Forum Post: Wall Street was the victim; Wall Street is a vast Industry of good hardworking people, get our facts right
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 1, 2011, 3:27 p.m. EST by joewealthyhaha
(152)
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The OWS movement is full of uninformed and clueless people. Let me try to address some of the more common misconceptions i read over and over in these posts: 1. Wall street didn't rate the mortgage-backed securities (MBS), the rating agencies did, and obviously the agencies ratings were wrong. There's a reason why they incorrectly rated them AAA, but that's beyond the scope of this chat (and your ability to understand). 2. the collective crowd of 300,000+ employees on Wall Street had no idea these MBS were toxic. If they did do you think Bear Stearns, Lehman, Merrill Lynch, Wachovia and several others would have allowed themselves to own them and then go bust? think about that. Its probable there were some people within some firms that knew or should have known the mortgages were undeserving of AAA, but that's not an entire industry. 3. most firms that took the bailout money didn't want it or need it but were forced to take it so as to not cause a run on the banks that really needed it. people like you seem to not know this, or overlook this. 4. most importantly, ALL the public money given to banks was paid back, WITH A PROFIT. 5. this bailout money wasn't used for bonuses, it was repaid, like i said. Bonuses are paid routinely in this business, sort of like professional athletes. What do you think happens to the team when you stop paying those athletes? they cease to exist; same would happen to a financial firm. 6. Throw who in prison? for what? Even Obama said there was no crime. 7. last comment: when mortgages are properly underwritten (meaning loans are made to people who are employed, make enough, show documents, and put down 20%), then the resulting MBS are fine and typically AAA. This is where the system went off the tracks. Thank you Barney frank and Chris Dodd! You and your ignorant friends in OWS should learn the facts and direct you energies at the real bad guys and stop repeating falsehoods you've heard from politicians on TV.
Yeah that poor Barney Madoff
Watch this. It shows exactly how they were victimized but still ended up with all the money
http://vimeo.com/25142692
JoeStupid how about giving us some addresses so we can send them some more money as an apology
oh so now Madoff is wall street? so basically anyone or anything that makes money or steals money is defined as your "wall street." your nothing but a bunch of unfocused, unclear, poorly educated cry babies.
Yea.Madoff is just a little putz compared to the larceny that went on with the big firms...GMAFB.
Hey Joe see my new post from the Congressional inquirey of the cause of the Great Rescission.
Typical Righty propagandist!
When you got no truth and facts, you start calling names.
http://vimeo.com/25142692 Watch this and then we can debate big people facts
Maybe the simple-minded Fox type viewers would buy into your unsubstantiated crap, but well guess what? This is not Fox.
This is an audience that thinks for themselves and does their research.
"your nothing but a bunch of unfocused, unclear, poorly educated cry babies."
Namecalling. Isn't this yours?
I replied to this comment that was directed at me. (JoeThePatriot)
"Joewealthyhaha" posted this
You need to understand what your dealing with. Wall Street is not a victim. Wall Street and the world markets have been running the world for decades.
Understand the nature of the beast: http://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Cede+%26+Co.
And to give more clarity on how the entire system truely functions: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/enter-cede-co-ii-fed-now-backstopping-25-trillion-dtcc-cleared-credit-default-swaps
The Federal Reserve Bank is a client to this organization! So, who is in charge? Not the governement. Yet this company is a government "non"-profit as well as a for profit organization. I personally have never heard of such an all powerful umbrella corporation that is able to function as both and that has so much control over every finanical transaction.
Corruption is with the huge corporate hard to identify umbrella corporations and governments all over the world.
[Removed]
excerpt from film
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_u2cEtrruY
[EDIT: See part 1 of the reply here: http://occupywallst.org/forum/wall-street-was-the-victim-wall-street-is-a-vast-i/#comment-273878]
(3). most firms that took the bailout money didn't want it or need it but were forced to take it so as to not cause a run on the banks that really needed it. people like you seem to not know this, or overlook this.
Can you find me an example? I am not aware of any firm refusing bailouts or help but I would be happy to learn of even one case of a Wall Street titan foregoing government money and their own bonuses. I am aware of firms refusing to accept restrictions and saying they do not want any money if it came with restrictions that would say, cause the CEO to be laid off or give up bonuses but I am not aware of any firm that turned down money.
(4.) most importantly, ALL the public money given to banks was paid back, WITH A PROFIT.
Really, please cite your source. So far as I know no firm that has completely paid back their TARP funds but there is some debate about how one defines the funds owed. If you examine the bailout tallies at [3] It appears that while a large amount of the "TARP" money has been paid back many billions are still owed. But this ignores the large amount of money guaranteed to the banks in immunity deals being discussed by the State Attorney's general lawsuit [4] and some debate over whether that even counts all of the cost of providing insurance for Wall Street [5].
(5). this bailout money wasn't used for bonuses, it was repaid, like i said. Bonuses are paid routinely in this business, sort of like professional athletes.
Top athletes are paid if they win. The CEO's and other executives at bailed out firms lost, lost big, and were given funds to compensate for their losses (hence the term "bailout") so while bonuses are commonplace in financial firms it is irrational to give bonuses, or even continued employment, to individuals who failed to manage their businesses and who required federal intervention.
(7.) last comment: when mortgages are properly underwritten (meaning loans are made to people who are employed, make enough, show documents, and put down 20%), then the resulting MBS are fine and typically AAA. This is where the system went off the tracks. Thank you Barney frank and Chris Dodd!
Yes to the first part. When loans are made properly and not treated as a securitization profit center things would work better. In this case they did not. And it is true that you can thank Barney Frank and Chris Dodd in that they were around for the final repeal in the Grahm-Leach-Bailey act [6]. The act, for the record passed the senate in it's final version 90-8 with Dodd voting in favor and passed the house 362-57 with Frank voting no. It was signed by Bill Clinton. Thus in terms of responsibility it is equally spread around our political class. I would add Alan Greenspan to the list and go back even further to Bush Senior who pushed for the first failed attempt at complete repeal. The history of the repeal is actually a long one and well-detailed here [7]. In essence the slow death of Glass-Steegall is what created the incentive for this or at least dynamited the last of the barriers to both the widespread securitization practices and the barriers between Commercial and Investment banks that allow banks like Bank of America to be placing trillions of dollars of toxic assets onto books that cover individuals' savings accounts and FDIC insurance [8].
You seem rather angry and I understand that but if you are pissed about any of the things you cite such as toxic assets then your ire is better turned, I think, against those who produced them and those who helped it to happen (i.e. 90% of our political "elites").
(1). Wall street didn't rate the mortgage-backed securities (MBS), the rating agencies did, and obviously the agencies ratings were wrong.
The rating agencies are part of Wall Street as a collective whole so their actions matter. Moreover the ratings agencies did so at the behest of Wall Street. I recommend examining the work over at NakedCapitalism [1] As even a cursory examination of the record will show many of the big banks in essence paid for these ratings because they wanted to sell the sercuritized junk. Moreover some of the banks deliberately packaged mortgages that they were rooting against as discussed in [2] and so the criminality wasn't just the hapless agencies.
(2). the collective crowd of 300,000+ employees on Wall Street had no idea these MBS were toxic.
Umm, Yes and no. True not every person who works on Wall Street is a "rogue trader" but the companies there worked hard to create the current system and take advantage of it. I recommend listening to This American Life. They did a rather interesting profile of the issue back in 2008 and, in particular, the people who generated and packaged the loans. These were large loan mills that typically worked at high volume. They were private sector employees who were paid by the volume generated. So they set up a mechanism that encouraged, even rewarded this.
[EDIT: See part 2 of the reply here: http://occupywallst.org/forum/wall-street-was-the-victim-wall-street-is-a-vast-i/#comment-274624]
what planet are you from
joewealthyhaha now that you have demonstrated how smart you are, let me remind you of the purpose of this exercise. It is to craft detailed solutions to the obvious problems.
Please give us the benefit from your superior intellect and explain your view of the comprehensive and durable solution to the challenge of the operation and regulation of the financial sector in America, and if you have time, how this solution will operate in harmony with the world financial system.
There are a lot of people who can't make bouillabaisse, that can tell you if yours is any good. Take it away iron chef joewealthyhaha.
ok heres a few ideas:
disconnect money from government. paid lobbyists are a problem, so are big campaign donations.
bring back the tight mortgage underwriting standards from years ago, where your monthly bills could not exceed 32% of your gross income, the LTV couldn't exceed 80%, and you had to show proof of income and assets for downpayment.
introduce new legislation that allows those with underwater loans to refi, and force the banks to take partial writedowns on these loans. This might have to be phased in overtime to allow banks to build and meet their capital ratios.
in conjunction with above, force/allow foreclosures to run their course, so as to flush the system of large inventory of unsold homes and help jump start the housing sector.
in the short term, we need a new stimulous bill aimed at job creation and economic pump priming, but this can only be down with simultaneous medium and long term spending cuts, budget cuts, and deficit reduction. This is important, otherwise we end up like Greece.
to help close the budget deficit, we need to raise taxes, but SELECTIVELY, starting with cap gains tax (the Buffet idea). i would raise corporate tax as well, but only a few % points - this would go a long way. i would raise taxes for those who could easily afford it, say making more than $2 million per year. i would eliminate the death tax! its just wrong.
we need a long term industrial policy (similar to Germany) aimed at securing and building our manufacturing base. this can be done with tax holidays for new plants, new hiring, etc. Other countries do it, we should.
i would enforce free trade (but avoid a trade war). if china wants to sell n our markets than we need to have unfettered access to theirs. letting their currency float a bit would be a great start.
secure the south border with mexico. everyone else came in through the front door, they should too. captured illegal aliens should be sent back.
college grads who cant find a job and can prove hardship should be allowed a loan holiday.
find and lock up the crooks, starting with Countrywide's ex CEO, who paid off politicians so he could exploit and crank up his sub prime game.
hows my bouillabaisse ?
There also has to be a comprehensive civil disgorgement program. Maybe they can't all be prosecuted, but they can be made to give it back.
The ones I didn't comment on, I agree with as you stated.
Thanks again.
Congratulations on a sincere effort. I knew you could do it. Now I will offer a few comments on your list after taking some time for serious consideration.
Maybe a little thyme? I encourage others to do likewise.
Wall street didn't rate the mortgage-backed securities (MBS), they bribed the rating agencies that did.
The collective crowd of 300,000+ secretarial, maintenance, security and janitorial employees on Wall Street had no idea these MBS were toxic. CEOs invented them and brokers and traders sold them with glee.
Most firms took the bailout money because there were no strings attached. The automakers had to take the government as a parnter, Wall Street got a handout courtesy of the US Tresaury (a.k.a. the Dept. of Goldman Sachs), run by Goldman CEO Henry Paulson.
Most importantly, ALL the public money given to banks was paid back, WITH HUGE PROFITS FOR THE BANKS.
This bailout money was used for executive bonuses, lobbying, corproate jets, overseas investment, purchase of US Bonds, and pretty much everything EXCEPT what it was intended for.
Throw who in prison? Government officals who enacted legislation on behalf of banks, bank executives who bribed politicans and ratings agencies, mortgage brokers who duped homebuyers, CEOs who created CDOs, etc., etc., etc. If we empty the prisons of all the people there on simple possession charges we might just have enough room for all the financial crooks.
When mortgages are written by banks without regard to people's ability to pay, in order to bail the very same banks out of the housing bubble they created, and then those very same mortgages are packaged into AAA rated securities and knowingly sold to the bank's own clients, it is clear who is responsible for the collapse of the world economy.
LMAO!
Everything Joe says here is actually true save, i think, #4, as some TARP funds received by some failed institutions were not reimbursed. However, since what was paid back included interest, it was a net gain for the government.
Simply blaming "greedy bankers" without taking into consideration the many factors which contributed to the current situation is a gross oversimplification. Worse, it lets a whole lot of people who should be held accountable off the hook.
thank you me2.
i misspoke in #4. i should have said all the big banks that get lumped together as "wall Street" paid back the Tarp money.
Check this out and comment.
http://dailybail.com/home/how-paulson-appointees-former-gs-employees-dan-jester-ed-lid.html
You are the most naive person on this page
meh
I'm still not finding them interesting
all work and no play makes jack a dull boy
You're so full of shit..There was still fraud that occurred on Wall Street and no one went to jail because everyone got paid off....and not all the money was paid back and it can never equal the money that was stolen by the companies like Goldman who did know what was going on.
@joewealthyhaha Right now..Congress because of lobbyist dollars from the guillotine industry is making banker beheading legal! Hurray, now we get to do what we want legally just like the bankers did and do.
You are wrong in so many ways. 1. Wall Street paid for the ratings and held that $$ over S&P, etc. head to give crap AAA credit. 2. Who cares if an employee did not know? If I am on a team that goes bankrupt, I cant say, hey, I brought $$ into the firm. Everyone loses. 3. Bonuses should be paid for performance, yet they were paid for massive losses, in fact the most losses in banking history. Where can I get this deal? I will gladly concoct a scheme to lose trillions I can get a bonus of a few hundred million.
The U.S. Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission reported its findings in January 2011. It concluded that "the crisis was avoidable and was caused by: Widespread failures in financial regulation, including the Federal Reserve’s failure to stem the tide of toxic mortgages; Dramatic breakdowns in corporate governance including too many financial firms acting recklessly and taking on too much risk; An explosive mix of excessive borrowing and risk by households and Wall Street that put the financial system on a collision course with crisis; Key policy makers ill prepared for the crisis, lacking a full understanding of the financial system they oversaw; and systemic breaches in accountability and ethics at all levels. Also the Republican repeal in 1999 of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933.
if this first thing above didnt happen, the rest would not have happened and/or would not be relevant.
"Widespread failures in financial regulation, including the Federal Reserve’s failure to stem the tide of toxic mortgages"
That was the two year study of the causes of the great rescission by congress. Are you saying they reach a false conclusion? If you are then your just a hopeless ignorant person.
dude, once again youre not listening. that two year study says the same thing ive been saying. thats why i cut and paste this sentence from that study (which happens to be the first reason they give for the cause): "Widespread failures in financial regulation, including the Federal Reserve’s failure to stem the tide of toxic mortgages"
Dude, there's more to it than the first sentence. How about the wide spread unethical behavior for one. Take a reading comprehension course.
1.) Wall Street didnt rate the MBS, but they did profit from them. Did you? Probably not, but as the mantra of this movement is -99 percent, which you fall under. Nobody is calling you or your colleagues criminals, we are calling your bosses criminals... 2.) The one percent knew they were toxic, hence all of the hedge funds and efforts to re-asses the securities. Again, you and your colleagues arent at fault. 3.) Yes, the firms took the money and paid it back to avoid a repeat of the 1930s and the string of bank failures. 4.) Bonuses in professional sports are based on production and success. If they are part of their contracts as incentives, then they are preformance-based. Please dont try to justify those who received 'golden parachutes', buy-outs, bonuses, etc that didnt deserve them. Again, this isnt aimed at you... The CEO of United Airlines paid himself 22 million for pulling his compnay out of bankruptcy..that isnt right. He is an example of the 1 percent. 5.) There were immoral and illegal transactions that happened and will never be made public...If you dont htink that is true, then you are paying homage to something that doesnt deserve your support. I think Bush is the one who pushed for 'everybody should own their own home' American dream bullshit. Did Congress back it? Of course, Democrats and Republicans are only different sides of the same economic coin!
Now, I have some points for you. 1.) The average CEO makes 365 times more than the average worker. 2.) The top 20 percent of the nation's population owns 85 percent of the taxable wealth. 3.) That means that the bottom 80 percent of the nation's population only owns 15 percent of the nation's wealth. 4.) 98 percent of African-Americans dont have taxable wealth. The system in place, and the Wall Street firm that you work for profits from this...as the numbers show. The system that you are supporting is only an exstention of the fuedal society that allows the capital to control the labor, when we both know that the labor force should control the capital....
youre a commie
You have chastized others for not presenting an articulate and comprehensive reply to your post, and now all you can say is that I am a 'commie'.
Whether you agree or not, the fundamental reason why we too big to fail exist is because there isnt separation between main street banks and wall st banks. Re-implement Provision Q of Glass-Steagal and we can once again ensure that investment banking keep their gruby little meat-hooks off our commercial banking deposits...
Thanks again for you articulate and intelligent response.
Agree. Investment banks and commercial banks should be kept separate. Repealing Glass Steagal was a mistake. And youre still a commie.
Fair enough! As long as we agree on that... Cheers
every cent that they make on wall street comes from somewhere else. it funnells the money in from the rest of the world to give to the few that work there. just because they don't know they're doing it is not a good enough excuse.
wow thanks for explaining the flow of capital to me. where is this 'funnel' you mention?
"The ratings agencies were wrong". Just an honest mistake? "This is where the system went off of the tracks." Nobody's fault. Happens all the time. It was dark. Dog ate my homework. Barney Frank and Chris Dodd caused it.
Shopping for ratings. Quid pro quo for other business. Yeah. And F&D ordered the CFTC to preempt the state AG's from prosecuting the mortgage originators, the appraisers, the servicers. Ooops, no, that was the Bush White House. The Enron loop hole, nope.. F&D didn't cause that, Phil Gramm. Repeal and replacing Glass Steagall? Gramm again. And who was paying huge sums through lobbyists? Goldman, Morgan, Citi etc. to get these done? We were forced to take that bailout money. But the discount window? Borrowing at zero and lending to the government at 3%, 2%, or to business at 9%, consumers at 29%. It was tough on us. Capital ratios, why should we have to have capital ratios? Crocodile tears? Half truths?
The best way to avoid breaking the law? Buy a new law. Innocent, well that is another matter. My friend, there are documents out there. Insiders are talking. Books have been and are being written... Nice try. Not buying it. That truck load of turnips outside? I don't own it. It's a rental.
Banking Spring
mortgage originators, appraisers, servicers, Bush White House, Enron, rating agencies, Barney frank and Dodd -- all these people did bad things. we agree on that. but none are Wall Street. So why is this little movement of yours called Occupy Wall Street? or do you simple-minded folks call anything that's big and you dont understand Wall street?
And the money and the lobbying came from where? It wasn't OWS, You can't lobby for loop holes and put all of the blame on the politicians who opened the gates that let out the crooks that you bought the loot from.
Wall Street provided the money, the direction, did the slicing and dicing and bet against the stuff they were recommending, bribing the rating agencies to get AAA ratings on garbage, welcomed the plunder, got bailed out and has the government still letting them hire robo-signers to continue the rip which certainly hasn't ended. It is continuing every day.
We are not as gullible as you would like us to be.
Something big that I don't understand, was the Collossus of Rhodes.
By the way, you want retail investors to read the fine print and be responsible for understanding the deliberately misleading "information" that Wall Street puts out, but where were you when the rating agencies gave you the nuanced report with the AAA rating?
you are a blind fool that has been brainwashed and chooses not to see the truth. You are not open to see any ones point of view and don't know empathy. if we are "dumb" and don't "understand" why don't you explain exactly what you claim we don't "understand." you are obviously an egotistic idiot that claims that this is "beyond your understanding." Who do you think you are to claim that it is beyond our understanding? You are some supernatural being and we are some incompetent beings that can't possibly grasp any ideas. pathetic,brainwashed, troll looking for attention
Love it! They really think were all idiots don't they?
Thanks. See:Below: And the money and the lobbying came from where?
You seem to be going for the double --- you're ignorant both of the people you're talking to and the subject you're talking about. Do you win some sort of prize for that, or do you do it just for the sheer love of being wrong?
He's definitely doubling down on being a jackwad...
where is the error in logic? all you do is say "you're wrong" with no justification. Sounds like you dont really know what you're talking about.
I didn't say anything about an error in logic --- he hasn't got round to errors in logic yet. That is something he can aspire to when he grows up. At present, all he seems to have are errors of fact. If he ever gets round to even the crudest error of logic, if he manages to commit even the crudest form of petitio principii, then I shall be the first to congratulate him in taking this first tentative step towards adulthood.
and the errors of fact are where? You all are so quick to blame wall street but dont try to understand the problem. Why did wall street have no problem in bundling and selling off these obligations as investment grade? Why did the rating agencies rate them so highly? The government encouraged substandard lending, fannie and freddie guaranteed the no-doc loans. Not much due diligence is needed when you have the US govt backing it.
Why dont you protest congress? What about the main street mortgage brokers? (they arent bankers by the way) -- most of you dont really seem to know what bankers are, but rather lump everyone in financial services in the banker category. Traders are also not bankers. And what about the people who took out loans for houses that common sense dictates they cant reasonably afford?
I very much dont most of you could work as hard or as long as bankers do.
bandying on about aptitude is pointless.
I doubt a banker would last ten minutes in a combat zone.
The errors of fact are in his post, as I have indicated --- and as for your feeble ad hominem I have worked jobs that have sent people running away crying after half-an-hour trying to keep up, and I should love it if I could see a bunch of bankers try to exhibit enough stamina to keep them there the whole twelve-hour nightshift. It would make great reality TV, every time they started crying or asking for a bathroom break or just shouting: "TREAT ME LIKE A HUMAN BEING". That's the sort of comedy you just can't buy ... unfortunately.
Let me explain where the error in logic is. The system works when the issuer of the mortgage remains the primary holder of the mortgage and is the direct recipient of payments. Under those circumstances, the lender has every reason to carefully vet loan applicants and only make loans to those whom he knows can pay them back barring an act of God. The problem was that once mortgages became commodities a systemic moral hazard was introduced into the housing market.
Instead of keeping the loans on their books and taking in the monthly payments due off the mortgages, local banks now sold them to bundlers who bought up thousands of mortgages and sold them off in bulk as collateralized debt obligations or CDOs. The CDOs were then sliced, or "tranched" by priority of payment, and the tranches were then rated by agencies that often had close ties to the bundlers. The tranches were then sold to investors and traded on the open market.
Can anyone else spot the moral hazard here? If you look closely, the old system held the lender directly accountable for his decisions to extend credit. If he lent money to someone incapable of paying it then he simply didn't get his money back and was returned the property in whatever condition the homeowner saw fit to leave it in. Now, however, the lender could simply sell bad loans to a bundler and make his buck before anything happened, and the bundlers were in bed with the rating agencies to make sure the CDOs were rated AAA and fetched top dollar on the markets. When the bottom tranche of a CDO comprised of NINA loans is suddenly a rock solid asset to have on your books something's gone terribly wrong.
Ding Ding Ding...You win the prize..This guy "JoeRichPrick" wants to blame the guy who gets conned into playing 3 card Monty instead of blaming the people running the game. Yea some blame can go to the sucker, but no that much.
youre not listening (and probably not smart enough too understand). not blaming the borrower entirely. i think most blame goes to the fact that underwriting guidelines and standards vanished! anyone with a heartbeat could get a mortgage, and without showing prove of income and no adherence to loan-to-value or cost-to-income metrics, as was the case historically Arod makes a good point that the lender no longer held the mortgage, that's also an issue, but i think the bigger issue is the underwriting standards. i think with disciplined guidelines governing who gets a loan would avoid the proliferation of bad loans. by the way, nickhowdy, go f*ck yourself.
Joe you're not smart enough to realize that maybe you're not smart enough .."Arod makes a good point that the lender no longer held the mortgage, that's also an issue, but i think the bigger issue is the underwriting standards."...Look dopey you don't have to have underwriting standards if you're not going to be holding the loan...
read this twice:
wow, ok, lets try again, stay with me, you ready? The originating standards are not the decision of the originating bank or mortgage company. They are rules of the game, imposed on the system, by the charter of the institutions at the top of the mortgage industry -- fannie and freddie. If good rules are in place than any institution that originates a loan and wants to sell it to another institution, or sell it to fannie, or have fannie provide a guarantee, has to abide by the system rules and adhere to certain underwriting quality. if not, they cant sell their loans and have no choice but to keep the loan. The mortgage problem started back in 2004 when the underwriting standards changed dramatically - they changed to allow people who would have previously been turned down (due to low income, no income, low appraisal, etc) were able to get a mortgage. that was the first problem, and it was a huge problem. making matters worse, the rating agencies continued to use their outdated actuarial-based rating models that spit out AAAs and didn't account for the way the rules of the game had changed and didn't account for the risk of a bursting housing price bubble. The rating agencies weren't corrupt or paid off (and i have no need to defend them) but they made huge colossal errors, obviously.
If your premise is that "Wall Street was the Victim" You don't show convincing proof.. Who are the real bad guys? YOU for thinking that somehow everyone else is stupid "your ability to understand" ..YOU don't understand junior, I've seen your kind come and go..Your just a BS artist who work on or has business with Wall Street..Personally I don't get conned by people like you because I don't play your game..
You are a little little man and need to do other things besides being a BS artist and a grifter..
Don't feel bad though you have time left to reform your evil ways...I was just like you, a thief who had to believe his own lies to convince others..There is hope to reclaim your soul...
I
so you were a thief and a liar? impressive resume.
Thank you...Yes, I was very young. 13-14 when I was introduced to "business". It was fun until I saw how I was hurting others..
Your post declares "Wall Street was the victim"..Come on Joey...Can we get a freaking break here..Your not that smart..No one believes your BS period. You'll have to give up being a BS artist..You're just not that good and people like me, know what you are...It doesn't matter how you'd like to paint this picture or who your trying to convince..You start off with BS and it's still just BS.
"The ratings agencies weren't corrupt or paid off"
Ratings Agencies Corrupt:
http://www.bing.com/search?q=rating's+agencies+corrupt+&pc=Z129&form=ZGACDF&install_date=20111025
Rating's agencies not corrupt:
http://www.bing.com/search?q=rating's+angencies+not+corrupt&pc=Z129&form=ZGACDF&install_date=20111025
So Joe who are you defending...
Look the 2008 crisis was Enron on a massive scale..You'll never convince me it wasn't because I know what legislation came prior to the insanity: Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000 and Gram-Leach-Bliley, legislation lobbied for by Enron and Citibank respectively.
No one would have changed the "rules" if the banks did not know they could sell off these mortgages to Wall Street...
Ultimately the system is completely corrupted and collusion between government and the banking/corporate elites is THE PROBLEM...
Again, I don't know why you're defending Wall Street. You mind explaining yourself..Where do you work? On Wall Street perhaps?
i seek and spread the truth. thats it. if you going to have a movement than start out with accurate info, it might make your movement more credible, it might take you in the right direction, it might help you and others seek the right solutions if you start with the clearest picture of the problems. that's my motive. whats yours?
Ha Ha...You seek and spread the truth...Really? Then why start off with a statement that we both know is a lie "Wall Street was the victim"..I feel sorry for you grifter. My motive? It's spelled out in my manifesto from a few years back. http://www.scribd.com/doc/50365826/What-is-Nick-Howdy
My issue with blaming only the big banks is that a huge number of these mortgages were issued by small local banks. The securitization process incentivized these local banks to lower their credit standards cause they get them off their books.
Its true the big banks did this as well and the scale at which they did this is crazy to think about, but why not blame small local bank owners who made fortunes off the backs of their neighbors and then weren't there to service the mortgage they issued?
See my above post, Also the Republican repeal in 1999 of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 was a key factor in the Financial Crisis of 2007-2008.
Absolutely, because Gramm-Leach-Bliley cut the middleman out of the deal. Now you have banks making loans in all kinds of communities in which they have no stake (and thus no incentive not to bet the welfare of the community on risky loans), bundling them in-house, and selling the resulting CDOs. I firmly believe that mortgages, auto loans, etc. should be the jurisdiction of local banks and credit unions, and solely those two groups.
1 and 2) Wall St. knew the ratings agencies' verdicts were questionable. It was never blind faith. You had a large number of investors and analysts questioning the wisdom of these investments. The problem was you had a few True Believers, and nobody challenged them. Why not? Simply put: because the incentives weren't there to get these investments right. The incentives were there to push the paper on commission.
3) Is actually true. The idea was to ensure that the banks which did need the bailout money weren't looked at askance. If only a few banks took the bailout money, they would have been seen as at risk. But let me ask you something: what does it mean to you that the industry immediately closed ranks and watched each others' backs at the public's expense? It must have been a difficult decision - the consequences of the TARP money being seen as a Scarlet Letter would have been wide-ranging. But did anyone ever say, "hey, the industry needs to take it's whipping - we need to let Capitalism work?"
4) So we've set the precedent that the public can take on the riskiest of all investments - propping up management teams that have provably failed - and you are trumpeting this as some kind of success?
5) What happens when a professional baseball player bats .200, or a quarterback throws four interceptions for every touchdown? They get sent packing. In the finance industry, failure is simply forgiven. Your analogy sucks - these outcomes are inextricably linked to the idea of risk and reward. But Wall St. is rewarding failure by its bonuses. What do you think that does to incentives?
6) Let me ask you something: if the SEC was reconstituted and given funding, do you think we would get the same verdict? Let's find out. Let's put the SEC back to work, give them their teeth back, and let them decide if anyone needs to be thrown in prison. Good deal?
7) Keep going. What actually happened with the MBS crisis? The cart lead the horse. There was so much demand by the financial firms to push this scrip - because the more they pushed around, the better their commissions. Once again, let's talk about incentives - that lenders stopped pushing MBS to insure their loans and started pushing loans to print more MBS.
What you're selling here is bullshit. Sorry, but while there are many uninformed protesters, they are still accidentally right. You? You're intentionally wrong. You're just trying to push blame around. My advice to you is to own up to how the industry fucked up. If you want to tell the truth, tell the whole truth.
Amazing how you pass off complete ignorance as knowledge. I'm impressed with the way you state bullshit as if it were fact. You're good.
Here's a link to the empirical evidence of that bullshit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_late-2000s_financial_crisis
your diatribe is loaded with errors and bull shit. but im busy right now so will have to tear you a new one a little later...stay tuned...
Your a troll, the evidence is here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_late-2000s_financial_crisis
what evidence? your link says this: Widespread failures in financial regulation, including the Federal Reserve’s failure to stem the tide of toxic mortgages. It goes on to talk about deteriorating underwriting standards. thanks for making my point for me!
I guess you need to take reading comprehension ether that our your an out right liar. here's the report from the link:........The U.S. Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission reported its findings in January 2011. It concluded that "the crisis was avoidable and was caused by: Widespread failures in financial regulation, including the Federal Reserve’s failure to stem the tide of toxic mortgages; Dramatic breakdowns in corporate governance including too many financial firms acting recklessly and taking on too much risk; An explosive mix of excessive borrowing and risk by households and Wall Street that put the financial system on a collision course with crisis; Key policy makers ill prepared for the crisis, lacking a full understanding of the financial system they oversaw; and systemic breaches in accountability and ethics at all levels.
Believe this chief! There were people UP AND DOWN THE LINE from construction of houses to underwriters tax assessors appraiser small banks big banks govt institutions that IMPLICITLY KNEW ABOUT FRAUD IN THIS. They just wouldn't say anything about. Who honestly in their right mind would stop THE GRAVY TRAIN! politicians like Maxine waters need money for campaigning, private investors are greedy. Folks at Goldman Sachs sent around.s inter office memos saying 'i can't believe we are selling this garbage' to overseas investors! That should strike a chord... you are full of crap! This is all on cspan.org look it up. And some is personal history to. Just b/c most didn't know doesn't excuse the fact that people never stopped to ask how could this really be so profitable. In fact im sure there were people who spoke out but were covered up or silenced. Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist but stuff like that happens all the time no matter where you work why not in those places too.
About 10 years ago I was talking to a friend who built single family homes for a living. I asked him how people could afford the homes he was building and he stated ,"They can't." We talked about the dangers of balloon payments and the fact that access to credit was driving up the cost housing and that eventually there would be a housing correction. I incorrectly predicted that this correction would happen soon. I underestimated the influence that refinancing would have in postponing this event. Refinancing fueled the use of credit cards and kept the consumption market up and running to the time being. Anyway, my point is that if two adults with only high school educations could see this destructive train heading for derailment why couldn't the Harvard Grads on Wall Street clearly see it too? There has to be two facts in place for this train to survive as long as it did. The first one is that the top CEO's in some firms had a very clear viewpoint on the dangers of the housing market and yet the monetary rewards to this high risk was worth it. The other fact is that you would have to play with other people's money to make this business decision to work.
you make some good, intelligent observations....unlike others in this space you cause me to reflect...i believe many of us in the financial arena saw the distortions, the bubble if you will, the fact that housing prices were rising, too quickly, and too much credit was being extended to folks who couldnt afford it. i think, as you say, it became almost universal that a 'correction' was coming. that the subprime game had run its course, or too far and was unsustainable. But i dont believe any of us expected the way the correction would exert itself. nor did many of us appreciate the fact that the agencies were mis-rating the MBS and CLOs with AAA ratings. I think the Harvard grads, to use your term, for the most part expected the correction to play out the way the tech bubble a few years before played out. that is prices would correct, mortgages deliquencies and defaults would rise, people (and banks) would book losses, and after a few years of this correction markets would return to rationale pricing and proper mortgage underwriting. i think this was the mindset. but nearly all of us were surprised by 1. the magnitude of the problem, 2. that it would crush institutions like Bear, Lehman, etc, and that the crisis would reach epic, systemic, then global proportions. in short, even the Harvard grads werent smart enough to see the meltdown coming....sad but true...
When we lit the match we thought it would only burn the porch. Gosh, we just never thought the whole house would burn to cinders. Nobody could have known that it would spread. Or that my friends were lighting the garage, while I was doing the porch. Gee if I had known that I would have used a smaller match. Maybe you were that naive. Maybe you weren't.
Try the story on your kids. It wasn't us wolves, it was really the pig's fault. Maybe if they don't realize that it was their house.... Maybe they don't remember how you used to present yourselves to get your hands on other people's money.. But we do. (Smoking soothes your throat. My Doctor recommends it.)
Wall street didn't light any match -- the politicians who wanted everyone to own a house and forced fannie and freddie to buy mortgages that didnt have disciplined underwriting standards lit the match. After a few years of this behavior that match became a big flame. When home prices rose rapidly and more buyers bought homes with no money down then that flame became a blow torch, and when home prices fell many mortgages turned upside down (meaning the house was worth less than loan) then the barn went ablaze!
Wall Street eagerly, eagerly, bought those mortgages packaged them, pressured the rating agencies for the ratings they needed and sold them, taking their slice, then they bet against them, showing that they knew they were selling garbage, knew they would fail, then pressured AIG to pay off at full value before the general crash that they knew was coming fully hit.
That is a torch, not just a match. They could have, and should have said, No. these are not sound products, we aren't buying them., " They could have said, "We have researched these mortgages and they are sound with proper documentation and we are buying them and holding them ourselves." They could have said, "Ooops, we didn't do a proper job of validation these mortgages and carelessly sold bad products, so we will buy them back at the issue price?" They could have said, "We aren't sure. These mortgages look suspicious, so we are going to the regulators and we will investigate the mortgage lenders and the builders to see if these are qualified buyers."
You claim (ed) to be the EXPERTS and you have a fiduciary duty of candor to your clients, your investors, your regulators and you have responsibilities, as citizens, not to commit, or be a party to, or a silent witness to fraud.
You weren't Fannie or Freddie and you didn't have to buy anything. But you did, and you are still ripping people off, by foreclosing with forged documents, failing to restructure, fraudulently inducing people to stop paying while you say you will restructure only to foreclose, and by not maintaining the foreclosed properties, driving down prices in the neighborhood.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_late-2000s_financial_crisis
You bring up some good points and one that I can't overlook is the AAA ratings. Those AAA rating bothered me the most and I have to say that the reason being is that if there was something criminal within the collapse of the subprime market I always felt that it is how mortgage securities received these ratings. I can't prove it but sometimes I just go with a gut feeling. Thank you for your feedback. It's interesting to see someone's viewpoint from a different angle.
And rehearsing this is how you get to sleep at night? You can fool yourself some of the time, but you can't fool even yourself all of the time. And they said nobody writes good fiction anymore,
Quote: If they did do you think Bear Stearns, Lehman, Merrill Lynch, Wachovia and several others would have allowed themselves to own them and then go bust?
These people are so psychopathic they prey on themselves. Banks are holding companies. One trading group will prey on the other.
now youre showing your ignorance
You need to understand what your dealing with. Wall Street is not a victim. Wall Street and the world markets have been running the world for decades.
Understand the nature of the beast: http://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Cede+%26+Co.
And to give more clarity on how the entire system truely functions: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/enter-cede-co-ii-fed-now-backstopping-25-trillion-dtcc-cleared-credit-default-swaps
The Federal Reserve Bank is a client to this organization! So, who is in charge? Not the governement. Yet this company is a government "non"-profit as well as a for profit organization. I personally have never heard of such an all powerful umbrella corporation that is able to function as both and that has so much control over every finanical transaction.
Corruption is with the huge corporate hard to identify umbrella corporations and governments all over the world.
You need to understand what your dealing with. Wall Street is not a victim. Wall Street and the world markets have been running the world for decades.
Understand the nature of the beast: http://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Cede+%26+Co.
And to give more clarity on how the entire system truely functions: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/enter-cede-co-ii-fed-now-backstopping-25-trillion-dtcc-cleared-credit-default-swaps
The Federal Reserve Bank is a client to this organization! So, who is in charge? Not the governement. Yet this company is a government "non"-profit as well as a for profit organization. I personally have never heard of such an all powerful umbrella corporation that is able to function as both and that has so much control over every finanical transaction.
Corruption is with the huge corporate hard to identify umbrella corporations and governments all over the world.
The 99% to 1 % break down exists even within these firms. What you don't think someone knew some of these assets were backed by an employee earning minimum wage at McDonalds?
Do you not think we are intelligent enough to grasp the difficult concept of fraud in rating these instruments? Does not take a genius to realize that these rating firms would of course rate them favorably since they get paid to rate them.
Would it not be expected from a rating firm to expect these accounts to take their business elsewhere if they felt your rating was not profitable. By 2007 half of Moody's rating revenue was from these very ratings.
There are even internal documents of this fraud buddy
http://democrats.oversight.house.gov/images/stories/Hearings/Committee_on_Oversight/E-mail_from_Belinda_Ghetti_to_Nicole_Billick_et_al._December_16_2006.pdf
Why would a firm allow itself to go bust? Short Term Profits for those right at the top... their 1 % at the cost of the other 99%'s jobs.
Bailouts? Those bailouts have tangible value. Those bailouts including the untold trillion provided by the Fed cost us through inflation, which we have barely gotten started with. I'm sure you know the basics of Moneterist Economics right?
If I were to start a Ponzi Scheme that would be a crime. I would go to Jail. They should too.. Costing untold Millions their homes, retirements, and our youth their futures if the biggest of crimes.
These people should be arrested and those ill gotten gains confiscated and used to pay down the debt.
can you tell me how to hell did some of the stock companies CEO 's got bonus's in the hundreds of millions , and then their company went bankrupt a year or two later , you don't think they had any clue of what was going to happen , do you think i would be appropiate to give this money back .
name one "stock company." name one CEO. do you have a clue? by the way, CEO payment is between the CEO and its board and shareholders. nobody elses biz.
Countrywide Angelo Mozilo to start
Mozillo was a crook. a thug. he should go to jail. his firm underwrote many of the bad mortgages, then he sold the toxic mess to BofA. yes hes a crook, but he's not "wall street". Mozillo was in the retail mortgage biz. And Mozillo was in bed with politicians. he gave a huge below markte mortgage to Chris Dodd. check out Dodd's $10 mill home on the coast of Ireland. Another example of you OWS people getting the enemy wrong.
I'm sorry... I thought Wall Street also included banks. They are one in the same no? Speculation needs capital. With Glass Steagal gone there is no difference between "wall st" and the banks.
What about the current MF Global scandal? What 600 Million in client money mysteriously disappears.
Oh and I agree the politicians are just as bad. They are the scum of the earth... all of them. Except maybe Ron Lawl.
yes wall street includes banks, the big banks. but most mortgages are originated by mortgages companies, like Countrywide. Big banks bundled the loans into MBS and CLOs, which then got rated by the rating agencies, and then the big banks bot and sold and traded them. 99% of these bank players simply looked at the AAA ratings and got comfortable with that. big mistake. boom!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_late-2000s_financial_crisis
Nice try Joewealthy but your facts don't fit the prescribed problem or solutions so you will be laughed out. Facts don't matter. If you pretend to be a maggon infested lunatic then yes you will have a forum.
dont care. not looking for a forum
Just keep saying, "I was only driving the car. I had no idea those guys with the guns weren't making a deposit."
wall street was handing out bonuses to everyone who worked there , why would anyone want to kill this...when the bonus's ran out nobody loss their job , they just got smaller bonus's..if my boss gave me a good job and a bonus not to complain i would be happy too.
bonuses aren't just "handed out," theyre earned, and believe me it isnt easy. The bonuses didnt "run-out". fewer people got them, and most were smaller in size, to reflect the new economics in the system.
So Goldman handed out 80% of their revenue in bonuses (not profit) in a quarter that they lost over $2billion. You have to fool a lot of people to earn a bonus. Their clients, and shareholders, and rating agencies, and auditors, and regulators and the press. It's hard work, I tell you.
only the shareholders matter. why do you care if they paid 80% in bonuses? (which is inaccurate by the way). if they wanted to pay themselves 100% or 200% whats the difference? how is this any of your/our business? if you own a restaurant, say, and put all the profits in your pocket does that make you evil? of course not.
Makes you unethical.
how ? explain how taking the profits of a restaurant you own makes you unethical? How chucky? makes no sense, unless your a commie left wing marxist. and under that system there wouldnt even be a restaurant!
You said all the profits. You didn't share any with the employees, that's called being unethical. Now it's not illegal to be unethical just makes you a slimy cockroach. Plus I'm beginning to think that you are a TROLL.
last response to you chuckie. so youre saying every restaurant owner is unethical? because none share profits with employees. zero. employees get a pay check and earn tips. what world do you live in dude? your comments show a high level of immaturity and ignorance. if you have a degree i hope you didn't pay a lot for it.
Oh, you personally know every restaurant owner! that's great.
CNN Money: "If a company discloses that its profits plunged by nearly 75%, why are its compensation expenses only down about 25%?" " Consider this. Goldman's compensation expenses are 44% of its overall revenue so far this year" This is overall, including secretaries and custodians. But what percentage of trading revenue is paid to traders? I have been told up to 80% of revenue? In a quarter in which they took a charge for a trading loss of over $2 billion. Shareholders were so pleased with Goldman's compensation that they sued. From Bloomberg: "Goldman Sachs Group Inc. won dismissal of suits over employee bonuses filed in New York by shareholders who called the awards a waste of assets." Only the shareholders matter ... and they don't matter very much. If I own the restaurant, but if the shareholders own the restaurant and I put all of the profit in my pocket, the restuarant is named Goldman"s Bar and Graft. What does a judge cost?
If it were self contained. Yes, do whatever you want.
But when you have the money and power to rig everything in your favor through lobbying ect... a broken system.
You are trying to simply this to the point of being useless. No one on OWS is going to say someone working hard should not get a bonus. They gamed a system to the detriment of the public, committed fraud and are getting away with it. That is was people are complaining about.
There is no public recourse for the policies that these corporations buy. Policies that are not in the public's interest.
do you have even a tiny clue of what the hell your talking about?
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who are "they"?
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Capitalism is a joke, a way to make our own riches. Here is a story of Bank of America and their greed and foolish business decisions, My wife and I started dating 2 years ago we had worked together for awhile before. We had both recently divorced and in her divorce she was so kindly allowed to keep the house(upside down value and all) as her first child had been born there. The decree stated that she have the house out of his name by Oct, 2011. Prior to the divorce BoA assured her that she only need to perform an assupmtion and all would be well. As the divorce grew closer her ex-husband stopped paying the mortgage so it was (4) months behind, when I married her, we called Boa and were told catch the mortgage up and show one year of on time payments. So that is what we did and at the request of BoA we paid (3) months in advance to show good faith. So last month we submitted the paperwork after again speaking to BoA, several days ago we got a call and BoA stated "your mortgage was modified a few years ago, there is no way to perform an assumption", you may say why did they allow us to get so far before realizing the type of mortgage that BoA held and my wife and I paid? The answer "no one looked at the mortgage or they overlooked it prior to this" So we were told to refi the house and directed to that department, guess what BoA informed us "You owe 38k more on the home than it is worth since the housing market crash, we cannot refi this house" We were told they could not help us and they hung-up. So here you have a family of 4 and my mother who has been on diability for years who all live in a home, our bills including the mortgage all paid, in fact our mortgage is (3) months ahead and we have been told that since it cannot be taken out of his name in a timely manner we must sell the home, keep in mind it is worth 38k less than it is worth. So BoA a bank who just last week made a statement "We have a right to make a profit too" and they are willing to force a family who has completed each task assigned by them to the letter to move into what? My wifes credit will be ruined so we cannot buy a house maybe a large apartment? This bank is willing to lose at least 38k. For what reason would they do this, how can a banking system that required our tax dollars as bailout turn away a family who can, and I might add does pay their mortgage and instead of collecting their money take the hit? I have written everyone looking for an reasoning or help, I do live in America and I pay my taxes there must be help.... No nothing standard form letters that more or less say "oh well" How in a time when so many citizens are losing their homes because they do not have jobs and cannot pay their bills through no fault of their own, because the banking system and this government failed us. How can a bank turn away paying customers, rather take lose $38,000? And it gets better on our last call they told us they could modifiy the loan further to keep her in it, lowering the intrest rate and extending the term.... SO they will take less money by reducing the intrest rate or by sale but they will not allow us to get his name off of the loan so I can pay at the current term and rate? I make more than he does, I have caught-up all of their bills, and I have nowhere to turn. What has this country come to and how can banks willingly lose money with no pause? How can this country give its citizens nowhere to turn when banks refuse to keep their word. Capitalism is a wall that the rich hide behind, there is no American dream, my course was charted the second I took my first breath, and my story shows that no matter how hard you work, how you pay your bills, and no matter how you lead your life: our inalienable rights rest in the hands of men who will never know your name, who even if they did wouldn't care, our dreams are just that. Is this really what our forefathers had in mind in 1776? Bank of America is choosing to lose money rather than help a family who is not asking for charity, a gift, only that they allow us a way to meet the courts requirements and keep this home which we earned and pay for. This country hides behind it's past forgetting to chart a future.
Any suggestions let me know dgiagnacovo77@gmail.com , I am plum out of ideas and my family deserves better.
So if i understand this right, the house and mortgage are in your wife's name and her ex-hubby's name, but not in your name? if this is the case then send the bank the keys, default on the loan. if your name is not on the mortgage then your credit will remain clean. your wife's credit will be hurt for 7 years. but you could still move on and rent something or buy without putting your wife on the new mortgage. talk to a lawyer. there might also be a way to get the assumption overturned if the house was underwater at that time. Sending the bank the keys might also change their minds about negotiating with you, but dont bluff, if you send them the keys be prepared to default.
Although I have argued many of your points here before, I do have to admit that you are incorrect about #4. Not ALL of the money has been paid back. Most of the big bank money has been paid back but about 400 COMMUNITY BANKS have not paid the money back.
true, i think its about 140 small banks, but small potatoes. Also GM and AIG still owe. but theyre not "wall Street"
SIGTARP released a report to congress last week. It's a very interesting report available on their website. Here is snip I copied from the report.
"This month, SIGTARP recommended that Treasury, in consultation with the banking regulators, develop a clear TARP exit path for community banks. A common misperception is that most of the 707 TARP banks have paid back TARP, when really only the largest banks have exited TARP. Smaller and medium size banks are not exiting TARP with the same speed as the larger banks, with approximately 400 still in TARP. Of these, nearly half are not paying their TARP dividend and in some cases, the banks are operating under an order by their regulator. Compared to larger banks, community banks may face an uphill battle to exit TARP."
I chuckle when I see OWS'ers posting "move your money to Community Banks." LOL