Quote from Mom0/pH0x:
holy fucking christ, must me?! really?!
every fucking thread you guys show up in turns into a god damned jews are good/jews are bad, israel is good/israel is bad thread.. every fucking time... jews and israel have NOTHING to do with the topic... yes you are right, neocons objectives had nothing to do with being philosemitic... and all the middle east garbage conducted by the us will end up having a negative affect on israel long term... but that's beside the point... can you guys start a new thread about jews, israel, and neocons?
Quote from Mom0/pH0x:
jem, i know illiteracy is somewhat of a cathiolic tradition, so i'm trying to be tolerant here... good to see you have succumbed to ignorant religious antisemitism too.. the war in iraq is antithecal to the security interests of israel first of all, the beliefs you ascribe to are very naive... but if you want to discuss this stupid and vacuous conspiracy theory, go do it in your own thread in the P/R forum, because it's way off topic here, regardless of what you were 'just' doing...
EDIT: I'm very far from a neocon.... the fact that you have accused me of it damages your credibility even further... not that you need help with that...
Quote from Pa(b)st Prime:
You had booms and busts way before central banks, before the advent of mortgage "derivitives", hell you had massive land busts back when people paid cash.
Guy's like you are the same type who said "excess speculation from 10% stock margins caused the crash." Now there's stock crashes of 85% or more with 50% margins.
So the new blame is on mortgage derivitives. Yet except for Florida and Vegas the worst housing markets in the country are those that had LITTLE speculative buying. Was Detroit flipper heaven?
There's been a HUGE AMOUNT of liquidity apart from leveraged. Just look at baseball salaries. Or teachers and GM pensions. Or the net worth of exchange members vis a vis their stock IPO's. It's that massive influx of cash and the credit it creates that causes from era to era capital to chase assets well above their value equilibrium. There's also a seller for every buyer and a transactional zero sum aspect of asset fluctuations. And I won't even get into how the depression we're in is effecting global regions with scant credit apparatuses in place.
Yes I'll repeat-discussions like these-bullshit that Congress and the media SPECIALIZE in-are simplistic exercises because the causation is more rooted in investment psychology than in economics. Clearly regulations and interest rate policy effect decision making but the fact remains most people will misjudge risk in seek of gain. That should be obvious. This board personifies the point. Fewer than 1 out of 10 people here will ultimately trade successfully yet fully 100% of ET'ers THINK they'll be in that 10%. Why would you believe faulty, misguided optimism in performance is confined to ET?
Quote from Anaconda:
Are you fucking kidding me?
Do yourself a favor and educate yourself, because you look like a fool right now. When you read mainstream financial publications, try not to ignore the commentary & articles which discuss how S&P and Moody's gave AAA ratings to "new" mortgage investment products which were pretty much guaranteed to default.
The more you try to debate this, the more you show that you did not do your research behind what happened. I know people at the rating agencies who watched their bosses & higher ups push this nonsense with full knowledge.
I know the bankers, appraisers & mortgage brokers who were in the middle of this mess. I've read the CDO documents that showed how they were structured. So maybe you need to get off your high horse and try to learn something, because from what I see, you don't know jack sh*t about this topic, as you continue showing.
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Quote from Anaconda:
You have a lot to learn. You do not even understand how ratings agencies function and their role in the industry. Comparing the VIX to credit ratings, just wow. What are you smoking?
Do you even know that the pension & sovereign funds which bought the worthless paper cannot buy anything not rated A or above? Obviously not.
It's amazing, truly amazing how in denial so many people are. I just give up. Good luck with the next few years, not that it will help you considering how clueless you choose to be.
Quote from Pa(b)st Prime:
And every time a commodity has a huge bull run ala' CL last year-where do critics blame. Futures specs.
When I started at the CBOT, every few months a bunch of tractors would block La Salle St with farmers blaming speculators for DEPRESSING prices through short selling. An Iowa Congressman-Neil Smith-made a career out of populist blaming of grain shorts. Rich Dennis once had to testify to Congress justifying his massive short position.
The Markey hearings and Larry Summers-yes THAT Summers-were VERY critical of SP futures for the '87 crash.
One reason you young guys never hear of these stories is because from 1994 to 2006 Congress was laissez faire Republicans. That free market train has left the station.....
Quote from Cutten:
I agree that human nature is a main cause of bubbles, but I think it's clear that leverage makes them bigger than they would otherwise be, and spreads the effects from the bubble sector to the general banking sector and thus the economy. With free banking, and especially full reserve banking, bubbles popping would be like 2000-2002 - causing pain the in related sector and amongst foolish speculators, but not fucking up the rest of the economy. The difference in real estate bubbles is the fact that the fractional reserve banking system is so exposed to that asset class, and so heavily leveraged. A financial system where banks take deposits, then lend them out under conservative terms, would be far more stable. Higher risk activities can be financed through venture capital, the stock market, junk bonds, angel investing etc. Right now, you have people depositing in banks, thinking it is cash aka safe, whereas in many cases it's a massively leveraged bet on massively leveraged real estate speculators. The social consequences of letting them suffer the results of their own actions are too unpalatable for the voting majority in any democratic society, therefore the cost of the errors gets transferred to the conservative, sound, and/or productive members of that society. If populations are going to steal my money to bail themselves out of their misguided rampant speculation and greed, then I would much prefer they are either prohibited or limited from speculating in the first place. Leave it to people who can actually handle the consequences without trying to thieve from others.
It either needs some constitutional-type legislation (in countries which have that) or a very strong culture of personal responsibility to prevent this kind of thing happening. Right now neither is in evidence.
Quote from Cutten:
And what's wrong with comparing the signalling role of the VIX with that of credit ratings? The VIX serves as an assessment of risk. A credit rating is also an assessment of risk. They have their differences but they also have certain things in common.