The Official Presidential Debate Thread (Round 2)

[redsk1]

Originally Posted by BleedBurgundy

Sorry, I don't personally believe that the government's role is to act as a mortgage lender. And... screw Wall Street. And Main Street. If you choose to *risk* your company's assets in shady, fundamentally poor investments and it comes back to bite you in the ass, that's on you. If you choose to *risk* your financial well being and purchase a home you cannot afford, that's on you. Everybody loves free/cheap money/assets but nobody wants to be responsible for their piss poor decision making. My own view is, let 'em fail, there will be a vacuum formed and new business will rush in to fill it. It may take time but I truly believe that would be the best in the long term. The way we're currently going, no one is going to learn ANYTHING from this mess. Everyone who screwed up and put us in this situation is going to get bailed out at the expense of everyone who was responsible. That's fucked up.

Just making a point that what used to be sound conservative investments are no longer that, like Fannie/Freddie & Mortgage Backed Securities.

[BleedBurgundy]

Originally Posted by redsk1

Just making a point that what used to be sound conservative investments are no longer that, like Fannie/Freddie & Mortgage Backed Securities.

Agreed, and the reason they are no longer sound is because the principles involved decided to change their business practices in favor of short sightedness.

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by BleedBurgundy

Agreed, and the reason they are no longer sound is because the principles involved decided to change their business practices in favor of short sightedness.

And political correctness. Or more pointedly...they bought votes.

[Sheriff Gonna Getcha]

Originally Posted by FRPLG

And political correctness. Or more pointedly...they bought votes.

Please explain how political correctness brought down our economy.

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by Sheriff Gonna Getcha

Please explain how political correctness brought down our economy.

Politicians rigged the system so broke ass people who couldn't afford houses were able to get loans that banks historically would have never given. They did this because it sounded pretty darn nice to say they were creating "affordable" housing. Smart people who understood economics were saying that rigging the system so that these people could get houses they couldn't afford was a long term bad idea and no one listened. Hell they were called racist, even though it had nothing to do with race. These types of arguments have been called "racially tinged" even today.

And don't bother asking about references saden. Why don't you make an argument refuting this? Why isn't ANYONE making an argument refuting this? I'd love to hear the argument because I'd really like to understand this but I still haven't heard one person anywhere say "No that wasn't the cause."

[Sheriff Gonna Getcha]

Originally Posted by FRPLG

Politicians rigged the system so broke ass people who couldn't afford houses were able to get loans that banks historically would have never given. They did this because it sounded pretty darn nice to say they were creating "affordable" housing. Smart people who understood economics were saying that rigging the system so that these people could get houses they couldn't afford was a long term bad idea and no one listened. Hell they were called racist, even though it had nothing to do with race. These types of arguments have been called "racially tinged" even today.

And don't bother asking about references saden. Why don't you make an argument refuting this? Why isn't ANYONE making an argument refuting this? I'd love to hear the argument because I'd really like to understand this but I still haven't heard one person anywhere say "No that wasn't the cause."

Trying to help low income individuals become home owners is "politically correct?" It might be stupid, but I don't think it's politically correct. Also, I don't know how race, including charges of racism, has any role in this debate.

As for the causes of the crisis, you yourself said there is a lot of blame to go around.

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by Sheriff Gonna Getcha

Trying to help low income individuals become home owners is "politically correct?" It might be stupid, but I don't think it's politically correct. Also, I don't know how race, including charges of racism, has any role in this debate.

As for the causes of the crisis, you yourself said there is a lot of blame to go around.

Are you saying that you don't believe that the notion of giving out loans to people who don't deserve them isn't politcaly correct? It was based on the idea that these people needed us to help them because they are so downtrodden and we have so much more than them. That is the epitome of political correctness. Instead of givng out crap loans to people who didn't have any business getting a loan why didn't we try to figure out how to get lower income people to make more money.

And I agree racism has nothing to do with this.

[firstdown]

Originally Posted by BleedBurgundy

Agreed, and the reason they are no longer sound is because the principles involved decided to change their business practices in favor of short sightedness.

Fred & Fan had to pick up this bad papper because congress got involved with how banks gave out loans which is the biggest part of this entire mess. If congress kept their nose out of lending and banks kept up their conservative approach knowing they where stuck with any bad papper then they would have done so. This just goes back to goverment screws up everything they touch but heck lets give them more power. Why not let them screw up health care even worse or keep screwing up the school system, SS, etc.. because they do such a fine job. Funny thing is the two guys running for office both had a hand in these poor decisions. Yes both McCain & Obama are as guilty as anyone in this mess. Now we get to vote for them to fix the mess that they helped create to start with and you know what we will get. More goverment and goverment programs that over spend and are poorly run.

[dmek25]

Originally Posted by firstdown

Fred & Fan had to pick up this bad papper because congress got involved with how banks gave out loans which is the biggest part of this entire mess. If congress kept their nose out of lending and banks kept up their conservative approach knowing they where stuck with any bad papper then they would have done so. This just goes back to goverment screws up everything they touch but heck lets give them more power. Why not let them screw up health care even worse or keep screwing up the school system, SS, etc.. because they do such a fine job. Funny thing is the two guys running for office both had a hand in these poor decisions. Yes both McCain & Obama are as guilty as anyone in this mess. Now we get to vote for them to fix the mess that they helped create to start with and you know what we will get. More goverment and goverment programs that over spend and are poorly run.

they had it right. until someone decided it was time to DE regulate. thats what started the free fall. if you let the rats run wild, soon there will be no more cheese

[firstdown]

Originally Posted by dmek25

they had it right. until someone decided it was time to DE regulate. thats what started the free fall. if you let the rats run wild, soon there will be no more cheese

Please tell me what was De regulated? Not just saying banks but give what was actually de regulated.

[saden1]

Originally Posted by firstdown

Please tell me what was De regulated? Not just saying banks but give what was actually de regulated.

Telecommunications, Media, and Banks.

[firstdown]

Originally Posted by saden1

Telecommunications, Media, and Banks.

Saden that was really a stupid question I asked and I pretty much know the answer. We tore away at all the consumer protections that where put in place back in the 1930's. This was done a little at a time starting in the 1980's and then into the 1990's. I'm not sure if all the dergulation was bad but the oversite might have been the peoblem.

[Slingin Sammy 33]

Originally Posted by dmek25

they had it right. until someone decided it was time to DE regulate. thats what started the free fall. if you let the rats run wild, soon there will be no more cheese

President Clinton didn't think de-regulation was a bad idea. This bill was signed on his watch.

from wiki: "Others have defended the Act and for actually making the crisis less severe than it would have been otherwise. President Clinton himself stated:

"I don't see that signing that bill had anything to do with the current crisis. Indeed, one of the things that has helped stabilize the current situation as much as it has is the purchase of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America, which was much smoother than it would have been if I hadn't signed that bill. On the Glass-Steagall thing, like I said, if you could demonstrate to me that it was a mistake, I'd be glad to look at the evidence."

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by dmek25

they had it right. until someone decided it was time to DE regulate. thats what started the free fall. if you let the rats run wild, soon there will be no more cheese

I totally agree that regulation was missing. I am not sure that anything that was DEregulated was a problem though. I haven't seen any concrete evidence that specific derugulations led to this. I have seen financial assessments showing that housing prices trended parallel to inflation for decades until the government decided to create an "affordable" housing market. When they started playing with the housing markets prices magically trended exponentially up. When some wanted more regulations in the late 90's and early 2000's there was significant backlash from all sides of the aisles and nothing happened. I tend to think it was the lack of regulation in the first place more than any dergulation but I'd happily peruse anything that said otherwise. I'd really like to understand fundamentally what went wrong and the argument that regulation or lack of it CAUSED the problem rings pretty hallow when there are gads of evidence that gov't regulation quite regularly justs screws things up even more. My philosophy is more in line with "If it supposedly needs regulation so much then maybe something is fundamentally wrong with it in the first place".

[BleedBurgundy]

Originally Posted by firstdown

Fred & Fan had to pick up this bad papper because congress got involved with how banks gave out loans which is the biggest part of this entire mess. If congress kept their nose out of lending and banks kept up their conservative approach knowing they where stuck with any bad papper then they would have done so. This just goes back to goverment screws up everything they touch but heck lets give them more power. Why not let them screw up health care even worse or keep screwing up the school system, SS, etc.. because they do such a fine job. Funny thing is the two guys running for office both had a hand in these poor decisions. Yes both McCain & Obama are as guilty as anyone in this mess. Now we get to vote for them to fix the mess that they helped create to start with and you know what we will get. More goverment and goverment programs that over spend and are poorly run.

Agreed but, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think Fred and Fran were FORCED to take on all of these subprime loans, the GOV just gave them the option and they took advantage of it. But, looking at your entire post, I can see we mostly agree.