A little antidote to all of this Occupy Wall Street nonsense

wilde

Sinnear Member
Jun 4, 2003
3,037
44
48
Luckily, I bank at TD. :)

What I would like to think would happen, is that if the officers of those banks committed serious financial crimes that caused that to occur, they would suffer the same consequences as if they had stolen the money at gunpoint. And that they definitely would not still be in charge.
I meant the economic consequences to Canada if those banks failed and there were no bail out.
 

storm rider

Banned
Dec 6, 2008
2,543
7
0
Calgary
The occupy wall street protest is about how the financial sector engaged in criminal and fraudulent activity, created an economic crises, and collected $13 trillion from taxpayers to bail themselves out. In the interim no one was arrested, perpetrators collected healthy bonuses, and ordinary people who were victimized either through losing their homes and or their jobs got nothing. It may also be related to the US having the highest income inequality in the industrialized world (10% of the population has 80% of the wealth), and the current real unemployment rate is around 20%.

But, these facts are pretty darned complicated, so charming little anecdotes about pulling oneself up by your bootstraps and babbling about self reliance are probably easier to focus on.......
I totally agree that the financial bailouts of american banks as well as AIG were total BS the American people were their own worst enemy due to blatant stupidity.....the average situation is : prospective home owner buys a house with a paltry 5% down on a home worth $200,000 with a 35 year ammortised mortgage and only makes the basic payments for say 3-5 years....those 3-5 years go buy and the house is worth $450,000 on paper (asset backed commercial paper)....so a shitload of people said hey we are well off....why dont we buy a new car/truck and matching jet skis etc and take out a 2nd mortgage since the house is now worth $450,000 and we only owe $180,000.....they did that and the housing market tanked....suddenly their house that they bought for $200,000 and owed $180,000 which was at once worth$450,000 at which point they borrowed against the ptotential equity for say $100,000 and thusly owe $280,000 on a home that was then valued at $140,000....meaning that they are behinf the 8 ball for $140,000 whilst owning that home that wont sell on the market as most people are in the same situation.

The big lesson is.....dont under any circumstances take equity out of your home in the form of a loan/mortage.....either sell it outright and reap the equity but dont gamble with it in the hopes that the market wont go south.

SR
 

Ned Flanders

Member
May 19, 2004
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It's all well and good to protest this and that but consider the alternative. Had there been no bail out, what sort of financial disaster would we be looking at today? The bail out was ill-conceived, without significant conditions attached to them but did bring about much needed stability at an extremely volatile time.
I think relatively few people would have advocated letting all the banks fail. The issue was there was no discussion of reversing the 20 years of deregulation that led to these problems, there was little or no oversight into the bailout (honestly no one can account for where a lot of the money went), and there was a curious realignment of Wall Street with some firms like Goldman Sachs improving their position quite markedly. There is really no changes that have been made to the regulatory environment that will prevent this sort of thing from happening again. There certainly was no relief for the people conned into the sub prime mortgages, and certainly not for many of the people who thought their savings were deposited in triple A securities. To date, no one has been charged with anything, though this is not for a lack of evidence or people who acted criminally.

And finally, "bank" is a rather loose term. A lot of the major actors in this while nominally "banks", were more investment firms or hedge funds and were not performing traditional banking functions. Whether many of these functions like commodity speculation and the derivatives market are actually of real benefit to the economy is a matter of some debate.

So, there were lots of alternatives, and I think many would argue the second worst alternative was selected......
 

threepeat

New member
Sep 20, 2004
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Edmonton
Well, the rational response would have been to bail them out and then sell off their assets. Shareholders get nothing. proceeds of sales goes back to paying down the bailout. Anything left over goes to other creditors starting with the little guys & going up in size from there.

Put that kind of law on the books & the shareholders might just try & keep the rapacious bastards on a leash. No need for onerous new regulations forcing banks to do this or that. They would twist themselves into pretzels to get around such regulations while lobbying hard to loosen the system. But if the stockholders faced the real risk of losing it all, the banks would certainly not run the sorts of risks their shareholders demand of them under the current regime.
Exactly. Let's say for sake of argument the banks needed to get bailed out. Why to date has no one gone to jail for negligence, nor have any signficant financial reforms been enacted/enforced?

How did Merrill Lynch get away with giving away $3 billion in bonuses to their employees days before receiving a $20 billion bailout from the U.S. taxpayers?
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2009/01/22/merrill-bonuses-idUKN2150757420090122

How about Merrill's CEO John Thain spending $35,000 on a toilet? http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2009/01/23/deal-journal-explainer-the-35000-commode-outrage/

And while I have the podium, I may as well re-link the video about the Federal Reserve printing $9 trillion worth of money and lending it out, and the Federal Reserve Inspector General not know where the money went (btw the GDP of the entire world economy is about $14T):

 

ThisEndUp

mort à l'entente
Maybe you should go back to first page and check the links that show the true nature of the inequalities that exist in the US today. The rich are not just interested in holding on to what they have -- they keep getting more and more.

The "left" and "right" in this context is bullshit. It is the rich against the rest of us, the ever-shrinking middle class.
Exactly, doesn't matter who is in power in the states, it's the same puppet masters behind the scenes serving themselves at the trough
 

dojin

New member
Oct 18, 2009
30
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I have doubts many people could get a 3.8 gpa in anything worthwhile, while working 30 hour weeks.
All that letter needs is a little blurb how praying to god is what really does the trick.
Haha, I had the same thought about the 30hrs working and 3.8GPA. I did the 30hrs or more and went from a 3.7 GPA to a 2.8. When you are in the Science based program, to maintain that GPA you would have to have no life and no work. At least the people that I know that maintained that mark had no life and no work.

That being said, I have all the gadgets I wanted, a car and all that was paid off and I am debt free. Am I still for the Occupy Wallstreet, Yes.
Chilli and Ned covered my thoughts on that perfectly.

@wilde
You may be right, but I would of rather seen the financial institutions pay the piper. Even with jailing those that were "responsible" for the mess, it would only make a small example. It is like the HST, even IF it was a better solution, I could not let the Liberals get away with lying, even at the cost of suffering myself.
 

DavidMR

New member
Mar 27, 2009
872
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If I recall correctly, John Galt is one of Ayn Rand's heroic characters. Enough said I suppose, except to say it's pretty obvious what your biases are.
 

ThisEndUp

mort à l'entente
That guy, as dumb as he is, should get his college paid for (if he can hack it). Plenty of countries all over the world provide free higher education to those that deserve it, and that is a good thing.
DESERVE vs right. Why waste taxpayers money on those with no chance to complete, never mind excel at college

So tell me wingnut, WHO do you think should pay for your education? The Rich? Do your parents have a house? They are rich, THEY can pay!
 

Webster

Member
Oct 4, 2004
316
0
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DESERVE vs right. Why waste taxpayers money on those with no chance to complete, never mind excel at college

So tell me wingnut, WHO do you think should pay for your education? The Rich? Do your parents have a house? They are rich, THEY can pay!
I think you should read what I wrote again and this time agree with it.
 

whoisjohngalt

Member
Aug 4, 2009
147
1
18
Vancouver area
If I recall correctly, John Galt is one of Ayn Rand's heroic characters. Enough said I suppose, except to say it's pretty obvious what your biases are.
Congratulations inspector, you really cracked the case. Yes I wear my biases on my sleeve unlike most of the closet socialists on this board. I believe that free market capitalism is the most productive, fair and just economic system and also the best guarantee of political freedom. You go ahead and tell me why you think I am wrong.
 

whoisjohngalt

Member
Aug 4, 2009
147
1
18
Vancouver area
That guy, as dumb as he is, should get his college paid for (if he can hack it). Plenty of countries all over the world provide free higher education to those that deserve it, and that is a good thing.
Please tell me why you think this is a good thing, and also who in your mind is "deserving".
 

Webster

Member
Oct 4, 2004
316
0
16
Please tell me why you think this is a good thing, and also who in your mind is "deserving".
Because it produces educated and productive citizens. The deserving are deserving, as determined by higher education institutions that admit students. It's not sorcery.
 

HankQuinlan

I dont re Member
Sep 7, 2002
1,744
6
0
victoria
Is it really biased if you believe that hard work should have its rewards and not be punished for working hard?
In real life (unlike in sophomoric novels) the vast majority of the rich are rich because of inheritance, or behaviour that most would consider criminal (e.g., inventing and selling worthless crap like the investment banks).

The reasons CEOs make such ridiculous money is not because they work harder -- it is because they sit on each other's boards of directors. So you really think David Hahn works a thousand times harder than the average BCFerries employee?

And no one is punished for making money, no matter what its source. Check those charts again to see the rates that the super-rich pay compared to everyone else.
 

overdone

Banned
Apr 26, 2007
1,828
442
83
Congratulations inspector, you really cracked the case. Yes I wear my biases on my sleeve unlike most of the closet socialists on this board. I believe that free market capitalism is the most productive, fair and just economic system and also the best guarantee of political freedom. You go ahead and tell me why you think I am wrong.
reality

and because it isn't in reality fair, just or most importantly balanced

not everyone has the same ablilities, skills or talents, some through no fault of their own

you need a little bit of socialism, libertarianism, fascism, capitalism, Anarchism, liberalism, communism, ect.... depending on the issue

Captialism only works by itself when the assumption that people are good and will always do the right/best thing, lol
 

Jistaguy19

New member
Nov 26, 2010
49
0
0
Maybe you should go back to first page and check the links that show the true nature of the inequalities that exist in the US today. The rich are not just interested in holding on to what they have -- they keep getting more and more.

The "left" and "right" in this context is bullshit. It is the rich against the rest of us, the ever-shrinking middle class.
I love this train of thought, we live in a capitalistic society where it is the goal of virtually every man on the street to increase his personal wealth in one way or another. Yet for the lucky few that actually succeed in doing so, the rest want to burn them at stake.

I would suggest that contrary to what the left (yes I said left) would like everyone to believe, that those of us living in a developed country such as Canada or the USA are experiencing a higher standard of living than any civilization in history. Sure there are poor, and yes there are rich. However, the vast majority of people have 3 squares a day. the planet as a whole now supports close to 1 billion automobiles, and so on and so forth.

Part of the problem is that the average joe feels that far too much should be provided to him, that it is his birth-rite, Where do I start, post secondary education, health care, unemployment insurance, retirement, a job for life, etc, etc, etc. In the meantime this same average Joe expects to own a colour tv, his own home, a car or two, and so on and so forth.

Blaming wall street for the financial woes of our society is akin to suing McDonald because you are fat. The age of personal responsibility is long gone apparently
 

Webster

Member
Oct 4, 2004
316
0
16
Kevin O'Leary didn't put it quite that way last night on the Lang O'Leary exchange. What he said is that higher education is all about the future networking. He says he didn't remember anything he learned getting his MBA at Richard Ivey School of Business (http://www.ivey.uwo.ca/?gclid=COijiob56KsCFQhrgwodET7XMw), what was valuable to him is knowing the people that went to school with him and are now CEOs and Board Members of various companies. In other words "it's not what you know, it's who you know".
He's speaking about his own experience and about MBAs. As far as I understand it - open to correction here - there is no evidence at all that people with MBAs do anything better than people without them.

I think it's pretty obvious that other professional degrees in law and architecture, for instance, produce graduates who can get stuff done.
 
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