July 31, 2008

Everything you need to know about the housing and mortgage bubble in one sentence

"In the four years leading up to the credit crunch Wall Street’s big banks paid themselves $250 billion in bonuses."


In other words, they stole the money, then we the taxpayers bailed them out. Shameful. Absolutely shameful.

31 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's just the big Wall St banks. Include all the local banks and it's probably half a trillion plus.

Anonymous said...

F*&^% looters!

blogger said...

Privatize the gains, socialize the losses.

It truly is sickening

Anonymous said...

i'm sure they'll get bonuses this year too.

krell said...

And we carry on merrily letting it happen... no-one is innocent here, the only people trying to topple this god awful system are a few fringe "nuts" rioting at the G8. 99.999999999999999% just don't give a shit unless it's right on their doorstep. Sickening is the understatement of the year Keith.

Anonymous said...

That which is in front of your nose is allways the hardest to see.

Anonymous said...

“Of course, this is just the genius of modern Anglo-Saxon capitalism - the most capitalist institutions pay out their capital in bonuses. Then, when they get in a jam, they turn to the taxpayer for relief.”

I’m having a hard time seeing how one can legitimately call a business funded by the taxpayer capitalist.

Well said. This is as socialist as it gets.

Anonymous said...

Of course, this is just the genius of modern Anglo-Saxon capitalism - the most capitalist institutions pay out their capital in bonuses. Then, when they get in a jam, they turn to the taxpayer for relief. Of course, the taxpayer spent all his money too. He’s lucky to be able to fill his gas tank - with a credit card! Which is why Hank Paulson is so eager to deceive the world. He knows that if the foreigners ever catch on to what a scam the United States is running, they’ll stop lending it money. And then, Wall Street, Washington, and the lumpenconsumer himself are all up the creek.

It is maddening...

And it means much higher interest rates.

It is funny how the democrat congress never calls in the financial CEOs to talk about the $250 billion in bonuses - I guess there were some good campaign contributions in there...

Anonymous said...

Here's the Hussein base at work:

http://tinyurl.com/5p98ya

Anonymous said...

That's no money, really. Think what Bushco and Cheneyburton got away with...

PUNISH THE GUILTY

Anonymous said...

That's peanuts compared to the scams they are getting ready to pull.

@ FASB just put off the day of reckoning for banks for another year. They won't have to bring those pesky, toxic mortgage bonds on the books until 2010.

@ A trial balloon floating out of DC proposes a "new" method of setting values for real estate separate from the sales price. IOW, a house that sells for $150K could be appraised at $400K, and that's OK! The theory is the "marginal" sales prices don't reflect reality anymore -- LOL.

@ Government deficits are now good and even necessary. To avoid the problems Japan faced in the 1990s, we need to get crazy reckless and spend, spend, spend!

Anonymous said...

That's what you people voted for, allowing the rich to make even more money without having to worry about ethics or taxes!

Isn't it fun? Remember those heady days of the early 80s when you voted for Reagan and supported his supply-side economics? Why shouldn't the wealthy get their tax money back? After all, you were going to be rich someday soon and when you got there you didn't want to have to pay higher taxes! It all sounded so good to you then, didn't it, brainstems?

So how'd that work for most of you? Having a hard time? Kids finding it hard to pay for college, find a job, start a life?

HOPE YOU AND YOUR DULL, FAT PROGENY STARVE!

HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

The art of the skim.

Anonymous said...

Wall street has a huge misappropriation problem, and it has to stop. In what other industry is any employee entitled to siphon off a resource (money) just because they touch it? Do ConEd employees get free power? Do water utility employees get free water? Do Lockheed Martin employees get free missles? No, no, and no! Yet in finance, just because someone is touching your retirement fund, they can justify $300,000 year plus, for starters. It's called institutionalized misappropriation, and - call it what is - it is the wholesale shaving of the savings of the majority of American citizens. This practice is "exceptional" in any other industry. When it is stopped, so will the majority of Wall Street's other shenanigans... because there will be little incentive for it.

Anonymous said...

"In the four years leading up to the credit crunch Wall Street’s big banks paid themselves $250 billion in bonuses."

Keith,

That is true. But there is an old saying. "It's hard to cheat an honest man." The Wall Street bankers dangled what looked like a gold watch in front of Americans. And Americans were mesmerized. "Buy a wooden box that sits out in the sun in a field and rots, built in a week by a crew of illiterate, non-English speaking workers, you'll be rich! You'll never have to work again!". And American's eyes glazed over. A testosterone fog (of greed and sloth) clouded their brains. And away they grabbed at the Wall Street bankers 'gold' watch. Four years later they take the watch out of their dresser drawer. Look at it more closely. It's not as shiny as earlier. In fact, it's dull and nicked. Scratch at it and hold the watch up to the light. Now they see. It is made of brass. Americans were promised FALSE RICHES. Something for nothing. They swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. Bankers were only doing what politicians do every election. Flim flam. Consider what's happening to Americans now moral punishment. They not only lost their money in a Ponzi scheme. They have to bail out the people who ran the pyramid scheme. It all would have not occurred if people were just honest. The 7 deadly sins post you did a few days back covered these lessons. Greed and Sloth are moral hazards. Moral hazards are punished. But will people learn?

Anonymous said...

have white people done anything differently at any point in the past from the building of the pyramids to the great depression until this latest steal from the poor and give to the rich scam. blame your greedy people and quit putting up pictures of 50 cent and (no taco trucks at that)blaming black people for the mess this country is in.

Anonymous said...

But you won't hear "conservatives" on this.

They're too busy talking about how Obama doesn't want to have a beer with them.

Anonymous said...

Is it shameful if no one is ashamed?

Anonymous said...

That's right, afterthought. Obama is too "uppity" for the brainstems. They prefer ignorant, stupid leaders.

Why, Obama won't let them have NASCAR, WalMart and guns! He'll raise their taxes and not allow the oil companies free rein to drill all over the place and then sell them gas at $5 a gallon! He's a SOCIALIST!!!! HE WPON'T EVEN WEAR THE FLAG PIN!!!!!

EGADS!

The brainstems deserve all the pain they can have heaped upon them.

Anonymous said...

In response to the poster who suggests that it's the investors fault they went for the shinny gold
investments , not the Wall Street pigs that passed junk to the public .

Are you aware that Wall Street rated this shinny gold investment of mortgage backed securities as AAA . In addition the money-changers also rode on the past steam of decades of a good secondary market of stable real estate loans where people paid down payments and had to prove income .

Wall Street changed the risk on those loans while all the while they rode on the past steam of loans that were structured different . Did Wall Street make the announcement that they had changed the ball of wax ,I doubt it . Further ,Wall Street breached their duty to control the originators from committing fraud on loans they were selling . So, wall street money changers conned the investors into the CDO ,MBS's market by lack of disclosure of new risks associated with low down teaser rate toxic loans .

By your estimating any con artist that throws junk on to the market is absolved because the investors was dumb enough to believe lies and faulty risk ratings from the group that calls themselves Wall Street .

Wall Street is evil and they caused the last Depression with their stock buying on margin BS.

Anonymous said...

Bitter renter:
If you are implying this is a Republican created problem favored by Wall Street, check the stats on who receives campaign contributions from Wall Street and decide for yourself who Wall Street was supporting to be elected/re-elected
http://tinyurl.com/6dvz5h

Anonymous said...

Do we have a reliable link for that $250B figure???

The article just states it without any source or details.

Anonymous said...

Only criminals wear the USA flag pin. It was to make Bush look like a "real American" - after the Bush regime attacked its own country on 9/11, then blaimed it on Iraq and Osama.

9/11: The Worlds Biggest Scam.
Conducted by: Bush, Cheney et all.

Send them to the meat grinders! Let justice be served. (when you toss the in, make sure they have their American flag GOP regime label on.

Anonymous said...

What I'm suggesting is that the dominant paradigm in this country is the rich should get to do whatever they want, that wealth is penultimate despite how you get it and fairness and equity are not even an afterthought.

No political party addresses that anymore but you can bet it never crosses one republican mind to level the playing field. This was the goal of conservatism.

I'm also suggesting that the bleating, braying brainstems here who protest inequity are disingenuous idiots who supported this kind of culture for over 30 years.

That the democrats are forced to operate within this system by taking money from the powerful is not a surprise.

Anonymous said...

It makes me pine for the 1960's. When government worked. When the economy was booming.

But the Liberals were in charge then.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous bitterrenter said...

What I'm suggesting is that the dominant paradigm in this country is the rich should get to do whatever they want, that wealth is penultimate despite how you get it and fairness and equity are not even an afterthought.
-------------------------------
They used to call this school of thought "Laissez-Fair". But now the people who profess it like to be called "Libertarians".

Anonymous said...

bitter renter, your last comment is total bullshit. So the Dems are corrupt because they have to be corrupt?

You make no sense, as usual.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, but taking money from wealthy interests in order to get elected is the game one has to play. That game was promoted and protected by CONSERVATIVES. If the Wall streeters think democrats are going to be in power, they give to democrats.

Who blocks attempts to publicly finance elections? Who stops attempts to bar unlimited political contributions? REPUBLICANS.

You think the democrats are going to be able to turn around the paradigm in a couple of years? Then you're a FOOL.

For decades you people have played dumb while republicans have fostered an environment of cronyism and self-interest. Now you want democrats to magically change the ingrained system you voted for.

Amazing but not unbelievable thinking coming from brainstems.

Anonymous said...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the bailout to bankers was endorsed and approved by the Democrats.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, but taking money from wealthy interests in order to get elected is the game one has to play.

Oh my, Bitterrenter thinks that Democrats are taking millions from bankers and lobbyists without giving anything back to them.

Don't we feel sorry for sheeple like Bitterrenter?

Anonymous said...

Go ahead. Vote republican. They'll take money from wealthy interests and not give you SHIT. At least the dems do things that benefit the masses.

But you don't believe that, do you, little brainstems?