The difference is the banks actually have the money, or a way to get it.. Madoff did not. If the banks were short they it just got it from the government. Which is what they did. They had a way to meet their obligations. Madoff did not.
I pointed that very fact out to him upthread. It had no effect. Earlier, Shodan struggled to convey the concept of interest.
I honestly don’t think he has the horses under the hood necessary to grasp the concepts.
It is not a term of art, or a technical term. It is pretty general and basic and specific. It means you can pay your bills. That’s it.
Seriously now, I know you are not an idiot. Just fucking stop. You are wrong. There is no way to salvage it or put a good face on it… but, it’s no big deal.
The big deal is becoming your unreasoning obstinance in the face of overwhelming evidence that you are wrong.
Plus, what you are doing is unfair to Gonzo. He doesn’t understand. Seeing you still fighting to save face makes him feel he has hope.
Think about Gonzo. It’s not fair to take advantage of the poor schmuck. Just give it up and moveon.org, m’kay?
Were it not for you, I wouldn’t know what “dispositive” meant. Now, I have it handy if I feel a compelling need to be an insufferable snot.
[/QUOTE]
If I gather, your strategy here is to throw up some other clueless claim in an attempt to defend the indefensible in the hopes of obfuscating things to a degree where you can claim that you are not a total fucking idiot.
What you are saying is wrong. It is wrong on many different levels.
The 12 Banks of the Federal Reserve system may allow member banks to lend their reserves to each other through the Fed, and this occurs at the Fed Fund Rate. In order to participate in this, as a bank, you must be…
Wait for it…
solvent.
In the case of a run on the banking system the Fed may be a lender of last resort, or it may not in which case that bank will fail and go bankrupt. Many did in 2008. So, like Madoff, when the banks ran out of money, they want bankrupt.
What is different than Madoff is that bank deposits are FDIC insured which meant the Federal government guaranteed the deposits. This helped the depositers not the banks. They still went bankrupt.
You’re surprised to see luci and gonzo being stupid? Come on now . . .
Nyahhh, I’ve known 'Luce for 11 years. He knows he’s wrong. He knows I know he knows he’s wrong.
What’s really sad is that he doesn’t know that I know why he pretends that he doesn’t know that he’s wrong… but I know.
Now he knows.
Right wingers preaching to each other. Whats new. One mind mired in right wing extremism agrees with another . What a shocker. Petulant children giving each other amusement. Enjoy.
Actually we have had bank failures, But the FDIC saved the depositors and the government stepped in to dissolve them. Madoff did not have the behind him.
I won’t even insult left wingers by putting you in their camp. 
How so much ignorance and sheer stupidity can possibly be concentrated into one human being such as yourself, gonzo, is truly one of the great mysteries. Seemingly you don’t even have the brain power to run your autonomic systems, let alone attempt anything monumental such as picking your nose or engaging in a discussion on a message board…
-XT
Seeing as the banks got “dissolved” when they couldn’t meet their obligations, and somebody else had to meet those obligations, than the banks weren’t____________.
C’mon. You can say it. It’s ok. It’ll feel good.
I promise.
Didn’t see the movie, huh?
Ok, I’m with you so far.
This claim goes beyond that.
Right, gotcha.
You didn’t mean to go that far, right? Or did you? Most people with fortunes don’t die in poverty, though perhaps a few do, right? It’s my understanding that the US’s income mobility is vastly overestimated in popular discourse.
Real question. I can see the necessity of those with sudden windfalls requiring solid financial planning. But that’s really a narrower issue.
Wouldn’t that suggest that the number of wealthy people should be increasing, and that the rate of increase should be increasing as well?? They (The Rich™) have kids, and those kids should remain wealthy, since it’s easy to be wealthy if you come from wealth, according to the common wisdom of folks in this thread. Couple that with some non-zero number of middle class and poor people who become wealthy in one way or another and ISTM that the number of wealthy people in the US should be taking off by now simply due to population increase. Right? Another poster earlier said that only an idiot could lose wealth, once gained (I’m paraphrasing from memory…it was something like that), and that even the children of wealth should be able to not only maintain that wealth but, presumably, increase it, and that this should be as easy as falling off a log…right?
So…is there any evidence that the numbers of the wealthy (by whatever definition we are using here) are increasing at faster and faster rates? Or am I missing the point of all of you who are attacking Scylla for what he said there?
-XT
More commonly they drop down from being wealthy to being average in wealth.
The thing to remember is that the wealth distribution will normally look sort of like a pyramid. Let’s divide that pyramid’s top 1% (the tip) into three groups. 1. The rich that stay rich. 2. The rich that become poor, and 3. Visitors (people from lower down who are briefly rich, but drop back down.
I’d say that group is probably about 1/3, 1/3, and 1/3.
Percentagewise that means 2/3 of 1% of the population loose their superaffluence. Which is a small percent, right?
That group then gets replaced by another 2/3 of 1% from elsewhere on the pyramid, right?
So yes, the chances of becoming really rich or losing affluence tend to be overstated.
As a general rule of thumb, I heard the following and it seems to hold up:
If you divide the population into poor, middle class, wealthy, and affluent than, in a normal persons’ lifetime they are likely to move up or down one level. Anything more than that is unusual.
Does that help?
Yes it does Scylla. Thanks. Sorry to pick a nit, but you meant, “2. The rich that lose their affluence?”, right? Sure, there are a few lottery winners who die in poverty, but I’d be surprised if as many as 1/3 of those in the 1% later become poor. Heck MC Hammer is doing fine now: he just over-extended himself and had to declare bankruptcy in the mid 1990s.
Is this an exercise in intuitive demographics, or are there some stats in the offing?
Yes. “Lose their affluence,” is what I should have typed.
[QUOTE=Scylla]
Is this an exercise in intuitive demographics, or are there some stats in the offing?
[/QUOTE]
With a name like Scylla, you’ll be lucky if you don’t get the old ‘This…THIS IS THE SPARTA!!’ as you get kicked into, er, The Pit (of doom)…
-XT
Most of the literature concerns income mobility, which is a little different than wealth. Here’s a start:
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2006/04/b1579981.html
This is a whole field of study, but here’s a start:
And:
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2006/04/Hertz_MobilityAnalysis.pdf
If you read those both, I think you will agree that I did a reasonable job of explaining the general gist of some of the current thinking on the subject.
Good reading and a subject I’d imagine you care about . If you have questions on the meaning of some of the terms or issues, let me know and I’ll do my best to clarify.
Have fun.
Perhaps, since you have the facts at your very fingertips, you will cite the specific quotations? I haven’t accepted a homework assignment in forty-three years, aiming for forty-four.