Goldman Sachs

[muppet]

The causes of the Financial Crisis were many and complex. Clinton's role was not as been argued here, but he had a role in triggering the bubble by encouraging Fanny Mae & Freddy Mac to give mortgages to people with low credit scores. That was obviously well intentioned, but we all know the Law of Unintended Consequences.

So yes he had a role to play, but not as an advocate for the reckless side of Wall St. as has been claimed here.

by 98 a huge chunk.of federal taxes were already being paid by the richest 1%. it took another 10 years for things to go trina chéile. Clinton helped Wall St in the big job of removing all obstacles to 1920s style speculation. He was on the side of the fruitcakes. So is his wife.

It has already been demonstrated that he didn't. Feel free to demonstrate (with some evidence please) that he did.

[seafoid]

Where did the Clinton grá come from?
Do you think he reined in Wall St?

[muppet]

Where did the Clinton grá come from?
Do you think he reined in Wall St?

Where did all the Clinton hatred come from?
Do you think he is responsible for all evil?

[seafoid]

Where did the Clinton grá come from?
Do you think he reined in Wall St?

Where did all the Clinton hatred come from?
Do you think he is responsible for all evil?

I would put him in the same class as McCreevy or the AIB ceo who preceded Eugene Sheehy or Greenspan . If it is not sustainable it is not good .

[omaghjoe]

The causes of the Financial Crisis were many and complex. Clinton's role was not as been argued here, but he had a role in triggering the bubble by encouraging Fanny Mae & Freddy Mac to give mortgages to people with low credit scores. That was obviously well intentioned, but we all know the Law of Unintended Consequences.

So yes he had a role to play, but not as an advocate for the reckless side of Wall St. as has been claimed here.

Ok so considering that for 8 years he probably had more power than any other single person to do something about it, where in the 1000s that where responsible do you feel he lies in terms of proportion of fault? What percentile do you think he would lie 1%, 10%, top 50% what?

Im trying to get a feel for your feel on the thing here, and while I would admit that it is far to complicated to actually figure the true picture of that accurately, I want to get a feel of how culpable you think he was.

[muppet]

Clinton will be seen as a genius when this goes pop. Unless of course the wife achieves what he did and prevents it.

[heganboy]

If you are all going to continue with this finger pointing exercise and you have a political agenda in mind, go take a look at how the SEC works. Since a 1934 act of congress (known as the exchanges act) the SEC has been responsible for regulating (and enforcing regulation) of the US Securities Industry.

Want to start blaming politicians? Feel free - start looking at the Commission appointees since 1969 (thank you Richard Nixon), in particular look at the roles that the commissioners had prior to serving, and then again following that period. Try and see if you get a sense of what their motivation is...

One example to consider is Shapiro, who was actually first put on the board by Reagan in '88 and has had roles under 2 GOP and 2 Dem presidents, was then appointed Chair by Obama.

Want to take a guess at when this whole thing started going wrong- yup- take a look at the growth of lobbying in the US in the 1970s, let me know if you see any correlation between the amount of money rich people were allowed to use to influence lawmakers and the treatment of the US financial system by those aforementioned lawmakers- (aka greedy politicians). There is a reason that the federal tax code is 74,608 pages long, and it's not a good reason. Think lobbyists are to blame, well let's just say that since '84 alone, the code is 3 times longer than it was. Start finger pointing at the politicians if you will, specifically those who decided that it was ok for rich people to give them buckets of money to make decisions on behalf of everyone they represent.

Finance is Realpolitik- its not the for show build a wall, "reign in wall street" "bust ISIS" vote getting BS for the uninformed. And more to the point, it is very hard, and its not completely a science, despite the billions of dollars spent annually to present it as such. The variables are literally as many as the number of moods of every single human on the planet, plus the weather. The actual main job of the president of the united states is to preserve the US Economy's world domination. On that basis alone I'd prefer someone in that office that at least has some handle on how that economy works.

If you're President and you want to leave a legacy, (which is why most of them say they are getting into the job - egotistical b**tards the lot of them) then you need to get the economy right. The way that happens in the US is the SEC commissioners- a bit like the Supreme Court nominee blocking GOP crowd seem to have just cottoned onto. Might be a better idea for both political parties in the US to actually try and do something that reflects the will (or even better the best interests) of all of the people that they wish to elect them- but who am I to comment?
And just in case you have a bit of time, try and figure out why there are two vacancies on the SEC right now. Answers on a postcard to the usual address.

Time and time again bad macro-economic decisions are made because of (1) bad input data or (2) the over simplification of a model to remove salient factors, or (3) the application of the wrong model to a scenario.

still have a bit of time to play with- ask yourself how do those scenarios apply to this thread?

some additional background:
Here's a link to the OFFICIALLY DECLARED QUALIFYING lobby spend for last year by just the Securities industry.

https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/indusclient.php?id=F07&year=2015&filter=P

Consider that 23% of politicians spend more than half of their time seeking donations and that big finance donors can change the balance of power in a contested seat- which kind of donations would you seek if you were a politician?

As a guide on last years spend, one firm I am intimately familiar with has a DC office which is political only, no clients, no risk, no compliance, no front, back or middle office. Chargeback for that cost center ran over $17 Million for last year. "Officially Declared qualifying" lobby spend for tax purposes was significantly less than $1M...

[Mayoffs]

Extract from Edmund C. Lynch's famous letter to all of Merrill Lynch's clients in 1928:

"Now is the time to get out of debt. We think you should know that with a few exceptions all the larger companies financed by us today have no funded debt. This is not the result of luck but of carefully considered plans on the part of their managements and ourselves to place these companies in an impregnable position. The advice that we have given important corporations can be followed to advantage by all classes of investors. We do not urge you to sell securities indiscriminately, but we advise you in no uncertain terms that you take advantage of present high prices and put your own financial house in order. We recommend that you sell enough securities to lighten your obligations, or better yet, pay them entirely."

Could have been written yesterday and would be still relevant.

[seafoid]

Extract from Edmund C. Lynch's famous letter to all of Merrill Lynch's clients in 1928:

"Now is the time to get out of debt. We think you should know that with a few exceptions all the larger companies financed by us today have no funded debt. This is not the result of luck but of carefully considered plans on the part of their managements and ourselves to place these companies in an impregnable position. The advice that we have given important corporations can be followed to advantage by all classes of investors. We do not urge you to sell securities indiscriminately, but we advise you in no uncertain terms that you take advantage of present high prices and put your own financial house in order. We recommend that you sell enough securities to lighten your obligations, or better yet, pay them entirely."

Could have been written yesterday and would be still relevant.

Dead right. great quote

[ashman]

Imagine the furore if a Tyrone man was running Goldman Sachs .

[muppet]

http://www.oireachtas.ie/documents/committees30thdail/pac/reports/documentsregruarantee/document5.pdf

Merrill Lynch notes of a meeting the day of the Bank Guarantee.

Worth a read.

'...Difficulties - scale of intervention required...'

'...Dangers of blanket guarantee - credibility and prolonging of weak institutions...'

'.....On a blanket guarantee for all banks - ML felt could be a mistake and hit national rating and allow poorer banks to continue...'

'...Next week is likely to be a very bad one in markets: Fortis, B&B, Dexia, all having difficulties - EU will have to look at some more generalised action...'

The bit in bold is interesting. As we know with Greece, the EU & ECB will do nothing until they absolutely have no choice. We screwed up royally with the guarantee, but having learned the lesson, we screwed up again during the bailouts talks. Honohan's role needs to be examined properly, as only Morgan Kelly that I can recall, ever called him out on what he did.

Also interesting is the attendees at the meeting. With all due respect to our useless politicians, it is the Senior Civil Servant's heads that we should be looking for to prevent it happening again.

[seafoid]

http://www.oireachtas.ie/documents/committees30thdail/pac/reports/documentsregruarantee/document5.pdf

Merrill Lynch notes of a meeting the day of the Bank Guarantee.

Worth a read.

'...Difficulties - scale of intervention required...'

'...Dangers of blanket guarantee - credibility and prolonging of weak institutions...'

'.....On a blanket guarantee for all banks - ML felt could be a mistake and hit national rating and allow poorer banks to continue...'

'...Next week is likely to be a very bad one in markets: Fortis, B&B, Dexia, all having difficulties - EU will have to look at some more generalised action...'

The bit in bold is interesting. As we know with Greece, the EU & ECB will do nothing until they absolutely have no choice. We screwed up royally with the guarantee, but having learned the lesson, we screwed up again during the bailouts talks. Honohan's role needs to be examined properly, as only Morgan Kelly that I can recall, ever called him out on what he did.

Also interesting is the attendees at the meeting. With all due respect to our useless politicians, it is the Senior Civil Servant's heads that we should be looking for to prevent it happening again.

the German attitude to debt and moral hazard. Ff were not ready for it. they were not ready for anything. Cowen was a seat of the pants operator. Most of them are.

Anyway Hypo alpe Adria is an Austrian bank that collapsed. 11bn in guarantees given by the state of Kaernten , budget 2bn. Collapse due to failed speculation in the Balkans. Debt write offs coming.

Schadenfreude 1 Insufferable Teutonic  smugness 0