'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years

Quote from clacy:

Exact opposite, my friend. We're in this mess due to artificially low rates for many years, and goverment forcing banks to lend to people that couldn't afford to pay back mortgages.

It's that simple. Easy credit over borrowing got us to where we are and that is the fault of big goverment and over regulation.
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In my humble opinion you are incorrect.
The economy could have handled the housing situation as it has in the past. The problem is wall street and the congress collusion and what was done with the mortgages.
Of course these are the people that will solve the situation for us. The most responsible for the situation will probably get Medals from the gummint for their service to the country.
Kinda like medals and bonuses for Govt department heads. WHO DID TERRIBLE JOBS!
 
Quote from runningman:

My friend, I worked in a bank. The salespeople asked every single person who came in if they wanted a home equity line. They telemarketed relentlessly to get people to take out loans. They were paid commission on their loans, more for neg-am loans. The government forced nothing. This problem was partially created by a bunch of 20somethings who were paid commission to write loans and mortgages to anyone they could. No loans, no paycheck.
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Yes, that's what salespeople do. They sell and that's what banks do, they lend. If banks are able to get cheap money for several years and that cheap money is borrowed and used to speculate on a realestate market that keeps going up and up and up............you create a bubble. When that bubble bursts, you have problems.

This economy expanded artificially through cheap creadit. If you look at that credit expansion, as a rubber band, that has now exhuasted it's course, now it's time for the snap back. Less spending, which equals pain for the economy.
 
Quote from runningman:

My friend, I worked in a bank. The salespeople asked every single person who came in if they wanted a home equity line. They telemarketed relentlessly to get people to take out loans. They were paid commission on their loans, more for neg-am loans. The government forced nothing. This problem was partially created by a bunch of 20somethings who were paid commission to write loans and mortgages to anyone they could. No loans, no paycheck.
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Why were the able to write these loans

Because the loans were always able to be dumped on fannie/freddie

Why were the able to gather up to 60% of the market because they were implicitly backed by the government

Fannie and freddie collapsed yet there was a government office with 200 regulators

If no government backing existed there would be no buyer of last resort

Free markets are self correcting but that does not mean there is no pain. The winners are sorted from the losers

People and companies who make bad decesions will fail. The market learns a lesson

When government distorts the natural market mechanisms you create greater problem and you still get the collapse. But now winners are punished along with the losers
 
Quote from lemeeeplay:

rofls, we are in this mess partially because of the influence of this book. Lack of regulations and cowboy capitalism led to the mess, not the other way around.
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No its just as the book says. The government causes the problems and then makes them worst by repeating what they did to mess things up to begin with.

How can you not see this simple truth?
 
Quote from jficquette:

Ayn Rand would consider Greenspan to be a Joke.
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ummm, but her fans are wrecking havoc in the world. Wouldn't a rational person attribute that to the underlying movement?
 
One could argue rand contributed to the crisis because greenspan was an objectivisit and he opposed regulation. Yet fraud is one of the most recurring themes of bubbles from tulips to tech stocks, so by definition the law doesn't matter
 
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