patrick.net

The problem with SS is that it was never originally intended to be used as a retirement plan. It was set up by FDR to help elderly people out during the great depression as it was those people that would be the least likely to find work. WPA jobs tended to be manual labor..sure there was some art but all the roads, bridges etc required labor

FDR got the idea for SS from Bismark. ALL major western concepts of social security, unemployment insurance, pensions, worksmans comp etc all came from him. But when he was in power the life expectancy was only 45...

When SS came out in the USA it was only 64...

These were programs to be used as incentives to live longer..well it worked. No one ever thought that people would be on these programs for decades.

SS is doing OK but medicare is extreamly expensive going forward. The amount of money estimated to treat the baby boomers frankly does not exist. You could even go back during the housing boom and sell all houses in the country combined and that still would not be enough to pay for this.

I think one reform they could try isn't raising ages or cutting coverage (at least at the start) but you cut from the end. If someone is 100+ years old at what point can it be said that the government should continue the care? If 1/3rd of someones life is being on a system..What if we said at age 100 no more coverage..it just ends.Then in another 10 or so years we lower it to 95 and repeat that to make it a 20 year program.

As for racial anger at obama some question if he really is black. The producer of the boondocks tv show made a argument that there are difference between black and African American. If you grew up with the legacy of Jim Crow and segregation and/or had relatives that were slaves then you are black. If you didn't then you are African American. Hawaii did not have segregation. Obama did not really have the same experiences. That would be like saying that someone from China coming to the USA today can feel sympathy for the Chinese laborers that came over in the 1880's. It just does not fit.

A fair amount of people thought Obama would pull us out of Iraq and Afghanistan, end the war on drugs, close camp x ray etc. He's done none of those. I can't think of that much specifically of what he said he'd do or imply what he was going to do that he actually did. The magic is over even with younger people. Go to any college campus now vs 2008. In 2008 it was like Jesus came back. Today it is like people after having New Coke!

Bellingham Bob says

"Millions of elderly people depend on Social Security and Medicare for their survival."

And this is why the Republicans will keep current beneficiaries in the program and then torpedo it behind them.

They know you can't take on AARP head-on.

“Nessuna soluzione . . . nessun problema!„

The government seems to be taking on AARP head-on anyway: understanding inflation by changing basket and making outrageous hedonic adjustments. At some point, the BLS may well consider a can of cat food the equivalent of a can of tuna because the two have comparable dry protein content.

mdovell says

It was set up by FDR to help elderly people out during the great depression as it was those people that would be the least likely to find work. WPA jobs tended to be manual labor..sure there was some art but all the roads, bridges etc required labor

Good point. Another reason was that FDR's core policy was massive devaluation of the dollar to save the banks. The elderly retiree who surrendered his $20 gold piece on FDR's executive order only to find out less than a year later that the the $20 paper money he received in return could only buy 40% less would be mightily peeved! SS was introduced to put a lid on grandpas/grandmas grabbing their shotguns.

BTW, good point on the state-sponsored elderly pension being a Bismarckian idea. Bismarck of course came up with that set of policies in order to preserve German Junker class feudal privileges in an era of rising middle class. The policies literally undermined what the newly emerging middle class could do for themselves and made them dependent on their former feudal overlords/governments.

Bellingham Bob says

LOL. The problem with the $3T+ big gov spends is that it's not at all wasted as you say. Every dollar is going somewhere, or close to it.

Rural Washington gets its share. Shit, East of the Cascades would still be wilderness if it wasn't for the Federal Government -- Grand Coulee Dam, Hanford, Boeing, Larson AFB, Federal irrigation works . . .

That's the same logic as Stalin used for his white elephant projects: where would the soviet carmaking factories be if not for his leadership? LOL. Just because the feds did it doesn't mean that men with profit motives wouldn't have done some thing better! In fact, the very profit motive that is lacking when the government does it is what leads to net destruction of jobs: the tax money that has to be collected to pay for those jobs cost more than the job payouts . . . hence net destruction of jobs. The difference between a valuable dam vs. a pyramid is in profitability; i.e. people in the market place derive more value out of the dam than out of the pyramid. The lack of profit calculation makes government investment uneconomic.

No, it's jobs in China.

Not true at all. Products from China take up less than 1% of average household spending. Even for retail products made in China, the bulk of the price tag is actually paying for retail employees in the US, store rent in the US and the US corporations doing the marketing. For the $350k/yr family, the China per centage take is probably much lower than even the average, as they can afford higher priced American labor in pursuit of higher quality of goods/service.

In fact, a solid argument can be made that the government impoverishing the American people is the main driving force behind outsourcing: Americans have to buy cheaper substitutes from overseas after the government bid away domestic resources and labor to run the bureaucratic and warmongering political machines.

LOL, you have some quaint 1920s-era understanding of the money supply.

Then you proceed to regurgitate mid-19th century Marxist critique instead. LOL.

I consider myself a capitalist but I understand that little investment in this country is true capitalism any more. ~80% of it is naked rent-seeking, trying to chisel that last dime out of the working class somehow.

You do realize that in order to have an economic rent (i.e. return better than average opportunity cost), one has to have either:
(1) innovation that has not been copied by other capitalists yet
(2) government enforced market privilege / monopoly.

Presumably you are not against the first form . . . whom do you blame for the second form of rent seeking?

mdovell pulls numerous turds out of ass and crafts

is that it was never originally intended to be used as a retirement plan.

"No greater tragedy exists in modern civilization than the aged, worn-out worker who after a life of ceaseless effort and useful productivity must look forward for his declining years to a poorhouse. A modern social consciousness demands a more humane and efficient arrangement." -- FDR, February 28, 1929

mdovell says

But when he was in power the life expectancy was only 45...

When SS came out in the USA it was only 64...

"it should be noted that there were already 7.8 million Americans age 65 or older in 1935 (cf. Table 2), so there was a large and growing population of people who could receive Social Security. Indeed, the actuarial estimates used by the Committee on Economic Security (CES) in designing the Social Security program projected that there would be 8.3 million Americans age 65 or older by 1940 (when monthly benefits started). So Social Security was not designed in such a way that few people would collect the benefits."

http://www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html

mdovell says

No one ever thought that people would be on these programs for decades.

Christ. That's wrong for back in the 1930s and the mild rise in longevity since then has been accounted for by higher contribution levels, though we may need to raise levels more since higher-paid people live forever now

mdovell says

The amount of money estimated to treat the baby boomers frankly does not exist.

This is true, but largely because care in this country costs 2X what it does in other countries.

mdovell says

A fair amount of people thought Obama would pull us out of Iraq and Afghanistan, end the war on drugs, close camp x ray etc. He's done none of those.

He's pulled us out of Iraq, he never promised to leave Afghanistan so that is neither here nor there, he never promised to end the war on drugs.

Not closing Guantanamo is a fair cop, but he needed support from Congress to do that (to bring the imprisoned stateside).

Plus the mistake of taking hundreds of people is hard to back out. Releasing just one who turns out to do more terrorist stuff would give clowns like Shrek juicy political ammunition. And there are a lot of clowns like Shrek in this country.

The detainees don't vote so they're fucked. People unhappy about this are more than welcome to pout about it or even not vote if they are so moved.

Good luck with that.

The most interesting politician in the world.

Bellingham Bob says

"No greater tragedy exists in modern civilization than the aged, worn-out worker who after a life of ceaseless effort and useful productivity must look forward for his declining years to a poorhouse. A modern social consciousness demands a more humane and efficient arrangement." -- FDR, February 28, 1929

The average SS payout is just over $1000/mo, or roughly $12k-14k per year. That's still very poor living in a country where per capita GDP is around $60k. FDR's "arrangement" is neither humane nor efficient: "the arrangement" actually steal from the retirement fund in a way that would have landed any private sector fund manager in jail if they run their funds in similar fashion.

The fundamental problem is government monopoly enforced at gun point, at the expense of the well being and financial security of the elderly. The real cost of government managing social security is not reflected in the Madoff-like periodical statement, but the missing $2+ Trillion that is replaced by a worthless piece of paper called non-marketable "special" treasury IOU; it's "special" in the sense that it's not marketable; i.e. worthless.

"The German Empire was also the first modern nation to set up worker's comp too, I believe."

Why didn't you mention Hitler? You know you wanted to.

HousingWatcher says

"The German Empire was also the first modern nation to set up worker's comp too, I believe."

Why didn't you mention Hitler? You know you wanted to.

Soft-core fascism in the 2nd Reich laid the cultural and intellectual ground work for the hard-core fascism of the 3rd Rech. BTW, the real failings of the soviet system was not the socialist utopian ideals per se but the hard core fascist society that resulted from their inevitable economic failure under the bureaucracy.

they don't want to get rid of it. they want to restructure how it pays doctors. This nation can't sustain it the way it's going now.

This isn't going to make healthcare industry happy.

Patrick man..... No offense but your thinking is messed up.

I think you are projecting all of the problems of the Democratic party onto republicans.

The Democrats were the party of segregation. The official racist party.

Also as for statement about elderly white people being racist. Maybe your relatives are all racist but don't project that onto everyone else.

In fact I think that is probably the problem. You come from a background of screwed up racists democrats who cant thinks straight.

Your remarks are totally off base and cannot be supported by any history - ancient to contemporary.

"The Democrats were the party of segregation. The official racist party."

LOL.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

The More You Know

Patrick, you are 100% correct. The Republican party is now controlled by Ayn Rand worshipping whacks. I don't want to live in a country where we let elderly or children starve, and not provide them appropriate medical care. The Republican party has dramatically changed since Reagan, and me and many conservative friends have no choice but to back the Democrats for now.

Bellingham Bob says

"The Democrats were the party of segregation. The official racist party."

LOL.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

The More You Know

"The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (July 2011)"

So are you really going to dispute what even your biased article claims

"Though the "Solid South" had been a longtime Democratic Party stronghold due to the Democratic Party's defense of slavery prior to the American Civil War and segregation for a century thereafter,"

Sorry Bellingham Bob its simply an undisputed fact that the Democratic Party was known as the party of slavery. By and large African Americans sympathies were with the Republicans until the New Deal, which by the way ended up enslaving many new generations of African Americans once again by making them dependent upon govt largess.

so many ignorant, broad stroking statements here...including your's patrick.

I come here for real estate talk, not to start political debates that end up no where and point the fingers at either party....

>>>“The Social Security Trust Fund currently holds approximately $2.6 trillion and can pay full benefits through 2037,” says Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA), ranking member on the House Subcommittee on Social Security.

Also, we can actually increase Social Security benefits by taxing ALL income, not just wage income. This means taxing income above $106,800 and taxing dividends and interest. We might also consider raising the retirement age by, say, six months.

See: How To RAISE Social Security Benefits Now

http://www.ourbroker.com/news/how-to-raise-social-security-benefits-now-040511/#ixzz1Y6lzYyy5

? Like Social Security as we know it has been run well and fair? GIve me a break. So a worker pays into it for 40 plus years with no interest and collects $1000-$1300 per month and that is a good thing? You could take that same amount of money ( it is yours ) and have it put in your name drawing a nominal amount of interest and over the same time period have $400k in your account when you are 60 years old and have twicw the amount per month for the rest of your life. The point isn't Social Security which is just a savings account for people. The point is how are they handling your money and are they ripping you off with it nd the answer is they have done a horrible job abd they are ripping you off.

Mike -- Have you looked at the interest levels paid out on retirement accounts these days?

Let's say you took your $400,000 savings and got a 5-year CD. The interest rate would be 1.8 percent today according to BankRate.com. That's less than the rate of inflation and amounts to $7,200 a year -- or $600 a month.

>>>The elderly "also tend to be racist."

The people we see today as "elderly" are the people who ended segregation, populated the civil rights movement, ended gentlemen's agreements and tried imperfectly to improve a society where discrimination was rampant and lawful. We no longer deny college admissions on the basis of race or religion and today you can get a bank loan if your name ends with a vowel.

Probably the best thing the "elderly" did was to raise kids who largely don't see other people through the lens of race or religion.

I don't think any age group has a monopoly on racism and it surely still exists. But I also think that compared with what we used to have we've come a long way.

Marcus --

Where did you get the graphic?

Thanks.

The country is broke. If government admitted this politicians and bankers would go to jail. So they will print funny money, and you will get your social security checks, but they will only buy cat food. Bon appétit.

OurBroker says

“The Social Security Trust Fund currently holds approximately $2.6 trillion and can pay full benefits through 2037,” says Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA), ranking member on the House Subcommittee on Social Security.

It's a disgrace to repeat accounting fraud like that. The $2.6T is in the form of "special" non-marketable Treasury obligations. . . in other words, money already spent and replaced by IOU's that are not worth anything. It's as if Madoff had squandered money on rennovating his own office, home and yacht then left IOU's as evidence of such "investment" in the fund.

Let's say you took your $400,000 savings and got a 5-year CD. The interest rate would be 1.8 percent today according to BankRate.com. That's less than the rate of inflation and amounts to $7,200 a year -- or $600 a month.

And guess what's making the interest rate on CD's so low? The same government-central-banking complex that is looting the people trying to save for their own retirement. It's literally like breaking someone's legs then hand him a crutch, and expect him to be grateful for the crutch . . . a temporarily workable political solution when the victims are too dumb to see who caused his broken legs to begin with.

Also, we can actually increase Social Security benefits by taxing ALL income, not just wage income. This means taxing income above $106,800 and taxing dividends and interest.

So even more of the people's resources saved for their own retirement will be looted to pay for the monopolist's office renovations, yachts and corporate jets (the biggest one being Air Force One).

We might also consider raising the retirement age by, say, six months.

Raise it by 6 months every year, and reduce payroll+SS tax by half a per centage every year. In three decades, the whole sorry excuse for looting the public will be gone without disrupting the life plans for those already dependent on it.

So you agree that saving $400,000 would only produce $600 a month. That's a start.

I gather you don't spend much time in government buildings. Most of them seem deadly dull with lots of desks and computers. The government sold off the presidential yacht in 1977 -- that would be under President Carter.

Bellingham Bob says

He's pulled us out of Iraq, he never promised to leave Afghanistan so that is neither here nor there, he never promised to end the war on drugs.
Not closing Guantanamo is a fair cop, but he needed support from Congress to do that (to bring the imprisoned stateside).
Plus the mistake of taking hundreds of people is hard to back out. Releasing just one who turns out to do more terrorist stuff would give clowns like Shrek juicy political ammunition. And there are a lot of clowns like Shrek in this country.
The detainees don't vote so they're fucked. People unhappy about this are more than welcome to pout about it or even not vote if they are so moved.

But the problem is many people assumed he would do these other things. You should see boondocks episode 1 season 3. It does this fake german documentary that asks people why they voted for obama.

The last time we had a democrat in the whitehouse the economy was different so some automatically assumed it would return to the way it was. It might not make logical sense but that's what many assumed. Some believe that the president can do anything or that obama won some huge landslide (10 million more might sound like quite an amount but when it was only 5%...we've never had a popular vote landslide..only electoral vote)

The problem with social security is that our options are not going to be that popular. If you raise the age that can be considered racist since minorities usually have a lower than median life span. African Americans have a life span of about 69 years..so if someone worked from age 18 that's 49 years just to get four years of benefits.

Raising the age would be political suicide for anyone in office. Cutting benefits would (at least on those in their 60's and 70s) be the same.

If we increased immigration to increase the amount of people paying into the system that could backfire given the amount of people unemployed.

We could probably eliminate the cap that prevents increases on higher incomes..but I doubt that's enough in the long run.

Of or course we could try to print up more and more but other countries would not want to see that.

As for the republicans vs democrats we have to understand that civil rights and vietnam caused things to flip flop. After the civil war it was largely republicans that were liberal and democrats that were conservative (at least down south). I could argue that the last liberal president was nixon (clean air and water act, epa, doe..tried healthcare but ted kennedy of all people blocked it). Carter deregulated the airlines, trucking industry, rail industry and legalized home brewing of alcohol. Clinton signed nafta, defense of marriage act and welfare reform..none of these acts was really liberal.

as social security and medicare become more as a percentage of the budget eventually it will be left vs right but baby boomer vs everyone else.
These programs are considered locked in. We do not have a clean slate of the budget each year. So this means we have less and less money to spend on any other program.Add in a few wars and you might have growing programs that are locked in where frankly there's little wiggle room.

There's already some conflict with housing. When elderly housing mixes with disabled (drug addictions are now considered a disability!) and low income the results are not that good. Here's an article in my local paper.
www.patriotledger.com/lifestyle/50_plus/x1664571560/WEB-EXTRAS-Who-is-eligible-for-elderly-disabled-housing

The republican party is the only sanity holding us together right now. The housing market will never recover until the gov't stops meddling and allows it to fail. It would not have been in this shape it were not for Fannie and Freddie and bleeding heart democrats insisted on giving loans to many undeserving people. Sorry Dems. but you screwed yourself.

The fact is Obama has more than doubled the money supply weakening the dollar. Is that doing justice to Social Security recipients? No. Christianity is being be removed from our schools and society and Islam will be ushered in which is the Islamist stated goal. If Islam is allowed to prevail there will not be any schools as they burned all schools and libraries and brought on the Dark Ages and slayed all non believers as their qua ran commands. Check the history yourself, it doesn't lie. Christianity is the religion on life. Islam is the religion of death. Obama himself stated that he will side with his Muslim friends if politics turn against him. He was raised in an Indonesian madrassa. His father was a muslim and him mother was atheist and the where both communists ideologues. Check the facts yourself. People should understand that it is within Islamic culture it is acceptable to lie to get power, so do not be naive. Obama is setting up a Muslim brotherhood power base now in the middle east. Look how helps the Muslim brother hood come to power in each of these countries who united against Israel.

Even here in the US we have an insane immigration policy. Does anyone believe this can really be sustained? No, this is how countries are destroyed. We are importing jobless people and paying for their medical and education at a time when no jobs are being created thanks in part to an over regulated gov't.

Most republicans I know are responsible, ethical people and do not want to see anybody loose social security and speak the truth as there must be some pain with recovery. But with Obama there may be the promise of big gov't help. But the dollars you will be given will not buy a hill of beans while your freedoms and sovereignty are eroded.

OurBroker says

So you agree that saving $400,000 would only produce $600 a month. That's a start.

Only if one is dumb enough to trust the government-central-banking complex to keep the money and generate income. People are waking up to the fraud that has been perpetrated by the government-central-banking complex, which is why the historical money, Gold, has been going up at at better than 20% a year! That would be something like over $6,000 a month on a $400,000 investment.

I gather you don't spend much time in government buildings. Most of them seem deadly dull with lots of desks and computers. The government sold off the presidential yacht in 1977 -- that would be under President Carter.

That's why after doling out favors to friends for a few years, numerous government officials have been given multi-million dollar consulting contracts and book contracts by the real beneficiaries of such "regulations." Haven't you noticed the regulatory arbitrage? "Office renovation" in the government sector takes the form of expanding bureaucracy and increasing pay and power to the bureaucrats. The office themselves are predicatably shabby just like all soviet offices. Only bureaucrats can blow gazillions of money to buy nothing except for power for themselves.

BTW, the biggest government yachts have flat tops, and have several dozen aircrafts taking off and landing on them. They are built to benefit the munitions industry and banks doing the financing.

There was no foreclosure crisis until the introduction of toxic loans in 2002, 2003 and 2004. Even in past recessions there was not foreclosure crisis. These loans were made possible by the fact that the Federal Reserve refused to prohibit their use, an ability it has under the "UDAP" provision of the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act.

So, if the loans were good, the mortgage-backed securities would be good, which means there would be few claims against the "credit enhancements" (insurance) sold to protect mortgage investors. Banks would not not be holding huge numbers of foreclosed properties or overvalued mortgages.

What we have today was made possible by the failure to regulate.

OurBroker says

What we have today was made possible by the failure to regulate.

The regulators were encouraging people to take out variable interest loans, non-amortizing loans, lending money to unworthy borrowers, etc. etc.. It's a farce to argue now that they did not have enough regulatory power or did not use their regulatory power: they used what they had to carry out mission in the exactly wrong direction!

That's the nature of bureaucratic management of the economy: while entreprenuers playing with their own money have the incentives to play contrarian to the market sentiment thanks to the rich rewards if they are later proven right, the bureaucrats' incentives are exactly the opposite: they lose nothing for being trend followers in a mania, and would have eggs on their faces if they take a contrarian position regardless whether their prediction is right or wrong. Greenspan's "irrational exhuberence" comment in late 1996 just before the dot-com bubble and immediate excoriation by the Congressional hearing proved the point in spades.

Regulations do not mitigate bubbles and manias; they exacerbate the bubbles and manias.

gromitmpl says

"Though the "Solid South" had been a longtime Democratic Party stronghold due to the Democratic Party's defense of slavery prior to the American Civil War and segregation for a century thereafter,"

The point is, and believe me, Bob knows, there were a lot of racists in the democratic south. These people who used to be conservative southern democrats have all been absorbed by the republican party.

This is not disputed by anyone.

I'm not trying to say that there isn't a single racist democrat. But the racist segregationist southern democrats are all now republicans. Fact.

The interesting thing is that you seem to look back fondly and with pride to a time when the republican party was progressive (or more liberal ?). Wouldn't that mean that maybe you should consider switching your allegiance.

The reason for toxic loans -- interest-only financing, option ARMs, no-doc loan applications -- was to create the feedstock necessary to build mortgage-backed securities which yielded huge profits on Wall Street.

The reality is that toxic loans were not made by community banks, credit unions or most S&Ls. Some larger banks also refused to make them -- BB&T, Hudson City Bancorp, etc.

The public has no direct contact with the Federal Reserve, the OCC, etc. The public -- in the form of borrowers -- has no voice in Washington. Don't believe it? Name the largest borrower association in Washington? Name the largest borrower PAC?

OurBroker says

Marcus --

Where did you get the graphic?

Thanks.

I made it, a while back, right after the whole debt ceiling fiasco, although I didn't invent the meme (the most whatever man in the world). It's been widely used for other humor (I don't always ..............., but when I do.................)

I tried to put it on Reddit, but it just faded rather than becoming popular. I thought it would be my 10 seconds of fame on reddit, but maybe later.

http://imgur.com/SqGqC

Marcus --

The graphic is great. May I use it? Is it in the public domain?

Thanks

Government spending can largely be seen as a form of a bribe or a way to pacify people for a given period of time.

Bismark created programs because he was afraid of communist revolution. The USA had a red scare in the 20's and 50's but they had them constantly

The Russian revolution of 1905 replaced the absolute monarchy with a constitutional one and created the Duma. For the hard left it wasn't enough so they banded with others in 1917 and overthrew the czar putting in a weak provisional government. A massive battle in ww 1 caused around 90k deaths which lenin then overthrew the provisional govenrment. lenin overthrowing the czar alone is one of the greatests myths of human history.

In the 70's Iranian shah Reza Pavlavi tried the "white revolution" which tried to assist the poor. It failed. He was removed and after two years of anarchy the islamic government was put into place..which ironically funds even more government spending to the point where few people can start up their own businesses.

Few people that advocate for more spending have ever said specifically how much is enough. The ills of society are not totally removed with more spending. Europe still has unemployment, significant crime, protests and even riots. What can be advocated as a safety net can create a system of dependency.

srschrs says

Even here in the US we have an insane immigration policy. Does anyone believe this can really be sustained? No, this is how countries are destroyed. We are importing jobless people and paying for their medical and education at a time when no jobs are being created thanks in part to an over regulated gov't.

Even more government regulation and enforcement on people's voluntary movement and exchange wouldn't help either. Jobs are not manana falling from sky or a finite resource doled out by governments. A space alien willing to do yard work for $1/hr in a society where nobody is willing to do manual labor for less than $20/hr while homeowners can not afford to pay more than $10/hr does not take job from anyone, but actually add jobs to the society: more garden tools would be bought, the homeowner is not only happier for having a better yard/garden but also have more money to spend now that he spends less on the yard.

Contrary to that natural market exchange that makes everyone happier, additional government bureaucrats hired at $50/hr at the homeowner's expense to keep out space aliens from Mars would only leave the homeowner with even less money to spend at the garden store. The cost of the bureaucrat is even worse than hiring people to dig ditches and fill them back up: it's like hiring people to break people's windows to "stimulate" economy through window replacement: people would have even less money to spend other things after they spend on replacing the broken window. Likewise, consumers and employers would have less money to spend on other things after wages are artificially jacked up, regardless via minimum wage law or immigration law. The result is higher unemployment.

Yes please feel free. Of course I didn't ask for permission to use the 2 xs
guy, but I don't think you can get in trouble for that.

http://imgur.com/SqGqC

I put it on igmur back when I posted it on reddit.

OurBroker says

The reason for toxic loans -- interest-only financing, option ARMs, no-doc loan applications -- was to create the feedstock necessary to build mortgage-backed securities which yielded huge profits on Wall Street.

The reality is that toxic loans were not made by community banks, credit unions or most S&Ls. Some larger banks also refused to make them -- BB&T, Hudson City Bancorp, etc.

Now you see why legal tender laws and the federal reserve act were put in place: so that whatever paper the Wall Street monopoly conjures up the rest of the society has to take it at face value.

In the absence of legal tender law regarding "federal reserve note," the paper generated by the malfeasant banks would be quickly discounted in the market place. e.g. a "dollar" proffered by CountryWide would be worth less than a "dollar" from a sound bank; that would put a quick stop to the bubble.

The public has no direct contact with the Federal Reserve, the OCC, etc. The public -- in the form of borrowers -- has no voice in Washington. Don't believe it? Name the largest borrower association in Washington? Name the largest borrower PAC?

The whole point of centralizing everything to DC is so that the local people are deprived of voice. Even PAC's are far easier to manipulate than millions of people in their own hometowns free to do their own things.

Marcus --

Thanks. Your art is very clever.

OurBroker says

What we have today was made possible by the failure to regulate.

We should have bought more White Collar FBI agents. What we did instead is shift all the white collar FBI agents from tracking fraud in the US to tracking down Terrorist money and bank accounts.

The Republicans biggest strength is Obama, and nobody paying attention to this thread, should best not forget that.
Obama is going to elect the biggest republican douche-bag, it's already in the cards, the name and moniker wont matter, not even the running mate will matter.

Romney, Paul, Perry, Palin, take your pick.

But understand, they aren't going to win, because of their political prowess.