My Tea Party Starts at 3:00pm

[Rich Webb]

Never! It is spereated from being a State for a reason. Please do
really think it through.

Well, Virginia's portion of the original grant was returned to that
state in the mid 19th century and the world didn't come to an end.
Perhaps a solution would be to release District residents from paying
any Federal payroll or income taxes, given that they don't have
congressional representation?

 

[Rich Grise]

Been on welfare all that time?

No, JosephKKK, I'm not eligible; I'm white.

Essentially, I've been working under the table, usually as a consultant,
although I did spend about the last five years of my parents' lives doing
home care for room and board and beer money.

Thanks anyway,
Rich

 

[James Arthur]

Well, Virginia's portion of the original grant was returned to that
state in the mid 19th century and the world didn't come to an end.
Perhaps a solution would be to release District residents from paying
any Federal payroll or income taxes, given that they don't have
congressional representation?

To the contrary, D.C. is all too well represented--it's the city
Congress built, rolling in federal dough. Fairness and subsidies
and murders for everyone.

Cheers,
James Arthur

 

[krw]

Gun control is good, when it helps score a direct hit at the center
of your target.

It sure helped Captain Phillips.

 

[James Arthur]

That's what you get with strict gun "controls" ;-)

...Jim Thompson

It's a cesspool of poverty, drugs, misery and crime, just across
town from their super-rich & powerful benefactors: Congress.

Limousine-liberals and their feel-good theories, laid bare
on so many points of public policy.


James Arthur

 

[James Arthur]

(I wrote this April 17th. Since then, the Administration has
decided to seize voting, equity interests in banks, allowing
the government to hire, fire, and direct the companies. --ja)

They aren't a tax yet. They are a spending or wasting event at this
point.

Of course they're a tax. Deficit spending is tax. Diluting the
currency is tax--it reduces the wealth of every single American--
and inflation bumps them to higher tax brackets on tax day, further
increasing their tax.

Unfortunately the economy is being held hostage by

corporations that are "too big to fail". "Too big too fail" should
mean "too big to remain not broken up" but it doesn't and with all the
fire walls in the banking industry pulled down, right now we are
stuck. We either pay up or the whole economy goes in the tank.

The articulated justification--too big to fail--is artifice. They've
already failed; it's a fait accompli.

They're all simply an excuse for the greatest transfers of wealth in
the history of mankind--chiefly to subprime borrowers.

Further, local banks, of sound and traditional practices, could've
have been bolstered, infused with capital to replace the services
of the big banks. That's redundant, diffuse, and secure. Except
that those, being decentralized and of sound standing, can't be
easily subverted, nationalized, and controlled by payments, made
into wards of the state.

It's a Marxist revolution, nothing less.


James Arthur

 

[Rich Webb]

It's a Marxist revolution, nothing less.

Or a new twist on Godwin's Law... ;-)

 

[Rich Webb]

Ah but they do have house Representitives, just not Senator(s).

Singular, not plural. That number is reasonable, given the population of
the District versus the size of the mean Congressional apportionment
from the 2000 Census.

However, it's a non-voting position.

 

[MooseFET]

(I wrote this April 17th.  Since then, the Administration has
decided to seize voting, equity interests in banks, allowing
the government to hire, fire, and direct the companies. --ja)



Of course they're a tax.  Deficit spending is tax.  Diluting the
currency is tax--it reduces the wealth of every single American--
and inflation bumps them to higher tax brackets on tax day, further
increasing their tax.

If you redefine words. I feel free to do it too.

Deficit spending in a blueberry pie. Diluting the currency is toast
and tea.


Back to the right definitions. Diluting the currency leads to
inflation because you end up with an increased money supply. Right
now the problem is that we have a sharply decreasing money
supply.

   Unfortunately the economy is being held hostage by


The articulated justification--too big to fail--is artifice.  They've
already failed; it's a fait accompli.

We still have a choice between doing what we are doing about it or
letting the economy go completely in the tank.

They're all simply an excuse for the greatest transfers of wealth in
the history of mankind--chiefly to subprime borrowers.

nonsense! The total of all the subprime borrowers is only 168 Billion
dollars. If the sub primes was the real problem 168 Billion would
have fixed it and we wouldn't have this mess.

You have bought into the story that puts the fault squarely where it
isn't. Notice that far more money has gone missing than the total of
all of the subprime loans. This should tell you something about the
real case.

 

[MooseFET]

Or a new twist on Godwin's Law...   ;-)

I don't like cook carrots. I don't like Hitler. Therefor cooked
carrots are Hitler.

 

[James Arthur]

On Apr 21, 6:41 pm, James Arthur wrote:

nonsense! The total of all the subprime borrowers is only 168 Billion
dollars. If the sub primes was the real problem 168 Billion would
have fixed it and we wouldn't have this mess.

You're right, "sub-prime" has a more specific connotation than I
intended. "Sub-par borrowers" would've been more accurate.

They're the ones who re-fi'd, squandered the money, and are getting off
scot-free. The bankers and other poikilotherms just skimmed a few
percent, while the borrowers got the principal.

You have bought into the story that puts the fault squarely where it
isn't. Notice that far more money has gone missing than the total of
all of the subprime loans. This should tell you something about the
real case.

I haven't bought into a story, I did the math. (Order-of-magnitude
estimation, since actual honest numbers aren't available.) If I erred,
t'was my own mistake.

Without necessarily accepting your number, even $168 billion x 25:1
leverage = $4.2T. About half that was bogus, bubble-making wealth,
and subject to bubble-burst collapse, which is more than enough to
knock over a few dominoes. In fact, the effects of a -$2.1T
impulse would account for just about all the fallen dominoes,
wouldn't it?

Cheers,
James Arthur

 

[Richard The Dreaded Libertarian]

Or a new twist on Godwin's Law... ;-)

"Life is like a sewer- what you get out of it depends on what you put into
it." -- Tom Lehrer

I'd add, "And the scum always floats to the top."

Cheers!
Rich

 

[MooseFET]

You're right, "sub-prime" has a more specific connotation than I
intended. "Sub-par borrowers" would've been more accurate.

They're the ones who re-fi'd, squandered the money, and are getting off
scot-free.  The bankers and other poikilotherms just skimmed a few
percent, while the borrowers got the principal.

Do you have a number for how many dollars this is? I doubt that the
total loss is anywhere near the 168 Billion total of all of the sub
primes. Remember that many of the subprimes are still performing
loans.

I haven't bought into a story, I did the math.  (Order-of-magnitude
estimation, since actual honest numbers aren't available.) If I erred,
t'was my own mistake.

Without necessarily accepting your number, even $168 billion x 25:1
leverage = $4.2T.

The leveraging means that the mortgages isn't most of the losses.
Most of the losses is in the whole credit default swaps and tranches
market. This is a market that really had little to do with the
underlying security it was a classic bubble. It could have been tulip
bulbs for all it mattered.

 About half that was bogus, bubble-making wealth,
and subject to bubble-burst collapse, which is more than enough to
knock over a few dominoes.  In fact, the effects of a -$2.1T
impulse would account for just about all the fallen dominoes,
wouldn't it?

$2.1T is most likely way on the low side for all of the money that has
disappeared out of the world's economy. The number I have heard for
the total amount of "Bob borrowed $10 from Bill, Bill borrowed $10
from John, John borrowed $10 from Bob" paper wealth that leads in a
circle is $1000 T. I expect that unwinding it all without losing
0.21% is not going to happen. The current decrease in money supply is
because a lot of it is needed to do the unwinding.

Over about the last 40 years, the firewalls that prevented this sort
of thing have been one by one removed. Some new ones will have to be
put in place.

 

[James Arthur]

Do you have a number for how many dollars this is? I doubt that the
total loss is anywhere near the 168 Billion total of all of the sub
primes. Remember that many of the subprimes are still performing
loans.

48% of subprimes are in foreclosure or default, last I heard reported
(3/5/09).

I don't have a current figure for Alt-A assets.

Figures for these and Alt-A loans are scarce--no one wants to admit
their exposure, and the Administration doesn't seem to want us to
know--it appears to be actively suppressing the information.

Expect much more--you get free Obama bonusbux if you default and
nada if you don't.

Subsidize defaults, and that's what you'll get.


Cheers,
James Arthur

 

[Bob Larter]

(I wrote this April 17th. Since then, the Administration has
decided to seize voting, equity interests in banks, allowing
the government to hire, fire, and direct the companies. --ja)


Of course they're a tax. Deficit spending is tax. Diluting the
currency is tax--it reduces the wealth of every single American--
and inflation bumps them to higher tax brackets on tax day, further
increasing their tax.

Unfortunately the economy is being held hostage by

The articulated justification--too big to fail--is artifice. They've
already failed; it's a fait accompli.

They're all simply an excuse for the greatest transfers of wealth in
the history of mankind--chiefly to subprime borrowers.

Really? I thought that they were all losing their houses? It seems to me
that the people making the money are the mortgage vendors, who're
getting paid out despite all the foreclosures.

 

[MooseFET]

Really? I thought that they were all losing their houses? It seems to me
that the people making the money are the mortgage vendors, who're
getting paid out despite all the foreclosures.

Yes, the comparatively wealthy are the ones who are actually getting
the bulk of the money. A few of the ones near the bottom got housing
for a mortgage payment less than the rent they would otherwise have
paid. Some people are claiming outrage that the poor gained anything
at all out of the mess in hopes of distracting from the real cause of
the problem.

The US is going through a series of bubble economies. From the 1930s
to the 1980s, was a pause in the bubble and bust cycle. If you look
back before the 1930s you see a string of bubble and bust economies.
In the 1930s, a bunch of regulations were put in place that damped the
effect. In the 1980s through today, the regulations were removed.
There was also a clamping effect from the way that the tax code
worked. When your income went up past what today would be about 3
million per year, you hit a sharp increase in taxes. This worked like
having an amplifier in the system where the gain decreased suddenly at
one point. This had the obvious effect on the unstable system.

 

[James Arthur]

Really? I thought that they were all losing their houses? It seems to me
that the people making the money are the mortgage vendors, who're
getting paid out despite all the foreclosures.

I've read the real estate records for hundreds and hundreds of
foreclosures.

The usual story is: the owners bought in. As prices rose, they
re-fi'd every penny of bubble equity out on the way up--often
several times. Then they split,leaving the bank holding the
(empty) bag.

So yes, the borrowers got the money.

Even if the borrowers lose "their" house, a large portion have
gotten to live in nice houses they couldn't afford for years,
for less than they'd pay in rent. Then they bail, with no
enforcement, and typically with some re-fi money in their pocket.

And the last, newest scenario is: the bank writes down their
mortgage, and Obama makes the bank whole with your money.


Cheers,
James Arthur

 

[krw]

Didn't the SC overturn the gun controls just last year?

Liberals only listen to the Supreme Court when it agrees with them.

 

[James Arthur]

The US is going through a series of bubble economies. From the 1930s
to the 1980s, was a pause in the bubble and bust cycle. If you look
back before the 1930s you see a string of bubble and bust economies.
In the 1930s, a bunch of regulations were put in place that damped the
effect.

A pause in the bubble-burst cycle? We've been having panics,
bubbles, and recessions right along, just like we always have.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States

Panic of 1873 1873–1879

Long Depression 1873–1896

Panic of 1893 1893–1896

Panic of 1907 1907–1908

Post-World War I recession 1918–1921

Great Depression 1929–1939

Recession of 1953 1953–1954

Recession of 1957 1957–1958

Recession of 1960-1 1960–1961

1973 oil crisis

1973–1974 stock market crash 1973–1975

Early 1980s recession 1980–1982

Stock market crash of 1987

Friday the 13th Crash October 13, 1989

Early 1990s recession 1990–1991

Early 2000s recession Mar-Nov 2001


Cheers,
James Arthur

 

[MooseFET]

A pause in the bubble-burst cycle?  We've been having panics,
bubbles, and recessions right along, just like we always have.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States

  Panic of 1873         1873–1879

Note the word "panic" for how serious and sudden like a bubble
bursting.

  Long Depression       1873–1896

  Panic of 1893         1893–1896

Note the word "panic"

  Panic of 1907                 1907–1908

Note the word "panic"

  Post-World War I recession    1918–1921

Note that this was just a recession this time.

  Great Depression      1929–1939

This started as a "panic"

  Recession of 1953      1953–1954

Not "panic"

  Recession of 1957      1957–1958 Not "panic"

  Recession of 1960-1    1960–1961 Not "panic" nature here

  1973 oil crisis

I'll take your point on this one

  1973–1974 stock market crash        1973–1975

This is the "oil crisis" again

  Early 1980s recession  1980–1982 Not a "panic" here

  Stock market crash of 1987

This was the "panic" sort again.