Kevin_Kennedy
09-16-2008, 08:45 AM
This was posted on another message board I frequent, and I thought you would all get a kick out of it.
As I've been saying ever since I got here, the deregulation of our banking system, a system devised after the great depression to protect us from the kind of financial metdown that is threatening us now, was didmantled by the people who bought into and continue to buy into the philiosophy that government is the problem and that markets are the solution.
The fact is that government can be a problem, but the answer to problematic government is NOT the market...it's better smarter governments.
Free markets require regulation because sometimes individuala making perfectly rational decisions FOR THEMSELVES, leads the society as a whole into terrible situations.
And that is exactly what is going on now with our banking crises.
Curse you Scroogeitarians for understandinbg only SOME of the principles of economics, but for not bothering to understand that social science well enough to see that everything you thought you understood so much better than liberals was only partially right.
NO, markets cannot entirely regulate themselves. That was, is and always will be the sheer bunk of the Scroogeitarian mindset
All that anti-governance, socio-economic philosophy inevitably leads us to are TRAGEDIES OF THE COMMONS, of one kind or the other.
Now, thanks to banking deregulation, ten million perfectly rational decisions made by perfectly rational people, people who were only seeking to maximize profits, after all; people who did absolutely nothing wrong; people who were simply playing the game according to the rules we put in place, are leading our nation into a serious, A VERY SERIOUS, national financial crises.
Lehman had 40 times as much money lent out as it had in capital, folks.
And cpaital they were counting on was the bundles of mortgages with values based on the prices of real estate BEFORE the R E bubble burst.
So now, LEHMAN finds itself without the capitalization to support the amount of momney they have loaned out.
The bank is bust.
AIG? That insurance company invested in what?
MORTGAGE BACKED financial insturments.
Guess what?
The value of those financial instruments is ALSO down.
Hence, AIG does not have the liquidity to pay off its policy holders if a serious natural disaster happens.
YOUR BANK?
YOU BANK, is probably holding financial instruments based on Freddie Mae or Fanny Mac debt instruments, too.
Its capitalization is ALSO likely based on assets which are losing values, too.
NONE of this would be happening if we hadn't DEREGULATED our banking industry, folks. Savings banks could NOT invest in high risk securities UNTIL supply siders, people who worship the market as blindly as any Christian worships the baby Jesus, dismantled those safeguard regulations we HAD IN PLACE to p[rvent this kind of problem.
EXCELLENT PLANNING SCROOGITARIANS!
Way to ignore the lessons of the past so that you all could make the same damned mistake you Scroogeitarians made in the past.
Way to go, you greedy ignrant genuises!
You and your iditoic hatred of our government have done what 400,00,000 million communists armed with 27,000 nuclear weapons could NOT do...You have beaten America down to the point where our money is a joke, we are indebted worse than the third world, we have deindustrialized our nation, un and underemployed most of our people, our infrastucture is falling apart and the world fucking hates us!
I hope you enjoy all your Bimmers and your McMansions.
Most of you won't be keeping them long.
As I've been saying ever since I got here, the deregulation of our banking system, a system devised after the great depression to protect us from the kind of financial metdown that is threatening us now, was didmantled by the people who bought into and continue to buy into the philiosophy that government is the problem and that markets are the solution.
The fact is that government can be a problem, but the answer to problematic government is NOT the market...it's better smarter governments.
Free markets require regulation because sometimes individuala making perfectly rational decisions FOR THEMSELVES, leads the society as a whole into terrible situations.
And that is exactly what is going on now with our banking crises.
Curse you Scroogeitarians for understandinbg only SOME of the principles of economics, but for not bothering to understand that social science well enough to see that everything you thought you understood so much better than liberals was only partially right.
NO, markets cannot entirely regulate themselves. That was, is and always will be the sheer bunk of the Scroogeitarian mindset
All that anti-governance, socio-economic philosophy inevitably leads us to are TRAGEDIES OF THE COMMONS, of one kind or the other.
Now, thanks to banking deregulation, ten million perfectly rational decisions made by perfectly rational people, people who were only seeking to maximize profits, after all; people who did absolutely nothing wrong; people who were simply playing the game according to the rules we put in place, are leading our nation into a serious, A VERY SERIOUS, national financial crises.
Lehman had 40 times as much money lent out as it had in capital, folks.
And cpaital they were counting on was the bundles of mortgages with values based on the prices of real estate BEFORE the R E bubble burst.
So now, LEHMAN finds itself without the capitalization to support the amount of momney they have loaned out.
The bank is bust.
AIG? That insurance company invested in what?
MORTGAGE BACKED financial insturments.
Guess what?
The value of those financial instruments is ALSO down.
Hence, AIG does not have the liquidity to pay off its policy holders if a serious natural disaster happens.
YOUR BANK?
YOU BANK, is probably holding financial instruments based on Freddie Mae or Fanny Mac debt instruments, too.
Its capitalization is ALSO likely based on assets which are losing values, too.
NONE of this would be happening if we hadn't DEREGULATED our banking industry, folks. Savings banks could NOT invest in high risk securities UNTIL supply siders, people who worship the market as blindly as any Christian worships the baby Jesus, dismantled those safeguard regulations we HAD IN PLACE to p[rvent this kind of problem.
EXCELLENT PLANNING SCROOGITARIANS!
Way to ignore the lessons of the past so that you all could make the same damned mistake you Scroogeitarians made in the past.
Way to go, you greedy ignrant genuises!
You and your iditoic hatred of our government have done what 400,00,000 million communists armed with 27,000 nuclear weapons could NOT do...You have beaten America down to the point where our money is a joke, we are indebted worse than the third world, we have deindustrialized our nation, un and underemployed most of our people, our infrastucture is falling apart and the world fucking hates us!
I hope you enjoy all your Bimmers and your McMansions.
Most of you won't be keeping them long.