BayWolves

September 10th, 2015 at 4:39 PM ^

Matt Taibbi did an excellent job reporting in the theft of the American people by the banksters and "our" politicians. That initial article he wrote was on the money, so to speak.




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bgoblue02

September 10th, 2015 at 5:03 PM ^

there are three major culprits in this and only talking about two is preaching for popularity.  the banks and politicians had some pretty bad behaviour and were exteremely greedy but scapegoating them and saying the person with maxed out credit cards and an over levered home gets off free from blame is just unfair.  

yeah yeah I know they are poor shmoes who were sold this as a get rich quick scheme and didn't know better yadda yadda but they gotta take some accountability as well.  if you are signing a mortgage doc its on you to know what it says.  if you are spending more than you make in a month its on you if that doesn't work out.  

if you want to say that the lack of repurcussions to politicians & bankers vs. an individual filing for bankruptcy or being jobless for years isn't fair; thats a different story and frankly I don't have an argument against that or a better solution. 

given the amount of smart people ont he board and the number of times I have seen good quality financial education and discussion I think its fair to expect more. 

Ronnie Kaye

September 10th, 2015 at 5:18 PM ^

if you want to say that the lack of repurcussions to politicians & bankers vs. an individual filing for bankruptcy or being jobless for years isn't fair; thats a different story and frankly I don't have an argument against that or a better solution

I have a solution: JAIL

bgoblue02

September 10th, 2015 at 5:26 PM ^

so who are you going to jail? 

a - politician who made lending easier

b - banker who encouraged person to take out a mortgage that they could not afford

c - person who took out mortgage and knowingly lied on a formal application

the libor stuff, and fx, etc all that totally agree easy to asign blame; that also had an impact to individuals thats impossible to measure (and may have benefited them; who knows).  

going after the Fuld's etc who may have been giant pricks is not the right approach because while they were pricks and they oversaw a bad control environment, etc, nothing they did was illegal.  

pescadero

September 10th, 2015 at 6:06 PM ^

There was plenty of outright fraud committed by folks at banks and at the ratings agencies. ...but I don't think jail is necessarily the right answer.

 

The right answer is a combination of:

Ccomplete separation between lending/deposit institutions and investment banks

Use of anti-trust law to break up any bank of a size that it's failure is dangerous to the US economy. Too big to fail is too big to exist.

Tex_Ind_Blue

September 10th, 2015 at 6:43 PM ^

That used to be the case and it is still the case at some of the other parts of the world. Imagine as a trader looking at all that cash sitting on your colleagues desk! But you can't use it! The bankers and politicians are all hand-in-glove. Regular folks ate from the trough as well. Unfortunately, the regular folks were the only group signing a legally binding document whereas others were simply risking/de-risking their investment (which is known to lose value). 

It was unethical, but not illegal. Simple jail or fines are not going to cure this ill. 

bgoblue02

September 11th, 2015 at 8:01 AM ^

although it is all part of the same bank, a bank is actually made up of thousands of entities (most of which are for tax reasons).  But the two big ones are the banking entity that takes your deposit and the broker dealer that does a lot of the risky trading; these two entities pretty much can't interact with each other at all.  

Now I am all for splitting back up fine, but the last crisis related mostly (mostly) to mortgage lending which would have been in the large banking entity anyways and not the risky trading entity because you want your bank to making lots of mortgages from depositors money (Thanks George Bailey!).  Now if you want to talk about the use of mortgage derivatives and securitizations thats a different story; but securitizations are a necessary evil because otherwise a bank wouldn't be allowed to recycle deposits to a new lender and penion funds would sit around with a lot of cash and nothing to buy (they don't like individual mortgages).  

and lastly most of the banks around the world (UK, Germany, etc) are not split, they are actually nice big banks where their deposits and trading are not only in the same company, often times in the same entity within that company.  

I am all for splitting up and shrinking the banks, but lets not fool ourselves to think that would solve the problem, a new one under the new system would pop up somewhere somehow.  

EGD

September 11th, 2015 at 2:01 AM ^

Actually, it was usually the mortgage brokers who filled out peoples' loan applications for them and fudged their incomes and whatnot--until the banks stopped bothering to care. The same brokers would then turn around and convince the borrowers they could afford the loans through all manner of deception--especially by pointing to minimum payments on option-ARMs, which were products specifically designed by banks to facilitate these kinds of loans. And if you've ever been to a mortgage closing, you know the whole notion of people reading what they are signing is a farce. And the banks did all this because they knew they were going to dump the loans on Wall Street anyway--so when people couldn't pay and ran out of equity to refinance, it would be pension funds and such who'd take the losses, not the lenders. But yeah, blame everything on the borrowers.

bgoblue02

September 11th, 2015 at 8:03 AM ^

but no matter who fills it out, its still the borrowers signature on there.  Yes there may have been strong sales tactics of whether people can afford things they can't but there still has to be some personal responsability and accountability.  Personal finance should be a required course in high school and college to teach people how to understand the simple math behind a mortgage, or heck how to make a budget that gives them some emegency savings.  All this won't stop the next crisis but it may make it so its not so bad

The Mad Hatter

September 11th, 2015 at 8:40 AM ^

Most people don't know jack shit about finance, personal or otherwise, and they rely on professionals to guide them through the mortgage process.  I agree they should be teaching it in schools, but they aren't.

I bought a house in 04 (great idea in retrospect!) and the lender tried to get me to borrow double what I knew I could afford (don't you want a bigger house?!?!?) on a 5 year adjustable rate ARM.

I was a little rude when I told her that I wasn't a fucking idiot.  The problem is, most people are when it comes to money.

Then again, I didn't go to medical school and no one expects me to be able to diagnose my own illnesses.

bgoblue02

September 11th, 2015 at 9:21 AM ^

and I agree that more fidiciary standards need to be put on brokers; but one requires 8 years of school and roughly 4-6 years of apprenticeship training vs. the other requires being hired as a salesman.  



To challenge a doctor you have to be pretty damn smart and probably study just as much; to challenge a mortgage broker you need a calculator.  

bgoblue02

September 11th, 2015 at 10:18 AM ^

i never ever said the borrower was entirely to blame.  I think everyone involved front to back effed up BIG time and everyone is at fault and we need to all accept that.  Just trying to fix or blame one part of the problem (wall st) without looking at the gov't aspects or the borrowing won't solve anything.  

bronxblue

September 10th, 2015 at 5:01 PM ^

They put a major news story on their cover; sometimes people can do terrible things but not be complete monsters, and the article delved into what a conflicted, broken person the bomber was..  And the UVa situation was bad journalism but certainly not restricted to RS - you couldn't read basically anything if "published a bad story with mediocre editorialization" applied to every news source.  I won't get into politics here, but hating a pulbication because it tries to tell a story seems unfair.  Though, I guess, that's your opinion and you are entitled to it.

On the whole I find RS to be "less" than it used to be, but it certainly has produced some good journalism.

Ronnie Kaye

September 10th, 2015 at 5:19 PM ^

I understand the outrage but when I saw that cover I thought it probably wouldn't be that hard to think of other people who have ruined more lives than this guy did who have also been glamorized on magazine covers.

Gustavo Fring

September 10th, 2015 at 3:32 PM ^

Are the worst kind of sports fans.  It's entirely justified.  

It has less to do with the Patriots, or the Kraft family, or Tom Brady.  It has everything to do with one of the most obnoxious fanbases in sports.  Serves them right

the bee train

September 10th, 2015 at 4:16 PM ^

And I approve this message. Sox fans have always sucked, even before the championships. The Pats were such a joke they actually played a home game in Alabama years ago. They start winning and everyone walks around like they're the Packers. Worst fanbase outside of philly in the country.

Rabbit21

September 10th, 2015 at 3:42 PM ^

If Boston fans could just handle success like normal people instead of turning into Rabid Demon weasels this wouldn't be a thing, but they can't and so here we are.

This quote from the 2015 WYTS: Patriots edition sums it up best(even better it's by a Patriots fan):

Because even though I think most reasonable people can see that Ballghazi was blown out of proportion, the Patriots as a team, and we as fans, have done absolutely nothing to earn the benefit of the doubt from anyone.

Also fuck the Jets.

DomIngerson

September 10th, 2015 at 3:49 PM ^

Yes, Boston fans can be obnoxious but the Patriots are absolutely getting railroaded right now by the NFL, ESPN and our good friend Michael Rosenberg at Sports Illustrated.

The NFL is quickly morphing into FIFA/Pro Wrestling territory.

DomIngerson

September 10th, 2015 at 4:45 PM ^

The Patriots one all of their Super Bowls fair and square.

Contrary to what the masses believe, there isn't a single documented incident of the Patriots cheating besides Spy-Gate which really wasn't all that bad.

They filmed opponents hand signals which isn't illegal to this day if you do it from the press box. The Patriots filmed from their sideline which is a no-no and that is what they were punished for.

sadeto

September 10th, 2015 at 4:51 PM ^

Correction: the Patriots didn't "one all of their Super Bowls." They lost the two they played against the Giants.

And saying "there isn't a single documented incident " then making an excuse for the single documented incident just begs the question of WTF are you trying to say? They're not cheaters even though they got caught cheating?

And by the way, the judge's decision on the appeal didn't exonerate Brady or the Patriots, he didn't rule on the facts, he ruled on the arbitration process.

ak47

September 10th, 2015 at 4:20 PM ^

The thing that annoys me most is when boston fans take the smug position of this only happens because they are winning.  Plenty of other teams go through stretches of winning better than the Patriots have without everyone claiming they are dirty as shit.  The giants have won 3 of 5 world series.  Nobody ever accused the Jordan bulls of cheating. The Yankees dominated baseball and everybody hated them but nobody accused them of stealing signals or having to act differently around them than every other team in the league.  The Patriots both won a lot and cheated more than everyone else, both things are true.

kgh10

September 10th, 2015 at 5:15 PM ^

They have most certainly not cheated more than everyone else, they've just gotten the most media coverage for their mishaps and allegations recently. I think the thing that annoys pats fans the most is how people willingly follow any media narrative and go along with the disproportionate flogging for relatively minor things, especially compared to other much more harmful league issues. 

kgh10

September 10th, 2015 at 8:06 PM ^

Actually they did stop. I don't know why you are such a vigilant poster when this topic comes up. They filmed the visible sideline for all of a month after the initial memo was sent out stating they couldn't stand on the sideline and film. They were punished, stopped, and then ripped off a 18 win season with a loss in the SB. Filming from any location was legal before that memo was sent out. So save your "ignorant" comment, please, because I'm not the one who's ignorant on this topic.