*Sigh*

Comrade McPetrie....this is awfully tiresome; I think there is something rather creepy about someone stalking a 15 year old boy, but if that is how you get your jollies, well...I pity you!

http://www.nzcapitalist.blogspot.com/

...also take note what kind of monsterous mutations dictate the world of United Socialist Police State mortgages: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the so-called 'government sponsored enterprises' alleging a private-public 'partnership' designed to help make the mortgage marketplace more 'fair' which ultimately meant pushing the bad fiscal policy of the Federal Reserve directly into mortgage banks. Don't get me wrong, the banks generally had no problem with the short term benefits offered by the ridiculously loose credit policies set by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (again, as extenstions of the Fed), but they did not originate the flawed guidelines or the industry-wide universalization which can only come from a legislative (government) creation.

Some time ago, Uncle Sam took away all pretense about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and simply nationalized them, effectively nationalizing the mortgage industry in the USPS by extension.

On the off-chance that you are legitimate and not just a troll Comrade - look up 'Community Reinvestment Act' and legislation and regulations related to it. 'Individual banks' ended up with political mandate to start making mortgages which were too risky to normally make.

Aaron

maggot.

School's out for at least this one.

"It was caused by individual banks" under pressure by regulators you dunce.

Elijah, it's probably more than one person. Also, it's funny looking at his description and then looking at what he said above.

"Socialism may be dead, but its corpse is still rotting up the place." -Ayn Rand

Mr Comrade,

Why are you being so silly? ...by all means join and take part in discussions (you may learn something)..but to simply annoy Callum is just childish.

http://www.nzcapitalist.blogspot.com/

Ahem. This current crisis was not caused by governmental interference. It was caused by individual banks giving loans to people who couldnt afford them. This is the banks fault. In my humble opinion, people should be kept in line by governments, if this is where their greedy decision-making leads us.

and it illustrates the monumental uphill battle of ideas that we face.

Government-controlled world banks are currently, vastly, artificially lowering interest rates worldwide to "stimulate" the economy. But isn't this largely what got us into the mess in the first place?

And governments worldwide -- now that we're all significantly poorer, evidently -- are going on a wild, mindless spending binge also to "stimulate" the economy. But isn't this counter-intuitive, wildly irrational, and precisely what newly-poor individuals, families, companies, and societies never do?

It seems almost insane. With all this government "help," it feels exactly like 1930s America and 1990s Japan all over again!

...what should the government do? COMMIT SUICIDE and start over with the bill of rights applied to all individual citizens and nothing more. To hell with the banks, new ones will rise from the ashes just as they rose from nothing 2-300 years ago.

In the meantime, Alex Hamilton is having so much of the last laugh I swear I can hear his chuckling echo from my ten dollar bill I have in my wallet....

Makes me want to puke.

What should the American government do?

George Bush could use his "bully pulpit" to demand that all these ailing Big Finance companies finally come clean about the nature of their balance sheets. He could publicly "jawbone" them, and demand that they open up their books as wide as capitalistically possible. He could demand that other banks, investment firms, mutual funds, hedge funds, derivative funds, and the general public not do business with any non-patriots and enemies of the economy who refuse to comply -- because they're evidently untrustworthy, hiding something, dishonest, engaged in financial chicanery, engaged in egregious financial fraud, etc.

Once all the tricky, sneaky, opaque, complex, "financial instrument" cards are on the table we're extremely likely to quickly find the natural or true bottom of this Wall Street and general economic crash. Then we'll know what we're dealing with -- and market/investor "confidence" and banking/credit "liquidity" will be restored almost instantly.

We'll be noticeably poorer in a way we can't easily lie about, I imagine, but at least the bleeding will finally stop. Much better to face the facts and deal with the consequences sooner rather than later. And we need to act this way before the coercive, socialist-fascist, American government decides to "help" some more and make things immensely worse.

Admit culpability & pay it back or fuck off.

(Only the latter would do-of course- they can only 'pay it back' by resigning and designating their old functions redundant.)

Give up.

I didn't know you were on here; good to see you Steve!

First, the Govt needs to take responsibility as cause of this debacle. (The Carter Administration passed the original law, the Clinton Administration expanded it and rebuffed Republican attempts to be accountable, and Obama was a lawyer for the bullies who forced banks in court to yield their judgment to their rules. Cronies have reaped millions and they act like this is not a problem. The damage done to millions of people is far greater than any lil ole Enron problem.) It needs to create ways to raise money that do not hold a gun to the taxpayers' heads. The US Govt has billions in assets - public lands it can sell off, many buildings and much equipment it could sell. Further it could axe many programs that eat up the budget and only harm the taxpayer.

Secondly it needs to ease the process of liquidating toxic paper rather than embracing it.

I've let my Congressmen know that I will not vote for them unless legal provisions consistent with the Constitution and Individual Rights which they SWORE to protect and defend are upheld. That document is the only agreement I have with these bastards and they have broken the agreement - not me. Thus, no agreement.

Banks should reposses the property and sell it to willing buyers.And State should strip all regulations and cancell Fed.

It's the sound of your piggy bank shattering into a billion pieces all over the floor.

The thing that bites the most here is that folks are associating this massive breakdown with 'free market capitalism.'  It couldn't be more opposite.  (ok yes it could)  That's the thing about regulation. It invites you to study it so that
you can find your way around it.  There are ALWAYS unintended
consequences with regulations. The other problem with it is when you
discover (in some of the cases only) that the cure was worse than the
disease, you repeal the regulations, and instantly it appears that
you're inviting everyone to do the thing that you originally tried to
make them not do... now THAT is exactly what happened on wall street. 
Way back, someone decided that it was a good idea to close the ability
of companies to be leveraged more than some arbitrary number (Capital
to debt ratio) say it's 1/15.  Then they came along with
'deregulation' which actually only opened up that loophole for 5
specific companies (far from runaway free market capitalism.)  If
you're working at one of those companies, or worse a lawyer for one of
them, what do you do the very second they lift a regulation? You get to
figuring out how you can exploit it. So they did.  If this hole hadn't
been 'plugged' to begin with, companies that were over leveraged would
have just failed flat out if they made bad bets. But when the
government decided to repeal the regulation they already made, it was
apparently a stamp of approval for the behavior, that obviously didn't
turn out to be a good idea. This all just illustrates that you cannot 'benevolently' force anyone to do anything, and expect that things will work out as you'd planned.

edit detail: removed a 'g', added an 'n'

Sandi, funny you should mention Barclays ...I did a small trade on their shares last night for a 20 pence pop (just for fun).

You may be correct about some other banks, but with Barclays the largest single shareholder owns a mere 0.33% of the shares...and the top 10 shareholders collectively own only 1.5%...(which is incredibly low for a company that size)

Barclays is a company in which it is almost impossible for a single shareholder, or small group of shareholders, to throw their weight about.

http://www.nzcapitalist.blogspot.com/

with the American with bail out funds.

The Telegraph reports that "so far the British government seems reluctant to do so." (Northern rock)?

However, it was encouraging to read this paragraph

"One of the reasons the British government may be reluctant to get involved is because foreign banks with large American operations – such as Barclays and the Royal Bank of Scotland – will be eligible for the scheme."

And you should know by now who owns Barclays and the Royal Bank of Scotland!

At least we'd have a common intergenerational point of reference steeped in reality from which to start building things up again. The airhead generation have no idea of the absolute nature of reality and the requirements for survival.

Lets see what happens when their Visa's  are maxed out and neither Mum, Dad nor Big Brother has the resources to help them out.

Perhaps some of them will discover for the first time the rigours involved in actually creating some kind of value someone would be willing to barter for, and just maybe it would help some of them discover the importance of independance and self reliance, and teach them to recognise socialist bullshit when they smell it.

I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the starless night, -- blown and flared by passion's storm, -- and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought remains.- - Robert Green Ingersoll

..in the Daily Telegraph.

"When Hank Paulson nationalised Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, he was issuing a feeding call to the sharks, as obvious as the boasts of Norman Lamont that he would fight to the death to protect the parity of sterling against the German mark. The hedge funds saw a one-way bet, then and now, and the paradox is that Paulson's initial actions may have made the banks more vulnerable, not less.

What will happen in January, when the rules on short-selling expire? And whatever else government does, we must remember that regulation introduced in response to one crisis almost always helps to create the next one.

London's recent success as a financial centre - and our edge over New York - has been at least partly to do with the post-Enron Sarbanes-Oxley rules that fettered American markets.

Before you attack the bankers of London, remember that this is one of the few global industries in which we truly excel; the City contributes about 9 per cent of Britain's GDP - think of all the professions and trades that feast, directly or indirectly, on the nourishment provided: the lawyers, accountants, PR firms, architects, interior designers, builders, taxi drivers and just about everyone else.

And before you go whingeing to me about house prices boosted by City bonuses, I leave you with one final thought: whatever the disasters of the sub-prime sector, these products allowed millions of Americans to own their homes, and the vast majority are making their payments.

They will enjoy the long-term benefits of home ownership, and that is thanks to the ingenuity and enterprise of people who lend money for profit. Of course there are spivs and speculators out there.

But before we get carried away with neo-socialist claptrap, we should remember the huge benefits brought to this country by bankers and the City of London."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/09/23/do...

After the last financial scandles over 6-7 years go - did it really fix the situation having more regulation and prison sentences?

I say, let the damn things collapse. Let people feel pain, suffering and hardship. Maybe then people will learn this beautiful thing called 'personal responsibility'.

You cannot speed up the process of foreclosure, (or what we call "Mortgagee Sales" in this part of the World) because Common Law requires a lender to give the borrower a 'reasonable' opportunity to bring their arrears up to date.

A lender is also obliged to accept some sort of payment arrangement.. (e.g for the borrower to meet all future mortgage payments on time and in full, and to pay off the arrears at, say, $300 per month)...the borrower comes up with...(obliged in the sense if they refuse to accept a payment arrangement with some sort of expectation of being complied with a Court will void the mortgagee process)

If this does not happen the lender has to issue a demand notice (of some sort) demanding repayment (or to refinance with someone else), and the timeframe for this must enable to borrower sufficient time to do so....and only after that process has been gone through can a 'foreclosure' take place.

Foreclosure is actually the end of quite a long process.

As for sending people to jail for making dud loans...well...gosh...seems a bit harsh. Incompetent: yes, illegal: no

http://www.nzcapitalist.blogspot.com/

the other 50 States secede from and the Union... Then it won't matter a damn what Washington DC wants to do.

Either that or you could sell Alaska to cover the National Debt. It isn't as if McCain or Obama or Bush are going to let anyone do anything with Alaska.

Ugh! And to think of all the fucking flak I took defending that Texan arsehat. What's the point of defending America from Jihad if he bankrupts it up from within?

The government could maybe make the housing foreclosure process quicker, cheaper, and less bureaucratic for both parties. Maybe also enforce traditional financial fraud laws more closely -- even sending some egregious liar CEOs and CFOs to jail. The government could also do what normal people do when financially worried: cut back on spending. Also deregulate. The president could even utilize "the bully pulpit" to advise all Americans everywhere to vastly distrust Big Biz accounting and ratings agencies, as well as all those bland, unreadable, "banality of evil," tissue-of-lies, financial statements multinational companies put out every year.