The Cruel and Inhuman Socialists…

[amicus]

Without addressing either xssve or handprints as this is just a tangential thought...I suggest that many view interest bearing loans as a sin...and do not view banks or the lending market as a 'business', or if they, do, see it as an 'evil' business, immoral and excessive.

This is in no way high finance, just real basics on old time religious beliefs concerning money lenders that I suggest still plays a large role in how many look at financial institutions who exist on the profits of loaning money.

Is there not an old term, 'usury' or something? Never used it myself. Sub Prime itself is not a simple concept to embrace, especially if one has suspicion about monetary market places and global enterprise, money and rate exchanges between currencies and the entire spectrum of investment banking, margin, speculation and the whole ten yards (ten, not nine, I never did understand the nine)

Anyway....

?

amicus...

 

[Handprints]

... and the whole ten yards (ten, not nine, I never did understand the nine)

Equally tangentially: nine yards is the amount of fabric you need for a top of the line funeral shroud. That's where the expression is alleged to come from in the UK, well before anyone attempted to pervert the fine sport of rugby.

H

 

[amicus]

Equally tangentially: nine yards is the amount of fabric you need for a top of the line funeral shroud. That's where the expression is alleged to come from in the UK, well before anyone attempted to pervert the fine sport of rugby.

H

~~~

Chuckles and so you are a 'tease' with a sense of humor...what other hidden aspects of your personality remain hidden or must I read your stories?

heh...


amicus...

 

[Handprints]

Chuckles and so you are a 'tease' with a sense of humor...what other hidden aspects of your personality remain hidden or must I read your stories?

I'm not sure how much personality anyone can inject into a discussion of development economics... That said, my sense of humour has probably cost me less than it's made me - there's a good capitalist definition of success.

Regards,
H

 

[amicus]

I'm not sure how much personality anyone can inject into a discussion of development economics... That said, my sense of humour has probably cost me less than it's made me - there's a good capitalist definition of success.

Regards,
H

~~~

So be it. By the way, should I read your stories, please don't return the favor, I am Hallmark, hetero, interpersonal relationships, nothing kinky, most believe my stuff doesn't even belong here.

regards also...


amicus...

 

[impressive]

You might just be amazed at what a free people can create in the absence of the direction of government other than to protect their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit.

Amicus...

And you might just be amazed at what some of those free people CHOOSE to create and to give ... in spite of the lack of government coercion.



Liberalism ... and socialism ... is more than a form of government. It's of the heart. It's of MY heart.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Will they get bailed? Maybe some of them will, if they're sufficiently connected, or if they can prove the people they lent to systematically defrauded them and there's no possible recourse (someone's drafting the brief for that argument already, I've no doubt).

Should they get bailed? Absolutely not, although the government should definitely make good my loss in bonus...

Regards,
H

Did they get bailed? Evidently not the one financing our mortgage. It seems a little too coincidental that we've just received notice that our mortgage is in new hands.

It's a bit odd thinking of oneself as a sub-prime commodity. We live comfortably enough and are a month or two ahead on our mortgage payments. Alas, we were short of downpayment funds when we purchased the Horsey Palace, and still pay PMI. Working on that.

Shanglan

 

[Liar]

Without addressing either xssve or handprints as this is just a tangential thought...I suggest that many view interest bearing loans as a sin...and do not view banks or the lending market as a 'business', or if they, do, see it as an 'evil' business, immoral and excessive.

Heh. I wuldn't say that many truly think so. Fringe fanatics perhaps. But almost everyone of us are friendly enough with banks to have mortages on a house, a savings account, a credit card, et al, and not thinking twice about that.

Sure, yeah, it does at times have a bit of an Ebeneezer Scrooge ethos attached to it. Well, it's not an 'evil' business per se. A business is niether good nor evil, it just is. I guess though that some types of business lends themselves easier to corruption than others, and that the loans market is one of those. Or at least have been in the past.

But the bottom line is, banks are not evil. Bankers can be.

 

[Handprints]

Did they get bailed?

I don't think any of the big sub-prime providers have yet seen a handout, although there's no shortage of teary pleading in legislative offices alleged to be going on.

H

 

[BlackShanglan]

I don't think any of the big sub-prime providers have yet seen a handout, although there's no shortage of teary pleading in legislative offices alleged to be going on.

H

*nods* It's frustrating when it hits that sort of point. We (the ignorant equine public) get bombarded with pleas for a bail-out on the grounds that the entire industry will re-enact the Hindenberg tragedy without one. Yet one can't help feeling that what they're actually asking for is to be able to make the heavy profits that go with high-risk investments, then be freed from the actual risk should it all go south. It's difficult for we average folk to know what repercussions there might be to letting them lay in the bed they've made, but it's certainly tempting to.

 

[Handprints]

*nods* It's frustrating when it hits that sort of point. We (the ignorant equine public) get bombarded with pleas for a bail-out on the grounds that the entire industry will re-enact the Hindenberg tragedy without one.

I would guess - and this isn't my field at all - that what they're begging for includes emergency access to low-interest Fed funds, accelerated tax recognition of loss provisions and some kind of permission to ring-fence bad and doubtful loans into a pool or vehicle that gets preferential loan and tax treatment.

They're probably not gauche enough to try for cash in hand, although some of sub-prime lenders I've met are clearly the guys too dumb to find work in a more demanding environment. What they fear isn't bankruptcy or losing their toys so much as having their lenders and bankers gang up on them.

You can't survive in sub-prime unless people in the financial community are willing to buy or broker packages of your loans. When a delegation of those chaps shows up at your door (cf Long-Term Capital Management c. 1998) you're faced with a pretty stark choice: declare bankruptcy and know that you'll never work in the financial sector again or let them decide how the next three years of your life will be led and live to play another day.

I suspect that the ones going to government are doing so more in hope than expectation and that a face-saving "Federal Reserve-organised" solution will, if things get significantly worse, emerge, with the Fed guy enjoying a few well-earned rounds of golf while the hard men from the investment banks' workout departments do the vivisection. That process will leave the sub-prime guys with their current bank balances intact but the price of their continuing participation in the banking game will be at least three years of working for McDonald's wages.

Yet one can't help feeling that what they're actually asking for is to be able to make the heavy profits that go with high-risk investments, then be freed from the actual risk should it all go south. It's difficult for we average folk to know what repercussions there might be to letting them lay in the bed they've made, but it's certainly tempting to.

But these are "temporary measures" designed to protect "key members of our communities who make the dream of home ownership possible" from being unduly victimised by "short-term liquidity issues that stem wholly from market turbulence" in a sector now dominated by "predatory short sellers and other opportunists."

You make it all sound so sordid...

Regards,
H

 

[BlackShanglan]

But these are "temporary measures" designed to protect "key members of our communities who make the dream of home ownership possible" from being unduly victimised by "short-term liquidity issues that stem wholly from market turbulence" in a sector now dominated by "predatory short sellers and other opportunists."

You make it all sound so sordid...

Regards,
H

*laugh* Well, call me a tool of NPR (National Public Radio). The report I was listening to the other day pointed out that quite a low percentage of these loans went to first time buyers. I preface with the admission that I have a terrible memory for numbers my recollection that it was under 10%.

But if anything would entice me to support them, it would be the inclusion of the word "sordid." It's always had a deliciously louche appeal to it.