressure to lend to unqualified borrowers.

dre · November 16, 2011

Now, when a loan is made, it is parceled out to literally thousands of people in various mortgage pools. Thus, it is "securitized" and the lender has no concern about whether or not it is repaid. The lender, in effect, acts more as a broker, and benefits by rapidly making more loans rather than ensuring the soundness of the credit. Thus, it's as much the fact that the lender has no economic reason to care as any pressure to lend to unqualified borrowers.

Bingo. Thats exactly why this happened. Since these loans were being moved off the books of the mortgage companies they didnt care much about the quality of the loans. All that mattered was that someone would purchase the securities they were bundled into.

Put quite simply... It became PROFITABLE to origionate very risky loans.

This securitization might have been ok, except that the derivatives they were bundled into were very complex and contained a lot of different stuff. Investors relied on the credit ratings agencies, and those are private companies that work directly for the market makers that create the securities :blink: Say what? So ratings agencies would dutifully stamp TRIPLE AAA on the security.

blueblood · November 16, 2011

You cant have a fractional reserve system without the FDIC, and the Fed. Those are the only things preventing runs on banks.

You dont understand the implications of what you are saying. The only reason private commercial banks can leverage deposits to create loans is because the fed backs this behavior and prevents runs on banks. So if you take these institutions out of the picture, you remove commercial banks from their main activity which is controlling the size of the money supply. The problem is now you need to control the size of the money supply a different way, and you need a different way of putting new money into the economy. Right now new money enters the economy through private commercial banks by being created as loans. You would essentially be abolishing this practice.

I find this statement from you rather odd. Youve been defending fractional reserve lending in other threads, so its odd to hear now that you would abolish it. What changed?

Anyways. I like your idea just fine. Get rid of the fed, and the fdic, and partially deregulate private commercial banks, let them lend out only the money they really have on hand in deposits. Thats traditional banking, and you wouldnt need much regulation. Keep in mind this would end up being a pretty small industry, because without the FDIC not many people are going to put money in a commercial bank.

Anways... back to to the other question. If commercial banks are no longer the ones creating new money and putting it into the economy, who will do that? Do you have a plan?

I don't want the fed gone. It has its benefits, however, I also see what happens what happens when you have a person who doesn't have the grapefruits to raise interest rates when they need to be raised. Its like having the right captain on a nuclear missile sub.

GostHacked · November 16, 2011

I don't want the fed gone. It has its benefits, however, I also see what happens what happens when you have a person who doesn't have the grapefruits to raise interest rates when they need to be raised. Its like having the right captain on a nuclear missile sub.

What benefits does the Federal Reserve have?

dre · November 16, 2011

What benefits does the Federal Reserve have?

It allowed the British Empire to expand by growing the monetary base. Thats why this kind of blatantly fraudulent behavior was legalized. Early money was actually claim checks against gold deposits. People simply started trading those claim checks instead of going down and getting real gold from the bank to make transactions with.

The bankers got greedy though and they printed out way more claim checks than they had gold in their vault. People noticed how filthy rich they were and began to smell a rat. There was a run on gold.

But the british empire was rapidly expanding and they needed the money supply to expand as well to prevent massive deflation so they legalized and regulated the practice and set reserve ratios to control how much money the bankers were creating from thin air. And they created the central bank to prevent further runs on banks (the central bank does that by zooming money around between private banks to cover withdrawals).

So really its only USEFUL attribute is that it allows the money supply to grow and prevents inflation in times of fast growth.

That was the system prior to 1971 though. What we are doing now, is really just flat out dangerous and it absolutely guarantees massive abuse, and guarantees that the total ammount of debt in the system grows every single year.