FDR
The biggest Ponzi Scheme perpetrated in America is known as "Social Security".
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In a column on the financial melt-down published around 11/30/08, New York Times columnist Thomas “The Earth is Flat” Friedman treated readers to yet more classic MISinformation so typical of the soon-to-be-bankrupt Times. Could their long history of historical revisionism be the reason they’re in trouble? But that’s a topic for another post.
Friedman portrayed the greedy bankers and Wall Streeters as the villains.
Yes, many of them may have gamed “the system,” bundling this “junk” into “derivatives” even PhDs in economics didn’t understand.
But if that “system” hadn’t been created in the first instance, the gaming would not have even been possible. Friedman conveniently failed to mention that the system was a creature of the 1977 Jimmy Carter sponsored “Community Reinvestment Act.”
Allegedly designed to make the American Dream of home ownership available to all, it was expanded in the Clinton years to include even those with virtually no prospect of repaying. Lenders who refused to “get with the program” were threatened with loss of their charters.
Until it unraveled, it was a brilliant Democrat vote-buying scheme.
And as it unraveled, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, et al stood silently by and watched. These clowns are either too stupid to hold public office or the new poster boys for UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES.
For all the pain they have caused with their idiocy, these alleged “leaders” should be hauled into a courtroom and tried. If found guilty, I think public hangings are in order.
Bin Laden and his ilk have long sought to bring this country down economically. With that job now done by Frank, Dodd, Reid, Carter, Clinton, et al, the Islamofascists can now devote themselves to full time bomb building.
And for those who think I exaggerate, here is some of the rare wisdom offered by a former President (with whom I have many problems but at least got THIS part right):
“At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic giant to step the ocean and crush us at one blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years.
“At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
Abraham Lincoln, 1837
FDR
The biggest Ponzi Scheme perpetrated in America is known as "Social Security".
Here’s an excerpt from a recent article by Denninger, who seems to have an excellent grasp of wha’s really going on behind the scenes. Commenting on the bailout mania:
“The argument keeps being made that “we had to do this” to save the system. But what’s not being talked about is what the real problem was, and who we’re trying to save.
The political class keeps trying to tell us that “we have to do this for mainstreet” and “we have to help homeowners.”
Oh really?
Let’s look at a few facts, shall we?
First, total mortgage debt outstanding. Its about $14 trillion dollars.
With the $7 trillion dollars we have committed we could have literally given every homeowner with a mortgage a fifty percent reduction in the principal outstanding.
This would have instantaneously stopped all of the foreclosures by putting all (essentially) homes into positive equity - overnight!
So why wasn’t this done?
Because the goal was never saving homeowners or Main Street.
In point of fact the problem that the government is “trying to solve” is instead the unregulated bets that were made in the OTC CDS space which were backed by exactly nothing; there was no capital behind any of these bets!
There is no fix for this problem; your leverage is effectively infinite if you have no capital behind your positions. You are limited only by your testosterone level and there’s been far too much of that on Wall Street over the last decade.
This was not an accident; in fact Henry Paulson himself lobbied for the removal of the previous leverage limits as I have noted when he was Chairman of Goldman Sachs. Between that and the complete refusal to regulate anything or anyone by the SEC, OTS, OCC, The Fed or anyone else we have built what amounts to a pyramid scheme based on nothing other than debt.”
Oh how extraordinary, “she says” the clairvoyant genius speaks
Where where these stories 4-8 yes ago
Same individuals if questionable intelligence where professing the belevolent ownership of sweet sweet homes by the most misfortunate ones
He says go pound sand
I could be wrong but I can’t help but think in the future when the economy and the stock market are booming it’s a sign there is some type of Ponzi scheme occurring that will eventually collapse taking the economy along for the ride.
The 8 years of Clinton was a giant Ponzi scheme. A constipated yak could have run the economy better. (I do not mean to demean the constipated yaks out there).
US Federal entitlements are the largest Ponzi.
Madoff scandal raises issue of Obama nominees regulating financial markets
http://www.examiner.com/x-775-Political-Issues-Examiner~y2008m12d22-Madoff-scandal-raises-issue-of-O ^ | December 22, 2008 | Judah Freed
ping
i notice it failed to mention their base pay... sorry bout my last post#45, i reply'd to wrong thread... my bad. The people behind this should be jailed - NOT bailed out.
Sage advice from my grand dad... if you can't figure out the deal, don't put your money in.
Thank you, Gramps!
It was all “based on interest” or “based on earnings” or “based on growth”.
Wholescale and reckless “counting your chickens before they were hatched...”
bttt