Australian Politics Forum

Thou shalt not lie ;D

Quote:

Say goodbye to 2009, the worst economic year since the Great Depression.

Say hello to the billionaire bailout society in which the super-rich gamble, lose and get bailed out by the rest of us.

To save the system from total collapse we poured trillions of dollars into the financial sector. The result? Banks still are refusing to lend. Thirty million Americans are looking for full-time jobs and 49 million are skipping meals including one out of four children. But Wall Street again is reaping record profits and bonuses.

Not only are we richly rewarding those who wrecked our economy, but also, we have to put up with hundreds of fabrications about how the big banks got us here. Here is my biggest, fattest lies list for 2009:

1. "Government programs for low-income home buyers caused the financial crash." Wall Street defenders were quick to blame the Community Reinvestment Act, which urges banks to loan money in minority communities. In fact, almost none of the CRA loans are sub-prime and the vast majority are doing well, thank you. Blaming government programs deflects us from the real cause: Wall Street's incredibly reckless creation, marketing, selling and trading of "innovative" new securities that supposedly removed the risk from pools of risky debt. It didn't work. Wall Street, not the poor, crashed our economy.

2. "Income inequality is good for everyone." Lord Brian Griffiths, Vice-Chairman of Goldman Sachs at least had the nerve to say what so many of the super-rich really believe:

"We have to accept that inequality is a way of achieving greater opportunity and prosperity for all."

Unfortunately, the facts suggest otherwise. There is a high correlation between the mal-distribution of income and economic crashes. The last time our wealth and income distribution was as skewed as it is today was 1929, and that's not an accident. When too much money is in the hands of the few it runs out of real world investment and gravitates towards speculative investments. This inevitably creates asset bubbles and crashes. Record pay and bonuses on Wall Street and high unemployment are connected. (See The Looting of America Chapter 11).

3. "The rising number of billionaires is a sign of economic health." It's accepted media wisdom that the more billionaires the better. China with 130 billionaires now trails only the US, which has 359, according to Forbes magazine. But in our billionaire bailout society, the rising number of billionaires signals a collapsing middle class. Ponder this statistic: In 1970 the ratio of the compensation of the top 100 CEOs compared to the average production worker was 45 to 1. By 2006 it was an astounding 1,723 to one. Does that look healthy to you?

4. "Paying back TARP means banks are no longer on government welfare." Bank after bank is rushing to repay TARP funds during the worst economic year since 1937. They want to get out from under the Pay Czar (not that he's been sufficiently tough on the banks under his purview.) Banks that were insolvent only a few months ago now say they have the financial strength to refund tens of billions of dollars to the government. Where did all that money come from? Much of it comes from other government welfare programs for Wall Street (over $12 trillion worth) that aren't publicized. (See Nomi Prins's excellent accounting.) It may be the case that our banks are paying us back with our own money. Now that's financial innovation.

5. "Wall Street's freedom to innovate must be protected." Congressional leaders are tripping all over themselves to say new regulations will not discourage Wall Street innovations, something they claim is vital to our economy. Oh really? Do those "innovations" add anything useful to our country other than new casino games for the super-rich? Former Federal Reserve Chairman, Paul Volker, recently blew the whistle on this fabrication:

"I hear about these wonderful innovations in the financial markets and they sure as hell need a lot of innovation. I can tell you of two - Credit Default Swaps and CDOs - which took us right to the brink of disaster: were they wonderful innovations that we want to create more of?

.... I wish that somebody would give me some shred of neutral evidence about the relationship between financial innovation recently and the growth of the economy, just one shred of information....

The most important financial innovation that I have seen in the past 20 years is the automatic teller machine... How many other innovations can you tell me of that have been as important to the individual?" ("What Has Financial Innovation Done for You?")

6. "To retain critically needed talent, Wall Street must be free to pay top salaries and bonuses." Where would they flee if they just got paid like normal people rather than like gods? The British are putting in place a 50 percent tax on bonuses. Also, compensation is much, much lower in the European Union. But the real lie is that we need such "talent" in the first place. That kind of "talent" just crashed our economy. That kind of "talent" is widely overpaid - no way should bond traders receive 10 to 100 times what is earned by the best neurosurgeons in the world. Something is really wrong and it starts with the lie of banking "talent."

More...

1/ Improper lending procedures from Fanny May and greed caused the crash.
Fanny May is a govt owned organisation.

2/ income inequality is natural.
rich people give more to society - how do you think a society of street beggers would live?

3/ rising # of billionaires means everyone is getting richer.
Money is good.

4/ supporting companies in financial strain is a lefty poolicy.
Completley lawed.

5/ yes, innovative ideas have been very beneficial.
Such as cheques, EFTs, share markets .........

6/ if financial institutions could employ school kids to manage $50 billion world wide, they would.
youi try it.

Watch what happens to the US dollar in the new year after the holiday season.

Sprintcyclist wrote on Dec 23^rd, 2009 at 10:37am:

1/ Its da gommit wot dunnit.
2/ How many billionaires is healthy for a society?
3/ "The love of money" is .... something or other...
4/ Didn't the Bush-meister dream that one up first? ;D
5/ ETFs... ;D Hope you own a bit of physical... cos you just never know the price of paper... ;D

helian -
1/
Quote:

FANNIE MAE, FREDDIE MAC AND CORPORATE WELFARE

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were created by Congress to "provide funding to mortgage lenders by purchasing their mortgages and then holding them or selling them to investors in the form of securities that they guarantee." These companies are also known as Government Sponsored Enterprises, or GSEs........

http://www.creativeinvest.com/fnma/

Quote:

............Confidence in the two businesses, which are at the heart of the multi-trillion US housing market, has waned as property prices have collapsed and foreclosure levels have soared..............

Sprintcyclist wrote on Dec 23^rd, 2009 at 11:14am:

helian -
1/
Quote:

http://www.creativeinvest.com/fnma/

[quote]............Confidence in the two businesses, which are at the heart of the multi-trillion US housing market, has waned as property prices have collapsed and foreclosure levels have soared..............

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7502310.stm

2/ 100% would be best.

3/ yes, the love of money. Not money itself. it's the human emotions involved that count. Money itself is neither good or bad..

4/ it has happened for ever since I know.
it is a flawed idea, whoever does it.

5/ want us to go back to using shells for currency ?

have a good safe holiday helian[/quote]
1/ Yep, da gummit dunnit
2/ 100% you reckon? ;D (Not a paradox there, you think?)
3/ That's true... Money is the measure of what we value... Can you be unemotional about what you value?
4/ Could be.
5/ What's the difference between a shell and a cheap piece of inked paper?

Thanks Sprint. You too.

The Solution.

09102120eat20the20rich20T20Final.jpg (97 KB | 55 )

I wonder Sprint, if you would see your own church group the same way.
Which group would you see to prosper more: A group that has a pastor that demands extravagant donations while he/she drives around in a Mazarati, or a group that donates what they can according to their circumstance and provides what they can to those who neeed it?

I wouldn't be believing the greedy pastor anymore than I believe the greedy bankers. Those who are in a position to take advantage of others (whoever they are) will generally do so. It's quite ironic that "religious folk" try to justify greed with "God's will".

I don't see no halo above anyone's shoulders. They are all just the same people who want to be held above all others and they spin their sh!t to make others believe.
When God has a command for me, then I have a lending ear. Otherwise it's just the same ol' bunch of worms trying to squirm their way to the top.

Happy Christmas :)

good queries Amadd. Some that the answer may be good for us all.

1/ I don't have a church group.

2/ the answer to 1/ answers /2.

3/ ditto.

4/ me neither. Some peoples shoulders do seem higher than mine though.
eg, mahatma, mandala, sister theresa, Dr Chang.
Some are 'religous", some not. All helped.

Take care Amadd, I look forward to crossing swords with you next year :-)

4/ supporting companies in financial strain is a lefty poolicy.
Completley lawed.

The GOP do it. The DNC do it. The Liberal and the Labour party probably do it or would do it if the opportunity arose.

Does this make all of these parties lefty?

Sorry, I misread that one.
Happy Christmas :)

Australian Politics Forum
http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl General Discussion >> Thinking Globally >> Wall Street's 10 Biggest Lies of 2009 http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1261527783 Message started by helian on Dec 23^rd, 2009 at 10:23am