Posted on 01/11/2012 10:05:34 PM PST by neverdem
As a New Yorker I can honestly say that the only loser in this situation is...New York State. The state that led the country in commerce in the early 1800’s by building the Erie Canal has decided to put itself on the sidelines during the greatest business boom of the 21st century. Farmers along the southern tier of the state are watching as their neighbors just to the south (in Pennsyltucky) are supplementing their farming business with NG money. If the Pennsyltuckians are smart enough to cash in on this boom why can’t New Yorkers?
Pennsyltucky should put a wellhead tax on the natural gas and pipe it over the border to NYS...which would result in New York gas consumers paying taxes to PA. Wouldn’t that be a hoot!
The garbage company in our area, Waste Management, has fitted a lot of their trucks to run on natural gas. I looked it up and they have over 1000 trucks running on it now.
Indeed. Upstate is chained to policies made by, and for, NY City, and its turning upstate into Appalachia. We are moving in opposite directions. I've always felt the State should be divided. Make NY City a "special district" like Washington DC. Or make a brand new state from Albany South. Upstate NY would then become a normal state, like PA or OH.
I’ve been thinking that Upstate NY and PA’s Northern Tier would make a nice state :-)
Actually, you do. The watersheds which feed water to NYC aren't in the city. That's the big fulcrum the antifracking types have been wedging their lever against. Anywhere west of the divide should be opened up, however, and that might be the solution to getting some of the local enviros to back off.
I think it is safe to say they do not fare well in the face of the unemployment they have imposed on so many others.
As someone anxious to move out of the NY tax sink hole all I can say is — here’s why.
I hear you. Our country - by that I mean the people - is being held hostage by a small bunch of socialists. Get ready for November 2012.
Wrong.
The financial sector reacted to the stupid Federal mandates and Court mandates.
Mixing bad loans with good loans was done so that the total portfolio could be rated A or better, as it was put on the market.
The problem is, that in a portfolio yielding a 5% return on investment, in good times, a 5% default in that portfolio pretty much wipes out the interest return, as the cost of recovery on the principal is is factored in.
When the human body gets infected, our immune system sometimes over reacts. (That is what causes allergies and, perhaps, arthritis, and many other human illnesses.)
The government infected the financial markets with bad paper, and the government does not “prosecute” as you suggest because, for the most part, the financial sector did nothing criminal.
You are confusing subprime (mandated by fed CRA) and liar loans (illegal). Subprime mortgages are properly marked and the investor is aware of it when they buy MBS. What was hidden was within the good mortgages were hidden liar loans.
Rating agencies are paid by the banks to rate the MBS. As time goes on you will learn that rating agency analysts were never given access to the data on the individual loans. They would have detected the liar loans and rated the MBS low. When the analysts pressed for the data, the bank complained to the rating agency that as their customer they were being mistreated by the agency analysts. The rating agency management fearing loss of future business from the bankers basically told their analysts to find a way to satisfy the customer or ELSE (be fired)! Many analysts were forced to comply and reluctantly rated these MBS AAA. The rest is history.
When banks hide liar loans (illegal), rating agencies are forced to rate MBS AAA (riddled with liar loans), FMFM is stupid to buy or back everyone of them without reviewing them, and investors are buying them for pension funds, hedge funds, etc, etc, etc. You have the recipe for a major financial meltdown.
I would recommend you youtube William Black. He was the federal regulator during the S&L crisis. Many of the criminal activity of the S&L bankers are being repeated today in our current banking crisis. The gov can close a financial firm down from an audit that shows massive errors. Right now Fitch, Moody and several major rating agencies on Wall Street can be closed by the state and federal regulators for rating MBS AAA without using common industrial practices in analyzing the data of each loan in the bundle.
The loan applicant can be hauled in for an interview on why the loan application data does not match the loan applicants financial information and the bank can be hauled in to explain why loan information were not verified. If too many applications contain errors, regulators can close down the mortgage department of the bank and make a criminal referral to federal or state prosecutors.
Why isn’t all this being done? US Treasury fear that it would demoralize the banking industry at a time when they are needed to help the gov stabilize and untangle the mess. In the meantime the taxpayer is forced to bailout the situation and the criminal bankers are enjoying the fruits of their past fraud. Worst the public knows something is wrong but cannot fathom it because many of them are financial illiterates and even worst some believe the crisis is entirely the gov fault and the bankers were innocent victims.
Any “criminal activity” during the S and L problems, did not CAUSE the melt down at that time, and the same is true of our current mess.
Failure causes AUDITS which expose illegal activity.
It does not follow that the failure was CAUSED but said activity.
You are confusing subprime (mandated by fed CRA) and liar loans (illegal). Subprime mortgages are properly marked and the investor is aware of it when they buy MBS. What was hidden was within the good mortgages were hidden liar loans.
Rating agencies are paid by the banks to rate the MBS. As time goes on you will learn that rating agency analysts were never given access to the data on the individual loans. They would have detected the liar loans and rated the MBS low. When the analysts pressed for the data, the bank complained to the rating agency that as their customer they were being mistreated by the agency analysts. The rating agency management fearing loss of future business from the bankers basically told their analysts to find a way to satisfy the customer or ELSE (be fired)! Many analysts were forced to comply and reluctantly rated these MBS AAA. The rest is history.
When banks hide liar loans (illegal), rating agencies are forced to rate MBS AAA (riddled with liar loans), FMFM is stupid to buy or back everyone of them without reviewing them, and investors are buying them for pension funds, hedge funds, etc, etc, etc. You have the recipe for a major financial meltdown.
I would recommend you youtube William Black. He was the federal regulator during the S&L crisis. Many of the criminal activity of the S&L bankers are being repeated today in our current banking crisis. The gov can close a financial firm down from an audit that shows massive errors. Right now Fitch, Moody and several major rating agencies on Wall Street can be closed by the state and federal regulators for rating MBS AAA without using common industrial practices in analyzing the data of each loan in the bundle.
The loan applicant can be hauled in for an interview on why the loan application data does not match the loan applicants financial information and the bank can be hauled in to explain why loan information were not verified. If too many applications contain errors, regulators can close down the mortgage department of the bank and make a criminal referral to federal or state prosecutors.
Why isn’t all this being done? US Treasury fear that it would demoralize the banking industry at a time when they are needed to help the gov stabilize and untangle the mess. In the meantime the taxpayer is forced to bailout the situation and the criminal bankers are enjoying the fruits of their past fraud. Worst the public knows something is wrong but cannot fathom it because many of them are financial illiterates and even worst some believe the crisis is entirely the gov fault and the bankers were innocent victims, while the left think it is entirely Wall Street’s fault. In reality it is both. One (gov) is stupid and later complicit (gov working with the bankers during the crisis to loot America) and one is criminal (Wall Street). Unless both are severely punished, a crisis like this will be repeated (assuming the US survives). While you are at it, look up on youtube Ann Barnhardt.
What do you mean by “west of the divide” and “opened up”?
Check out the Time, Jan. 9, 2012, page 14 article, “Where the 1% Lives. Areas with large wealth gaps have more unstable economies” The charts show the inequity income gap has grown substantially in the past 20 years.
I have spent time in Mexico. People who think it is great to have very rich and very poor should go there and have a good look at the results. Then rethink mindless greed. Thirty or 40 years ago, the well off seemed quite comfortable with a much smaller income gap.
The continental divide: Some watersheds upstate drain west, others east. Some of those draining east, iirc, feed NYCs water supply, those draining west do not. (If I am wrong about that, someone correct me).
Areas west of the divide could be produced without any danger of surface contamination, however remote, of the NYC water supply, and that would likely remove most of the resistance to Natural Gas production.
New York may benefit in the long run by waiting, however, as the current boom has depressed Natural Gas prices. As an eventuality, the State might collect more in extraction tax from the same production if that production has a higher value.
In the meantime, though, areas where the pickings are lean will remain that way.
Economic engines run on combustible fuel. Am all in for mining combustible fuel. No alternative is available, electric require combustible fuel or nuclear energy. Time to mine or fail. And of course the environweenies and many of our representatives and the zer0 want America to fail. Therefore we fail or we defeat those wanting America to fail. Though the enemy surrounds us, the enemy hasn’t yet grasped their defeat is nigh. Can see 2012 from this house.
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