The (new) Financial Tsunami thread

[marshabar1]

You're welcome.

Amazing to think that the United States has been taken over by interests, both external and internal, not friendly to middle class America or political freedom. It is quite a tangle of entities using each other to fundamentally transform not only this country but the world.

Part of the financial tsunami has to do with the Democrats and the unions working together to take over states and cities. One good thing about the Obama presidency is that it has brought this problem fully into focus. Wisconsin today is showcasing the civil war to wrest control away from the unions and the Democrats which have bankrupted cities and states and are now working to take down the entire nation.

Why don't these people see what they are doing?


What is the solution mentioned in the thread title?

[comokate]

Feb 17, 2011 16:08:05 GMT -5 @marshabar1 said:

You're welcome.

Amazing to think that the United States has been taken over by interests, both external and internal, not friendly to middle class America or political freedom. It is quite a tangle of entities using each other to fundamentally transform not only this country but the world.

Part of the financial tsunami has to do with the Democrats and the unions working together to take over states and cities. One good thing about the Obama presidency is that it has brought this problem fully into focus. Wisconsin today is showcasing the civil war to wrest control away from the unions and the Democrats which have bankrupted cities and states and are now working to take down the entire nation.

Why don't these people see what they are doing?


What is the solution mentioned in the thread title?

This isn't a problem that was caused by "Democrats" or "Unions", or any political party. Our problems were caused by individuals that sold out their friends, neighbors, communities and countries to pursue their own personal agendas rather than the people they were elected to serve. Both major parties sold us down the river. Many Union officials became nothing more than paid thugs unwilling to negotiate. It's the rampant corruption and lack of accountability, from top to bottom, that brought 90% of the population into this mess.

[neohguy]

Comokate said in post #301:
"This isn't a problem that was caused by "Democrats" or "Unions", or any political party. Our problems were caused by individuals that sold out their friends, neighbors, communities and countries to pursue their own personal agendas rather than the people they were elected to serve. Both major parties sold us down the river. Many Union officials became nothing more than paid thugs unwilling to negotiate. It's the rampant corruption and lack of accountability, from top to bottom, that brought 90% of the population into this mess.

Read more: notmsnmoney.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=moneytalk&action=display&thread=122&page=11#ixzz1EJRQhw9b"

I agree completely. I live in one of the more unionized regions of the country. I am saddened by the lack of support by our union workers for the public employees in Wisconsin. Our trades unions feel that public employees are over paid yet they want public support when their contracts expire. Another nail in the coffin of organized labor and possibly the final one for this cycle.

The sentiment is also apparent in two of Market Talk's posters comments that happen to belong to unions. One of them started a thread advocating reduction in benefits for public employees and the other one posted about the virtues of hiring undocumented workers instead of unionized companies for home projects. I'm not picking on these two personally. They are merely a symptom of the "I've got mine and the hell with you" attitude of this cycle.

[neohguy]

I agree patstab

[marshabar1]

A simple look at the cities and states which have elected Democrat leaders will show that the "social justice" policies of the left have resulted in a degradation of conditions for rich and poor alike.

Unions support Democrat candidates almost exclusively. SEIU founder, Wade Rathke, was a frequent White House visitor before he had to leave the country. Access to the president doesn't come cheap.

You'll note, President Obama has come down solidly on the side of the unions in Wisconsin calling the governor's plans to rescue the state's economy an "assault" on the union.

This is a complicated issue and unions are not evil and they have done very good things to promote safe and healthy and fair conditions in the work place. I suppose everyone could agree that some union leadership is far from sterling however.

The reason I say Democrats and unions are responsible for bankrupting many cities and states is that working together they have overreached. They have expanded the size of government, overpaid themselves, made bad bargains for ludicrously excessive pensions and benefits. They have been too greedy and they have just about sucked the milk cow dry. Then they complain when the milk cow objects to dying at their hands. It's crazy.

[comokate]

The problems we face were allowed to happen by both of our major parties. A few years ago I got involved with a volunteer group in my city ( I live in the capital of the state) which was *not* supposed to have any political affiliations. Not only was it *very* political, I saw the absolute waste with pet projects, and "missing funds", we local taxpayers are footing the bill for. It was outrageous and appalling. The system has been corrupted largely because we forgot to demand accountability. Things wont change unless" we the people" start speaking up.

[neohguy]

I readily admit that I was more optimistic in 2008. I really thought that more people would understand that the greatest crash since 1930 was caused by the incompetency of The Federal Reserve combined with Wall Street's obsession for short term profits at the expense of long term rational decisions. We didn't.
As mentioned in another thread, the country has bent over backwards to ignore the part played by Wall Street in the debacle.
Today the population is pointing fingers at each other blaming unions, democrats, republicans, migrant laborers, the unemployed, and pretty much any other group that they don't particularly like except the group that was most responsible.
Old and gray often stated that if we did not correct the excesses in the financial industry then we would repeat another great setback in a few years. Many of us were hopeful that the US president that was elected on a platform of change would get this country back on the correct road. Instead we were extremely disappointed to see him appoint important cabinet positions to employees of the major WS firms that got us into this mess, some of whom "forgot" to pay taxes. We also saw him reappoint Ben Bernanke, the last guy in the world that saw a recession coming, to another term.
An interesting article at ZH today:
www.zerohedge.com/article/albert-edwards-resurgence-conspiracy-optimism-groupthink-back-record-levels
As regular readers know too well, one topic Zero Hedge enjoys ridiculing with the disdain it deserves is groupthink of any form. The phenomenon, which is nothing but transference of laziness by those who manage other people's money with complete disregard for the consequences of their actions, was among the main reasons for the Great Financial Crash. As nobody was willing to engage in any form of critical thought, and with the market "only" going up, any investment thesis was predicated solely on what the "other guy" was doing. Of course when it all blew up, it was time to blame the evil rating agencies. After all, heaven forbid someone actually think about the logic behind the credit ratings of hundreds of billions in synthetic CDOs, or worse still, take responsibility for their own stupidity and laziness. We are now precisely in the same place we were when the market peaked last time around, with groupthink rampant, with any attempt at opposing thought squashed for fears it will end the party early, with sellside analyst optimism at all time highs, and with the administration actively encouraging rampant lies and perpetuation of the myths that take hold in the market with no factual footing whatsoever. The "conspiracy of optimism", as dubbed once by James Montier, has once again fully taken hold. As SocGen's Albert Edwards points out "despite another post mortem on forecasting failure, nothing has or will change": this is true... until the next crash......

[Virgil Showlion]

I caught the groupthink article yesterday too, neoh.

You wouldn't believe how pervasive it is in certain circles of academia. But... I've said too much.

[olderstill]

Marshbar: re your post # 300.

You've been with the MSNMoney group since before I joined; you must know this "tsunami" thread was an ongoing thing since Duffminster provided the title and intro March 3, 2009, then added some excerpts from a former thread to start this off. Matter of fact you made a few additions yourself, didn't you?

Where are the anwers to the problems? Peppered through the 1 or 2 milllion words that built this thread from the 100 or so determined contributors and others not so determined.

For an early assessment of the corrective actions needed - before Henry Paulson's bluster and Ben Bernanke's nervousness charged out waving a couple of hundred pages of text containing no viable anwers whatsoever. . . before the Senate and House brought out their political sleight of hand that had people believing they intended to do something, but the fine print countered all the good promises in the big headlines, before it was revealed just how deeply the rest of the world was involved in the wealth redistribution schemes. . . it's here, back in the text.

If you'd like a road map, try looking back over some of these later posts for starters: #1593 - 1594, #1654, #1665, #1524, 1525 and #1651, #1738, #1700 and so many more contributions from the community.

Hate to say it, but I believe that as a group we were as responsible as any for the MS Message boards splintering and finding a new home here on proboards.com. But, exactly how our participation was seen through the eyes of the MSN management is another guess. It's easier to quash something that irritates than something that reinforces your viewpoint.

But, the main point of my reply here is that the issues that brought the crisis on are complex, far-reaching, operating in the dark, and inexplicable in simple phrases or unanswerable in short, terse one sentence analyses. If Ben Bernanke, the illustrious head of the Princeton Economics Department, and all his similarly trained international professional cohorts can't find the answers, there must be a slight degree of complexity in the challenge, or it must be of some considerable size. You might have seen him today responding to the queries of our Congressional solons, without sound answers, shooting from the hip with stock replies that assured no one and in the background the stock market plummeted every time he opened his mouth. Not the measure of confidence we were looking for, was it?

They don't want to do what the country needs, because that would change the game plan. And, that will be the last thing they'll consent to.

The solutions? They are in what the biggies are fighting desperately not to accept. They'd rather see everything sink into oblivion before they capitulated. It's a macho thing!

If someone looks for the short answer, there is none. If someone wants the long answer, you have to take the long walk. Believe it, people are not predicting another 5 to ten years before we begin to see dry land we can walk out onto without fear of being swallowed up at each step on the way to recovery because they are uninformed or stupid. We can barely see the shore now; and what we see can't be identified as dry land or another island covered inmuck, ready to swallow us up again.

[kman]

What would Eric Hoffer say??? Long walk on a short pier?

[olderstill]

Leaders in place now are looking for answers only where they know there are none. Posturing leaders like the evangelizing Governor of Wisconsin who is willing to have us bail the boat out with one paper cup between us when the side is stove in. Has anyone dissected what he's said?

He's "economizing" but in doing so, he'll turn productive, earners into unemployed. He'll cut contributions to education and healthcare and turn loose a generation of sickly, unprepared graduates who will be competing with other nationalities who are not stinting in their dedication and aid to the development of their next generation. Where will that leave us if not unprepared to compete in the very, very near future?

It's difficult not to think of it as a ruse: here's my left hand don't watch what I've done or am about to do with the right hand.

He's a sycophant straight and simple. . . looking for an entry into good graces of the first incumbent of the White House willing to take him in.

But, what is he doing to clean up the mess that got us into this situation? Not one word about the collapse caused by the system built on speculation, over extension, and corruption of the monetary system. Until that is straigthened out, nothing can be righted. . . to complete my first picture. That paper cup he's waving won't cut it! Particularly when they pass that cup around from Congress, to the White House, to the Fed and to the "upstanding" Governors willing to turn the boats broadside into the oncoming waves.

. . . And, don't say what can he do, he's only a governor! If he's genuinely interested in his constituents, he'd be trying to strengthen his state, not helping to strip it. In doing so, he'd be showing the way to 49 other Governor's and posing a serioius threat to the do-nothings in Washington! He could end up not being a guest in the White House but the incumbent! Think of that turn around.

The papers emanating from the world's Central Banks are growing weaker and weaker with their evaporating reasoning. I've been waiting, watching for completion of unfinished theses issued with no more than a vague hint that the rest is forthcoming. Those promised target days have been and gone and still nothing new to live up to the promises after the short comings have been pointed out. All their ammunition has been used and they haven't even aimed at the target, the guilty banking system that devastated the finanacial landscape.

Mashabar asks for answers, others do, too. But, Washington, Basel, Franfurt, Paris, London all know what the answer is, but do not want to stop the flow. That's not what they were hired to do. A quick answer is no more credit or investment vehicles working on the same principle as credit which extends leverage and stresses the world's monetary system. Since that is also a hamstringing which would cut off the flexibility needed when recovery begins in earnest, the second best tactic is to place limits on the amount of credit to be dispensed. Unlimited credit is identical to unlimited money being dumped on the financial world. There will be a scramble for some of the benefits, but the proceeds will never reach those who need it to keep the wheels rolling. Someone else has longer arms and knows when and where the drops will be made. The result would be an imbalance worse than that which we now have. A reprise of the "trickle down" theory that never trickled.

Dodd-Frank doesn't do it. That's been discussed above. Every promising correction has been diluted or neutered to the point the bill does nothing to threaten the corrupt system. If it was effective, we'd be hearing squeals of protest from banks, brokers and insurance. Heard anything lately? No more than empty assurances today that everything is headed in the right direction and denials of progress is forthcoming tomorrow.

What is proposed and put into operation won't work with the present set up. Plain and simple.

[ComoKate2]

This message has been deleted.

[decoy409]

olderstill, one of my favorite reads always come from you!

As a matter of FACT, In my post today I cover these words of yours not even knowing you had posted them already writ so well. NOTHING changes as I have said however something is going to give. Correction will not be found until destruction has done it's duty. We are so very near to this chapter.

Quote: Dodd-Frank doesn't do it. That's been discussed above. Every promising correction has been diluted or neutered to the point the bill does nothing to threaten the corrupt system. If it was effective, we'd be hearing squeals of protest from banks, brokers and insurance. Heard anything lately? No more than empty assurances today that everything is headed in the right direction and denials of progress is forthcoming tomorrow.

What is proposed and put into operation won't work with the present set up. Plain and simple.

Read more: notmsnmoney.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=moneytalk&action=display&thread=122&page=11#ixzz1G1chDgq6

[franktheimpaler]

There are many portions of Dodd-Frank that will be killed or rewriiten, now that so many are pushing back

[olderstill]

Portions may be rewritten, but with current Congressional setup, the changes will not be adopted.

[decoy409]

Ahh, the voice that sets the record straight.

Quote: Portions may be rewritten, but with current Congressional setup, the changes will not be adopted.

[franktheimpaler]

I have two words for the Dems...Darrell Issa

[saldeck]

Old and Gray,
what has happened here? I don't see you, Veteran Lender, Neohguy and other good posters anymore...I see only Frank The Impaler & his friends..What kind of public forum is this? Without opposition there is no democracy.

[franktheimpaler]

There is no democracy when you don't have participants who are tolerant of other positions or opinions.

A public forum allows for people who disagree and refuse to defend or retreat from their opinions or positions when they feel they are in the minority or dissent.

As far as "good posters"...we certainly don't spend our day lying to each other here, we don't spent our time dreaming in regards what the markets should be doing...we are dealing with what we see and what is happening...not yes but what if

[moon/Laura]

[decoy409]

As far as "good posters"...we certainly don't spend our day lying to each other here,

Now that is Puppet Theatre talk!

I do believe that Kate would perfer that this thread is removed from the board. That is rather than making it into something that she does not believe in which is b.s. as the master self professed expert has stated.

saldek, they have moved on over to Duff's due to EXACTLY as your words ring,

Quote saldek: Old and Gray,
what has happened here? I don't see you, Veteran Lender, Neohguy and other good posters anymore...I see only Frank The Impaler & his friends..What kind of public forum is this? Without opposition there is no democracy.

See the started by moonbeam saldek,well I am sure that Kate will not have moonbeam taking credit for her thread.

[moon/Laura]

oh sheesh decoy.. no one is trying to 'take credit'.... everyone knows i don't know jack about the market...all posts are intact..

[decoy409]

Hey Puppet boy,save it for somebody that cares. You have more hot air and nonsense coming out of you than a balloon.
You are nothing more than a insider and a one big a**. Furthermore there is nobody here buying your b.s. anymore except for a handful of 'SOCK PUPPETS' that you have access to.
You like to get across with BODILY THREATS and that is being worked on along with the Mail dept. here on this site. Hope you have dam good answers when the crap hit's the fan smart guy.

[decoy409]

Furthermore,this thread is started by who??? Certainly 'NOT' Moonbeam.

COMO KATE started this thread folks. #thumbs

[decoy409]

Don't worry about it and enjoy puppet.

I bet cake with you that this thread gets deleated.

[moon/Laura]

yes, kate started the thread. she's not here anymore though so i don't see the need to have her name on the front page. HOWEVER, she is still the first post in here.. and not one post of hers is deleted.

[decoy409]

What's your point? Taking credit for starting a thread that you did not? Putting your name Moonbeam where the started by is doing just that. And altering the title as well is nothing to be proud about.
I could swear that I read your very own words stating you did not know much about things but liked to learn.
So if that is the case,how can you take credit for something you did not do or know about to start with.
There is no point,just a power play.
Chummly really has it going on inside which is about as sick as it gets.

[kman]

Wasn't kate taking credit for what was originally duff's

[rovo]

I'm also "unsticking" this thread.

[usaone]

Apr 6, 2011 2:53:41 GMT -5 @saldeck said:

Old and Gray,
what has happened here? I don't see you, Veteran Lender, Neohguy and other good posters anymore...I see only Frank The Impaler & his friends..What kind of public forum is this? Without opposition there is no democracy.

Still plenty of bears on this board.