patrick.net

Never happen.........you've got too many fat, stupid, lazy, ethically and morally bankrupt people (who are now the majority) that depend on said corrupt individual politicians and overall governments (who are owned by the banksters) for their daily handouts of bread and butter.

The best thing you can do if you have money is to leave, recant citizenship and watch it rot from the outside.

To wit, I've got 5 years left up here in Canada before I am outta here......and I figure over the remaining 20 years of my "income earning" life I will deprive their treasury of $1MM of income taxes by living somewhere else as another countries citizen. So, in effect, I am hastening their demise by removing my money from the system.

Seems like I've heard for several decades now some firebrand saying the system is fundamentally broken, and we must sweep NEW people into all offices and that will fix everything. Which doesn't address how simply changing the people sitting in the offices will actually fix it. Yes it would be satisfying, and yes they would INITIALLY be more responsive to "The Peepul". However they would then get swept into the same nets of corruption, lobbying, money & influence.

George Carlin said it best, the oligarchs will twist everything to fit them.

George Carlin: Who Really Controls America (NSFW language)

George Carlin also didn't Vote in any election, he said the American people deserved every public official they elected. Who was he to influence that?

"However they would then get swept into the same nets of corruption, lobbying, money & influence."

What ever itwas I saw in Palin, I realize that after four years of Presidential candidate boot camp. She will not resemble nothing that the 2008 Palin was. Especially by time she settles into her "Karl Rove". No doubt that person will teach her how to use the "Force", like a Jedi Crook politician.

So, in effect, I am hastening their demise by removing my money from the system.

They can print more.

The problem with this revolution crap is that after the revolution you're still going to be stuck with the same idiot masses as before.

The only way to kill the banksters is to Stop. Borrowing. Money. (from them).

Don't flatter yourselves that this is a "revolution". This is just the same populist BS / different century -- cf. William Jennings Bryan's "Cross of Gold".

The current protestors are waaaaay too wrapped up in the general conservative support infrastructure --the Mellon-Scaife nexus -- not for me to make the general judgment that all this activity is just ginned up to oppose the slightly leftward move the country collectively made putting the Democrats in full power.

Small Government maps to Big Corporation in my book -- it's soo ironic that all these protestors are protesting for, in the end, the expanded powers of old, old money. Andrew Mellon was quite a character, and his wealth is in the hands of some real pieces of work today.

The second American Revolutionary War will not be fought with bullets,

ORLY?

Trying to make it in America is like standing in line at a nightclub and not being important enough to be let right in. As you sit in the line, moving an inch per hour, you notice people walking right up and getting in with no wait. A few people and you don't mind, but it quickly becomes clear to you that you're not gonna get in because the line moves too slow and the building is already full. Any new people let in are the no wait people that walk right up. Oh, you'll get in, they assure you, and when it's finally your turn, oops!, closing time! Come back tomorrow and do it all over again!

The Original Bankster has become Italian?

This seems very one sided. Everyone thinks complete failure is the way to teach these people how to do business. However, "teaching" them could also lead to mass exodus of many of our financial companies to other cities. There is no reason they can't do business in Hong Kong, or many other major hubs. There is a reason why London pushed not to have any regulations added after their failure -- the mass exodus of one of their largest employers.

What would happen if large banks were allowed to fail? What kind of trust would be lost in the US? Not only by US citizens, but by foreigners who rely on the stability of the US.

There are so many people involved in this housing bubble that it isn't one group being corrupt, its a cultural thing. The way to fast riches. Not only did the system have to fail at the top, it had to fail all the way down, with everyone abusing what was a pretty obvious bubble situation. From the top levels of government, to the banks, to the lenders, to the appraisers, to the refinancing people, to the people at home depot who accept expensive upgrade contracts just because they needed to make their numbers.

justme says

The Original Bankster has become Italian?

Ive since decided to get in touch with my EUROPEAN ROOTS. viva la EU!

stocksjustgoup says

Trying to make it in America is like standing in line at a nightclub and not being important enough to be let right in. As you sit in the line, moving an inch per hour, you notice people walking right up and getting in with no wait. A few people and you don’t mind, but it quickly becomes clear to you that you’re not gonna get in because the line moves too slow and the building is already full. Any new people let in are the no wait people that walk right up. Oh, you’ll get in, they assure you, and when it’s finally your turn, oops!, closing time! Come back tomorrow and do it all over again!

and dont forget, they need you to stand in line in order to make the club look important! which brings us to this doofus:

Nomograph says

Spoken like a true loser. New fortunes are made in America on a daily basis, but not by people with your victim mentality.

gotta keep those customers coming! ring the bells and shine the lights when you hit the jackpot!

Nomograph says

The risk of failure is what motivates for profit companies to make sound decisions. Take away the risk of failure and you have a situation where mortgage loans will be made to people that have no chance of ever making the mortgage payments as promised and agreed to. In other words, take away the risk of failure and you destroy the very backbone upon which our great nation was founded.

I dont think he was looking at this with a victim mentality, I read it to mean that the rich transnational companies, large banks are walking away with American money, sending jobs overseas and receiving corporate welfare while we Americans work hard to move up only to be left with minimum opportunity.

My view is that if you think you will frequent the same clubs as the elite, then you are dreaming. You have to start out clubbing at your level and work your way up until you are a member of the elite society....play your level and take steps to move up.

The risk of failure is what motivates for profit companies to make sound decisions. Take away the risk of failure and you have a situation where mortgage loans will be made to people that have no chance of ever making the mortgage payments as promised and agreed to. In other words, take away the risk of failure and you destroy the very backbone upon which our great nation was founded.

This is what I have been explaining to my wife about the non-profit mentality. They will spend all they can in attempt to keep their grants/taxes coming in...they have a spend it or lose it mentality.

thunderlips11 says

I believe in personal responsibility, which is why I believe corporations should be banned.
They allow shareholders to avoid personal responsibility for the incompetents and crooks they elect to the board.
Imagine if every Enron or Countrywide shareholder was personally liable for their share of the skulldruggery, above and beyond the value of their shareholdings, just like a partnership or sole proprietorship.

Just eliminating stock markets would do that. The disconnect between actual investment and stock is what causes companies to make stupid decisions driven entirely on quarterly results.

The only real strategy that has proven to work to prevent this is to keep stock prices so high that few people can afford to get into the market (see berkshire)

Unfortunately, the system is set up to favor stock. Founders get rich on equity, massive incentives can be offered to employees with little risk, and, of course, the managers are insulated from consequences for their bad decisions.

LLCs are a reasonable model, I think, as are co ops, partnerships, and sole proprieterships. S corps can go, though.

>>The disconnect between actual investment and stock is what causes companies to make stupid decisions driven entirely on quarterly results.

My take on it is that the stock market has very little direct function in terms of raising capital for enterprises.

Instead, stock price becomes a proxy for the health of the company, and therefore the price (and interest rate) of bonds and other debt that the corporations issues to provide "working capital".

Hence stocks is a game of capturing or expressing the value of the company in excess of its debts (bonds).

Established companies raise money in the stock market only as a very last resort in times of crises, and mostly in the form of convertible bonds, if anything.

thunderlips11 says

I believe in personal responsibility, which is why I believe corporations should be banned.
They allow shareholders to avoid personal responsibility for the incompetents and crooks they elect to the board.

Interesting. For government elections, do you think individual voters should be held accountable for the incompetents and crooks they elect to public office?

pkennedy says

Not only did the system have to fail at the top, it had to fail all the way down, with everyone abusing what was a pretty obvious bubble situation.

When housing prices went up 50% in Phoenix back in 2005 it was clear to me that housing prices didn't make any sense and that surely they were unsustainable at those lofty amounts. I can't profess to have understood all of the factors at the time nor was I directly involved in any part of the housing industry. But as a casual observer who was interested in buying a single house it sure seemed like prices would turn for the worse at some point as, in effect, they were too "good" to be true. When I see so called experts in business and politics claim they didn't see it coming I think they either were not paying attention or they couldn't see anything that didn't correspond to their vision of the future. It seemed fairly obvious to me that something wasn't right. The bubble was absolutely obvious.

The main thing that really stretches my imagination today is that bubbles can persist for much longer than seems possible. They can have legs far beyond what makes sense regardless of whether they are inflating or deflating.

"The talking points “reason” that was given to our federal government to tell everyone by the Wall Street Oligarchy was that our nations largest financial institutions are/were “too big to fail” of course."

If you haven't noticed Lehman and Bear Sterns did fail, Merrill Lynch is gone as well. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government backed institution, peppered with the likes of Frank Raines (clintonista) created the larger fraud than Enron and Worldcom combined. Yet even after all the fraud was exposed $90B the liberals didn't prosecute Frank for his part. In fact they celebrated his mismanagement and wanted Fannie to play even a greater role in the housing market. The closer you are to the government the greater fraud and mismanagement you have.

Don't blame Wall Street for the failed polices of the Liberals in Congress pushing housing for everyone.

"Imagine if every Enron or Countrywide shareholder was personally liable for their share of the skulldruggery, above and beyond the value of their shareholdings, just like a partnership or sole proprietorship"

Clearly not educated in classic English law or concepts/practice of International Business.
Get educated and get a clue.

"The disconnect between actual investment and stock is what causes companies to make stupid decisions driven entirely on quarterly results"

So the SEC requirement ( SEC act of 1933/34) to file quarterly financial results called 10Q was not the reason? Is that what your saying. You think they do it voluntarily?

"You have to start out clubbing at your level and work your way up until you are a member of the elite society….play your level and take steps to move up."

And how many did it by just simple hard work NOT clubbing at any level. 10 years at our SJ offices, I watched on Friday/Saturday nights as kids poured into clubs. Today those who sacrificed did well, not needing to join any part of the elite society to get ahead.

thomas.wong87 says

“You have to start out clubbing at your level and work your way up until you are a member of the elite society….play your level and take steps to move up.”
And how many did it by just simple hard work NOT clubbing at any level. 10 years at our SJ offices, I watched on Friday/Saturday nights as kids poured into clubs. Today those who sacrificed did well, not needing to join any part of the elite society to get ahead.

Exactly, that is what I was inferring with the comparison of the club scene to the work environment. In life you start out at the bottom, no matter who you are you were once a broke college student who depended heavily on Mommy and Daddy. You build up your expertise then you profit from that point on.

This is what I was referrring to when I stated "play your level and take steps to move up."

thomas.wong87 says

“The disconnect between actual investment and stock is what causes companies to make stupid decisions driven entirely on quarterly results”
So the SEC requirement ( SEC act of 1933/34) to file quarterly financial results called 10Q was not the reason? Is that what your saying. You think they do it voluntarily?

It's part of the reason, but not really to blame.

See, they required the filing requirements in 1933. By the 1950s, when most of the depression-era stock fear was gone and people were investing again, you were lucky to find out what a company's stock price was a week later. Investors in a company got the quarterly numbers a few weeks after they were reported to the SEC. Nobody could make decisions overnight, and people generally bought and held stocks that they believed in.

Once everything went digital it all went to hell as well. We never really made any attempt at addressing this.

The basic reason for quarterly reporting is so that the SEC can make sure that the company is telling the truth, but as we know the likes of Enron will gladly lie to the SEC anyway, just like they were lying to their shareholders before.

I believe that, nearly 80 years later, we do need some updated filing requirements.

For one, I'd mandate trading blackout periods for *all* shareholders around the reporting period, not unlike those required for corporate insiders. In general this means that you have a "trading window" of about 3-4 weeks a quarter where you're allowed to buy and sell the stock. Day traders would be dead, which would be a huge step in the right direction.

There are other changes that might help too, although ultimately this is mostly bandaid fixes. The real answer is to eliminate common stock, but I'm highly doubtful of anything like that happening.

"The basic reason for quarterly reporting is so that the SEC can make sure that the company is telling the truth, but as we know the likes of Enron will gladly lie to the SEC anyway, just like they were lying to their shareholders before."

Golly Kevin! thanks for the insight it gives new meaning to the task i been doing for the past two decades.

Thomas Wong CPA

"I believe that, nearly 80 years later, we do need some updated filing requirements."

Loony!