And I’m working my ass off to keep up. Yet I’m now two house payments in the rear because I’ve been sent home without pay for 3 weeks in the last 9 weeks so my employer can save money. And finding supplemental work during these off weeks is basically impossible.
I’m really leaning more and more towards the “let it all crash” idea. Why not?
Jon.
Jon,
I agree.
Let them fail.
The trouble is all governments Worldwide have irreversibly jumped on the “save the banks at all cost” bandwagon.
Including the previous, and now the incumbent guvmint in the USA.
We are all doomed I tell you, doomed.
One needs to think of the domino theory, in that one falling brick will bring down all around them. Obama is putting billions into AIG, as the failing of the previous administration in allowing Lehman Bros to fail, was seen a major reason for the economic downturn escalating late last year. Recent economic discussion has it that if AIG is allowed to collapse, then the follow on effect will be more catastrophic than anything seen to date.
Six months ago, not one Australian bank rated in the top 50 banks in the world. Now Australia’s top four banks rate in the top twelve banks in the world.
mike omalley said:No, It is not what Tim said at all. I also thought it was as Tim said. Until I did a little research. It is very complicated and extremely difficult to understand.
What tim said
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_default_swaps
My take…and I may be wrong
It is literaly gambling. You can make or loose money on the CDS, even if the loan defaults. You can “bet” even if you are not the mortgage company, borrower or issuer of the CDS. It is a very complicated “Vegas” type book.
Read it. Maybe we can put a few heads together and get a better understanding.
Ralph
It is the facility to gamble which is wrong.
I always understood the stock market was supposed to be an avenue for investing in productive businesses. Not another way to gamble.
Ralph,
look back at my post and note that the word ‘insure’ is placed inside inverted commas. The act of a company like AIG is not technically insuring a packet of mortgages, the action is not technically speaking ‘insuring’, but as I was writing a simplified version, then ‘insure’ is a substitute and a more easily understood account for the complicated transaction. You agreed with Ken that the action was complicated, then OK, write, in a handful of words, the exact nature and technical intent of the meaning of a credit default swap and do not mention insurance AND make it so that it is easy to understand.
From the wiki:
a database holding around 90% of all credit derivative transactions, held $29.2 trillion of outstanding CDS trades as of 26 December 2008.
Still think this is a sub-prime mortgage problem?
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac only hold 5 trillion in mortgages combined.
Ralph
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090306/bs_nm/us_aig;_ylt=AhTHpVIhUwZM5bVl1TZRYOyyBhIF
Story claims AIG failure would have “precipitated” the failure of the European Banking system.
AIG wrote $440 billion in credit default swaps.
Ralph
If the “European Banking system” is dependent on their complicity with the bunch of thieves at AIG, then let “it” (whatever “it” is) fail.
That kind of crap is just more of the financial (mis)managers up to their same old thieving tricks, but now with the 100% complicity of President Obama, the U.S. Senate, and virtually every government banking official.
I would like to know one reason that Fed Vice Chairman Donald Kohn should not be held in contempt of the Senate Banking Committee’s inquiry. The rotten SOBs who have been and are continuing to rip off our financial system should be in jail until they all come clean and make restitution.
Kohn said: “Regulators failed to spot how much risk AIG was piling on in credit default swaps. By the time they understood, they had no choice but to pour in billions of public dollars.”
Yes, they did have a choice, but one can only assume that thieves like Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, the Chairman (read Chief Thief) of AIG during the time they were collecting “insurance” money without funding the possibility of losses, somehow have the goods on people like Kohn along with the others currently passing out the money, and would roll over on them if they weren’t ‘bailed out.’ Additionally, Mr Kohn is one of those very "regulators.’ He should be fired as he is placed into custody.
Kohn says the secrecy is necessary: “We need AIG to be stable and continue in a stable condition. And I would be very concerned that if we started giving out the names of counterparties here, people would not want to do business with AIG,”
Why do we need to keep a mismanaged company that never created anything, took in millions of dollars for a service they had absolutely no intention to provide and are now not only financially bankrupt, but are morally bankrupt in business? Where is Mr. Kohn’s interest in this? Just a guess, but I would assume he has serious personal financial interests in helping AIG continue to fleece potential customers who would be stupid enough to sign on with them.
Come to think of it, why wouldn’t customers continue to sign on? AIG obviously has the power of Mr. Kohn and the U.S. Treasury behind them. Can’t lose there so long as the ‘pass the money out’ crowd is in control
Rant suspended, but not over.
Happy RRing,
Jerry
Funny how the Europeans blame us for the current conditions. They are just as responsible.
The Bush administration successfuly placed blame for our current conditions on sub-prime mortgages.
Blame the common man for the financial games the wealthy were playing.
Unfortunately most of the common people have swallowed the bait, hook, line and sinker.
Ralph
Here is where the AIG billions went. Interesting list of banks.
Ralph
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE52624P20090308
The con tricks went Worldwide. Aided and abetted by the ratings agencies.
I understand some Australian local government authorities such as local councils got sucked in, as did the RSPCA.
What they were doing investing in such schemes has yet to answered.
