We started the year with FIVE

[Arab Nights (imported)]

Saving money? Who ever heard of that? No, as Americans we are entitled to what we want when we want it, and we are entitled to use what we perceive as free money to get it now rather than having to wait a while and save for it.

QUOTE]

Not to disagree with you, but when you reach a certain age you see the cycle of comments in print. This philosophy appears in print about every decade when things crater (70s, early 80s, early 90s and millenium craterings). but then people get busy working and buying and kind of forget it. Too bad.

[lilolme4 (imported)]

I read an interesting article today which proposes that government regulation is the CAUSE of the current crisis...

"Obama in a statement yesterday blamed the shocking new round of subprime-related bankruptcies on the free-market system, and specifically the "trickle-down" economics of the Bush administration, which he tried to gig opponent John McCain for wanting to extend.

But it was the Clinton administration, obsessed with multiculturalism, that dictated where mortgage lenders could lend, and originally helped create the market for the high-risk subprime loans now infecting like a retrovirus the balance sheets of many of Wall Street's most revered institutions.

Tough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk areas where they had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that sound business practices had previously guarded against making. It was either that or face stiff government penalties.

The untold story in this whole national crisis is that President Clinton put on steroids the Community Redevelopment Act, a well-intended Carter-era law designed to encourage minority homeownership. And in so doing, he helped create the market for the risky subprime loans that he and Democrats now decry as not only greedy but "predatory."

Yes, the market was fueled by greed and overleveraging in the secondary market for subprimes, vis-a-vis mortgaged-backed securities traded on Wall Street. But the seed was planted in the '90s by Clinton and his social engineers. They were the political catalyst behind this slow-motion financial train wreck.

And it was the Clinton administration that mismanaged the quasi-governmental agencies that over the decades have come to manage the real estate market in America.

As soon as Clinton crony Franklin Delano Raines took the helm in 1999 at Fannie Mae, for example, he used it as his personal piggy bank, looting it for a total of almost $100 million in compensation by the time he left in early 2005 under an ethical cloud.

Other Clinton cronies, including Janet Reno aide Jamie Gorelick, padded their pockets to the tune of another $75 million.

Raines was accused of overstating earnings and shifting losses so he and other senior executives could earn big bonuses.

In the end, Fannie had to pay a record $400 million civil fine for SEC and other violations, while also agreeing as part of a settlement to make changes in its accounting procedures and ways of managing risk.

But it was too little, too late. Raines had reportedly steered Fannie Mae business to subprime giant Countrywide Financial, which was saved from bankruptcy by Bank of America.

At the same time, the Clinton administration was pushing Fannie and her brother Freddie Mac to buy more mortgages from low-income households.

The Clinton-era corruption, combined with unprecedented catering to affordable-housing lobbyists, resulted in today's nationalization of both Fannie and Freddie, a move that is expected to cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.

And the worst is far from over. By the time it is, we'll all be paying for Clinton's social experiment, one that Obama hopes to trump with a whole new round of meddling in the housing and jobs markets. In fact, the social experiment Obama has planned could dwarf both the Great Society and New Deal in size and scope.

There's a political root cause to this mess that we ignore at our peril. If we blame the wrong culprits, we'll learn the wrong lessons. And taxpayers will be on the hook for even larger bailouts down the road.

But the government-can-do-no-wrong crowd just doesn't get it. They won't acknowledge the law of unintended consequences from well-meaning, if misguided, acts.

Obama and Democrats on the Hill think even more regulation and more interference in the market will solve the problem their policies helped cause. For now, unarmed by the historic record, conventional wisdom is buying into their blame-business-first rhetoric and bigger-government solutions.

While government arguably has a role in helping low-income folks buy a home, Clinton went overboard by strong-arming lenders with tougher and tougher regulations, which only led to lenders taking on hundreds of billions in subprime bilge.

Market failure? Hardly. Once again, this crisis has government's fingerprints all over it."

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticle ... 0789279709

[jemagirl (imported)]

This is the nuttiest spin job ever.

But it was the Clinton administration, obsessed with multiculturalism, that dictated where mortgage lenders could lend, and originally helped create the market for the high-risk subprime loans now infecting like a retrovirus the balance sheets of many of Wall Street's most revered institutions.

Tough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk areas where they had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that sound business practices had previously guarded against making. It was either that or face stiff government penalties.

The institutions making sub-prime loans did it for no other reason than there was money to be made. End of story.

The fact is that most of the loans that have failed are new loans less than a couple of years old. Incase anyone hasn't noticed Bill Clinton has been out of office for nearly eight years. What we are seeing now is not the result of regulation during the Clinton years but the deregulation of the financial industry during the Bush years.

Take a look at the airline industry, another fine example of deregulation, and what do you see? Airlines failing and merging. This is what unfettered capitalism looks like. The problems in the financial industry look a lot like the problems in the airline industry except that when an airline fails you don't have the same level of repercussions.

Yes there is the issue of high fuel prices but the main issue is the airlines have been cutting each other's throat for years in fair wars. They would be in a much healthier state to deal with fuel cost if this were not the case. In the financial industry it's just a case of the government saying "What ever you do is OK"

Well it isn't OK, and I dam pissed off we are having to bail the SOBs out. Doesn't this amount to a form of Taxation?

[Dave (imported)]

This isn't Clinton's Fault. It's was a Phil Gramm deregulation.

In 1999, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act repealed 1930's legislation that had separated commercial and investment banks. Commercial banks, where people deposit their paychecks and do personal banking, have regulation. Investment banks didn't have that "fettering" as Republicans saw it.

John McCain voted for Gramm-Leach-Bliley. Joe Biden voted NO. The act passed 54-44, mostly a party line vote. Yes, Clinton signed the law. But Joe Biden was against it.

With the 1930's Glass-Steagall Act repealed, the theory was competition could happen now in financial services. The evil enemy of regulation was gone, free markets would reign. Mergers happened that couldn't before. A broader range of institutions could offer a broader range of products. Which grew to include obscure, unregulated financial products with no collateral to support them. Like sub-prime mortgages. Regulated banks couldn't take those kinds of risks. Unregulated companies could.

(You have to search the archives of the NYTimes for this article. Chances are, you need t o have a subscription and pay for it.)

[Dave (imported)]

Here's more p=about Phil Gramm and his role in the current crisis

Banking Deregulation and the 2008 Mortgage Crisis

Later in his Senate career, Gramm spearheaded efforts to pass banking reform laws, including the landmark Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999, which served to reduce government regulations in existence since the Great Depression separating banking, insurance and brokerage activities.

Years later, critics of Gramm point out that this same legislation may have been pivotal in encouraging he corporate practices that led to the 2008 mortgage crises in America.[5]

Between 1995 and 2000 Gramm, who was the chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, received $1,000,914 in campaign contributions from the Securities & Investment industry.[6]

Later, as lobbyist for Swiss bank UBS, Gramm pressured congress ease it's restrictions on predatory lending tactics by mortgage brokers. For his efforts, Gramm received $750,000 from UBS in during a one year period starting in 2007.[7].

John McCain presidential campaign, 2008

He was John McCain’s presidential campaign co-chair[8] and his most senior economic adviser[9] from summer 2007[10] to July 18, 2008.[8]

While advising the McCain campaign, Gramm was being paid by UBS to lobby Congress about the U.S. mortgage crisis. During this time, "the mortgage industry pressed Congress to roll back strong state rules that sought to stem the rise of predatory tactics used by lenders and brokers to place homeowners in high-cost mortgages."[11] According to Politico.com, Gramm had input on McCain's March 26, 2008 policy speech on the mortgage crisis.[11]

In a July 9, 2008 interview explaining McCain's plans in reforming the U.S. economy, Gramm downplayed the idea that the nation was in a recession, stating, "You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession," and "We have sort of become a nation of whiners, you just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline."[12]

Gramm's comments immediately became a campaign issue. McCain's opponent, Senator Barack Obama, said, "America already has one Dr. Phil. We don't need another one when it comes to the economy. ... This economic downturn is not in your head."[13] McCain strongly denounced Gramm's comments.[14] Gramm later attempted to clarify his comment, explaining that he had used the word "whiners" to describe the nation's politicians rather than the public, stating "the whiners are the leaders."[15] In the same interview, Gramm stated, "I'm not going to retract any of it. Every word I said was true."[16]

On July 18, 2008 Gramm stepped down from his position with the McCain campaign.[17]

And another famous quote of Phil Gramm:

* "Most people don't have the luxury of living to be 80 years old, so it's hard for me to feel sorry for them." - (in response to a statement that a Social Security proposal would hurt people over 80)[21]

All 21 references are at the following URL:

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/mccains- ... all-street

[coinflipper_21 (imported)]

The thing left unsaid is that the United States no longer has much of an economy. There is no such thing as a "Post Industrial Economy".

Corporations, large and small, in the name of the quarterly bottom line (Read greed.), exported our manufacturing base to other countries over the last 50 years. They did not consider the long term consequences for the country or the economy. I have been saying this was going to happen since 1967 when I was one of the early workers hit by it (Plant closed and entire manufacturing operation moved to Singapore.), but since I am of no particular consequence, no one listened to me.

You don't have an economy in a country where the jobs consist of flipping burgers, repair services, big box retail sales, and pushing paper in financial institutions. Only the few very top people in these industries make any money. The low end jobs in these industries are at or just above minimum wage. The entry level jobs that formerly introduced our youth to the world of work have been long since given over to illegal immigrants who will work for less and, given that they do not have the expectations of our spoiled youth, are more reliable workers. Manufacturing and product innovation provide the well paying jobs that support a growing economy. There is doubt that we still have the critical mass of such jobs to make a recovery from the current financial downturn.

As Lee Iacocca once said, 'There is a name for a country that produces raw materials and agricultural commodities for export to other countries and buys the manufactured goods back from those countries. It's called a colony.'

True, the other countries do not want to see the United States collapse, at the moment. They want to see us gradually decline to a soft landing at a point where they can keep us in what they see as our 'place'. Signed up for a course in Mandarin yet?

[Blaise (imported)]

John Thain the CEO of Merrill Lynch received a $15MIL signing bonus when he started with ML a year ago and will receive $11M in stocks if he doesn’t stay with the firm after the BOA buyout. With his other two executives included, they’ll receive a total of about $200 million.That bit of news is from my nephew.

[Dave (imported)]

The thing left unsaid is that the United States no longer has much of an economy. There is no such thing as a "Post Industrial Economy".

REALLY?

What do you call the information society? That big electronic revolution that happened because the USA was a technology leader in the world?

Who invented the damn computers your type on? Microsoft and Apple - both American companies.

Who put the cellphone satellites in orbit? The GPS systems?

I could go on but that's a truly stupid statement you made. Please think about it.

[Paolo]

REALLY?

What do you call the information society?

Now, before we go any further, this isn't a slam at you, Dave. What follows is just how I see it:

I call it a sick joke.

Based on what I've seen, and what people who work in such 'industries' have told me, I see low paying jobs that have no benefits, and ever-decreasing prices in technology that is constantly evolving into more user-hostile and gimmick-laden junk that often needs replacing.

How many jobs have been eliminated by this so-called 'industry'?

Information and digital media...modern conveniences to make our lives so much easier?

Just a small example - in the last 10 years, 95% of the photofinishing industry jobs have vanished. Kodak used to employ a lot of people making film, paper, chemicals, packaging - and quite a few of them who made film and paper were blind. Back in the day, they made a living wage. Now, images are shot and digital cameras and cell phones, and they're lower quality images, too.

And what about that big "dot-com" rupture some years back?

We can also ask Dell, whether or not the PC industry is what it used to be. And how much of this stuff is actually made in America, by Americans, making a decent wage?

I don't know anyone around here who works for an ISP or similar 'industry' making a decent wage.

A few more things that come to mind, as far as jobs eliminated by information and computers and electronic gadgets peddling said information:

Gas station pump attendants/travel center maintenance people.

Department store section-managers, or "floorwalkers".

Checkout clerks, who used to make a living at it.

Grocery sackers.

Telephone operators - the human ones.

Technical support people ("Press 1 to file a return claim.") who could actually talk you through a hardware problem with merchandise that you bought IN a store. Lump this one in with 'customer service.'

Manual labor being replaced by robots or farmed out overseas.

(When was the last time you saw a TV 'made in the USA'?)

And I'm sure the list could go on.

The way I see it, and there's plenty of evidence of it out there already, is that advent of all of this miraculous technology and information has eliminated more jobs and income than anything else in history.

[coinflipper_21 (imported)]

REALLY?

What do you call the information society? That big electronic revolution that happened because the USA was a technology leader in the world?

Who invented the damn computers your type on? Microsoft and Apple - both American companies.

Who put the cellphone satellites in orbit? The GPS systems?

I could go on but that's a truly stupid statement you made. Please think about it.

Really? And who's doing it now? The Information Age jobs turned out to be the most easily exportable of all. You can do the work anywhere in the world because of the Internet. US colleges will graduate about 6000 (real) system level programmers this year. US corporations and the government currently have a programming backlog for about 80,000. No one is even trying to hire US workers to fill these jobs. The work is being done in India, China and Eastern Europe.

Except for military electronics, (and not all of that any more), there are no computers, cell phones, televisions, or almost any other digital electronic devices actually made in the United States. Yes, there are products ASSEMBLED in the United States but the guts come from China, India, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Germany, Ireland and even Finland. The engineering is being done at the production sites and not by US engineers. Most of the US electronics companies are just sales and administrative paper shells. When you export the production you export all the knowledge that comes from it.

Case in point show how obvious it was nearly 30 years ago. In 1980 an American manufacturer of computer chips (I believe it was Texas Instruments, but I'm not sure.) wanted to set up a manufacturing plant in Korea. They were still doing the design and development in the US, but had moved production to Singapore several years before. What they discovered, to their dismay, was they they no longer employed enough engineers who could design a factory to manufacture their own product! There were not enough qualified engineers available to hire in the US, so they had to hire a Japanese consulting engineering firm to do the job. That's just one example of what has been going on and it has been getting steadily worse since. Even HP which tried to pull back some of the system level work from their Indian sub-contractors in around 1990 couldn't do it all because there was a shortage of engineers and programmers in the US. The people who were replaced by the off-shoring had moved on to other things.

Oh, by the way, the GPS system? Current attempts to upgrade it are turning out to be a near disaster. Only the fact that a small cadre of older engineers who were in on the original development are still in the project is keeping it going. The youngest of them is about 15 years from retirement. The military is (quietly and off the record) in a tizzy!

Satellites in orbit? The Boeing Space Launch division is using Russian made rockets. More commercial satellites in the last decade have been launched by the European Space Agency than NASA. The Japanese and the Chinese are launching their own and the next vehicle scheduled to land on the moon will come from China.

Our young people do not see the reward in the hard technical education and the universities and college technical courses are filled by foreign students. There was a time, not all that long ago, when those foreign students tried to get jobs in the US so they could stay here (This country is still the best place to live, for the moment.) after their education, but now the majority of them go home where the opportunities are.

If you think I made a truly stupid statement, you are living in the past. Open your eyes and see what has really happened to this country. Do we still have the most innovative culture in the world? Probably. Americans are still, for the most part, the world's most confident risk takers. The question is do we still have the technological and industrial critical mass to make it count? I certainly hope so, but the question is in doubt.