Oh. I’m sorry. My bad. Please show me the link I missed to the statistics on loan demand. The ones that show me all those worthy people and businesses who should have gotten loans but didn’t.
Unless of course you are lying.
Are you lying?
But that requires that I believe something extraordinary: that Mr Paulsen and Mr Bernanke were totally full of shit. Because there was no “credit freeze”, or, even more extraordinary, there was a credit freeze but it didn’t matter because nobody wanted to borrow any money anyway.
And nobody said anything? According to the scenario you described as "factual, the banksters were reluctant. But they didn’t point out this glaringly obvious fact? Mr Benanke and Mr Paulsen, they didn’t have the benefit of your wide expertise and advise? They sounded the alarm, rigged up the fire hoses and drenched the house, but it wasn’t burning?
I don’t recall such a statement, perhaps you have it at your fingertips, where either of those gentlemen said “Welp, we fucked that one up bad, turns out there wasn’t a credit freeze after all! Soh-of-a-gun!”
Ouitside of your interpretation of a graph, is there any other expert testimony to support this claim? Seems to me, something so obvious and powerful must have drawn a great deal of notice.
I will generously brush aside your insinuation of lying. I know how testy you get when you lose.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/03/12/90309/too-small-to-succeed-firms-still.html It wont matter. SCYLLA can not take part of the blame for the economic mess. None of the bankers do.
http://www.thesmallcompanyblog.com/TheBlog/2009/07/the-real-reason-banks-wont-lend-any-money/ From the small company viewpoint, the banks just can’t be bothered with small business loans. Arrogance and laziness caused by years of easy money has percolated bankers into real problems for helping heal the economy that they fucked up.
Let’s see, nothing but lies and bullshit from Lucy. What else is new?
Gonzo:
That first cite is quite excellent. Congratulations. You are the first person to actually attempt to substantiate their claim.
I will comment specifically later.
Good job.
Everyone gets a vote. However, not everyone has several million dollars or cushy job offers to throw at politicians. Look, I’m sorry, but to claim that big business money in politics is a non-issue because everyone gets a vote is massively disingenuous. Hell, I’d go so far as to say that if this paragraph were accurate, businesses who have invested into lobbyists would be fucking retarded.
See, the problem with this is the following: when we “vote them out and replace them with people who are not”, guess what happens? The corporations invest massive amounts of money into the campaigns of every new person. This is not news. We don’t have, like, Perry, Gingritch, and Romney on one hand all raking in the corporate money to finance their campaigns, while Obama and Paul are holding back, being the virtuous stalwarts of democracy. It’s everyone.
Even if you can find a candidate who is unwilling to take the money, the sad fact of the matter is, a lot of Americans don’t care, at which point the opposing candidates are taking a trade-off of part niche group of voters (assuming their opponent is not totally right on the other issues that that fairly malleable group cares about) against way, way more money in their campaign–money which equates to ads, research, tours, and exposure. That’s a trade-off that any sane politician would take in an instant.
The saddest part about this post, though, is that it’s so blatantly obvious that our politicians are being bought and sold, that this post just seems incredibly dishonest. Hell, The Young Turks did a fairly good report on how every business who offered major contributions to Rick Perry’s gubernatorial campaign got huge returns off of their “investment”. And to claim “just vote them out” as a serious solution… Nah. Not gonna happen. There aren’t really alternatives present. If there were, this wouldn’t be such a huge fucking problem!
BPC:
Big deal. So fucking what? If you are a union of teachers, for example, you can also band together, financially support a candidate, lobby, get your voice heard.
A church can do it, police can do it. PACS can do it, any group you think of can bAnd together and strive to get their views represented.
Corporations, too.
So what?
Let’s see what your cite says, shall we?
“Blame for the crunch doesn’t fall on banks alone. Large banks had $4.4 trillion in unused credit lines outstanding in 2009, as consumers and businesses shunned borrowing to pay down debt. A 32 percent increase in U.S. bankruptcy filings last year suggests that plenty of borrowers simply aren’t creditworthy. FDIC data show through December that lenders in three major banking cities — Chicago, Kansas City and San Francisco — had more than 5 percent of outstanding loans late 90 days or longer.”
Wow! That says almost exactly what I have been saying. At the time the money was given to the banks for Tarp late '08, early '09, there was not much demand for borrowing. Those who could borrow didn’t want it. Those that wanted it weren’t particularly credit worthy.
Let’s see what else:
“Lenders aren’t saying we don’t want to lend. Lenders are saying we’d like to lend, but loan requests are down, and also the bank regulatory agencies are scrutinizing loans at a much higher level than they have been in the past,” said James Ballentine, the senior vice president of government relations for the American Bankers Association. “That, too, is understandable, because you want to make sure that all guidelines are being followed and the collateral is there, and that’s a problem for many businesses as well.”
"“We’ve encouraged our banks to meet the creditworthy needs of their communities, but as you would expect in a difficult economic cycle, underwriting standards need to be maintained,” said Bryan Hubbard, spokesman for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates 1,462 nationally chartered banks, including 35 percent of the nation’s mid-size banks.
Some of the bank pullback makes sense, said David Wyss, the chief economist for the New York credit-rating agency Standard & Poor’s.
“Generally, what I am finding around the country is that small businesses that have an established relationship with a bank, who have a good credit rating, are not having as much trouble getting credit. The bank has the money and is willing to give it to them,” Wyss said."
I’m guessing you didn’t read your whole article, Gonzy. Right?
Tell me, does the idea of democracy mean anything to you? Like, the idea that the government is for the will of the people, rather than the will of the people with the biggest pooled resources? That everyone matters?
Hey, you know what? That’s a great idea! But hey, you know what, we’re talking about the 1%. So do me a favor and hazard a guess… What’s the largest possible group of the population of the USA that would need to band together all of their resources in order to combat the resources (and therefore political power) of the top 1%? Last I checked, it was somewhere around 40%. As in, the top 1% of the country could outspend the bottom 40%. Geez, sounds like the democratic process at work!
Do you understand why people are complaining now? If the world was a perfect place, this wouldn’t be a problem. You know why? There wouldn’t be this brutal gap in wealth distribution, and it would be reasonable to expect the Hedge Fund Management Lobby to be on an equal footing with the Orphan Lobby, the Homeowners Lobby, and the Teachers Lobby. Sadly, earth is not a perfect place–we have massive concentration of wealth in certain areas. It doesn’t help me much if I get all my teacher friends together to speak with one voice if it’s still drowned out by the gigantic megaphone of the megarich.
And you know what? This isn’t a hypothetical situation. This is basically why the interests of big pharma are put before the interests of the general public in regards to health care reform. This is why the interests of big banking are put before the interests of the general public in regards to the regulation of our financial systems (see also: Bank of America’s most recent ridiculous gambles with FIDC-insured money). THEY HAVE MORE MONEY.
Seeing as you’re so smart Scylla, maybe you can tell me what the working title is for a system where the richer you are, the more say you have in how the government is run.
And that’s just purely financial issues! I haven’t even gotten into the whole “we’ll have a spot for you later” arm of business (Which, by the way, is not exactly news). Halliburton can offer the war-mongering president that gave them tons of no-bid contracts a cushy executive job; BP can offer the president that loosened responsibilities on oil spilling a seat on the board of directors. The teacher’s union? What the hell can they offer? A job that most people would be not only unqualified but also unwilling to do for long periods of time due to the grueling conditions?
Uh… Correction. Not 40%.
If we go by Net Worth, it’s approximately the bottom 90-95%.
If we go by Financial Wealth, it’s approximately the bottom 95-99%.
Cite: Who Rules America: Wealth, Income, and Power
WOW, SURE IS DEMOCRACY IN HERE
Yeah. One person one vote. We just covered this.
You checked? That’s great. People keep throwing out all these different numbers, but I never really see a primary source. Do you have one for this?
Just sounds like classic immature jealousy and the whining that goes with it. Get rich and get a bigger megaphone, or use your vote.
[quotw]And you know what? This isn’t a hypothetical situation. This is basically why the interests of big pharma are put before the interests of the general public in regards to health care reform. This is why the interests of big banking are put before the interests of the general public in regards to the regulation of our financial systems (see also: Bank of America’s most recent ridiculous gambles with FIDC-insured money). THEY HAVE MORE MONEY.
[/quote]
Not really. The problem is that the people are stupid and they elect corrupt politicians.
So, the sooner you convince enough of the 99% percent that their participation is futile, the sooner we abandon the pretense of representative democracy and go back to what we did hundreds of years ago. Which often ended badly for the rich.
Even Caligula recognized the importance of bread and circuses.
One post up. http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
Turns out I was wrong by a factor of about 2.4. And it’s not 2.4 times less of the poor. Yes, I recognize that purely the amount of wealth present is not a good metric. However, it can offer a guideline. Especially when you consider that, for issues like this, there’s a fairly huge barrier of entry–a few hundred dollars for each politician, while being beyond the means of most lower-class families, is nothing more than chump change for a politician.
Bullshit. It’s “Immature jealousy and whining” to note that there is something wrong with our democratic political system being excessively tainted by special interest groups with more money than the rest of us? You’re an asshole.
Seeing as we’ve been over the latter, can I take this as you accepting that the true defining factor in getting your voice heard in American politics is the weight of your bank account statement?
Name me 10 politicians currently in congress or working as governors who are not “corrupt”. Just 10. That’s all I’m asking for. Assuming you can’t find these people, here’s why this matters: either the corrupt guy is always winning the election for some reason, or power corrupts. Either way, there’s a problem.
It’s like the old truism goes–no one can forment a revolution among fat and happy people.
The average Joe gets leaner and colder every year.
Of course I am an asshole. You on the other hand have a an undefined and half-baked argument. I keep hearing these arguments like “it’s wrong” or"excessively tainted" or these other adjectival justifications. They don’t get around the fact, that you still have the same vote a rich man does.
Of course not. This is stupid and simplistic. There are many routes. Gaining and using money is but one. You could do it to if you were so inclined.
i doubt I could name ten congressman off the top of my hand.
Anyway, you’ve kind of defeated yourself here. The nature of the problem we both seem to agree, is corruption. You have corrupt people in communist regimes. You have them in capitalist regimes. You have them in totalitarianist regimes. So if the problem are corrupt and power corrupts, than really, wealth is just another form of power. Why pick on that?
Anyway, if we are going to talk about corruption and power, I think it’s probably a good idea to examine the motives of the people who are seeking to “redistribute” the wealth and power of the 1% ers. Seems to me just an excuse to take something for themselves.
Anyway, the whole thing is over. You got rapes, and fringe people and nutcases, and cold weather.
So much for this political movement. It doesn’t look like it is likely to outlast this thread.
I so hate ignorant aphorisms like this.
In fact, the average Joe is pretty fat and happy. He has a household income of 43k and is 69% likely to own his home.
And even more likely to have owned a home at some time or another. Perhaps quite recently!
Look, you asked him for a site and he produced one. And it was on point! Now, if you intended that he present one that supported his position instead of yours, don’t you think you could have stipulated that more clearly. Is there no pleasing you?
What an exercise is public relations English! Goodness, these guys sweetalk you a little and you swoon right into their arms!
“Blame for the crunch doesn’t fall on banks alone.”
Well, now those are some proud words of unblemished innocence if ever I’ve heard them! The blame doesn’t fall upon them alone. I’m sure we are all much relieved to hear it, that there is some blame to be shared, and it doesn’t all fall on one set of expensive shoulders.
And this, this is a chestnut: “A 32 percent increase in U.S. bankruptcy filings last year suggests that plenty of borrowers simply aren’t creditworthy.” Notice the use of precise quantification when it is useful and vague terms when it is not. “32 percent increase” as compared to “plenty”.
And this:
“Lenders aren’t saying we don’t want to lend. Lenders are saying we’d like to lend, but loan requests are down, and also the bank regulatory agencies are scrutinizing loans at a much higher level than they have been in the past,” Ah! So, we are invited to understand that they are simply responding to “regulatory agencies” scrutiny! So, really, its the governments fault for stifling financial creativity with onerous regulation. Almost as if they didn’t trust the Invisible Finger of the Free Market, blessings and peace be upon it.
“…but as you would expect in a difficult economic cycle, underwriting standards need to be maintained…”
Indeed, we may. We may have expected it much sooner, when we were not in so difficult a cycle, but in this we were sore disappointed. But lovely word usage there as well, “maintained” so implies a continuation of standards, as if virtue had long been the constant, rather than the exception.
And finally, a bit of stout support from Standard and Poor’s. Seems I’ve heard the name a lot lately, can’t really say as I’ve heard it in the context of plaudits and raves for their unvarnished candor.
You guys get any e-mails from Nigerians, don’t open them, I worry about you.