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Will the NY Attorney General Bring Doomsday Charges Against Wall Street? If So, How Long Will He Survive?
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But the general picture is even more revealing.
One thing I gathered after publishing this is that there was strong opposition from the community banks. They loan their own money, it's not securities a go go. They were going to take a big hit if this passed.
Now, what does that tell us. There wasn't a serious plan to make this work. I'm not criticizing Durbin who showed a real trooper's spirit. It's the White House, which made no big secret that it had abandoned this task.
After all, it would only benefit 1.7 million homeowners and their families. That's the source of the populist energy on this one.
This could have worked, not as well as a national cramdown. The basis for that proposal, linked in the article and published here, is that the financial services industry has engaged in fraud, as per William K. Black's most thorough outline, and we need to achieve some equitable solution to the whole mess.
But ultimately, it's all about Geithner and Summers, the lurking presence of The Money Party in what is supposed to be our capitol. Great site, pleasure posting here always.
FDIC closed 2 banks this Friday, the MAY DAY.
"Silverton Bank, N.A., Atlanta, GA" and "Citizens Community Bank, Ridgewood, NJ" .
Till now 31 banks have failed this year and 56 from 2008.
Check the list of all the failed banks at :
http://portalseven.com/Failed-Banks-2009
And on google map see where the banks are failing at :
http://portalseven.com/finance/Failed_Banks_Map_2009.jsp
Some statistics about the bank failures :
Silverton Bank, N.A., Atlanta, GA:
# 30th bank to fail this year in USA
# 6th bank from Georgia to fail this year and 11th since 2008
# Has $4.1 billion in assets and $3.3 billion in deposits
Citizens Community Bank, Ridgewood, NJ:
# 31st bank to fail this year in USA
# 1st bank from New Jersey to fail since 2008
# Has $45.1 million in assets and $43.7 million in deposits
Also layoff tracker at :
http://portalseven.com/Layoffs
I had a staffing firm approach my company tauting the "new way" of doing business. It is exactly as you say.
Thousands of unemployed people being pushed in to bankruptcy and foreclosure. These are people with two masters degrees and use to be six figure incomes. We have thousands of unemployed engineers looking for green training. Unfortunately, there aren't thousands of green jobs looking for talent.
U of M Economic Outlook projects that job loss and unemployment will continue to rise through 2012. They say national unemployment will reach12%, and there will be no real job growth until 2016.
I think GM is going to go into bankruptcy and hybernation one month behind Chrysler.
They took their loses and got out - the carrying cost would be too huge to hold properties.
The people in their primary residence, with no other place to go, didn't get there by "gaming the system". As JV explained, they are likely victims of circumstance. The speculators who bought 2,3,4 or more "other" residences are qualified to cramdown those loans. They are the ones who really knew how to "game the system". That's what the "system" is all about. Poor people are more apt to pay their bills, it's a matter of pride and ethics. "System gamers" find the loopholes and cry rule of law, all the way to the bank. By the way, don't you think you're going to pay one helluva premium for bailing out the banksters? If 10%, even 20% of prime residences are crammed down, the cost pales in comparison. The banksters are the guys who are quick to point out that a contract is a legal, binding agreement, unless it applies to them. We need to get off this Reaganite way of looking at each other. Dog eat dog capitalism just can't work, we need to look out for each other.
on vacation homes and luxury yachts. The only way to game the system is if loan originated before 2009 and 60 days delinquent. This doesn't go off in the future.
I believe that most people have learned a valuable lesson from this particularly when they may be losing their homes and destroying their credit history. I don't think there is a risk of moral hazard for most people.
If we are going to prevent more destruction of middle class wealth we have to stem foreclosures. Foreclosures in neighborhoods hurts everybody in that neighborhood. It sucks that we have bail out people who made really bad decisions but I would rather bail struggling people out then the financial oligarchy.
I think that is actually a very good idea. I was talking with someone today about the complexity of the Chrysler bankruptcy and it occurred to me that (to use that situation as an example) many ordinary people really do not understand the ramifications of the bankruptcy. Marcy Wheeler has written about the bankruptcy on her blog and on DailyKos---and I know she comes from a "Michigan" perspective. In reading the comments to her diaries re: Chrysler, it seems apparent to me that most people truly do not know all that's involved with Chrysler, and by extension, with the Big Banks. The media is largely worthless (IMHO) on these issues----if it weren't for the econ blogs, I would know less than nothing about much of this. I think people are hungry for good information---and the media is NOT providing it. My local newspaper is a joke when it comes to econ issues---doubly worse because two cities in south-central WI (where I live) are being decimated due to the closure of the GM plant in one of them and which provided a ton of jobs for both cities. So . . . I know it's a LOT of work to focus on trying to clarify for ordinary people even ONE article a week that falls into the "Moron" category----but I'd be glad to push it over on DailyKos to come here and check out anything you can do in this line.
But this article is saying the cause is the
Sorry to be a bit juvenile, but it's 4:23 PM on a Friday afternoon and I clicked over here because I haven't had a chance to check your blog this week---only to find you (who seem to be pretty low-key) calling that writer a moron! Just made me want to giggle that you "lost it" but at the same time, I don't blame you a bit. Reading the paragraph you quoted here gave me a flashback to the Educational Psychology class I "endured" while in college. That phrase (cognitive regulatory capture) sounds terribly similar to some of the ed. psych. moronic jargon I had to wade through. Tying this in with Dick Durbin's comment a few days ago that the Senate is "owned" by the banks . . . well, I don't think it can be made much clearer than that. Reform of the banks and financial system doesn't seem like it's ever going to be possible--there are too many people vested in keeping the status quo for the Big Banks. And I do wonder where this is all going to end up for the taxpayers.
It used to be employers offered full free ride scholarships to get MBAs, even PhDs in some cases and now, they dump all training and education onto the worker.
This is something that is never mentioned when they talk about college education, making employers responsible.
It's a tax write off for them and is a long term investment in an employee plus gives the skills they want.
They did not do this lightly in the past either, I mean you had to earn it, no doubt about it...
but they had internship (paid) programs, co-ops where one could literally live and pay for college by going to school a semester then working a semester.
but all of this seems to be gone and instead they all want to offshore outsource all education and training...i.e. not increase nursing schools seats even, pay nursing professors what they are worth...nope, they just want to import nurses from Indonesia, etc.
for a free ride scholarship?
Thats a freakin riot!!
I think I'd have to agree with their vote if this is in the Act "bankruptcy judges could reduce the principle to 31% of a person's income, as calculated at the time of bankruptcy".
Damn, why did I pay off my mortgage in 15 years? I put off those fancy vacations, that my wife so openly pointed out, that our friends were taking.
So with such an Act / Bill it would have allowed me to take the moral hazard route and to have gone on nice vacations and now with an income downturn....I could have had my principle reduced to 31% of income. The problem is that my working class morals, pay your bills mentality wouldn't let me game the system. But on a daily basis I see a ton of people that would have no problem gaming the system.
I saw this article last night.
I think the Gov't helped the UAW get their last, best hope.
Florida was a place you could keep a McMansion and basically get it for free through Ch. 7, never mind 11.
Psycho ex-wife killer O.J. Simpson did the same thing, he even bought a huge house, established residency there in order to do it to avoid the payout on the civil suit.
or the middle class lobby. Seriously, let's abolish all taxes and put all of our money to buying our government back from the hands of corporations.
I don't blame you on that one....
I think about how hard I worked on the Kerry campaign in '04 and I look at his voting record now and say to myself, "what was I thinking"...
Even ones I believe in during the campaigns, I get hoodwinked.
Jeff Merkley (OR) ran on "no bail outs period" and looked like a really good Progressive/Populist Dem..
first vote in the Senate...bam, voted for more bail out money, no conditions, walking lock step with DLC Dem leadership. I mean he ran on this issue and he also surged in the polls when he did....huge, major campaign promise.
I have a lead on some of those conservatives....but they just don't get it in my view, these are the conservatives who are flipping out on the TARP, Stimulus as much as we are...but they want to also make these things that clearly do not work, the neoconservative sort of rhetoric back.
They don't seem to get the difference between corporatism and think it's socialism. I wish they would wake up and stop spinning the machine. They know something is really wrong but they can't get out of some rhetoric to understand what exactly is wrong.
These are my personal opinions, impressions.
I've read routinely Chrysler just isn't viable.
Are Fiat cars in Europe that awesome and cool and this is a way in, avoiding tariffs and trouble, to retool the existing plants to make those little cool pooter mobiles?
If so, that sounds like a fairly good game plan, although I know Jeep has some serious loyalty due to their offroad 4x4 capabilities.
But if they are going to continue to make these same vehicles? Dodge has a following too but to me the Dodge trucks just "pour gasoline on the ground" which is why I never looked at them.
So, the financial media has this story right then. They are calling it a game of financial chicken and somebody is at risk of getting run over.
On GM, Bloomberg is GMAC investors are being told to "sell their debt" on a possible GM bankruptcy. Story just broke.
But there was major senator, who under the old bankruptcy system, had a mansion in Florida who would do something similar. He would do this every couple of years.
An investor who buys debt on say 40 cents on the dollar versus one who pays say 80-90 cents on the dollar. The premiums on CDSes on those lower priced ones will be substantially higher.
I read the amendment and that's what popped out at me immediately. I could see, easily, one walking into bankruptcy court with no income or very little and walking away with basically a free house.
That didn't seem right at all and I was wondering why it was there. Loaded for abuse.
I don't understand why they would do that for it was an obvious manipulation to me.
i.e. I quit my job, I just plain default on my credit cards, I don't make my house payment....I file...
bam, the court could literally wipe out my debts and also give me a house for free..
Once the case is closed (I think it's about 60 days from filiing), I get a new job, so now I am with a new job and also got a free house.
considering the value of houses (still, even with them slowly becoming valued to where a wage can afford one), that's an obvious "optimization" in our temporary employment world.
Seriously, I would do that. Living with a bankruptcy on your record just doesn't hurt that much and for a free house...it would be more than worth it in total amount I would actually get.
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