The coming financial crisis

[Diomedes]

I listen to a lot of NPR, read a lot of NYTimes and Baltimore Sun.  I read some of rusty's links and all kinds of other hit or miss crap from different news sites on the internet.  I talk to people about politics and current events.  My old lady is no dummy, and has her own perspective.   

All of which is to say, I'm paying attention.  I'm not an expert, but I'm listening and thinking about this stuff.

I have one thought that I don't here very much.  It might help to say what I hear a lot of:  it's going to take a long time to get back to normal.  it's a long road back to financial health.  Obama is ruining the economy.  Bush ruined the economy and Obama is doing as well as can be expected.  Etc. Etc.

What I don't here is anyone pointing out that the economic growth and wealth to which everyone is referring was FAKE. 

Fake through and through.

The jobs aren't coming back this year or next or the year after or the year after that.  They are gone.  Obama cannot resurrect the economy of 2006, neither could McCain, nor could anyone.  I'm tired of hearing all these talking heads, from politicians to news pundits to the average dude on the street rambling on about getting back to the impossible, etc.

Thanks.

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

Agree completely.  And instead of turning things around by funding innovation and small business, the government (first with Bush and now with Obama) is dumping money into the industries that are being run into the ground with fake money.  Additionally, the fuel behind all the growth was debt and more debt, and instead of offering more ways to get out of debt, the government is making sure people stay in it... while doing the same in their own budgeting.

And as most of us have agreed, the real solutions are not going to happen, because they aren't immediately politically expedient.  Politicians care about getting re-elected and couldn't give a rat's ass about "doing the right thing."

[Butchers Bill]

when the market hits rock bottom and if you have top notch credit would that be the ultimate time to buy a house (like romey said in like six months)

Assuming you know when rock bottom is, yes.  Many a person have lost fortunes guessing the wrong rock bottom.

I think the bottom in real estate won't come for another 24-36 months though.  This whole thing has to play itself out first.  I personally feel there will have to be a homeowner bail-out at some point (similar to the S&L's of the 1980's).  Bush actually mentioned the word bail-out today for the first time, saying he wouldn't support one, but he'll be gone when one becomes necessary.

Not that I am Nostradomus or anything, but I hit those well.

Not to be an alarmist, but we are entering part two of this farging disaster.

Short, but interesting article

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

The stimulus was short-sighted and wasteful, and the core problems still remain.  So, yeah, it's going to have to get worse before it gets better.

[Sgt PSN]

The economy is so farging terrible right now.  My cousin had an exorcism 6 months ago, but she hasn't been able to make her payments so they repossessed her. 

[Diomedes]

Your lesbian cousin?

[rjs246]

I get the feeling that people with a view behind the curtain into some of our country's biggest financial institutions are way more terrified of the future than the general population are. I couldn't speculate about timelines, but I get the serious impression that we are in a bad spot.

I was originally stridently opposed to the bailout, but eventually came to see that it was necessary to stave off complete collaspe. In the aftermath, however, seeing how the Financial Reform bill has been neutered I wonder if we shouldn't have just let the system fall in on itself. Do you know that the assets and accounts of the massive banks that went under (Lehman, Bear) were simply bought by other massive banks? Meaning that there are now even less 'too big to fail banks' with even more consolidated power. The next crises will be way worse than the last one.


Break the big five banks up. Now. This is not the kneejerk reaction of someone who lost some money in their 401(k). There are serious systemic problems that are perpetuated by and cannot be fixed within these massive financial corporations. Continue to cater to them at your peril.

Also, Sarge, please kill yourself.

[Geowhizzer]

I think we're farged for the better part of a decade.  Great Depression II stuff.

And it seems like we've learned nothing.

[rjs246]

I get the feeling that people with a view behind the curtain into some of our country's biggest financial institutions are way more terrified of the future than the general population are.

Insider selling outpaced insider buying 19 to 1 in October.

[ice grillin you]

7.23% of the population in MD are millionaires....tops in the country

hawaii is second with 7.21

[Seabiscuit36]

#golfclap

[Diomedes]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-last-mystery-of-the-financial-crisis-154447818.html?page=all

Matt Taibbi is going to get himself assassinated one of these days.  The big boys don't like him.

What about the ratings agencies?

That's what "they" always say about the financial crisis and the teeming rat's nest of corruption it left behind. Everybody else got plenty of blame: the greed-fattened banks, the sleeping regulators, the unscrupulous mortgage hucksters like spray-tanned Countrywide ex-CEO Angelo Mozilo.

But what about the ratings agencies? Isn't it true that almost none of the fraud that's swallowed Wall Street in the past decade could have taken place without companies like Moody's and Standard & Poor's rubber-stamping it? Aren't they guilty, too?

Man, are they ever. And a lot more than even the least generous of us suspected.

[Rome]

He's my journalistic hero at the moment.  It was Michael Hastings but look how that turned out.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/06/24/journalist-michael-hastings-sends-chilling-e-mail-to-colleagues-before-death/

[rjs246]

Taibbi is a god. Journalism has been swallowed up by the corporatization of the country and there are very few in the field who actually go digging for non-sanctioned, uncomfortable truths any more. The Post's research into the gigantic and dysfunctional intelligence complex that arose out of 9/11 is the last piece I remember that was done by a major publication that really took guts... But even that was just reporting on what we already suspected and had little cultural impact.

Taibbi by himself does more hard investigative work about more critically important topics than every other major news source combined.

[Sgt PSN]

Former Goldman Sachs Trader Suing Because He "Only" Got An $8mil Bonus