Posted on 01/12/2016 5:30:29 AM PST by stars & stripes forever
;’)
Yes.
>> Catholicism running a nation? I give you Mexico <<
You obviously know very little about Mexico. It has been run for most of the last 100 years by the PRI, a socialist-fascist party that is strongly anti-clerical. Mexican law even forbids priests from wearing clerical garb in public, even though this law has not been strictly enforced for the last 60 or 70 years.
Allan Sherman did. :’)
My friends point was that while the Argentinians were always whining and complaining, they ought to fix their country which was in MUCH WORSE shape than Sweden. So, no, it has NOT gone the way of Sweden.
One proposal which made a certain amount of sense to me, but probably won’t to you, was to only allow upper echelon business salaries at 25 times workers pay to be allowed as a business tax deduction. Anything above that would not be a tax deduction for corporate tax filings.
I am generally skeptical of these 400 to 1 claims. Often consideration in executive pay are incentives and stock options, not just a straight salary. If the stock goes way up, then yes, that can result in a big pay day. I do not spend much time worrying that some executive at some company may be getting paid too much anymore than I worry that certain basketball players or reality TV actors are overpaid. I have little use for Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, or Kim Kardashian or Kanye West. But if they make a lot of money, I don’t begrudge them for that. Do we really want to go back to all of the policies of the 1950s, including 90% top tax rates? I certainly hope not. I am skeptical of ALL policies which raise taxes and increase the size the size of government. These policies end up hurting the little guy the hardest. The rich will always find ways to protect their assets.
If you have not already done so, I hope you will see The Big Short. Back when all the banks went bust, I did a fair amount of research on those banks. It turned out that the CEO’s salary at Countrywide went down from $140 million to a mere $100 million from 2007 to 2008. I don’t have my notes in front of me, but I believe the salaries of CEO’s at Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs went from the $40 to over $70 million area. Lehman Brothers at the time that happened was trying to get a rescue from British banks. The received the big NO and went belly up. Goldman Sachs, of course, had an in at the White House and survived. One reason, I heard, for increasing these already obscene salaries was that their stock options had gone down in value. In 2008 the stockholders rebelled and 43% voted for a provision to include a stockholder advisory on executive compensation. Stockholders need to do a whole lot more rebelling.
More recently, the CEO of Walmart was making around $20 million, while low level workers were making $9 an hour and having reduced hours so they were not eligible for full time benefits. Even if you consider $9 an hour, 40 hours a week, for 52 weeks that is only $18,720 (less SS and taxes). $20 million divided by $18,720 = 1068 to 1.
For more information just Google a corporation name and CEO or executive compensation, and a year if you want. Forbes used to have a really good listing of CEO compensation each year by industry category. Then in I think 2010 they changed that and made it a lot harder to track industry salary trends. At any rate, here is one link commenting on the disparity of CEO wage increases versus worker wage increases.
The Big Short is one big pile of
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
NOT ONE WORD MENTIONED of Fannie or Freddie, the two GOVERNMENT institutions primarily behind the subprime mortgage meltdown.
NOT ONE WORD of the Community Reinvestment Act, the law signed by Jimmy Carter, and vigorously implemented during the Clinton Administration.
IT WAS FEDERAL GOVERNMENT policy that mortgages should be made available to EVERYONE regardless of whether or not they could afford them. Traditional lending standards of requiring a significant down payment, credit background checks, and verifiable steady employment went out the window.
I’m not saying Wall Street didn’t play a role in the mortgage meltdown crisis. It did. But the whole thing was created by misguided government policy meddling in the private sector and mortgage markets.
The Big Short makes NO MENTION OF FEDERAL RESPONSIBILITY WHATSOEVER. Typically Hollyweird BS blaming everything on the private sector.
I seem to recall a brief reference to Fannie, but not big enough to be noticed by most people. I also don’t remember if AIG was mentioned. I think this was meant as a personal story, not a complete documentary, and thus touched on the types of people and the specific shorted securities that they were betting on. Thus in addition to detailed analysis of the holdings backing the securities, and then going around and talking to the guys doing the lending and housing wheeling and dealing it was mostly about their fear they had made the wrong bet, and their shock and amazement at how many people made this happen to us.
I do wish someone would make a reasonably dramatic true story about the other issues you have raised. A big part of the problem was the banks bundling a lot of worthless paper and then selling it, preferably offshore to people who didn’t know how or care to check on it. Was that particular part (the bundling and sales) related to something specific the federal government did?
I can remember driving down to see my son in Miami almost yearly from the late 90s to 2006. We came in the back way via Lake Okachobee, and each year I was astonished at how many more big houses had been built and were almost deserted. I kept asking myself, “Where are they going to find all the people to buy these homes?” I thought maybe it was laundering drug money. This looked like the same area where the alligator was in the swimming pool, and the poor shlub found out he was paying his rent, but his landlord wasn’t paying the bank. So many people hurt, sickening!!!
Personally I benefited because as a self employed person I was having trouble refinancing my 8.75% second property mortgage. However, I had been with the same bank for twenty years and the rental more than covered the mortgage. However, they were not concerned that I was two years behind on filing my tax returns although I had sent Automatic Extension of Time to File Forms along with adequate money to cover annual earnings. I could see the requirements were looser, but I still had adequate credibility.
The ex-wife of a friend had received a $30,000 divorce settlement which she used for a down payment on a house. Then she couldn’t pay the balloon and was foreclosed. My friend showed me the papers too late to reverse the foreclosure. I examined them. They were from Deutsch Bank (mentioned in the movie), and between the initial estimate of costs and the end (signing/closing), the balloon figure had jumped from 10% to 12.5%, which the Spanish speaking woman apparently completely did NOT understand. When the balloon hit (as was mentioned in the movie) she was toast and sought help too late.
For a thorough analysis and understanding of the subprime mortgage meltdown crisis, I would suggest reading Thomas Sowell’s book, The Housing Boom and Bust. Places the blame squarely where it belongs: Misguided government policy. Yes, Wall Street played a role of course. But GOVERNMENT POLICIES caused the debacle.
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