February 25, 2009 08:00 AM
Mike's Blog Roundup
Matthew Yglesias: "Irresponsible" borrowers and other asshat favorites
ProPublica: There is some fascinating information in the just released court filings in advance of the long-awaited sentencing of Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, the disgraced former No. 3 official at the CIA.
Climate Progress: John Tierney makes up stuff, just like George Will. Damn liberal media...
The Political Carnival: Sarah Palin filmmaker John Ziegler on dating show
The Reaction: This Republican is making sense
Lookie here! Pam Spaulding is in the Washington Post!
Good things come from there.
Businesses like that got in the habit of making loans with little regard to actual prospects for long-term payment on the theory that since house prices were rising, the borrower could always sell or refinance.
That is the clearest most concise explanation of the housing bubble...and the general atmosphere of the credit environment that I have ever read.
Bravo.
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
..many borrowers should take a bath. If so, many lenders and credit bundlers should be in jail.
Hardball: Howard Dean on Healthcare Reform- Medicare for All Going to Be Part of the Bill?
Worth your attention.
________________
common sense matters as much as truth
Just think, if Medicare becomes a choice many people will opt in. Soon, the people without Medicare will compare what they are paying out vs. the Medicare premiums and switch. Voila! Universal coverage! And all without having to change a thing.
Aren't most home buyers required to have mortgage insurance? How does that fit in when foreclosure is happening? I'm not into real estate or banking so I'm asking for a little knowledge or help with this. I'm just curious how it all works.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
Ok. Look, I realize that borrowers bear some responsibility.
HOWEVER to argue that a financially uneducated* couple sitting down at a table with a representative of a multi-billion dollar global financial conglomerate whose business it is to make money from the transaction they are about to enter into with this couple, which is so complex requires the services of professionals in the real-estate and legal industries to follow and comes burdened with tomes of legalese, fine-print and a byzantine process for determining the actual financial obligations, share the same responsibility is just insane.
Lets face it, industry took advantage of the borrowers. Does it absolve the borrowers of responsibility? No, but industry should not be so keen to harp about who is responsible for what. And lets not forget that industry is being bailed out by tax-payer money. So the idea that helping people to get out of debt promotes bad behavior has already been thrown out the window.
*relatively speaking. This covers like 99% of the people on the planet
Tweety said the two words that ALL financial professionals seem to have forgotten...and which are the bottom line core of their professional integrity...
FIDUCIARY RESPONSIBILITY
Lenders, CFOs, Treasurers, brokers...ANYONE involved ultimately with the lending, investing or borrowing of assets have a FIDUCIARY RESPONSIBLITY to their firms, their clients and to the country to be honest, upfront and to not engage in activities which are either illegal, unprofessional or put those assets in jeopardy to realize personal gain.
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
how the hard working less educated, lower income people outsmarted all of those higher educated CEOs, bankers and lawyers all that work in the lending industry and went to the best universities, deliberately got those loans for homes they couldn't afford. I say BS.
"In September, Foggo pleaded guilty to a single count of defrauding the government of his "honest services" by steering contracts to Wilkes. While Cacheris could sentence Foggo to up to 20 years in prison, the plea agreement calls for 37 months behind bars. Foggo is seeking an even more lenient sentence from the judge."
This piece of scum is going to get off with a wrist slap.
are once again going to be given the finger by their government.
the judge is one of those "conservative" appointees.
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
n/t
Grubman.
sure homeowners have a moral responsibility to pay/accept a mortgage they can pay. having said that the banks/financial institutions have a ethical responsibilty to write mortgages appropriately. the financial institutions/some banks WANTED people to take these loans. why? so investors could bet on them. that's right this was "betting". very much like a casino. it's NOT unlike me putting insurance on someones home and hoping it burns down. unregulated over the counter credit default swaps/synthetic swaps and other derivatives were the culprit. hedging is a normal part of investing but this was different. people were hedging on other investor's bets. READ about the "shadow bank system". wallStreet is primarily to blame for this crisis. they're trying to blame and frame the public to reduce some of the heat. AIG was a huge player in providing insurance like products to hedge NOW they have to pay the calls. these investment instruments went worldwide so there is a interconnectedness which means it could become systemic...deadly.
And there is no possible way to bail the banks out of this. The 150K home was involved in so many CDOs, ‘insurance’ swaps, and derivative hedges, the amount of money being traded for the 150K exceeded 1.5 million (10x). We are now being asked to make good the bets – for 1.5 mil – on the 150K house, only there are millions of such houses under foreclosure.
There simply isn’t that much money – anywhere.
Next week we will see the reports of AIG and Citi and their financial situation. They are asking for 10s of Billions of additional aid so they can keep the credit lines open. Keeping the credit lines open is important, but not through them. If we continue to try to prop them up with borrowed money, we might as well pour our borrowed money down the drain.
I wish more people had the depth of understanding of this issue that you two do. I've been saying this for months.
There is fraud behind the meltdown. we are throwing money at crooks hoping they will do good things with it.
Indy Mac was one of the first banks to fail. It was taken over, "repaired" by the guberment, and sold back to the same group of investors that ran it into the ground.
Now that same group of investors has a bank that they know cannot fail. Will this curb their risk taking?
Paulson knew. He knew almost a year ago the melt-down was imminent, only he didn’t tell anyone the reason. The bank bail-out 3 months ago (remember, when John McCain had to stop campaigning and ride in on his white horse to save the country), was to save AIG’s AAA rating, which would have triggered an immediate payout of most of the CDSs had it been downgraded. By paying off some of insured debt, they stalled the damn breaking, but the cracks left the damn untenable. It will burst.
I have been reading extensively but I have yet to encounter a 'synthetic swap'.
Do you mean synthetic CDO?
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
its the old razzle dazzle, the govenments been ahead of us for a long time ,with clinton it was credit cards in the thousads , with bush houseing morgages, get the dimwhits over extended let them think the good times are going to last forever, slowly ship thier jobs out from under them and then [snap pull the rug out from them as the bush clowns leave] this is no accident !its been in the works for years , gosh so many fell off the turnip trucks and couldnt see the the final end to democracy as we thought we knew it, thank the good dog i didnt fall for this ponsi hoax!
Sarah Palin Files Suit to Avoid Protecting Whales in Alaska
http://earthfirst.com/sarah-palin-files-suit-...
STOP -The Wicked Witch of Alaska,
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/650...
LuLu
That woman has a void where her heart should be!
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
between her ears! Tourism is a great money maker for Alaska and whales are a big draw...people love to see them when they visit and spend money.
I guess she just wants to turn the whole state into one big cesspool.
Sarah Palin will reimburse the state nearly $7000 for costs ... The governor
has been nailedagreed to reimburse the state for about $7000 in travel costs for her daughters. ... using state funds to conduct personal business.......Sarah why don't you slip into something more comfortable...like a coma.
LuLu
Ha! Good one.
check out Wired magazine. there's an article Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed WallStreet. it's an interesting read. it's about a dude named David Li who came up with the math formula to calculate risk and correlation. the formula: Gaussian Copula Function.......measuring risk. this formula paved the way for wallStreet to measure risk when BONDS would default and when they won't
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-0...
The Yglesias piece is great, and it was nice to see Pam Spaulding in the WaPo.
When repubs do shit like this?
http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/1483/obamapunc...
But when we were criticizing dumbya, it was treason?
Here's a link that better explains it.
http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/807...
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