See? See?!

The stupidity of these idiotic motherfuckers . . .

I admit I had to get about three sentences into this before I was sure I hadn’t written it.

Truly the Force is strong in this one.

‘How can anyone with two god damn brain cells to rub together come away from this and still believe that the market should be allowed to police itself, and that regulation is bad,’

Because part of the mess we’re in was not solved by increased regulation and part of it was actually caused by regulation.

How can anyone with two god damn brain cells to rub together come away from this and still believe that the market is not regulated?

Just sayin’.

I’ve got three words for you, Uncle:

Credit Default Swaps

Anyway, not saying that regulation is a cure-all (it’s not), just that the relationship between things that were loosely regulated and not-at-all regulated and things that were completely out of control is virtually 1:1 here.

That’s not the entire cause of the current situation.

housing markets: over regulated
auto industry: overregulated

List goes on.

Then riddle me this, Batman: Why were the least regulated areas of the housing markets the parts that ran into by far the most trouble?

And while credit default swaps weren’t the entire cause, they’re the lion’s share (along with equally unregulated derivatives) of why failed mortgages had such a pervasive impact on the entire financial system, instead of being limited to the housing market.

‘Why were the least regulated areas of the housing markets the parts that ran into by far the most trouble?’

You have cornfuzzled me. There is no part of housing markets unregulated or lightly regulated. Help me out, here.

Mortgages are heavily regulated and are a substantial cause of the current situation.

Prediction: banks will shitcan mortgage companies in the next year or so.

Whether or not conservatives believed Freddie or Fannie, or the CRA contributed to the meltdown is only half of the point. Most conservatives – at least the ones I know – pointed the finger at subprime lending, rightly so.

I would agree with Unkle; what you point out as being unregulated or loosely regulated in the crisis is simply not so. Rather it was bad regulations.

Now if you will excuse me, I need to go drool on my shoelaces.
.

Barbie:
Now if you will excuse me, I need to go drool on my shoelaces.

See, now that’s funny. Anyway, the typical conservative argument is that subprime lending became pervasive because of Fannie and Freddie and the CRA, and there’s simply no evidence to support this. That type of lending became prevalent because the market for traditional, prime mortgages had essentially dried up, and banks had to look to non-traditional markets in order to continue growing. And this was complicated by the fact that as long as property values kept going up, the lenders were making a lot of money engaging in those questionable practices.

Uncle:

I can hardly wait to hear your dazzling explanation as to all the onerous regulation that goverened no-doc, no-money-down, 110% LTV, Pay-Option ARMs, and how such practices would have been less prevalent and more responsible if we regulated less.

KTK:

If you had written this, “stupidity,” “these,” “idiotic,” and “motherfuckers” each would have been hyperlinked to specific, egregiously stupid comments in the referenced threads. Which, I must admit, I strongly considered doing. And I even considered making “motherfuckers” into two words to sneak another link in there…

Are the “no-doc, no-money-down, 110% LTV, Pay-Option ARMs” next to the unicorns or the global warming?

You clearly didn’t watch the CNBC special. Individually, all of those practices were quite common, and it wasn’t uncommon for them to be combined.

Though I will give you bonus points for playing to type by throwing in some global warming denialism to go with your massive market failure denialism.

Market worked fine. It’s not always puppies and rainbows. What happened was people gave bad loans, under pressure, and then the bill came due. That’s what is supposed to happen and what people said would happen.

I’m still wondering how you figured “no-doc, no-money-down, 110% LTV, Pay-Option ARMs” are largely unregulated. Have you bought a house lately?

Right, the market worked great, if by “great” you mean “lost trillions.”

I’m certainly willing to entertain the possibility that the loan types I mentioned are heavily regulated. By all means, explain to me the regulatory hoops that, say, Quick Loan Funding had to go through in order to give these loans out to pretty much anyone who asked.

Well, presently, I’m not feeling masochistic enough enter this debate. But, I will chime in to collect my e-props.

UHF Weird fucking Al, baby.

digg:

You da man!

You had me at “stupidity of these idiotic motherfuckers”. This coming from a person who really believes socialism is all we need to make things right.

Death to the market system says the social democrat.

Good luck with your goal of the USSA.

[...] tgirsch is upset. [...]

Tisk, such fucking language. How could you do shit like that ;p

SayUncle: What you are saying sounds very familiar.

Number9:

Strawman often?

What gets me is that this post has more comments than any other in the last three weeks. I mean, OK, at least it got hijacked onto something more important than my vocabulary, but still . . .

RE: USSA.

Al Michaels is not amused. That would take a lot of the luster out of the “Do you believe in miracles!?” call.

I’ll get flamed for this, but I don’t know why “socialism” itself is a punchline, and “free market” is not.

It’s the political equivalent of those who believe the Bible, literally, and then laugh about how crazy Scientology is.

(you know, if Scientology was actually, compartively much more sane. )

tgirsch, you know how full of it you are. And so do I.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_Futures_Modernization_Act_of_2000

The “Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000″ (H.R. 5660) was introduced in the House on December 14, 2000 by Rep. Thomas W. Ewing (R-IL) and cosponsored by Rep. Thomas J. Bliley, Jr. (R-VA) Rep. Larry Combest (R-TX) Rep. John J. LaFalce (D-NY) Rep. Jim Leach (R-IA) and never debated in the House.[2]

The companion bill (S.3283) was introduced in the Senate on December 15, 2000 (The last day before Christmas holiday) by Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) and cosponsored by Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-IL) Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX) Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) Sen. Thomas Harkin (D-IA) Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD) and never debated in the Senate.

Given the above-stated chronology, it would appear that the House and Senate versions of the bill were introduced just prior to the Christmas holiday in December 2000, following George W Bush’s (first) election (in November 2000), while then-President Clinton was serving out his final days as President. The bill was never debated by the House or Senate. The bill by-passed the substantive policy committees in both the House and the Senate so that there were neither hearings nor opportunities for recorded committee votes. In substance, it appears that the leadership of the Republican-controlled Senate and House incorporated the deregulation of credit default swaps into an omnibus budget bill (without hearings or recorded votes)at a time when the outgoing president was in no position to veto anything. The following article suggests that Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan endorsed this law The Bet That Blew Up Wall Street though Clinton’s position in 2000 is only suggested, not confirmed or made clear in the report.

The Republican leadership of the House incorporated “The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000(H.R. 5660)” by reference, as Section 1(a)(7), in a long and complex conference report to the 11,000 page long “2000 omnibus budget bill” formally known as “The Consolidated Appropriations Act for FY2001(Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Bill) (H.R. 4577).” 157 Democrats and 133 Republicans voted for the appropriations bill. 51 Republicans and 9 Democrats opposed the appropriations bill vote results in the house. The Senate version passed by “Unanimous Consent.” President Clinton signed it into Public Law (106-554) on December 21, 2000.

I’ll ask again. Which President signed it?

William Jefferson Blythe Clinton.

Little wonder you lost your composure. Bad enough you supported these people. Now you cover for them?

Number 9:

How very thorough of you to research that. Now if you’ll just point out where I laid this all at the feet of the Republicans, or let Clinton off the hook, maybe we’ll be on to something. Hint: you’ll be looking a while.

I’ve been harping for months that deregulation is largely to blame for our current problems, and your way of “refuting” that is — wait for it — by trotting out Clinton-era deregulation. Wow, I’m humbled by your mastery.

Number 9:

I note also that, by your own description, that provision of the bill was sponsored overwhelmingly by Republicans, introduced into Republican-controlled committees of both Republican-controlled chambers of Congress, and then incorporated into the massive omnibus budget bill by Republican-dominated floor managers. The entire budget was voted on, and signed by Clinton; the credit swap provisions were just one of the many things that always get stuck in there because everyone knows no one will derail the entire budget just for one provision. Clinton signed it because the country needed a budget, and, I would bet anything, without giving a moment’s thought to shutting down the government over that one sub-section. But it was the GOP who wrote it, introduced it, and put it in the budget in the first place.

If Clinton did come out explicitly in favor of this provision, that clearly was a mistake. But he didn’t create it or put it in the law that he had to sign for many other overwhelming reasons. And he’s not the one who waited until Clinton’s last-ever budget, just weeks before he would leave office, at a time when there would be no opportunity to undo the damage, to do all that.

The Republican party is simply ideologically enslaved to economic illiteracy, and will use any lie, procedural trick, or outright criminal act to make it pay off for their big-business masters.

and signed by Clinton

Yes, signed by Clinton at the last possible second. How much harm did this man do?

Bush II also fucked up. In the end it was the government that broke the economy. And you geniuses want to give them more power and control. That is why people laugh at you. That is why people don’t buy what you’re selling. Government isn’t the answer.

9 -

So by your own statement, the deregulation of credit default swaps arose by being stuck by the Republican leadership into “a long and complex conference report” on an 11,000 page omnibus budget bill without hearings, floor debate, or any recorded votes, “at a time when the outgoing president was in no position to veto anything.”

And your response to that is to say “See? See? Look ‘how much harm’ Clinton did!”

Are you nuts?

As a footnote to the above and answering my own question, there is also this:

it was the government that broke the economy

This comes in expansion on your own comment on the deregulation of credit default swaps.

Someone has to tell you: That snickering you hear behind you is not aimed at us.

And your response to that is to say “See? See? Look ‘how much harm’ Clinton did!”

What does the President do? Any idea? Do you understand the meaning of the word veto?

And yes, it was bi-partisan, the government broke it. But where does the buck stop?

That’s right. With the President. Thanks for playing.

LarryE:
Are you nuts?

One can only assume the question is rhetorical.

Number9:
Do you understand the meaning of the word veto?

Do you understand the meaning of the word “override?” As with GLB (which repealed Glass-Steagall), the GOP-controlled congress — with an assist from politically cowardly Democrats — had a veto-proof majority. So the veto was irrelevant.

But of course, you’ve danced around so much, it’s hard to remember what your point was supposed to be in bringing all this up. If your objective was to agree with my statement that deregulation is at the root of all these problems, and that we need to start regulating again if we want a stable future, then I couldn’t agree with you more. If you were trying to refute that argument, however, I have to say you’re doing a piss-poor job of it.

This will be my last on this since it’s obvious I’m talking to a wall.

Do you understand the meaning of the word veto?

I do. Do you understand the meaning of your own words, specifically “the outgoing president was in no position to veto anything?” (Especially, I might add, an “11,000 page omnibus budget bill.”)

Do you understand the absurdity of saying “the government broke the economy” when the example you raised involved deregulation of the economy, of reducing government “power and control?”

Do you understand that every time you say something on this topic you only add weight to the “yes” side of the “Are you nuts?” question?

LarryE,

You’re forgetting that No9 is a libertarian. That means he sees all passing of laws as government action. There’s no difference between regulation and deregulation. Telling financiers that they can’t deceive people is interfering with the market, just like telling them they can.

The real way to run the country is to shut down all government spending. Not only should the president use the veto, there should be no budget bill. If you don’t have a government, it can’t be part of the ploblem, see?