Fannie and Freddie insured the mortgages. The slight of hand mortgages were the brain farts of banks and mortgage companies cranking them out as fast as possible.
The rating agencies had a dual function. One was regulation. They were supposed to only AAA rate excellent mortgages. But they were paid by the banks for their ratings. Hard to believe that money would actually cause them to over rate the mortgages and CDOs. The rating agencies were essentially bribed out of doing their jobs.
When they were foreclosing homes at incredible rates, the banks robo signed the paperwork. They paid people minimum wage to sign the paperwork pretending to be someone else. There were rooms of people faking signatures to crank them out.
Bankers bring nothing to the equation of the disaster but greed, dishonesty and lies.
Are you trying to convince yourself?
Thing is, if they went onto the bridge in an attempt to get arrested, this would have been fine. I mean, civil disobedience is a noble tradition, and getting 700 people arrested simultaneously is a good way to get on the news. I have no complaint whatsoever with them getting arrested.
It’s the complaining about it afterward that’s the problem.
There is also, of course, the question of what’s accomplished by getting arrested there. Imagine if, instead, they went into a culpable bank’s headquarters, asking for specific employees/board members to give back specific bonuses to the government, and refusing to leave until the bonus were remitted or until they were arrested. Imagine 700 people doing this in groups of 5 all week long–or in escalatingly large groups, or 700 people doing it to different banks. See, THAT would be the sort of thing that could draw attention to the cause.
In my experience (limited, but galaxies more than yours), disobeying the cops has a number of drawbacks. What’s Plan B? If it only sucks, it will be an improvement.
They haven’t drawn attention to the cause? Seems like they have. I mean, here we are…
You may be right. From what I read, I am not under the impression that they were ordered.
Why else would they follow? Cops were offering Nickelback tickets?
Positive attention
Im thinking of pointing and waving and herding.
More like suggestion.
Hey, I’m giving it positive attention, you’re the one being all Eeyore about this!
Love you, dude, but they could be grilling kittens over trash barrels and you’d be giving them positive attention. Do you really think that getting accidentally arrested on a bridge and then complaining about it is getting them the same quality of attention that they’d get from having an organized, highly symbolic series of deliberate arrests, a la–well, a la pretty much every successful nonviolent resistance movement ever?
And if the suggestion is not met with enthusiastic approval?
“Thank you, no, officer, I would prefer this boulevard, it has more trees.”
Boy, when you say you’ve never been to one of these, you sure ain’t kldding, are you?
Everything you say is so much crap, because there’s nothing about what actually happened or when. Just this law said this was supposed to happen, and that law dictated that.
And then there’s what actually happened. Which is that Fannie and Freddie were late to the subprime party.
You’ve got nothing but arm-waving.
Yeah, these amateurs had a lot of fucking nerve to think they could protest or something, without having done a detailed study of everything beforehand.
That’s clearly why they’re not drawing any media attention to their cause.
Oh, wait - they’re doing a wee tad better than Mr. Blimpie, who’s so smart.
Guess they were dumb but lucky.
Backatcha, snugglebumps, but my heart belongs to Rachel Maddow.
A man who is ruthlessly honest must admit it is possible that his judgement is hopelessly biased. But since they certainly aren’t grilling…wait, they aren’t, right? Are there videos?
What, ban kvetching? And lose all the Jews?
Hiya back Scylla – long time no chat; trust all is well w/you.
Re: arrests. Anyone else think the NYPD might have done the massive arrest in order to start building a data base? 'cause that’s what I’d be doing if I was them. Anyway, if so, not much the protesters could have done – or do in any future event.
In fact, globalrevolution is broadcasting a video of the march as I type this.
Off to watch…
Seeing as Fannie and Freddie collectively held 50% of all outstanding mortgages extant in the U.S. at the height of the bubble and that more than half of those were subprime, and seeing as they created the market demand for them out of almost nothing in 1995 and dominated the market for the intervening period…
I think you would have to be an absolute moron to continue to insist that they were “late to the party.”
Do you mean “late to the party” in the sense that they started the party, were the first persons there because the party was at their house, and ended up drinking more than anybody else?
In what sense are they “late to the party?” It would be far more accurate to say that they drank so much that they got ahead of themselves, and to had to walk around the block before they started drinking heavily again.
But that is not being late.
I was there. I am in the industry. I worked professionally as a trader of CMOs, asset-backeds, and corporates for a major wirehouse. None of this matters because the data is wide open to anybody who cares to look at it.
None of this, none of it, gets off the ground or happens without the GSEs mandated appetite for subprime mortgages over nearly a decade, which exceeded 50% of the entire market.
Late?
They were the party.
Do you even understand what you’re reading? Krugman is the worst, most partisan hack on the planet, and all he is really trying to argue is that there was a pause in buying by the GSEs when the market really heated up.
You see this, right?
No.
There’s no way I would have just followed everybody up onto the Brooklyn Bridge. I would have surely ducked out.
“Guys I’m going to grab a piece of pizza, I’ll catch up with you in a bit.”
Sincerely, as a radical with experience, wouldn’t your alarms have been going off at full volume?
“boys this might be a good time to make sure you don’t have any recreational pharmaceuticals on you, or any outstanding warrants.”
That’s a pretty scary thought.
*All is well. Thanks for asking. Got any cool new shoes?
Guess we’ll find out if any of them try to buy a plane ticket.