The Greatest OWS Protest Sign Ever
By Barry Ritholtz - October 17th, 2011, 4:00PM
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Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.
October 17th, 2011 at 4:06 pm
Eating banksters is wrong … even if they taste like chicken!
October 17th, 2011 at 4:09 pm
That would be two weeks reading for Sarah Palin.
October 17th, 2011 at 4:11 pm
I would have added at the end, “…just in case you didn’t know.”
October 17th, 2011 at 4:18 pm
Remember that old caveat “Caveat Emptor” especially when dealing with Wall Street, assorted bankers and the government especially those working to protect the government of Goldman Sachs. Please don’t suggest we bailout investors….oh that’s right Goldman already got theirs thanks to Timmy and Bennie.
October 17th, 2011 at 4:21 pm
Yeah but they didn’t know it was wrong. In fact, it felt right at the time. In their F*** Your Buddy world they were doing what they knew the other guy would do to them. Why? More Money = More Right!
October 17th, 2011 at 4:23 pm
My day at OWS with 50 pictures of what is really happening.
http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=23205
October 17th, 2011 at 4:28 pm
OWS is wrongly tagged in the media as being ‘left wing’ or ‘anti-capitalist’ and it’s nothing of the sort. It’s anti ‘screw the little people’, and that’s fine by me.
October 17th, 2011 at 4:28 pm
Would suggest this edit to include everyone in the tent. “…by intentionally picking loans that you PAID to have misleadingly rated thereby most likely to be defaulted upon. You f***tards.”
October 17th, 2011 at 4:30 pm
After an absolutely crappy trading day fending losses from HFT manipulation, I have to say the above comments gave me a badly needed smirk.
I have to correct one point by lunartop –
“That would be two weeks reading for Sarah Palin.”
I disagree, it would take two weeks with a thesaurus, dictionary, and someone to show her how to use them.
October 17th, 2011 at 4:30 pm
Lamestream media all seem to agree that its just a bunch of stupid kids.
Lamestream media lies,Its hard to beat documented evidence contrary, to the tales they try to tell. I suppose it works on many though as it is business as usual.
We Appreciate the truth Big Picture…Thanks
October 17th, 2011 at 4:32 pm
Only a million times more intelligent than the average teaparty sign.
October 17th, 2011 at 4:45 pm
There are reports of support for the OWS movement from all over the world, but this has to be the coolest:
http://irregulartimes.com/index.php/archives/2011/10/17/antarctica-joins-the-occupy-protest-movement/
i posted an article from The Street concerning the FHA as the “next shoe to drop” in the mortgage mess, but i guess it got chopped by the site-censors. i wish they’d just list all the sites they don’t like so i can avoid the annoying “moderation” procedure. Jeez Louise . . .
October 17th, 2011 at 4:46 pm
somehow doesn’t pack the same punch as ‘hey hey, LBJ, how many kids you kill today”
October 17th, 2011 at 4:48 pm
They forgot to add;
‘in collusion with a Hedge Fund who intended to bet against the security which was rated as Investment Grade by a rating agency who you paid a fee to.
October 17th, 2011 at 4:49 pm
It’s more than wrong, it’s criminal. But what’s new. The US gov mafia is and was a criminal syndicate since before anyone who is alive today. This fascist mafia is very confident it can get away with pretty much anything, and so far it has. (Not many people know and understand this, but this also includes the Holocaust, as Anthony Sutton, Edwin Black, John Loftus, Carroll Quigley amply documented through their meticulous research of historical archives).
October 17th, 2011 at 4:52 pm
MaxMax Says:
OWS is wrongly tagged in the media as being ‘left wing’ or ‘anti-capitalist’ and it’s nothing of the sort. It’s anti ‘screw the little people’, and that’s fine by me.
—
I’m with MadMax. Adam Smith warned that you have to protect capitalism from capitalists, when they attempt to manipulate the rules in their favor.
October 17th, 2011 at 4:56 pm
It’s not wrong if the security is insured and you disclosed the portfolio selection to the insurer, in fact, you even let the insurer approve it. People don’t understand how insured structured deals are put together or the role insurance plays in buyer’s decisions.
October 17th, 2011 at 4:58 pm
[...] the way? Best protest sign ever. Bookmark [...]
October 17th, 2011 at 5:01 pm
Very encouraging..!
October 17th, 2011 at 5:08 pm
That all depends on what the definition of wrong is…..or something like that…
rt
October 17th, 2011 at 5:10 pm
The [Other] Big Picture
October 17, 2011
Occupy Wall Street global protests
Global protests against economic injustice gripped cities over the weekend, predominantly on Saturday, October 15. Solidarity with Spain’s “Indignants” and New York’s “Occupy Wall Street” protesters brought demonstrations over the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and the worldwide economic crisis to cities from Hong Kong to Tulsa. Hundreds of thousands joined the mostly peaceful demonstrations, although arrests were made in many cities, and clashes with police in Rome became particularly violent. The movement shows no signs of slowing. Gathered here are images from cities large and small. — Lane Turner (40 photos total
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/10/occupy_wall_street_global_prot.html
October 17th, 2011 at 5:25 pm
@BSDean:
Exactly right. Which is why those people are confused and angry, i.e., What did we do wrong? This is the American way? Right?
October 17th, 2011 at 5:28 pm
Interesting, I remember sitting next to a Goldman Sachs guy on the plane a few years ago (way before the Lehman thing). I asked what Goldman was up to and he said “Unloading CDO’s like crazy”.
October 17th, 2011 at 5:33 pm
Another reminder of what Al Swearengen once said on Deadwood: “once we string up a couple of these cocksuckers, this shit’ll stop.
October 17th, 2011 at 5:37 pm
Wrong, but no laws were broken.
Barney Frank forced us to make bad loans.
The client was a “sophisticated” risk taker that failed to conduct proper due diligence.
We didn’t pick the loans. Hedge funds betting against them did it for us.
Independent rating agencies reviewed, evaluated and assigned AAA status to the securities.
Everyone knew U.S. real estate prices can never go down everywhere at the same time.
October 17th, 2011 at 5:53 pm
MaxMax / Bruman,
Have you walked by one of these gatherings yet or looked at the pictures online? Many of these protesters are very anti-capitalism.
If more of this movement had views like the lady in the picture – and even better, proposed solutions to a lot of the crony capitalism that irks lots of us that read this blog, I would be wildly supportive of this movement. I would love to see more of the ralliers holding up signs like “split up citigroup and BOA!” and things like that.
But, sadly, as Barry has pointed out, this group seems to have no real point other than being angry, and I think most of their anger is misdirected at Wall St., when it should really directed towards Congress.
October 17th, 2011 at 5:55 pm
The one I like is “Truth is treason in an empire of lies”
October 17th, 2011 at 5:59 pm
When it comes to Wall Street, my all-time favorite is and will most likely remain “Jump, you f***ers”
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stoller/2907411559/
October 17th, 2011 at 6:11 pm
That was slated to be the 11th Commandment but it didn’t make the cut for some reason.
October 17th, 2011 at 6:30 pm
I think the sign maker has a personal thing against one particular person.
October 17th, 2011 at 6:40 pm
My favorite poster is “I bailed out a bank and all I got was a charge for my debit card.” How true is that?
October 17th, 2011 at 6:40 pm
nope, she has absolutely no future on wall st. or working in the “financial services” industry.
too honest for her own good.
October 17th, 2011 at 6:53 pm
I agree with FRWip.
It has historic precedent, it is good economics and it is a sort of evident easy to see “justice”.
cfischer,
You missed a sixty-ish retired military officer there……………………………
As well as the rest of the goings on, thanks for the trol work.
October 17th, 2011 at 6:58 pm
The rating agencies committed Financial Terrorism. Follow the money.
October 17th, 2011 at 7:51 pm
That woman looks sexy.
October 17th, 2011 at 7:53 pm
True. And Obama is complicit in refusing to allow investigations and indictments against these sneering thieves to go forward.
October 17th, 2011 at 7:54 pm
I liked a sign in Boston held by a child” “My mamma’s not on welfare, banksters, but you are.”
October 17th, 2011 at 8:02 pm
I think our anger at Wall Street and Congress is misdirected. It should really be at cfischer.
October 17th, 2011 at 8:06 pm
I suspect she’s a former DB ABS trader.
October 17th, 2011 at 8:14 pm
Yes, there are some slackers and commies involved on the edges, but this mass-strike movement is mostly driven by working people (or, until recently working people) who just want a return to a greater degree of political and economic fairness in our frayed republic. I’m greatly heartened to see this phenomenon exploding across the globe. I had about given up hope that the human species was still intelligent and moral enough to climb out of the morass of corruption and downright evil we’ve fallen into in the last 30-40 years.
Restore Glass-Steagall
Make FIRE the facilitator of the real, physical economy – not the dracula that drains it dry
Build the infrastructure platforms of the 21st century
Let’s think like a species that in danger of extinction – because we are (the vast majority of species that have appeared on this planet have since disappeared. We are not immune).
Let’s get off this planet and start colonizing the solar system, then beyond. We are sitting ducks on this very pleasant planet.
October 17th, 2011 at 8:34 pm
Transor Z:
Exactly!
cfischer: Why be mad at the employee, and not the boss?
October 17th, 2011 at 8:34 pm
Yeah – man, these guys are real idiots! I’ll bet they can’t even spell LIBERTY correctly.
Rickety – is it becoming clearer to you now? Or do you still not see it?
October 17th, 2011 at 8:40 pm
Vilgrad – THANK YOU! Powerful stuff. I was just there two weeks ago! I’m going to try to get down to OccupyLA this weekend if I can.
Anyone know how to legitimately donate money to these guys?
October 17th, 2011 at 8:41 pm
She left out “and such as”, but otherwise makes a solid point. She should most definitely be on Twitter.
October 17th, 2011 at 8:50 pm
She should add:
And its even more obscene to turn around and short your own toxic securities.
October 17th, 2011 at 9:00 pm
…TZ and Petey (ex. Marcus)…common…”Occupy that shit MFer’s”
October 17th, 2011 at 9:01 pm
…TZ and Petey (ex. Marcus)…come on…”Occupy that shit MFer’s”
October 17th, 2011 at 9:01 pm
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/44935992#44935992
Bill Black’s Leo Tolstoy look is so anti-metrosexual.
October 17th, 2011 at 9:07 pm
the occupy sydney protests have been hijacked by the socialist alliance – they have decided not to have any demands and are even calling for all placards and signs to be removed lol – talk about controlled opposition
October 17th, 2011 at 9:07 pm
@david_12321
“That woman looks sexy.”
Meh… Maybe compared to the protestors who haven’t showered in several days.
Otherwise, just another mediocre/typical/average East Coast woman with the horsey face and dyed hair.
October 17th, 2011 at 9:12 pm
cfischer have you been by the protests or talk to some of the people *personally*? You know, not just look at Fox or righty programming or the WSJ? Because I have last weekend. And you couldn’t be more wrong.
Btw, how old are you? Anti-capitalism? What is that? What does it mean? If you want a more strict definition, bailing out the banks was anti-capitalist because they should have failed. But then you and everyone you know would have been wiped out and you would have been bitching about that. So I think when you say “anti-capitalist” look in the mirror and ask yourself “do we bail out the banks or am I personally willing to lose everything I’ve saved my whole life?”. Then ask yourself what you are.
For another exercise ask yourself this question “should Europe now let Greece leave the Euro?” And then look up the word “exposure” as it relates to financial instruments. Ask the same question again. Then ask it to most Germans.
October 17th, 2011 at 9:16 pm
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/2001-08.png
The graph above should be on all the OWS signs with an arrow pointing to the blue at the bottom titled “Us – 99%”
and an arrow pointing to the pink titled “Them – 1%”.
October 17th, 2011 at 9:29 pm
streeteye @ October 17th 2011 at 4:46pm -
Yes.
But… when they OWS-ers say: “America has foreclosed on my future” it packs an emotional wallop which sums up the feelings of the times in a concise, tidy flamethrower.
We are all here for “opportunity” – but our country salvaged the millionaire banking class which has 4 million more homes in foreclosure today, and stuck us all with the bill. Just living that American Dream…my kid has to pay $230,000 in after tax cash to go Fordham University.
Some dream.
.
October 17th, 2011 at 9:31 pm
Well, if you’re going to bring morality into it…
October 17th, 2011 at 9:37 pm
@hammerandtong2001
“my kid has to pay $230,000 in after tax cash to go Fordham University.”
Why?
Who is forcing your kid to pay 230k for a college education?
To what end?
Maybe it’s time to help change your child’s priorities.
October 17th, 2011 at 9:53 pm
Hungry – the point is that NO ONE should have to pay that much for a good education. Why is it that only millionaires children can afford to go to schools that the middle class could once afford?
Maybe YOU should change YOUR point of view, try it, it might be nice.
October 17th, 2011 at 10:03 pm
Frwip, I remember that sign.
I saw it when Bush went into OMG-bailout-Wall-Street-right-now-or-everyone-gets-it (a variant of OMG-invade-Iraq-right-now-or-everyone-gets-it) mode, and almost everyone in Congress (notable exceptions including socialist Sanders, progressive Cantwell for un-capitalist reasons) passed the bailout.
October 17th, 2011 at 10:08 pm
Change the text slightly to create a question, “Is it wrong to….,” and ask it of the Republican presidential candidates in the next debate. I’d love to hear their slimy, slippery answers. Probably very much like those listed by 873450.
BTW, HungryHoneyBadger: the woman’s appearance has nothing to do with the validity of her message. Would you want to post a candid picture of yourself so the rest of us could critique your appearance?
October 17th, 2011 at 10:20 pm
@johnnywalker
“BTW, HungryHoneyBadger: the woman’s appearance has nothing to do with the validity of her message. Would you want to post a candid picture of yourself so the rest of us could critique your appearance?”
I’m not the one who first mentioned her appearance. I was merely responding to someone else’s comments. Thanks, though.
October 17th, 2011 at 10:24 pm
Or the shorter placard:
“Toxic Derivatives = Financial Crack”
October 17th, 2011 at 10:24 pm
@Thor
“Hungry – the point is that NO ONE should have to pay that much for a good education. Why is it that only millionaires children can afford to go to schools that the middle class could once afford?”
I couldn’t agree with you more. People shouldn’t send their kids to Fordham for 230k. The payback is certainly not there. Let the dumb millionaires waste their money at such places. Plent of good schools elsewhere.
Great comment. Thanks.
October 17th, 2011 at 10:24 pm
Well if this is the 99% I am proud to be a member of the 1%. I saw the protestors march down in Orlando this weekend and I could have sworn Jerry Garcia came back from the dead and was about to play a free concert. Much to my dismay he wasn’t and all it was a bunch of liberal hippies with their anti capitalist signs and whining about bank bailouts. The ironic point is these hippies are so ignorant they really do not realize what they are truley chanting for is capitalism. If we would have let capitalism work and not bailed out the banks like a free market is supposed to work and wiped out the common equity and haircut the bond holders we would have had capitalism at its finest. The best are the hippies who went out to one of these liberal colleges and racked up 125k in debt to get a masters in english literature and now are crying like they have been wronged. Really strange why their anger is not directed towards Obama and the Congressmen who agreed to bail out the banks. Also I wonder why they passed up Soro’s house when they were marching buy Paulson and Murdoch.
October 17th, 2011 at 10:32 pm
She should add to that banner that it is equally wrong to buy a house you can’t afford. Those who did got what they deserved.
~~~
BR: Those of us who study underwriting and banking also would tell you its wrong to laon money to person you know has no ability to repay it.
People make foolish mistakes out of ignorance, but the banks in this case made willful errors out of a profit motive with a reckless disregard for the consequences.
October 17th, 2011 at 10:46 pm
Next stop DC
October 17th, 2011 at 11:00 pm
louis:
A peaceful and passively resistant Million Man Occupation would certainly startle the shit out of TPTB. Instant game over for the corrupt power structure. Come to think of it, the 20th century’s transformative social turning points have had mass protests (and a few live-ins), on the National Mall.
Over the last 30 years, demonstrating in public has become de classe — an admission that one had been effectively disenfranchised. Only losers protested openly. Seems that phenomenon cannot be sustained when damn near everyone has been disenfranchised in one way or another.
October 17th, 2011 at 11:09 pm
If someone would put a giant capital letter “BIATCH!!!” right at the bottom that would be swell.
October 17th, 2011 at 11:35 pm
Petey – you da bomb. Keep it up!
“Over the last 30 years, demonstrating in public has become de classe — an admission that one had been effectively disenfranchised. Only losers protested openly. Seems that phenomenon cannot be sustained when damn near everyone has been disenfranchised in one way or another.”
October 17th, 2011 at 11:50 pm
econimonium and co,
The level of the conversation is disappointing. TBP is usually better than this. Instead of disagreeing with me, you make snide comments asking my age, accuse me of getting all my news from Fox and thus am a super-rich republican here defending this status quo, right? (Just in case you want to know, I’m 31, a moderate, not rich, am an engineer that does not work for a bank or any other financial institution, and I think the TBTF banks, if insolvent, should have been put into receivership and would down in an orderly fashion. Ok?) And for the other poster, it wasn’t trolling, I was disagreeing. That’s still allowed, right?
Yes, walking by the group in Philadelphia this weekend, I saw signs that said “Robin Hood had it right” and “Capitalism is the problem!” I’m not defending Wall St, and there are lots of inequities – in the tax code and otherwise – that need to be corrected. But, in my view (this is an opinion folks) most of the anger I see is really towards the decreased prospects my generation has in store for them. But I blame Congress for this far more than the banks, and would rather see these marches in Washington with the message to vote EVERY INCUMBENT out of office until politicans get the message and we get all of the money out of politics and have every election be publically funded.
And I still don’t see any kind of clear actionable agenda out of the OWS movement. If that means “I just don’t get it”, fine. Help me out and articulate it.
October 18th, 2011 at 6:36 am
The signboard that should be most common.
“Put the 1% to work, not the sword”
The 1% have been become welfare bitches make ‘em work and lets see how good they are. Real work that is.
October 18th, 2011 at 6:43 am
“Loans that you know are going to fail”. How would one “know” that a loan was going to fail? Did they call the home owners? What’s more, these were not “loans”, these were MBS that were pooled into a reference index, and each MBS is comprised of hundreds/thousands of loans.
Sell the “sabotaged” security to a client? Three clients, two of whm went long and one of whom went short, all professional investors, and all (three of ‘em) who knew that there is no long without a short and vice versa. This is all just so much populist nonsense.
~~~
BR: How would you know?
And you don’t care about any of these issues, cause you don’t plan to keep the mortgages — you are going to sell them to securitizers and then its someone else’s problem.
All of this is called ORIGINATION FRAUD.
Gary, you dispaly an astonishing ignorance of banking and what happened. Please drop the nonsense talking points and educate yourself.
October 18th, 2011 at 8:21 am
BR I got to here (and IT all registered)
ring around the rosie .. pockets full of posies .. ashes to ashes .. we all fall down
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_a_Ring_o‘_Roses
October 18th, 2011 at 9:18 am
cfischer your phraseology made me think you were either much older, or that you’re listening to the Ministry of Propaganda (aka Fox News) too much. Furthermore, you blame Congress. Last time I checked Congress had no ability to do anything about jobs. I do because I have a direct influence on hiring and budgets…and let me tell you at board meetings, and departmental meetings (as well as our 2012 planning meetings) Congress never comes up. Neither does the tax code, nor regulations, nor “Obamacare” (if health care is going to cost my company more, it will be taken out of YOUR salary because it’s part of the total package, btw, and anyone’s we hire. It has nothing to do with a hiring decision). So your comments do not reflect anything I know about.
You know what affects all of this? DEMAND for our product/services. Sales projections, market conditions etc. These protesters are right in that there is cash out there swimming around, jobs are scarce and executives are making big bucks while the other 99% of people (I’ll admit to being in the top 2% btw before you ask so I’m not one of these people) are getting nothing with 10% of them unemployed. So where is their bail-out? Huh? Do they need to have a focused program? Sound bites? Marketing blitzes? Or is it that amorphous discontent is disconcerting to you? What was the main point of the mobs in the French Revolution or do you think it was more amorphous discontent? I bet most of the aristocracy thought of them as just unwashed “hippies” (if they had that word at the time) and that they could safely say the stinking masses would stay in their place.
THESE are the people that tend to change history, not bankers and certainly not the head of Goldman Sachs. He might be a fulcrum of change, but not responsible for the change itself. The movement wants one thing I think: stop concentrating money in the hands of the few and start putting it to work for all. Period. I think that’s a pretty good goal in fact. Get on board. Unless you are the 1% it’s YOU that’s getting screwed. And your kids.
October 18th, 2011 at 9:27 am
Re: POD
Viewed from one perspective I believe POD is right. One cannot “know” that an individual loan will fail. No matter how bad it is, the borrower might hit the lottery. There is no certainty.
However, probabilities are higher, even much higher for an individual loan and, in aggregate, across 1,000 loans one can be pretty certain. Do 41% back end ratio, 100 LTV, NINA, 620 credit scores, etc. loans and as one layers risk characteristics probabilities increase rapidly. So, from maybe 5% failure one rises to 50%. The real problem was the rating agencies not evaluating the risk contained in each portfolio and slapping the AAA on everything regardless of risk. And around we go.
@BSDean
In my opinion it was not Screw Your Buddy it was Screw the Ignorant. A business model with a long history. Then the trick is to make as many as possible ignorant of the true situation = more customers. In another place and time they called it “fools gold” and a “swindle.” Blankfein don’t know swindle.
October 18th, 2011 at 9:51 am
Per the sign in the photograph, please:
Please name one unsuspecting client? Fannie and Freddie? Nope, they relaxed the rules in the first place. Jefferson County? Maybe, but the level of apparent corruption muddies the water here. Calpers? I think they are large enough to perform due diligence. In fact, I think they have an entire department that does nothing but due diligence. Folks that only trusted the ratings agencies? Come on, anyone that knew anything new the ratings were rigged long before the crash. So name an unsuspecting investor.
When we replaced actually talking to the customer and reviewing documentation with FICO scores, we lost the ability to predict much of anything.
October 18th, 2011 at 10:14 am
I think I’m in love!
October 18th, 2011 at 10:37 am
Reminds of an old Mort Sahl joke (well, I guess ALL Mort Sahl jokes are old now) but he told the story of someone holding up a really long winded protest sign in a Vietnam war protest about LBJ being a “hollow apologist for the military industrial complex,” etc., etc. and Sahl says “You know, it was a REALLY windy day and that kid had a hell of a time holding up that sign!”
October 18th, 2011 at 10:56 am
@ Gene OK, and a few others;
as a former mortgage originator, I see a lot of accusations, half truths and outright falsehoods being told.
On No-Doc loans, we had them for YEARS before the crisis- but THE LOAN HAD TO MAKE SENSE. For example, if you were the owner of a hardware store, or had a cash business, but your use of credit showed you could handle substantial sums of money, and you had assets at a bank or brokerage, you got the loan. The bigger the down payment, the lower the interest rate. There was a bank in the NY Metro area called Greenpoint Bank that did little else BUT these loans for decades, with nary a problem. But Greenpoint didn’t underwrite like Fremont or New Century did. Greenpoint’s loans were also “FICO driven” as all mortgage paper eventually was.
Secondly, the comment “Folks that only trusted the ratings agencies? Come on, anyone that knew anything new the ratings were rigged long before the crash. So name an unsuspecting investor.”
is a load of dogshit. Institutions of every kind put an enormous amount of faith in the ratings firms, and when you’re one of three firms designated- actually, anointed would be a better term- by the government to be an NRSRO, you enjoy an amount of sanctioned judgment that had damn well better be upheld with the utmost integrity.
Fannie and Freddie’s “relaxed lending” standards didn’t cause the meltdown, and anyone who says so doesn’t know underwriting from underwear.
This is as much an asset value problem as a credit problem- if you can’t handle your mortgage, you can sell the house before you foreclose. However, if the SEC allows 40 to 1 leverage causing untenable price spikes in housing prices, and you can’t sell it for less than 70% of what you paid, your credit rating don’t mean shit- you have a different problem.
Lastly, why hang this on residential? GE wont pay taxes for the next three years because of the wonderful commercial underwriting of GE Capital, and then there was that Harry Macklowe deal on the GM Building- 99% LTV, I believe.
Tulipomania, rent large with bricks and mortar……
October 18th, 2011 at 11:17 am
econ,
I wouldn’t turn on Fox news to check the weather.
Last time you checked Congress had no ability to do anything about jobs? I respectfully disagree. Congress has the ability to implement stimulus programs to generate aggregate demand. Congress has/had the ability to reject the past budgets that put us in a ton of debt, which in turn has limited our ability to react to this crisis, etc. Congress has the ability to launch spending projects that incubate industries. Congress could have enacted stricker CAFE standards decades ago to decrease our dependence on foreign oil (I think the price of oil is a huge problem in the current economy.) We can argue all day about how much this effects jobs, and how lasting the effects are, but I don’t buy that line they can’t affect jobs or the economy.
I think the tax rates for the top need to go back to Clinton levels, the 15% capital gains is ridiculous, as is the carry interest deducation. These all need to be fixed, but I really don’t think this is the crux of the problem in this country.
I’m in 100% agreement that the bigger problem is demand, or lack thereof, and umeployment. But the unemployment number doesn’t tell the whole story in my mind. I think this is the result of decades of malinvestment, and the resulting decline of American competitiveness, and the 2008 crisis was just the tide going out, showing how naked we were swimming.
October 18th, 2011 at 11:42 am
@flocktard – I worked in secondary marketing and post-closing documentation for years as well. Thanks for the lesson in origination but based on your comments, I doubt you ever packaged loans for Freddie or Fannie in your life or had anything to do with secondary markets.
As for hanging it on residential? Read the sign again. I think it said something about mortgage backed security… selling to an unsuspecting investor… or did I miss something that the sign said? Maybe she was speaking of commercial mortgages?
By the way, name one unsuspecting client. You never did. But your strawman abut fecal matter was a good try.
October 18th, 2011 at 11:44 am
@ HungryHoneyBadger:
You are absolutely right. You weren’t the first to comment on the woman’s appearance. My bad. My comment should have been more inclusive.
October 18th, 2011 at 1:18 pm
@econimonium: All I can say is Thank You.
October 18th, 2011 at 3:34 pm
How refreshing to see a detailed, articulate and spellchecked protest sign after the endlessly Fox-promoted Tea Party idiocy like
OBAMUNIST IS A MUSLIN TERIST
October 18th, 2011 at 3:47 pm
Didn’t the banks and mortgage originators end up with a lot of these bad mortgages? Not just because the market dried up, but because they thought they were good investments and did not see the bubble bursting? Isn’t a big criticism of Goldman Sachs that they did not lose money, because they were net short? The question is should an investment bank be able to trade against its clients, regardless of whether the clients are hedge funds or individuals?
It has been a while since I read about this, but didn’t John Paulson set up this deal to short the top tier MBSs, rather than the stuff that everybody was worried about? If he thinks that the whole MBS market is going to lose value, then shorting the stuff that is considered to be the safest has the most potential for profit, since everyone is pricing it as if it is safe. If he shorted oil at the top of the market, would anyone be saying anything other than great trade, even though he would be shorting with the expectation that the oil longs will lose money?
If a club fighter gets in the ring with Mike Tyson and gets knocked out, do we blame Tyson, or the people who are supposed to be looking out for the interests of the club fighter, or do we accept that this is the nature of boxing, or something else?
October 18th, 2011 at 3:54 pm
@Gene-OK
There were a lot of hedge funds and pension funds that were unaware of what was going on behind the scenes and how these exotic securities were rated. Wasn’t there even an entire nation or city that went under because of this very thing? I think it was either Iceland or maybe a Scandinavian city.
That sign is dead on. About the only thing that’s missing is mention of the insurance product offered by AIG that pretty much rounded out the whole scam.
October 18th, 2011 at 3:57 pm
@rogue, the difference in your shorting oil example is that OIL is OIL. You don’t get a better grade of oil from one company vs. another.
If oil was sold based on it’s quality, and a rating agency graded low quality as good as high quality, etc….
then your example might hold water.
October 18th, 2011 at 4:15 pm
@ Gene OK
you were the one who mentioned Fannie and Freddie- so in the main, we’re talkin’ residential here. In addition, the products the protestor is referring to were chiefly private label mortgages- you might want to read “All the Devils Are Here” by Joe Nocera or “How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World” by William Cohan, or best of all, “A Collosal Failure of Common Sense” by Larry MacDonald to get an idea what the sign means. This girl gets it. SHE KNOWS WHAT HAPPENED. That’s what makes the sign great.
I don’t give a crap about your “post-closing” experience, especially since I was an originator, and as a mortgage broker, I had a correspondent relationship with over 30 lenders, and you name it, we had it, right into cross collateralized Jumbos down to the plain vanilla stuff which made up the bulk of my work. I did NIC/NACs, mixed use, sub prime (we called it “Hard Money) and anything else you could think of with any major bank you could name.
Secondly, I couldn’t care less about your clerical back office activities, and since I became a broker who specializes in Fixed Income, I’ve sold many millions of dollars in Agency and Private Label CMOs, among other investment offerings involved in real estate.
As regards your “unsuspecting client” remark, let me commend to you Mr. Ritholtz’s disclaimer: “be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied.”
Good day.
October 18th, 2011 at 5:16 pm
aponymous,
That’s right. Nobody ever suggests that there is any manipulation in the oil market.
There are not any agencies that give estimates of the future consumption of oil.
Clearly, these markets are not at all alike. One involves risk, while the other is sweetness and light. ;-)
October 18th, 2011 at 7:17 pm
HungryHoneyBadger:
Any woman that can create and has the courage to hold that sign is sexy. I bet she is fun. Can you see the sense of fun? Creative wit? Courage? See that smile? A bit of her comes out in that picture and it’s sexy.
October 18th, 2011 at 8:36 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDvl39qERTk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr2ZFzBd5h8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19amWOc1GJ8&feature=watch_response
October 18th, 2011 at 9:21 pm
@ HungryHoneyBadger at October 17, 2011 at 9:37pm
“my kid has to pay $230,000 in after tax cash to go Fordham University.”
Why? Who is forcing your kid to pay 230k for a college education? To what end? Maybe it’s time to help change your child’s priorities.
_________________________________________________
I’ll weigh in very late. Because a response matters.
A simple response matters more than all the retorts mustered to explain why parents sacrifice so much for children, why their futures matter so. Our children, after all, are what comes next.
HungeryHoney: I would be happy to consider redirecting priorities. To what?
.
October 19th, 2011 at 3:28 am
While the comments section here often fills with strange things, describing the young lady holding the sign as “horsey face” is one of the stranger things yet.
She’s an attractive young lady. She lives in Brooklyn. That’s her boyfriend in blue next to her. It’s a good sign. No, it IS the best sign ever.
October 21st, 2011 at 5:47 pm
It is a good sign, but why isn’t it a no-brainer?