Comments on: Don’t Mess With John Galt’s Right to Get a Sub-Prime Loan

By: aardvark

aardvark — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:59:45 +0000

Well, obviously “you people” are those who disagree with him, and asserting your argument was “black and white” reflects his inability to come up with a cogent argument of his own.

By: masaccio

masaccio — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 23:59:51 +0000

Please explain a) who “you people” are and b) what is black and white in my post.

By: damagedone

damagedone — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:14:41 +0000

The NYT article about the housebuilding industry probably fits in here; being able to carry losses back to more years to get a tax kick back not to build makes senses to GMU economists, I suspect. It makes the builder companies takeover targets – huge cash balances just sitting there and built-in tax losses. BIG PAYDAY FOR MANAGEMENT when stock price gets bid up.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/business/economy/15gret.html?_r=1

Also Elizabeth Warren – not happy with the lobbying on the PBS NOW show over the weekend – if you saw it.

By: readerOfTeaLeaves

readerOfTeaLeaves — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 21:26:22 +0000

‘High five’ for that comment ;-))

By: readerOfTeaLeaves

readerOfTeaLeaves — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 21:25:25 +0000

Of more concern to me at this point, after a fair amount of reading and listening, is the quite likely scenario that the Mob is riding behind many of these so-called ‘legit’ outifts. See this from yesterday’s Financial Times for just a thin crust of the top of an iceberg. (Emptywheel readers will recognize the name ‘Victor Bout’.)

I make this comment for several reasons:
1. My background in environmental studies involved looking at patterns of populations over time; when they alter their behavior, something’s deeply amiss. In other words, the populations are merely ‘indicators’ of what’s going on at a deeper level, and I’d say this is true with finance in today’s ‘global economy’.

2. A ‘normal’ bank would not be getting into the kinds of activities that charge 33% interest, would not rely on tax havens, would not get involved with dark money, and would steer clear of fraud; all of those are ‘criminal’ activities.

3. It appears that Todd Zywicki is so blinded by economic ideology of the Randian (and Chicago school) ilk that he cannot see his financial nose in front of his economic face — if he saw more clearly, he would recognize that banks in the US did **not** charge usurious fees and interest in the 1960s, 1970s, or even the 1980s (although in the 1980s, the Silverado and S&L meltdown must surely have had some mob activity behind it).

4. By failing to address the near-certainty of criminal activity underlying a lot of these mortgage loans, and also by failing to address the fact that ‘banks’ are no longer the same kinds of legal, local, community-based entities that they were in the 1960s and 1970s, Zywicki is not describing the actual reality of our current finance and banking structure.

Mr. Zywicki is clearly not a man to be given a shred of respectability, if he can’t see our current situation more realistically than you describe, masaccio.

Does he even ‘get’ the fact that Goldman Sachs is currently a Bank Holding Company, now bellying up to the Fed Discount Window? It does not appear that he troubles himself to admit that significant wrench in the financial system.

We’ve had so many ignorant shills given so much false respectability that it’s tough to tell the wheat from the chaff. Thanks for pointing out the distinction in this case.
Zywicki is clearly ‘chaff’.
Duly noted.

By: dakine01

dakine01 — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 21:12:37 +0000

Yeah, Barney Frank was so powerful he single-handedly twisted the arms of Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, Tom Delay and all the Republican House majority in the ’90s forcing them to his nefarious ways.

By: tinman1967

tinman1967 — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 21:04:38 +0000

Very true.

By: tinman1967

tinman1967 — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 21:04:21 +0000

As always you people try to turn something very complex into a black or white situation. No, the lenders are not always the problem. There are many others. Barney Frank and Alan Greenspan for starters.

By: Phoenix Woman

Phoenix Woman — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:43:04 +0000

Unless it’s slavishly hewing to right-wing dogma. But of course for him “political correctness” = decency, especially when advocated by a non-fascist.

By: Phoenix Woman

Phoenix Woman — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:41:33 +0000

The irony is that these clowns curse FDR's name when he was the only thing that stood between their grandfathers and flaming tire necklaces. (Then again, their grandfathers were probably backing the DuPont-financed coup attempt of 1934.)