Posted on 07/16/2010 2:20:16 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Beware the revisionists. It was bound to happen eventually, but here we are, less than two years after the U.S. faced its worst financial crisis in decades, and a steady stream of politicians routinely take to the airwaves to declare that the government overreacted with the $700 billion TARP plan and ripped off the taxpayer. That the incredible interventions by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury weren't necessary. That we should have taken our lumps and let the chips fall where they may.
Yeah, right. Jimmy Dunne, senior managing principal at investment-banking firm Sandler O'Neill, summed up my feelings perfectly when I asked him recently what he thought of those politicians: "They're idiots," he said.
Dunne is one of many who watched the meltdown from a courtside seat. "You had to be at your desk every day, but there was just this feeling of hopelessness, like there was nothing you could do," he says of those dark days in the fall of 2008. "You just had this feeling in your stomach that if the government didn't stand up and say, 'We will be there,' the whole thing would be crumbling down."
Why would things crumble? Because our financial system is one that operates on the idea of faith. Faith that institutions will back their promises, that people will pay their bills. And this nation went through a period where everyone questioned that faith. Institution after institution came right up to the edge of collapse -- and some plunged off: Bear Stearns, IndyMac, Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG (AIG, Fortune 500), Merrill Lynch, Washington Mutual (WAMUQ), Wachovia. The most frequently asked question on Wall Street back then was: Who's next? And in that environment, everything shuts down.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
Yeh right, and Obo is a US born citizen, Obamacare is for the good of all, and Santa is real.
Those worthless darn companies should have all been forced into BK and sold to someone who might have a clue how to operate a business, just like GM, should have been sold off to the highest bidder.
1) Unemployment, which is dogging our nation right now with an official rate just under 10%, could have easily risen to 25% and beyond, just like during the Great Depression.
A) Unemployment is actually at 18% (U-6) and real economic dislocation, (forced early retirement, decrease in labor market, and two earner housholds reduced to 1 earner households have REAL unemployment at 22%) Just like an Obamabot to say that $800 Billion is a good price to pay to save 3% points off UE numbers. I suppose she thinks that the UE rate has dropped .2% points due to economic activity.
2) The disruption that would have played out if the banks had frozen up would be disastrous. During the height of the crisis, The author was joined on the Squawk Box set by a guest host whose firm now manages over $1 trillion in assets. During one commercial break, he confessed that he had recently told his wife to go to the bank and take out as much money as possible, because he wasn’t sure the ATMs would be working the next day.
A) Typical Leftist claptrap. NAME NAMES. It would have been a public service that some idiot responsible for $1 tril of other peoples money would be so insane as to believe that his wife would have to rescue his shekels from the bank BEFORE he could get out of work should be FIRED! There was no run on ANY banks save for the one that was caused by Chuck Schumer. The bad banks would have been gobbled for market share by the more nimble, less piggish banks that would have loved to feast on the customers of the bloated bureaucratic megebanks. The investors would have lost their money, as they should have, just like the stockholders in GM, and the bankruptcy laws would have carved up the TOO big to fail banks and old off the quality assets t the highest bidders, as should have happened. The average everyday saver would have been protected with the FDIC and the prolonged economic problems of this slush fund would not exist now.
What actually happened was typical Crony Capitalism at it's worst. My profits are my own and my losses are the tax payers.
3)The smartest people, the ones with the most intimate knowledge of what was happening in the markets, all thought things were even more dire than government officials were letting on at that point.
A) Oh, you mean the smart guys that came up with the derivatives in he first place? Those smart guys? The ones that thought that NINJA loans and 120% equity, no appraisal, no money down financing in the housing market was a great and secure investment? Those guys? Yea, I can see why the author would listen to them!
Facts are facts! The fact is that the bailouts where a complete RIP OFF of the American public. They where a direct result of Government intervention in the markets and they have sowed the seeds for the abortion of a financial “reform” bill that will stifle the economy for decades.
The bailouts ushered in the corrupt Marxist B. Hussein Obama who has brought in socialism to the hilt! Hussein says the constitution is flawed and must be destroyed. His enablers, including a few on this thread, seem to agree with him. We should ignore the constitution to save it. The U.S. Treasury is not a slush fund for political payoffs!! And that is where the bailout and stimulus ripoffs went. Political payoffs!!
Eff the Big Government fat cats, bankers, unions and thieves!!
Throw the bums OUT!!
Anyone who supports this Marxist thuggery is an idiot!!
“That we should have taken our lumps and let the chips fall where they may. “
It is precisely because we allow the government to interfere substantially in the business cycle that when it does hit a point of recession (which is inevitable) that it hits bottom and stays there. If we go on providing incentives to fail, then failure is what is going to happen, more frequently and much worse each time, until no one will buy Uncle Sam’s worthless paper. Taking our lumps is awful but kicking the can down the road will destroy the Republic in the long term.
Another pack of lies from the rapists to try to de-legitimize our resentment. “You better put some ice on that”
I beg to disagree, Jim. What ushered socialism is one half of the country that celebrates it, while the other half is ignorant of how capitalism works. You will recall, I am sure, that Hillary too was urging the new "progressive" era --- just a codeword for "socialist." Both of the Dem candidates are Marxist, only one is a bit more open than the other.
I share you pain probably more than you could imagine. But, to be truthful with myself and others, I have to acknowledge that Bush has increased the government by 56%. Do you remember any serious discussion and opposition from the Republican Congress? I don't. It was also the Repub governor of Minnesota, if I recall correctly, who proclaimed that era of small government is over.
When you have Republicans that far left, it is little surprise that the Dems can get away with extreme leftist policies.
"Hussein says the constitution is flawed and must be destroyed. His enablers, including a few on this thread,"
I don't know about this thread, but I do see the enablers quite a bit on other threads: those that rave against the free markets and repeat verbatim the falsehoods from the NY Slimes.
"We should ignore the constitution to save it. The U.S. Treasury is not a slush fund for political payoffs!! And that is where the bailout and stimulus ripoffs went. Political payoffs!!"
I completely agree. I an outraged by the bailouts as much as you are, but a little confuses: you write with such passion as if we disagreed on this issue.
"Eff the Big Government fat cats, bankers, unions and thieves!!"
Completely agree with you here, too. Unlike you, some people are enraged not just by "Big Government fat cats" but all fat cats, i.e., the rich. In so doing, they advance the commie class warfare and serve as "useful idiots," as Lenin called them.
"Anyone who supports this Marxist thuggery is an idiot!!"
Even worse than an idiot: to support Marxists while having the privilege of being an American is also criminal (in my book).
P.S. I am not sure how any of this is connected with my remark about the run on Lehman.
Don’t look now, but if you support or excuse this socialist garbage you are an enabler!
Down with Big Government socialists and their enablers!!
Rebellion is brewing!!
This piece has to be a rip-off of the unicorn that craps skittles story or Dire Straits ‘Money for nothin’ and your chicks for free’...........
Okay, so we're suppose to believe some guy who would have lost his job? Of course he was for it, TARP bailed out all the idiot investment bankers who had no clue about the risk of their investments. MY money saved his hide, of course he liked it.
Sniff. The Ferraris, the $100 wagyu hamburgers. $1000/ hour call girls. Sniff, sniff. It would all tumble down. Can you imagine living on less than a quarter mill???? The horror.
The ones who are fools and terribly naive are the ones who think that we wouldn't have been better off ten years down the road without this cr@p.
Bring back Penn Central!
ML/NJ
As opposed to how good they are doing now? ROTFLMAO
“Faith that institutions will back their promises, that people will pay their bills.”
That is where this whole charade begins to come apart. People are stealing, ripping other people of if they can get away with it and generally looking to get something for nothing.
MILLIONS of people got mortagages that they KNEW they had no way of paying. That ain’t faith, that is greed.
“The smartest people, the ones with the most intimate knowledge of what was happening in the markets,....”
I’ve got a book sitting on my library shelf titled “The Big Short” by Michael Lewis. Point clearly made by him is that the big hedge fund managers and financial institution CEO aren’t all that smart.
Coming from the Democratic Party’s in-house business magazine, this opinion means less than nothing.
The economy was teetering on the edge back in Oct. 08 and banks needed a sign there there would be some support given. The argument that we may have gone into depression is a valid one; we watched as the market dove 1,000 points in 24 hours when the TARP failed in the House (we were already at DOW 7000 or so), then surged when the Senate said they would pass it. That day was VERY scary and those who think those banks should have failed are EXTREMELY misguided. Our economy right now would be 100 times worse and there would have been many more banks (large and small) closed right now with credit squeezed dramatically for the consumer and small business. That was a bad, bad time which already many have forgotten.
The TARP has been almost paid back as Pres. Bush promised.
Obama used the TARP to justify Keynesian policies (giveaways to the demand side). His stimulus was socialist nonsense. I agree that his "stimulus" was, in fact,very damaging. Not so with the TARP.
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