The coming financial crisis

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

So, what's the next name for the Wachovia Center?

[Geowhizzer]

So, what's the next name for the Wachovia Center?

Depression Center

[Seabiscuit36]

wachovia changed their #'s, laying off over 10k and their stock is up now.  Over 10% of their workforce being let go. 

[Father Demon]

hope you didn't short sell going into this morning.....

[Seabiscuit36]

hope you didn't short sell going into this morning.....

nope, honestly i have no idea what the hell is going on anymore in the stock world.  Pahlsson speaks, and Wachovia despite those losses is up nearly 25%  farging crazy. 

[Wingspan]

wachovia changed their #'s, laying off over 10k and their stock is up now.  Over 10% of their workforce being let go. 

same thing happened to starbucks. this past week.

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

This $400 Billion housing bailout.... Why in the hell is Congress spending all this time on it?  It benefits much fewer people than it takes away from.

Ugh.

[rjs246]

Governmental bailouts sure are neat. They rescue and reward the people who took part in shady/unethical business practices while the rest of us who played by the rules are still left sitting around holding our dicks with various amounts of debt and unreasonably high housing prices to deal with.

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

Don't forget, though... it also helps all the poor, unfortunate people that were "tricked" into taking out bad loans on houses they couldn't afford.  They REALLY deserve our help!

[rjs246]

Does anyone see what happened here?

Companies offered sub-prime mortgages to people who otherwise wouldn't have been able to afford the large houses they were buying.
This helps to artificially drive up the cost of buying a house.
Homeowners everywhere get a massive boner because the house they bought 5 years ago is suddenly worth twice what they paid for it, or more.
The people eventually have to pay more than they can afford and lose their homes.
Meanwhile the mortgage companies lose the money that was owed to them on these bogus loans and are in serious financial perril...
BUT WAIT! Here comes the government to bail those companies out. Johnny No Brains still doesn't have a home to live in. People still can't afford to buy a house because the market is already farged by this ludicrous rise in prices. But the companies that gave out these loans in the first place get to keep operating with no punishment because the government is giving them Billions of dollars (that it doesn't even have) to recover all of the money they lost.

It's insanity. Not one thing in this scenario makes a farging lick of sense.

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

What I don't understand is why a bill that primarily benefits the shylocks in the mortgage industry is mostly being challenged on the right (even though Bush has said that he'll sign it, like the douche he is).  Why is the a partisan issue?  And if it is a partisan, shouldn't it be the Republicans being douches and bailing out the industry?

[rjs246]

They're torn, you see, between bailing out their massive-industry masters and staying true to their 'small government' platitudes.

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

Bush obviously has no problems with the whole fiscal conservativism thing.  He gave it up a few years back... Well, actually, I don't think he ever really was one.

Remember the whole "I'm a uniter; not a divider" shtein?  Good times.

[rjs246]

That's the funny thing. Without fiscal conservatism the republicans aren't really republicans anymore. They're just whores to the corporate and religious leaders who feed them money. This is why republicans are viewed in such poor light these days, but I guess there's no need to beat that dead horse. They're all whores. It's just a matter of which pimps they choose to whore themselves to.

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

They're not all whores.  There are some of them that are already really rich and are thus able to stick to their ideals.  Then, some of them are just stupid and easily swayed by public opinion.

But seriously, this housing bill doesn't even have public opinion behind it.  It makes no sense.