u mad, commie?

>Arresting the company that is the largest contributor to the presidential elections

Good luck

When they came for the crackheads, i didn't speak out; because i was not a crackhead.

When they came for the welfare i didn't speak out , because i wasn't on welfare.

When they came for the illegals i didn't speak out, because i wasn't a wet back.

When they came for me, oddly no one gave a shit. I wonder why.

>ban short selling
>make CDS (insurance against default) useless
>wonder why investors do the oldfashined thing - sell

stupid politicians and their stupid brains in their stupid skulls...

Banning short selling is the fucking stupidest idea ever.

>>437856
>short sell
>benefit from other people's misery
>cause panics
>sow discontent

>>438005

>ban short-selling
>deprive investors who aren't current owners of any ability to indicate that a stock is overpriced
>wasteful assets accumulate on the market
>end up with massive financial crisis that paralyses business activity and causes mass unemployment.

Whoops. As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

>>437919
I bet everyone who bought Greek CDS's are pretty anally devastated right now.

>>438015
>deprive investors who aren't current owners of any ability to indicate that a stock is overpriced

They could certainly call their friends and say "That stock is overpriced." Markets thrive on information of any kind.

>wasteful assets accumulate on the market

Implying markets don't clear without shorting. One can't short-sell Easter candy after Easter and yet somehow it sells when it's marked down.

>end up with massive financial crisis that paralyses business activity and causes mass unemployment.

Wait do you mean with or without short-selling? Because it seems to me that we have a lot of paralysis and unemployment now, and the last crisis included massive panics of short-selling.

Cha-ching! That's all American politics is about nowadays because the government only serves the highest bidder!

>>438015
short scum detected

>>438070

Jesus christ, you don't know what you're talking about.

Markets work primarily through price and profit signals. Lots and lots of people short-selling stock is a clear indication that the market believes an asset to be overpriced. More dispersed information can be employed when there is short-selling than when there isn't, and they certainly help markets clear.

Regulators hate short-selling because it generally works faster then they do. After all, it was a short-seller, James Chanos, not the SEC, who caught Enron.

>Wait do you mean with or without short-selling?
Actually, in the wake of the bust, the SEC placed a ban on short-selling the stock of 799 firms, to try and defect blame for the crisis.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/streetwise/more-evidence-that-short-s
ale-bans-dont-work/article2188664/
>"Academic research on the 2008 short sale bans generally found that they adversely affected market quality and did not support prices. Our data agrees: short sale bans depress liquidity and do not provide demonstrably positive effects. They should not be a knee-jerk reaction to market volatility."

>>438015
Yeah man! Let the minority regulate the will of the majority, fuck those guys!

>>438192
>Implying traders don't have CNBC blaring in the background all day
>Implying social networks don't determine what is bought and sold just as much as price signals
>implying perfect information
>implying some crank shorting Enron didn't happen to see OBVIOUS SIGNS that Enron was a scam
>implying regulators and traders aren't members of an endless circlejerk
>"Our data agrees"
>data
>agrees
>not agree
>notstatisticiansoreconomists.png

>short selling
>deflates stock prices when they start to bubble

I'm okay with this.

>>438246
>shorts
>deflate stock prices when bubbles occur in a state of perfect information

>>438227
> social networks don't determine what is bought and sold just as much as price signals

Oh god, you're one of those "Facebook Activists" aren't you? Protip: money talks, internet rumors don't.

>>438227

>implying
>implying
>implying
>implying
>implying

You can't be much older than 12. Does your mommy know you're on the internet?

I wasn't "implying" that traders don't watch the news or work in social networks. However, it's a generally observable fact that in a market, people want to make money and hence prices and profits are their first concern.

Ah, the old strawman of "perfect information". If everybody had "perfect information" markets would not be possible in the first place. The only reason *markets* exist is because they help to make use of widely dispersed information.

If you think it was "obvious" that Enron was a scam, how come you weren't there shortselling the stock? Lots of things are "obvious" in retrospect. And in any case, it was certainly more "obvious" to Chanos than it was to the SEC.

>>438259
> occur in a state of perfect information

Who said that? Shorts allow people who think the prices are too high to make an impact by giving them financial incentives. It harness more of the "group intelligence" out there and improves market performance.

>>438260
>thinks "social network" means facebook and myspace because he watched movie.
>>438269
>ad hominem

Butthurt just a little?

>scarce information (rumors, chatter, inside information) has less utility than non-scarce information (prices) for trading

There's a reason financial firms hire people for their rolodexes, not their skills.

>Thinks financial markets trade information, not assets

I was about 12 when the Enron scam came out. Obviously I was not shorting stocks.
The SEC is, has been, and will be in bed with the finance industry. Thus we need straightforward rules to prevent malfeasance.

>>438293

Shorts can cause panic too- a short seller has an incentive to drive the price of whatever he shorts down to zero. Shorts want to RUIN firms, and will use any strategy to do so. In normal long-trading, downward shifts in price reflect lack of confidence (along with nasty rumors).

>>438322
>Butthurt just a little?
Only about as much as you were when you decided to strawman me.

"Financial firms hire people for their rolodexes" is an empirical claim that needs to be substantiated. But even if it were true, it wouldn't prove your case. If you want to prove me wrong, you have to show that firms pay absolutely no attention to stock prices and short-selling has no effect. Obviously you can't do that, so you strawman.

I don't care whether you were 12 when Enron went bust. You think its "obvious" that it was a scam only because it seems obvious in hindsight. Lots of things are obvious in hindsight. And if you have such great forecasting abilities, then why don't you become a short-seller?

"Regulation fails, therefore we need more regulation!" Yeah, that'll work.

>a short seller has an incentive to drive the price of whatever he shorts down to zero.
And a stockholder wants to drive his prices up to infinity. So what? You're not saying anything remarkable.

Obviously shortsellers can be wrong. So can stock buyers. And even if they're right, that means the person who sold it to them was wrong (if he thought the price would rise). Arguments against short-selling are self-refuting.

What exactly is short selling?

>>438192

>>438362
Not the other guy but
>Regulation fails, therefore we need more regulation
Regulation created to increase private sector profits a destructure the State don't work, we need regulation that will keep the private sector in line for depraving of human basic needs billions of people.
We can't wait for the free market to form a trustful private sector.

>>438404

Prove that we have a free market right now.

>>438322
> a short seller has an incentive to drive the price of whatever he shorts down to zero

And a non-shorter wants to inflate the price to infinity.

> Shorts want to RUIN firms

More unsubstantiated claims.

>>438413
We don't have a free market now, we have a market benefited by the State, we need to make that stop and ALSO control it so it doesn't happen again!
Because we had a free market, many centuries ago, and now it evolve into this! It evolve created wealth, but also great poor.
We need to run the economy by direct democracy.

>>438440

> direct democracy
> anything remotely technical or specialized

LOLNO

I prefer evolution to be true and the earth round.

>>438454
Yeah, and it happens YOU are the ones that call who is technical and who is not.
Fuck YOU.

>>438440
>we have a market benefited by the State, we need to make that stop and ALSO control it so it doesn't happen again!

Lol, you believe in that the State will limit the corrupting influence of the State? And they call libertarians utopian.

>>438491
Are you retarded?
Do you think the State just happens to be inherently corrupt no matter how is organized and will actively try to deprive from owning something and gave it to the private sector?
Really?

>>438476

> thinks that economics and trading isn't technical or specialized

Here's one example of why we don't want direct democracy.

>>438527

>Do you think the State just happens to be inherently corrupt
yes

Goldman Sachs
>Advice Europe in how to help Greece out of the crises
>suggest to bet against them

Troll banking actually works irl

>>438544
Nobody would ever say taking people's hard-earned money and making off with it without getting the cops called is easy.

>>438537
Well, that's retarded, the State can be organized so it benefits all population. If humanity can't do that, you can't call it an intelligent specie.

>>438544
You say what it's technical and what it's not, fuck you, you are fixing it to benefit a minority of the population, fuck you, you can't be trusted.

>>438579
>the State can be organized so it benefits all population

The State is a coercive territorial monopoly that aggrandizes power by extractive coercive levies and outlawing competition in the provision of essential services. It's a gang of mafioso writ large. And it is unbeneficial by definition.

>>438572
>taking people's hard-earned money and making off with it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS

>>438609

>>438579

Buttmad ignoramus detected.

Also,

>implying competent technocrats cannot be appointed as regulators

No civic knowledge either? Please don't vote.

>>438609
You are just an asshole, you being a sociopath doesn't mean everyone can't organize for the benefit of everyone, and no just those who happen to make it.
It's amazing that you think that a bunch of people who call themselves the holder of the truth to control the economy.

>>438642
Yeah, competent technicians doesn't mean manipulable assholes that play game for the private sector, quite the opossite.

>>438643

>sociopaths
>a bunch of people who call themselves the holder of the truth to control the economy.

You mean like the State?

>>438657
No, I mean like the private sector owning the economy and the fate of billions, that should be run by everyone, and the State must represet that with direct democracy.

>>438673

The private sector "owns the economy" by definition. What the hell are you talking about?

>direct democracy
So we need to install a system where 51% of people can vote to violently murder the other 49%, and that will solve all our problems?

>>438673

>direct democracy

Jefferson frowns upon your faggotry.

>>438689
>The private sector "owns the economy" by definition. What the hell are you talking about?
lol because you say so?
>So we need to install a system where 51% of people can vote to violently murder the other 49%, and that will solve all our problems?
I love this part when you ackowledge that I was right and the private sector can't be trusted and now you pass to complain about how direct democracy can't be done by argumenting a practically impossibly scenario.

>>438718
Oh, and Island has it right!
http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2011/08/25/why-iceland-shold-be-in-the-news-but-is-not/

>>438718

The "private sector" is whatever exchanges that take place in society which are voluntary and not coerced. This IS the economy. You don't know what you're talking about.

>you ackowledge that I was right
I'm sure you'd like to believe that.

>by argumenting a practically impossibly scenario.
Explain how it's practically impossible. Hitler had a plurality of votes in 1933, in the last election before he was appointed chancellor.

>>438745
Yeah right, voluntary and not coerced, then how it turned to this oligopolized economy? Yeah, I know, the State did it, once being corrupted by a private sector with too much power.
Oh, the Hitler argument! How pathetic.
bellacaledonia.org.uk/2011/08/25/why-iceland-shold-be-in-the-news-but-is-not/
Retard.

>>438783
>how it turned to this oligopolized economy?

You don't know anything about the financial crisis nor what caused it. Bank is the most oligopolized industry because it is cartelized under the Federal Reserve system. The government was for years subsidizing risky mortgages, encouraging banks to lower lending standards, and promising the big players bailouts. It only recognized 3 ratings agencies. The Fed expanded credit, giving rise to unhealthy speculation. Why don't you bother LEARNING something about the world?

>Retard.

In other words, I'm right. Butthurt, much?

>>438947
All that happened because the private sector wanted to, they are getting the big bucks.

>>439054
>All that happened because the private sector wanted to

Really? Lehman Brothers wanted to go under? Countrywide wanted to issue CRA-approved loans to people who would never be able to pay them back? Please disclose how you managed to divine the motivations of financial companies.

There is no way to defend or apologize for the role of the state in the crisis. The fact is, wall street may have started a fire, but government was there handing out matches and gasoline.

>>439089
Don't you get it by now? It's no longer a "State vs. Private Sector" problem. The state and Wall Street have morphed into a single, obscene mutant entity dedicated to extracting wealth from the public coffers and the taxpayer and funneling it to the top. This isn't a motherfucking game where you feel proud of yourself by scoring points by making the state look bad.

>>439246

So you concede that I'm right and that the financial crisis wasn't the outcome of a free market. Good.

>>438947

>shadow banking system
>completely unregulated
>blames the government for the crash

>>439253
But you make it sound like it was the Fed's fault entirely, as though it was twisting the arms of the banks to make them give shit loans to black people. It wasn't. Responsibility is divided between a Federal Reserve and a financial sector that work together to screw the American people, as well as the rest of the world.

>>439288

http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/Bernanke20060612a.htm
>The banking industry has also made strides in managing credit risk. [...] [T]he development of new technologies for buying and selling risks has allowed many banks to move away from the traditional book-and-hold lending practice in favor of a more active strategy that seeks the best mix of assets in light of the prevailing credit environment, market conditions, and business opportunities.

http://www.imf.org/External/Pubs/FT/GFSR/2006/01/pdf/chp2.pdf
>There is growing recognition that the dispersion of credit risk by banks to a broader and more diverse group of investors, rather than warehousing such risk on their balance sheets, has helped to make the banking and overall financial system more resilient.

http://www.ny.frb.org/newsevents/speeches/2006/gei060228.html
>The evidence to date suggests that dramatic growth in new instruments for risk transfer and the greater role of nonbank financial institutions have contributed to a more stable and more efficient financial system.

Regulators knew shadow banking was going on and encouraged it as bold and innovative.

>>439293
>as though it was twisting the arms of the banks to make them give shit loans to black people

That was exactly what happened. There wouldn't have been a financial bubble otherwise.

>>439301

Just because they knew about it and encouraged it doesn't mean it shouldn't have been regulated. We need MORE regulation to stop shit like that.

>>439313
it's true... i'm laughing hysterically at how you put it but it's true

>>439324
>We need MORE regulation to stop shit like that.

a) It *was*, in a sense, being "regulated". Regulators didn't lack a mandate to stop it. They just lacked judgment.

b) Regulatory spending has tripled since Reagan. Bush passed 800,000 new pages of regulations every year he was in office. There were 115 regulatory agencies at the time of the bust.

Government regulators do not have magic powers. They are usually self-serving cronies who know nothing about the industries they are regulating. You are chasing a unicorn. Give it up.

RAPE KILL AND EAT ALL MBAs.

>>439313
>>439323
WILLIAM K. BLACK Yeah, but this one is far worse. That's not very candid testimony on anybody's part there. The Fed had unique authority. And it had it since 1994 to regulate every single mortgage lender in America. And you might think the Fed would use that authority.

And you might especially think that, if you knew that Gramlich, one of the Fed members, went personally to Alan Greenspan and said, there's a housing bubble. And there's a terrible crisis in non-prime. We need to send the examiners in. We need to use our regulatory authority. And Greenspan refused. Lehman was brought down primarily by selling liar's loans. It was the biggest seller of liar's loans in the world.

And when we look at these liar's loans, we find 90 percent fraud. 90 percent. And we find that most of the frauds are not induced by the borrower, but they're overwhelmingly done by the loan brokers.

BILL MOYERS: And liar's loans are?

WILLIAM K. BLACK A liar's loan is we don't get any verified information from you about your income, your employment, your job history or your assets.

BILL MOYERS: You give me a loan, no questions asked?

WILLIAM K. BLACK No real questions asked. Certainly no answers checked. In fact, we just had hearings last week about WaMu, which is also a huge player--

http://dailybail.com/home/massive-bank-fraud-bill-moyers-with-william-k-black-video-tr.html

The banks were committing outright fraud to saddle people with loans that were designed to blow up in the borrower's faces. Yeah, the Fed enabled the banks, there is no doubt, but the banks were the ones who saw the dollar signs and were more than happy to make the loans.

>>439382

The Feds = Bankers

>percentage of Jews in finance and banking
>97%

It's the elephant in the room.

>>439382

Point to one instance where I said the banks were completely blameless. This is what I actually said:

>wall street may have started a fire, but government was there handing out matches and gasoline.

There was unhealthy speculation, obviously. But it couldn't have been done without the Fed's credit expansion. You also leave out the fact that there was a concerted effort for decades *to get banks to lower their lending standards*. This was the point of Fannie and Freddie, the CRA, the FHA, etc. Look up the statements of the DHUD, where they're boasting about how risky the mortgages they're lending out are.

And incidentally, if predatory banks were the sole explanation for the crisis, then why was the growth in the rate of foreclosures HIGHER in prime than in subprime markets? The problem was more predatory borrowing, it seems to me.

Anyway, the entire monetary system of the US is based on moral hazard, where banks can take virtually any risk no matter how outrageous and the costs are socialized and imposed on the tax payer. This is precisely the outcome of "regulation"; the Fed ITSELF was a "regulatory" effort.

>>439441
*to get banks to lower their lending standards* =/= giving out loans that are designed to fail.

>And incidentally, if predatory banks were the sole explanation for the crisis, then why was the growth in the rate of foreclosures HIGHER in prime than in subprime markets?
Sauce? And in any case, loan agencies and banks would only work with appraisers who would inflate the prices of houses. The fact that there were so many foreclosures doesn't surprise me at all.

>This is precisely the outcome of "regulation"; the Fed ITSELF was a "regulatory" effort.
No, now you're playing with semantics, equating any government action with "regulation". Regulation is when the government oversees Wall Street to ensure that everything runs smoothly, and without fraud and abuse. The bailouts were occasioned after there was no regulation and oversight, after the banks were allowed to run willy nilly. I agree though, that the bailouts are obscene and only encourage the most destructive and self-destructive behavior on the part of banks.

>>439517
>*to get banks to lower their lending standards* =/= giving out loans that are designed to fail.
Actually, that's exactly what it means.

If you want sauce, just google it. And of course, you completely dodged my point. My point is: if your "theory" about the financial crisis is that banks were purposefully lowering their lending standards in order to exploit poor people, then you can't explain why the rate of foreclosures grew faster in prime markets, where lending standards are higher. (I personally think low lending standards were about 1/3 of the problem, and 2/3 was the Fed & moral hazard.)

Oh, I see. Only if "regulation" achieves what you want it to achieve is it "regulation". If it fails utterly, then it's no longer regulation. Who can argue with this?

>Regulatory spending has tripled since Reagan. Bush passed 800,000 new pages of regulations every year he was in office. There were 115 regulatory agencies at the time of the bust.

We have more than enough "regulation". The financial crisis was the RESULT of federal "regulation". We've tried it and it's failed.

>>439592
No no no, the crash was enabled by the Fed's policies, but policies and regulation are not synonymous. Low interest rates were a policy, but they don't 'regulate' or restrict or direct how banks should act.

>>439592
So, for instance, setting interest rates is a policy, setting the ground rules. Saying to banks, "Hey, you can't create loans that will blow up in people's faces" is a way of restricting how banks can act. Very different things.

>>439721
>>439690

Low interest rates ARE a "regulation". When the Fed lowers the federal funds rate, it is using one of its available regulatory powers, given to it to maintain a supposed balance between inflation and unemployment.

>"Hey, you can't create loans that will blow up in people's faces"
Do you honestly believe that if all we did was allow a freely competitive banking sector, where no banks were insured from losses and couldn't impose their costs on the tax payer, this wouldn't naturally happen?

>>439756
Of course it would still happen. In an absolutely unregulated system, only the most savvy and cutthroat hucksters would succeed, not the person with the most honest business practice. When people are perfectly free, they generally don't work hard to be the most honorable person around, they work hard to swindle and deceive for maximum profit. Geez, your free market fetish has made you blind to the realities of human nature.

>>439828

You don't understand what you're talking about. Without the state insuring their deposits, banks would always be in danger of a run and would thus never dare expand credit or engage in risky behaviour.

>human nature
How do you know what human nature is? And if human beings are 100% evil, why would putting them in power and calling them "regulators" make them less evil?

The best government money can buy

>>439851
Just look what is happening right now. If Lloyd Blankfein gets paid his tens of millions of dollars, why should he care what happens to Goldman Sachs, much less the global financial system. He's "got him", so everyone else can drop dead.

>And if human beings are 100% evil, why would putting them in power and calling them "regulators" make them less evil?
Right, and that's exactly what has happened: the regulators are former bankers themselves, which means they have zero motivation to hold their bank buddies accountable, especially if they want to eventually return to the private financial sector. These people need to be held accountable. I don't dispute that.

I'm not getting the whole "regulation caused this" meme. Sure, promoting more low-income loans contributed to this, but how can we say what would have happened had their been functional enforcement of rules already in place and ignored? How about we get the whole "enforcement" thing down before we talk about how regulations don't work? Maybe disasters happen because we let them happen, then blame it on the game.

>>439915
+1, regulators have to be in a true adversarial position to whom they are regulating. Obviously this is a problem if only bankers truly understand banking, but maybe some sort of internal panel of banker/nonbanker regulators can balance interests.

>>439915

I don't give a fuck what happens to Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs is a state chartered bank with insured deposits that is a regular recipient of Fed liquidity that has appointed several people to the Treasury.

The best way to get "accountability" is to stop protecting banks from failure.

>>439889
That thing is nearly unreadable.

>>439952
>I don't personally give a fuck about-

Nice argument.

>>439967

Did you fail reading comprehension? Goldman Sachs is a recipient of State privilege. I want a banking system where nobody receives privilege.

>>439931
What is the purpose of the federal reserve?
If it is not fulfilling its purpose why do we still have it?
Is it a good thing that goldman sachs is attached at the hip to the federal reserve and the "regulatory" apparatuses?
If not why do you keep voting for people that are supported by goldman sachs?

>>439953
Romney contributions: fifty million dollars from price and price fuck you in the ass credit co.
Paul contributions: a few hundred k from google inc. and universities

>>439953
are you going to complain about the picture or what it depicts?

>>439985
and yet... still the two largest republican fundraisers...

hmmm

>>439989
I mean, it's blurry. Let's say I wanted to share it. I wouldn't use it because most people wouldn't want to try to read it.

>>439979
Well, I wouldn't care if the regulators were former Goldman-Sachs if they did their regulator jobs fairly. But as it stands, the SEC didn't and doesn't do any real investigations apparently. So I'm in favor of getting people that do that.

It's clear to me that the root cause of this and many other political evils is the free flow of money into election campaigns. Right now anybody with enough money can buy protection from either/any side in power.

>>439952
You're not understanding my point. My point is that Lloyd Blankfein has no loyalty to Goldman Sachs, not when he has his own pocketbook to think of. For instance, let's say he could make 30 million as Goldman's CEO. But let's say he gets this idea into his mind to buy have Goldman buy a lot of really shitty mortgage backed securities, then he PERSONALLY bets against the securities and makes 100 million dollars. Sure, Goldman might go bankrupt from these securities, and its investors would be broke, but Blankfein would "get his." Don't you see the need for a neutral third party to make sure all the rules are followed?

>>440005
>I mean, it's nasty. Let's say I wanted to share it. I wouldn't use it because it depicts two corporatist candidates in a negative light

>>440036
I know you're gonna lol, but isn't that supposed to be the board of directors?

>>440042
I'm just asking if anybody has a clearer version. Or a source so I can make one.

>>440031
what if they apply the laws fairly, but they write the laws in such a way that they favor only the companies that make political contributions to the winning candidate.

Much like how GE Capital rewrote the tax code so that it wouldnt have to pay taxes.

>>440043
Well, if the board of directors fired Blankfein, why would he care? He has already made off like a bandit. If there are no rules arbitrating fraud, what Blankfein did would not be considered illegal.

>>440051
campaign fundraising is a matter of public record and available under the freedom of information act.

>>440062
That's what I was getting at in the second paragraph. Right now businesses can pay for politicians that write favorable laws and who will appoint lenient investigators. At the root of it is that we can't prevent that because of direct contribution to campaigns.

>>440036

a) Mortgage-backed securities were being bought up by Fannie & Freddie and consistently received AAA ratings from the government's ratings cartel. They were considered the creme de la creme of investments back then. They wouldn't exist in a free market.

b) Last I checked, there is a little thing in contract law called caveat emptor. The point is to make people independently honest and careful with their dealings, and not nanny them. There is nothing in Goldman Sach’s dealings with its clients that indicates that it was to guarantee them returns. The worst you can accuse Goldman Sachs of is of being unkind to clients. So should we now bring criminal cases against any company unkind to clients?

c) No I don't see thee need for ".for a neutral third party". The third party is never "neutral". The third party is there to promote its own interests and doesn't have to worry about satisfying consumer demand because it has revenues guaranteed from taxation.

>>440120
but if we write a law that regulates how campaign contributions are made and by whom they can be made THOSE are the regulations are going to be enforced fairly right?

>>440123
I am in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with most of what you say, but not totally for the same reasons. Goldman-Sachs was able to engage in legal shady dealings in large part because they lobbied for financial instruments that were nearly completely opaque to the investor, who had to rely on a third-party rating agency that lied and said they were totally safe.

And then when they bombed out, Congress needed to bail them out to cover their own asses and prevent a market crash.

>>440134
This is primarily a problem because people consider spending to be political speech in the USA, and that complicates the entire process. That should be seriously reconsidered. McCain-Feingold should not have been overruled, Citizens United should not have been found in their favor. Both these legal issues have unambiguously created the situation we have today.

>>440174
>tl;dr - the government (including the federal reserve) and goldman sachs collude to devise ways in which they can steal money from hard working families.

>>440123
A) No, MBS were not being bought up by F&F. They were spread everywhere, to people's pension plans, to banks, etc. Why do you think the crisis was as severe as it was if it were simply contained in F&F.

b-- Well, wouldn't you need a whole regulatory structure to enforce independent and honest dealings? I mean, I agree that dealings should be independent and honest, but those things rarely happen on their own. without a regulatory and enforcement mechanism?

And what Goldman did was incredibly shady. They sold assets they knew were crap, pretending they were solid and sound investments. that's fraud, my friend.

>>439756
>Low interest rates ARE a "regulation". When the Fed lowers the federal funds rate, it is using one of its available regulatory powers, given to it to maintain a supposed balance between inflation and unemployment.

Interest rates are monetary policy. It's a massive (almost dishonest) stretch of the word regulation to include monetary policy in it.

>>440197
Regardless, that skirts the point. If we decided that corporate speech was not free speech you would still have to guarantee me that an enforcement apparatus led by a partisan appointee would enforce campaign finance regulation equally, and I think we both know that that is totally absurd.

>>440200
What I mean to say is, Goldman-Sachs did nothing illegal, and their marketplace actions while reprehensible and possibly ethically wanting, still not illegal. They also lobbied for favorable legislation to cover up this fact, also not illegal. So they didn't break any laws because they bought the law that said they had to be open and honest in their dealings.

You can't really try them for charges on that because it was all legal, but a spade is a spade. They created the environment in which they sowed chaos with impunity.

>>440174

What "legal shady dealings"? Goldman Sachs did indeed rape America through its being insured by bailout-recipient AIG, but the SEC case against it had absolutely no merit. Blankfield didn't "know" MBSs' would tank, everybody was into them.

Whatever. The point is, the financial crisis was not the outcome of a free market and the bubble wouldn't have happened had we had an honest monetary system where the taxpayer was not on the hook for the stupidities of banks.

>>440234
I believe history shows that we have done this far better in the past than we have now. It has never been perfect but from a regulatory standpoint it has functioned a lot better.

>>440238
It was never my premise that they did something illegal. They write the laws that allow them to collude and steal. And if you vote for obama or romney they will continue to write the laws that allow them to collude and steal.

>>440208

a) You are spouting nonsense. F & F created the secondary mortage market. Their whole existence involved bundling up securities and selling them, taking them off the books of banks.

b) You are chasing a unicorn. If you want honest dealings, all you need to do is stop insuring banks from failure and make them pay the costs of their actions.

On Sachs, see >>440244.

>>440244
Well, the whole point is that we don't even know if there was wrongdoing in the 2008 crash because the DOJ refuses to open a full bore investigation against Goldman. Again, I agree that the bailouts should never have happened, and they were basically giving a banana sticker to Goldman for destroying the global economy, but without regulation, there is no way from people trying to cheat one another. I mean, think about all the great theatrical comedies, like "volpone." They are filled people trying to fuck each other over, not be honest and fair in their dealings. These comedies speak truth about human nature.

>>440244
Sorry, I meant not legally shady, but legal, but ethically shady. You are right caveat emptor, but Goldman and other banks essentially bought permission to create investment instruments that allowed them to hide deceit against their own clients. It shouldn't be illegal for investment banks to bet any one way or another, but the process should be transparent.

Second, I agree that the free market did not, and the regulated market did create this. But many of the problems would still exist in a completely free market, where hiding such double-dealing would still be perfectly OK.

Why could we have not made completely open books to Congress and the SEC a provision for the bailout? Then they would have a choice to die by their own hands or accept investigation along with the money.

>>440292

>we don't even know if there was wrongdoing in the 2008 crash
Guilty until proven innocent! The "charges" against Sachs are ridiculous. The only wrong it can seriously be said to have committed has to do with the AIG bailout.

>people trying to fuck each other over
You mean commit fraud? Yeah, I'm against that.

>>440294
>bought permission to create investment instruments that allowed them to hide deceit
What deceit? Where? Unethical is not the same as illegal!

>many of the problems would still exist in a completely free market
No-down mortgages would exist in a free market? The government's ratings cartel would exist in a free market? TWo decades of cheap money would exist in a free market?

>>438783
>Iceland refused to socialize debt
>Therefore socialism is the solution to our problems

>>440337
OK, so how can you be against fraud and also against regulation? The government saying that a firm can't commit fraud is a type of regulation. And what's more, what exactly is "fraud"? You'd have to have complex legal formulas to catch fraud, especially as fraud, that is ways of cheating customers, evolves.

>>440439
You're talking to someone who believes a completely free market will fix everything.

>>440273
Right, but private banks and loan companies can create MBS as well, and in fact around 80% of the bubble was from private entities, not F&F.

>>440439

A free market needs laws against aggression. Fraud is implicit theft (exchange under false pretences) and therefore aggression. It has nothing to do with "regulation".

>>440457

>80% of the bubble was from private entities, not F&F.

Had F & F not stood ready to buy the MBSs' from their originators, they wouldn't have been issued to begin with.

>>440464
OK, so a law regulating how markets function isn't regulation. Gotcha!

>>440464
That's idiotic. How do you determine what fraud is? Short selling is fraud in some places. So would betting against your own customers in others.

>>440488

A market, at least in the sense classical liberals have always used the term, BY DEFINITION precludes force and fraud. Aggression is an intervention into the market, whether it's committed by a businessman or by the state.

>>440464
What you just said made no sense at all.

>>440478
No.

>>440496

Are you serious? Fraud is simply violations of the pretenses under which a transfer of titles was made. If I say, "I hereby will that 500 strippers be delivered to 120 Fake Street", and 500 strippers do not show up, I've committed fraud.

And a ban on short selling is fucking stupid.

>>440503

>The vast majority of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac activity in subprime was via the direct purchase of whole mortgages. The purchase of private-label subprime-mortgage backed securities also helped to fuel the housing bubble.

>>440535
http://thelonggoodbye.wordpress.com/2010/08/12/the-myth-of-fannie-mae-freddie-mac-barney-frank-the-h
ousing-bubble-and-the-recession/

>>440598
an obscure wordpress blog is even less relevant than wikipedia. Especially one without footnotes

>>440620
would it even matter if it were footnoted?
its just a bunch of jumbled bullshit and 'opinions'

>>440620
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/opinion/14krugman.html

>financial terrorism

wut

>>440640
>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/opinion/14krugman.html
>nytimes.com[...]/opinion/14krugman
>nytimes[...]opinion
Is it even worth looking at?

>>440657
Not if you're content to leave your stereotypes and assumptions unchallenged.

>>440598

>virtually none of the $1.5 trillion of cratering subprime mortgages were backed by Fannie or Freddie.
No one is saying they were "backed" by F & F.

>In fact, Fannie and Freddie, after growing rapidly in the 1990s, largely faded from the scene during the height of the housing bubble.
No one is blaming F & F entirely for the bubble. Yet it's an indisputable fact that F & F were aggressively lowering lending requirements in order to retain their old profit levels. They also created the initial market for MBSs' and helped keep some of it going. E.g. Countrywide, the largest subprime lender sold 90% of its loans to F & F.

>Also, they didn’t do any subprime lending, because they can’t
What the hell? There are no actual restrictions on what F & F can purchase. There's only a requirement that “An Enterprise *should* establish and implement policies and procedures to adequately assess credit risks before they are assumed". In other words, a SUGGESTION, not a restriction. This is having the fox guard the henhouse.

>>440657

>Krugman

No

http://www.pkarchive.org/global/welt.html

"During phases of weak growth there are always those who say that lower interest rates will not help. They overlook the fact that low interest rates act through several channels. For instance, more housing is built, which expands the building sector. You must ask the opposite question: why in the world shouldn't you lower interest rates?"

May 2, 2001

>>440671
>Stereotype: NY times is full of a bunch of sycophantic progressives that want nothing more than for the government to run every part of my life. Will endlessly and blindly promote any liberal candidate of either party, and denounce any law or assertion that makes any fiscal sense at all.

My stereotype remains unchallenged sir.

God, I basically support the OWS but Paul Krugman is so full of shit. For whatever studious reason he obtained his PhD and Nobel Prize, he does not put that level of care into his political writing whatsoever. In fact, I am pretty sure he just spews whatever came off the top of his head in nearly every case.