No, not as such.
It might be useful in averting mass panic to not have a tidal wave of foreclosures all at once, but that is not directly related to the commercial paper, trade bills, etc. markets.
It might well be worth the while to try to create a facility to try to work the ARMs into fixed rate, if only to avoid massive losses to hit the banks presently.
Not from where I stand, and it is difficult to see a good way to help them anyway. I definately think we should pressure the lenders to lower the rates and go to fixed rate mortgages for those people who have variable rate loans and higher rate loans, but writing down the principle is another story entirely. Let’s face it, the real problem is the crash in the housing market. My wife and I put down ~30% on the house we bought 2 years ago. The mortgage is one we can easily afford (as long as the economy doesn’t totally crash), but that 30% investment is mostly gone. But how can the government help us there? Pay us the amount we’ve lost? What about people in other markets where they have not lost money? Should they pay them the same amount? What about my neighbors that bought 15 years ago and still have a signifgant amount of profit due to how much home prices have risen over the last two decades, should they get a payout? Let’s face it, I’m fucked under any kind of equitable system. The same with all the other suckers out there that bought houses too expensive for them, though I think they made poorer choices.
Regarding the banks though, they made poor choices too. They encouraged, at least implicitly, the lending of money to people that didn’t merit it and bought these mortgage backed securities that are now garbage. I am glad the government is not buying the up, the banks shoud take the fucking loss like the rest of us. But we cannot allow them to crash, if they do we are all fucked (we may be anyway). THe depression: >25% unemployment and another 25% underemployed. 40% of homes in foreclosure. And now we don’t even have a family agrarian economy to fall back on. No thanks, I am all for injecting money into the financial sector to stay away from that. And I see no better way to do it than the way they are. Buy an ownership stake in the bank, be first in line for any profits or payments when things get better. Sell the stock and get our money back out when the worm turns and the econmy picks up. Let the banks eat the bad securities they bought, they aren’t worthless after all and will return ~5-7% on the 80% of the mortgages that are still good. The remaining 20% have property that has been foreclosed on and has some value (not as much as the original note, but fuck them, they made some bad decisions and need to take the loss).
I am so pissed off at this whole thing. Fucking greed is putting me and mine at risk and it just pisses me off. My fucking salary, while a good upper middle class salary, has been flat since the fucking 90s. This in an era where corporations made record profits using unsustainable practices. Fuckers.:mad:
The real problem is swaps anyway. An estimated 60 trillion dollars. We do not have the money to make that well.
The genesis of our economic problems was the mortgages ,but it is much bigger than that. The weak mortgages were packaged and sold to all kinds of banks and financial institutions . If it stopped there buying them up would have been possible. But the financial institutions sold insurance on them. Tons of it. (swaps). They were not called insurance so they could avoid insurance regulation. It was a fancy pyramid scheme with huge and overly complex contracts to disguise their real intent. Paulson and friends made millions selling these things. They knew they could not make them good if the housing collapsed. But they kept on selling them.
Preach it, brotha. “Our billion dollar profit isn’t enough! We need two billion dollars profit! I don’t care how we get it!” And then those piglickers don’t get stuck holding the bill and the bag for their asshole shenanigans. We were having a strong economy, dammit!
Lucky for us that sixty trillion number is misleading.
(I use an internal link with a link to the cite because I wanted to point out the following post, where I linked to an opposing viewpoint to gonzomax’s.)
Any use of these funds for any other purpose than lending -for bonuses,severance pay,dividends,or acquisitions of other institutions -is a violation of the act.
From the act that congress passed.
I realize that your last line might be considered a cite, but could you provide a link (and page number if only the full document is available)?
It was my understanding that no such qualification was included, but I’m more than happy to be shown to be wrong…
Well you did a good job of being a complete dick.
It’s his fault idiots he had no power over ruined the economy? Have you ever actually did serious mechanic work? It’s not like he’s lazy. It’s hard fucking work.
You don’t think maybe the society that let selfish incompetent greed destroy his job doesn’t owe him a hand in keeping his life going?
As usual, you’re simply making things up.
First you couldn’t distinguish between Mortgage Backed Securities and mortgages, and now you’re making up whole cloth queer claims simpy to allow yourself fact-free class resentment and populist outrage.
While I have enjoyed this discussion enormously I have a little further advice for Fish Stink Pot.
You are angry and upset, bile rising, because you did things the ‘right’ and ‘responsible’ way. You feel a chump as others seemed to have benefited from gaming the system and living beyond their means. Only to be bailed out in the end by the stinking weasels in Washington, instead of suffering the consequences.
I can’t help thinking that you should change your thinking a little. I certainly disagree with the bailout for all the reasons so well covered in this thread.
You saved for your downpayment, chose a home within your means, etc. But you didn’t do so because you couldn’t find a sleazy way of gaming the system to your advantage. You did it that way because it’s who you are. Do you really think you could sleep knowing you’re gaming the system? How much bile would taking bailout money rise in you, I wonder?
This would be easier on you to recognize that even if they do manage to benefit you never could really be one of them, because it’s not who you, fundamentally are.
Huh…
I guess the money to pay fixed salaries comes from the freakin’ money fairy, not from the customers the commissioned employees work with.
I got news for you, if the commissioned salespeople at your company aren’t making any money, you soon will be out of work. If the salesperson isn’t getting their 6% or whatever, then the company isn’t getting their 94%.
If you are talking about a commsioned salesperson that can’t sell, that’s a whole other story and it’s Darwinistic in any economy. But when your seasoned commissioned salespeople start to falter that is bad news for your job.
For a good saleperson a commissioned job is just as reliable as a salaried one. Well, maybe not…in my field a salaried salesperson generally makes between 30K and 60K a year, maybe 75K tops.
My income has varied more since I went on commission. During the highest year in those 15 years I made twice as much as I did during the lowest. But the kicker is the lowest was 90K. Sure, my income is more variable than that of my
salaried comrades but going to commissioned sales was the smartest and most financially prudent thing I ever did.
The salaried people that work for the company that I do don’t get it either and actually seem to like work better when things “aren’t so busy” but I fear some of them will get a kick into reality in a month or so when things trickle down.
Which is irrelevant. Income is based on the demand for a product or service, not based on how hard someone works. Do you pay the kid that mows your lawn $20 an hour because he’s working hard?
It wasn’t “his” job. Within the bounds of the law, you have the freedom to make money as you like, wherever you can. It’s on you to be conscious of the risks to any given line of work – such as the company going broke.
Anybody that doesn’t understand that greed is a fact of life, and plan accordingly, is a fool.
Ummm… I think you’re under the impression that I was somehow criticizing commisions. I was not. I was merely saying that if you choose to take a commission job, you can’t be shocked that your income will fluctuate. You might want to read again.
Hey asshole, some of us also qualified for twice the house we bought and saved and did the fiscally responsible thing and got laid off (twice now) because of this fucking mess. Fuck yourself.
And to the rest of your post: TLDR
That is nasty. I did not stretch myself because I am normally cautious. But I am not everybody. Some people got talked into remortgaging by professional financial salesmen. They had seen many other take a chance and succeed. They were told they could sell later and make money. The proof was that people had been doing it with success for 30 years. They were told remortgaging and upgrading the house would make a lot of money. It did. Over and over.
And then it all stopped. The salesmen did not know it would happen. The financial experts did not know it would happen. The government did not know it would happen. These “assholes” should have known better.
I have better things to do than to waste my time arguing with someone who’s being a dick. I’m also not going to provide a detailed line-by-line history of my parents’ life and financial/job issues. You can go ahead and assume that they’ve mismanaged everything their entire lives.
Apparently because something is “possible” in your world means that every single person can go ahead and just get it done. For someone who has a high school diploma and was in the oh-so-luxurious job of roofing before he got into auto mechanics, it’s not as simple as, “sell the house*, move somewhere else and/or get more education”. Where is this money supposed to come from? And sometimes you have to stay where you’re at because you’re supporting your elderly parents instead of shoving them off into a nursing home.
I understand that you’re working in theoretics. You can respond to anything with “this is what they could/should have done”. That’s great and all, but no one has made 100% perfect choices their entire lives. That includes you. So if/when life fucks you over, you’ll find out how fucking NASTY it is to have people say, “tough shit, you should have done A/B/C/D decades before”.
And I don’t see where I said they cannot pay their mortgage, which you have implied in your posts. They can.
You’re comparing a life long hardworking mechanic to a lawn mowing kid? You’re a complete idiot if think the two even compare. Any idiot (like you for example) can mow a lawn. Fixing cars is hard work, and requires serious skills.
Yes greed is all to real as your post shows. You’re part of the cancer that is killing America. You’d ruin a person’s life just to avoid a few taxes. you greedy cuntstain. You’re mother must have been an incompetent stupid bitch to do such a poor job raising you.
When we get that safety net, and you better believe we’re gonna with the way things are going. It’ll be the “fuck off and die” attitude of types like you that causes it. Go right ahead piss and moan and try and make it worse the misfortunate. There will just be a stronger demand for a stronger safety net later. Thanks to you, fool.
Life has fucked me over. And I didn’t wait for anyone else to say it; I said it to myself. Nasty, maybe, but true in my case.
I’m applying basic economics. You’re an idiot if you think the principles don’t apply.
Yes, that’s it. I’m so greedy, which is why I’ve always opted for high-paying jobs such as teaching and social work.
And while Mom is fairly intelligent and very competent; I have to grant you that she can be a really bitchy at times. So you score there, big man.
i was actually challenging your assumption that a salaried job was more secure in this economy. it’s not, an ebbing tide lowers all boats. in fact the commissioned guys are MUCH less likely to be laid off or fired because their income DOES fluctuate.
Let’s, for example, say that Dad was a salaried mechanic for a company that has 2mechanics on the payroll. Chances are that business would still fall at the same rate - which seems to be about half-- so the company would’ve laid off one of the salaried mechanics.
If they have two commissioned mechanics then both mechanics are only making half of what they are used to, which is bad, but at least they BOTh still have jobs.
And telling a man who’s worked his whole life to put food on the table for his family, provide a house, and provide a decent life for them that he’s just gonna have to suck it up, go int bankruptcy and loose all he’s worked for?
The lawn mowing kid isn’t supporting a family. If I paid a kid to mow the lawn, and that kid was living on his own like an adult then yes I’d pay him $20 an hour (if I had it to spare. broke college student reporting in. I don’t have the money to hire any work right now). A kid just needs some pocket money usually. It’s the moral thing to do. Something sociopaths like you don’t understand.
You’re fucking scum. People like you are why there’s people starving in Africa. Idiots like you just accept the order and go “screw you I’ve got mine”.
How about instead of being sociopaths like your bitch of a mother raised you to be. We put programs in place to help people out? I’m not arguing that doesn’t need to change jobs, but he does need some sort of support while he’s retrained into a new field.
Would you rather he ends up an unhappy burger flipper while his bills pile up and he loses his house and car that he worked a good chunk of his life for, or would you rather he’s retrained into a highly skilled happy productive employee in a new field without a major disruption in his life?