On 04/24/2010 02:50 AM, WAYNE CHIRNSIDE -> ED HULETT wrote:
 -=>> ED HULETT wrote to WAYNE CHIRNSIDE <=-

 EH>> On 04/23/2010 06:27 PM, WAYNE CHIRNSIDE -> ALL wrote:
 WC>> Well well, it seems General Motors has paid back ALL
 WC>> it's TARP funds with interest and 5 years early at that
 WC>> so the U.S. taxpayer no longer owns GM as was
 WC>> recently maintained here.

 WC>> Another bit of good news.

 WC>> Only a year ago the TARP bailouts were project to cost
 WC>> 500 Billion, now the projected figure is 87 billion
 WC>> with most of that accounted for by Freddie and Fannie.

 EH>> Ahem, GM used the TARP money that was put in an escrow account
to "pay
 EH>> back" the smaller amount that was called a loan. So, basically, all
 EH>> they did was take taxpayer money to pay back taxpayer money. Plus, the
 EH>> US government is still 60% owner of GM with the Canadian government
 EH>> being a 12% owner. GM says they plan to fix that by issuing an IPO and
 EH>> go public... again... as if 72% government ownership isn't already
 EH>> public.

 EH>> Fannie and Freddie are the quasi government agencies that were at the
 EH>> center of the housing bubble collapse.

 WC> Nope, that's the propaganda now being sold.

Sold by whom?

 WC> Freddie and Fannie were the result of bad derivative packages sold to
 WC> investors.

Look up derivatives. You will find that you are arguing semantics.

 WC> Fannie and Freddie were thus a result of Wall Streets misbehavior and
 WC> irresponsibility
 WC> as in the Abacus Investments derivative packages now in the news sold by
 WC> various investment
 WC> firms such as Goldman Sachs.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!

Just keep on believing that.

 WC> Then Goldman Sachs and other investment firms shorted the very Abacus
 WC> Investment
 WC> accounts they'd promoted to their clients betting against the very
 WC> investments
 WC> they had promoted.

They did? Where did you get that information? BTW, you might want to
contact the SEC with that to help their case against GS.

 WC> Since those deriviative investment packages largely consisted of sub-prime
 WC> loans of course when their lack of any value it impacted Fannie and Freddie

Uh, it was federal law which mandated that investment banks take on
sub-prime loans with Fannie and Freddie being formed by the federal
government to buy those loans as part of that law to help investment banks
stay solvent.

 WC> Large banking institutions engaged in speculation with investors monies
 WC> in derivatives is the cause.

It was federal law that forced them into that practice. The "Community
Reinvestment Act" to be precise.

 WC> Bill Clinton is partially to blame while the Republican Congressman from
 WC> Texas who first proposed the repeal of the Glass Steagall act is dead
 WC> center
 WC> to blame.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!

You parrot left-wing talking points well.

 WC> Bill Clinton could have vetoed the repeal of Glass Steagall but his
 WC> financial
 WC> advisors
 WC> advised him they would be good for the economy, he's recently come out and
 WC> admitted
 WC> his mistake.

Poor Slick, he was a victim of the bad old Republicans and poor advice.

Hahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!

 WC> BTW The Glass Steagall Act was first enacted after the Great Depression to
 WC> prevent
 WC> PRECISELY this sort of irresponsible lending by banking institutions.

Do you even know what Glass Steagall is about?

 WC> It took a mere eight years after the repeal of the Glass Steagall Act
 WC> repeal for the house of cards to come crashing down.

Glass Steagall has nothing to do with sub-prime loans.

 WC> Actually only two years as the first down was Enron then WorldCom
 WC> which should have alerted to these bad practices as these were precisely
 WC> the sort of speculative packages sold as derivatives.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!

 WC> IOW's both the Great Depression AND the current massive recession had
 WC> almost identical causes.

Yes, too much government meddling.

 WC> The Great Depression was caused by buying on margin and the current
 WC> recession
 WC> by speculation on derivative packages engaged in by large banking at up
 WC> to 32 to 1 margin.

Total bunk.

 WC> Just as the current recession hit investment banking was gambling with
 WC> derivative packages of dubious value at the margin of 30 - 1 actual
 WC> dollars, banking dollars, like those kept in checking anbd savings
 WC> accounts.

Who was supposed to lose WRT government mandated sub-prime loans? Were the
banks just supposed to eat their losses when the borrowers were unable to
pay their loan payments? It was federal law, CRA again, that mandated banks
give loans to people who had no real means to pay those loans so the
federal government could "right a wrong" where there was none.
Fannie, and then Freddie was set up to take on those toxic loans in an
attempt to keep the banks from going bankrupt.

 WC> It's rather easy to gamble with other peoples monies for short term huge
 WC> personal
 WC> financial gain.

Do you even have a clue what a sub-prime loan is and why banks were selling
them to Fannie and Freddie? It wasn't for "short term huge personal
financial gain."

 WC> The current "fix" proposed by Democrats is to reduce the
magin from 32 - 1
 WC> to 10 to 1 and to limit the size to which large banks can grow.

Oh yeah, limit freedom. That's always how Democrats think.

 WC> This amounts to a reinstatement of a rather watered down version of the
 WC> Glass
 WC> Steagall Act that had been rather effective in preventing such enormous
 WC> financial meltdowns since the 1930's.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!

 WC> The banks after the repeal of Glass Steagall rolled themselves into
 WC> investment
 WC> firms buying on margin just like individual investors in 1929 and just
 WC> as in
 WC> 1929 this came back and bit the American economy in the a**.

You parrot the propaganda well.

Ed

-- 
"Truth does not become more true by virtue of the fact that the
entire world agrees with it, nor less so even if the whole world
disagrees with it." --Jewish philosopher Maimonides (1135-1204)

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