Thread: Credit crisis

Originally Posted by gugi

Guys, let's keep this on track and not go into presidential politics.

Originally Posted by Seraphim

Doesn't this have EVERYTHING to do with presidential politcs?

No it doesnt. The credit crisis affects everyone, not just the US. Influential though the president of the US may be, money is the issue of this thread.

Originally Posted by jockeys

Bush Sr. was only prez for 4 years.

Maybe it just seemed like longer. Like the current Mr Bush.... he's been in office for some 15 years now, yeah?

I like what Joe Biden said on Tuesday:

"When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the princes of greed, he said, 'Look, here's what happened."

If we don't learn from history, we're doomed to make it up as we go along

Originally Posted by jockeys

George H. W. Bush - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bush Sr. was only prez for 4 years.

Sorry.
You're right.
He was president for only 4 years, but he was vice pres for the 8 years leading up to those 4 years as well.

Again, let's compare: War in Iraq, and economic downturn at home. Who's in office both times? George Bush.

Probably still just a coincidence

Originally Posted by sidneykidney

Welcome to the reason for this thread being here in the first place Bruno.

Out of GENUINE interest, how is the economic climate affecting Belgium in particular?

People are shrugging their shoulders and say 'Meh... Americans...' Sorry but this is the general feeling.

Several banks lots money because they carried part of those loans, downstream. But they only carried a little (measured in millions) and the total loss is not having that big of an impact.

Also some local no-risk investments were guaranteed indirectly by Lehman, so theoretically that backing is gone.
But the banking legislators are looking into it, and because it were the initial banks who made the no-risk promise, it is likely that they will have to uphold any possible no-risk if there is a need for it.

All in all the direct hit was extremely limited because banks in Belgium (most of western europe really) are conservative in the way they do investment business.
Of course there will be some long term impact because the US economy has an impact on the global economic climate, but for now, the impact is limited.
And of course, there will have been people who invested their saving directly in Lehman or whatever, and they're out of luck. But they are definitely not many here. Belgians are traditional and conservative in their financial actions. We are savers, not gamblers. And the Year 2000 dot-bomb brought the dreamers back to reality.

Originally Posted by sidneykidney

No it doesnt. The credit crisis affects everyone, not just the US. Influential though the president of the US may be, money is the issue of this thread.

US banking/financial policy or lack thereof, is behind the collapse of leading US financial corporations. It will quite directly affect us as US citizens as WE are the ones being put forth to foot the bill (700 BILLION dollars), not the Scottish, Swedes, teh sovreign nation of Iraq or anyone else.

Yes, the effect will be felt worldwide, but the direct financial burden is on us.

The president certainly has a big part to play in all of this by who he chooses to appoint to oversight commitees, cabinet positions, sweetheart oil deals, etc...

Originally Posted by Seraphim

US banking/financial policy or lack thereof, is behind the collapse of leading US financial corporations. It will quite directly affect us as US citizens as WE are the ones being put forth to foot the bill (700 BILLION dollars), not the Scottish, Swedes, teh sovreign nation of Iraq or anyone else.

Yes, the effect will be felt worldwide, but the direct financial burden is on us.

The president certainly has a big part to play in all of this by who he chooses to appoint to oversight commitees, cabinet positions, sweetheart oil deals, etc...

Lets review what you just wrote there shall we?

1. US banking/financial policy or lack thereof, is behind the collapse of leading US financial corporations.

I wouldnt argue with that in the slightest.

2. It will quite directly affect us as US citizens

It will affect you, but you wont be the only ones.

3. WE are the ones being put forth to foot the bill (700 BILLION dollars), not the Scottish, Swedes, teh sovreign nation of Iraq or anyone else.

Hang on, didnt you just also say it was US banking/financial policy OR LACK THEREOF that is behind the collapse? I'm confused. Why would the Scots/Swedes/Iraqis/anywhere else pay financially for a US financial crisis?

4. Yes, the effect will be felt worldwide, but the direct financial burden is on us.

So the domino effect that causes financial problems elsewhere in the world... you're paying for all that too? This is only half sarcasm- in truth I dont know if the US will be doing that. But the fact remains, it was poor US financial problems that got us here, why wouldnt it be the US to foot the bill?

NB. I am also aware that other banks in Europe have faced similar problems. In the UK recently Northern Rock faced a crisis and went into meltdown. The UK government bailed them out.

Originally Posted by sidneykidney

Lets review what you just wrote there shall we?

2. It will quite directly affect us as US citizens

It will affect you, but you wont be the only ones.

3. WE are the ones being put forth to foot the bill (700 BILLION dollars), not the Scottish, Swedes, teh sovreign nation of Iraq or anyone else.

Hang on, didnt you just also say it was US banking/financial policy OR LACK THEREOF that is behind the collapse? I'm confused. Why would the Scots/Swedes/Iraqis/anywhere else pay financially for a US financial crisis?

2. The credit crisis may affect people everywhere, The Bailout affects US taxpayers alone is what I am getting at.

3. Was in response to your post:

Originally Posted by sidneykidney
No it doesnt. The credit crisis affects everyone, not just the US. Influential though the president of the US may be, money is the issue of this thread.

I suppose you are right, I got sidetracked about The Bailout, which is a localized US taxpayer issue, when the thread is about the credit crunch itself.

Continue on..

Yes but we don't have 700 B. Its going to have to come from somewhere else. Guess where. And who is going to be paying the interest on all that loot for the next who knows how many years?

And another thing maybe someone can explain to me, since they say this started with the housing situation and this money will help put things right. All these people who lost their houses and the speculators who have abandoned the home buying market and all the people who are living in homes worth way less they they paid for them and who will probably walk away from them because they are wasting their money on the mortgages, who will reenter the market and replace all these people? Most of these people will never qualify for a mortgage. If investors return, hell it was they who started this bubble to begin with. So who will buy all this inventory of homes and what builders will start building under these conditions?

Originally Posted by Nord Jim

When I got home, I reviewed the Gingrich video that was posted last night. Here's what I found.

Ol' Newt said that the first thing the government should do is -- wait for it -- repeal Sarbanes-Oxley. Yes, that's right! And why? Because it "failed to warn us" about this crisis.

Now, let me think. What is Sarbanes-Oxley? It's an act passed in the wake of the Enron scandal that mainly requires boards of directors of publicly-held corporations to be responsible for accuracy of the financial reports of the corporation. It specifically makes them responsible for fraud.

It has nothing to do with banking, nothing to do with loans, nothing to do with whether loans are good or bad. Yet Ol' Newt says that this is the most important thing to do to solve the current crisis?

Puh-leeze!

In other news, a Republican congressional panel has met this week to make recommendations to solve the current economic crisis. Their number one recommendation? Eliminate taxation of capital gains.

No, really! I'm serious.

So, what does this all mean? Simple. It means that, faced with the greatest economic crisis of our times, the Republicans are using it to game the situation. That's right -- they're ignoring the crisis and simply trying to use it to garner even more benefits for their wealthy base. In the process, they're trying to eliminate one of the last remaining curbs on corporate greed and corruption, and further reduce the tax base, while shifting revenue from the middle class to the wealthy.

Is this unbelievable or what?

j

You are quite the artist when it comes to spin huh?

Originally Posted by jockeys

Wow, an ad hominem response to my argument, yay! Why don't you cut all the extra verbiage and just say, "you're young, and therefore an idiot, and I'm old, and therefore wise."

you presume much, and as it happens, you presume wrong. I have endured both of the hardships you mentioned, despite not being as old as you evidently are. Things got hard. But in the end, the only help I needed was my own. Even if someone is in trouble and it's not their FAULT, it's still their RESPONSIBILITY to take care of themselves.

someone else said it a lot better than I could:
"I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."
-John Galt

First of all, paraphrasing what you, yourself, have said in other threads is not an ad hominem argument.

Second, I do not, in fact, think that wisdom or idiocy is a function of age. There are young people who get it and old people who don't.

Third, I'm not talking about wisdom but empathy for the situation of your fellow man and maintaining the social fabric. Your arguments, if taken to an extreme for the sake of illustration, make no sense.

For example, I could buy a gun, fortify my house and then say that I won't pay taxes to support a police force because I don't need it and everyone is responsible for themselves.

What this has to do with the subject at hand is simply this: the so-called "credit crisis" is one facet of the fact that 20% of the world's population controls 80% of the world's wealth and 1% of the population controls about 50% of the world's wealth. The so-called "free market" is not free, but controlled and manipulated by powerful, but invisible forces. The banks are organized and are exploiting common people. The only way to counter them is for people to act together in their common interest. The idea that we are all responsible for ourselves is promoted by the powerful to protect themselves. Those of you who want to cry "conspiracy theory" need only ask yourselves who is getting bailed-out in this "crisis" and who is getting the shaft and why it is that your so-called "elected officials" are going along with it.