notsocommonsense

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    • The Facts Behind the Coming Congressional Mortgage Bailout Bill [view article]
      Thinker68: Agree that greed and indifference is the root of the ills you've listed. Solutions? Establish expectations, consequences and follow through. "Follow through" , however you want to sugar-coat it, means assessing blame and exacting punishment, or at least do not shield from the natural consequences. I do not believe in bailouts as this sheilds the trangressor from their natural consequences and may even encourage the errant behavior. Further, it is just plain not fair to those of us who live more prudently and do without on a regualr basis so as not to overextend ourselves or incur too much risk. I know about a dozen families who have lost their homes to foreclosure. Everyone is a bit chagrined, admits they lived beyond their means and is not whining for a bailout, but would happily accept one if offered same as if they won the sweepstakes. Everyone has adjusted their living arrangements and is alive and well. They are moving on and forward. I worked for a mortgage bank. They knew full well what they were doing, and loved raking in the handsome profits and bonuses. The loan brokers loved their commissions and were giddy with the knowledge that they faced zero risks no matter what their loan applications contained. The investors who purchased the mortgage securities from the lenders "believed" the securities had little risk, without doing their due diligence in researching the risks. If you purchased a stock based on a hot tip you overheard on the commuter train, and it went south, wouldn't you expect to take a loss and kick yourself for not doing your research? Well, investors of mortgage securities are huge, professional portfolio and/or fund managers, with research staffs and volumes of data (resources not readily available to you and me). Furthermore, analyzing investments is their fulltime job. They knew better, but got lazy or overzealous. None of these folks (borrowers, lenders, investors) should be bailed out. If anything, they should be punished for screwing up the economy for the rest of us. If they go under, so be it. Something that is not working right should be dumped. and make way for new beginnings. The pain from the failures will no doubt be felt by those who failed, but justly so. Gotta clean out the infection so the wound can heal, right? Unfortunately, the pain will ripple out to all of us, and there's no avoiding that. But, hey, we prudent ones have grit and can survive anything.
      Let's get realistic on the gov't's bailout plans. The big investors and lenders are balling and wailing (albeit in private) to the gov't to help alleviate their pain. If gov't can stop the decline in home values, that would utimately help their portfolios. If the gov't can increase the money supply (by extending certain credit facilities), that would help their liquidity problems. If the gov't can keep interest rates low, that would help them raise needed capital and forestall futher foreclosures and further home value declines. See who the gov't is helping? (We are in for a huge in wallup of inflation, eventually.) Oh yes, this is election year, so let's make it look like we're concerned about poor little folks who were innocent victims because that strikes a chord with the common voter, and we need those votes.

      I can take a little pain. Let's have no bailouts. Let whomever will fail, fail, and we'll all pick up the peices and move on. Moving on should include blaming the abuses where they occurred and put a control in place to minimize re-occrrence of the abuse.       Jul 23 11:55 PM
    • The Facts Behind the Coming Congressional Mortgage Bailout Bill [view article]
      USER229893's idea is right on. Hey folks, send your next email to your congressman to pass laws and demand that regulators hold CEOs financially accountable. Enough of this crap where CEOs rake it in while behaving like used-car salesmen for their stock, then screw the company, employees, shareholders, and general public with either their incompetence or devious manipulations, and lastly raid the company coffers on the way out the door. It was former President Lincoln who predicted that if our great nation, with its freedoms to allow men/(women) to pursue that which is in their best (honorable) interests, shall ever fail, surely it will be from within and not at the hands of an outside enemy. Failing from within stems from the inability or unwillingness to discipline negative behaviors and vices within our midst. Abusing CEOs will never stop their arrogance unless we make them. Are you willing and able to work towards passing laws and pressuring regulators to hold CEOs accountable and to give back all their profits when they screw things up and cause great harm to others? Let's get CEO risks and rewards back into balance. The higher the CEO pay, the more potential liability they should face. Email your elected representatives! Most importantly, demand that our regulators stiffen their backbones and do their jobs!!! Jul 23 10:29 PM
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