I just awoke from my Coma.

Good morning,

I have been in a coma for a little over a year. Seems the world has changed, a lot, in my time napping. Some random thoughts. My insurance company, AIG went bankrupt and has been nationalized. I can no longer shop at Boscov’s or Steve and Barry’s because they went bankrupt. I liked to stop at a Bennigan’s on my way down to Atlantic City’s Tropicana Casino but they too went bankrupt. I think you are still allowed to lose money in the Trop though. My favorite airline Frontier – Bankrupt as well as my brokerage firm Bear Sterns. When I went to move my Money I found that Lehman Brothers no longer existed and then couldn’t find Lehman Brothers. Heck my checking account at Washington Mutual and Wachovia are also gone as they went bankrupt to. Good thing I had that warranty on the engagement ring I bought my girlfriend as a diamond feel out, O no Whitehall Jeweler’s went bankrupt. Well at least I have my 401K to fall back on. After all the government and business alike proposed the 401K’s as “good as a pension.” O no my 401K lost 48%. But when I went to sleep the DOW was at 13,500 and now it’s at 6,500?? O well at least I can shop at Value City to save some money, O wait they went bankrupt too. Well at least I still have my Chevrolet Tahoe! Nothing will ever happen to General Motors!! O wait…

As long as you have a good supply of coal.......You're all set!!

Until Devil's liberal friends decide to tax your carbon foot print. That big pile of coal is a whole lot of carbon. Besides, no one really "needs" to burn coal right?

billlindley wrote:Good morning,

I have been in a coma for a little over a year. Seems the world has changed, a lot, in my time napping. Some random thoughts. My insurance company, AIG went bankrupt and has been nationalized. I can no longer shop at Boscov’s or Steve and Barry’s because they went bankrupt. I liked to stop at a Bennigan’s on my way down to Atlantic City’s Tropicana Casino but they too went bankrupt. I think you are still allowed to lose money in the Trop though. My favorite airline Frontier – Bankrupt as well as my brokerage firm Bear Sterns. When I went to move my Money I found that Lehman Brothers no longer existed and then couldn’t find Lehman Brothers. Heck my checking account at Washington Mutual and Wachovia are also gone as they went bankrupt to. Good thing I had that warranty on the engagement ring I bought my girlfriend as a diamond feel out, O no Whitehall Jeweler’s went bankrupt. Well at least I have my 401K to fall back on. After all the government and business alike proposed the 401K’s as “good as a pension.” O no my 401K lost 48%. But when I went to sleep the DOW was at 13,500 and now it’s at 6,500?? O well at least I can shop at Value City to save some money, O wait they went bankrupt too. Well at least I still have my Chevrolet Tahoe! Nothing will ever happen to General Motors!! O wait…

What a lovely narrative about the last year of the ShrubCo preznitchy.

billlindley wrote:Well at least I have my 401K to fall back on. After all the government and business alike proposed the 401K’s as “good as a pension.” O no my 401K lost 48%.

Good thing the Democrats saved us Republicans from privatizing Social Security. Funny we don't hear about investing our Social Security money in the stock market these days.

Yanche wrote:

billlindley wrote:Well at least I have my 401K to fall back on. After all the government and business alike proposed the 401K’s as “good as a pension.” O no my 401K lost 48%.

Good thing the Democrats saved us Republicans from privatizing Social Security. Funny we don't hear about investing our Social Security money in the stock market these days.

Oh my goodness - can you just imagine the problems we would be in had that gone anywhere?

Bill I'll see you at the Trop, no limit holdem.
Acesover 8's

Yanche wrote:

billlindley wrote:Well at least I have my 401K to fall back on. After all the government and business alike proposed the 401K’s as “good as a pension.” O no my 401K lost 48%.

Good thing the Democrats saved us Republicans from privatizing Social Security. Funny we don't hear about investing our Social Security money in the stock market these days.

Wasn't it Bill Clinton that wanted to put some social security funds into the stock market when he was in office? I swear I remember the debate about this.

rockwood wrote:Wasn't it Bill Clinton that wanted to put some social security funds into the stock market when he was in office? I swear I remember the debate about this.

Sorry it was Bush that brought it to the public. From Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Sec ... ted_States)

Begin quote:

"President George W. Bush called for a transition to a combination of a government-funded program and personal accounts ("individual accounts" or "private accounts") through partial privatization of the system. The personal accounts could be invested in various managed investment funds similar to the government employees' Thrift Savings Plan, in which the investor can choose between Treasury Bills, Corporate bonds and a stock market fund. Since the Report of the 1994-1996 Advisory Council on Social Security,[8] the Social Security program has been the subject of widespread debate. After Bush highlighted the issue in his 2005 State of the Union Address, the debate became especially intense."

End quote.

The Wikipedia article outlines the different debate points, pro and con and ideological.

Yeah, privatizing SS, that was the big GOP ticket after the 2004 election.

"OSMA" -- ("Ownership Society" my a$$.) The "ownership society" was Dubya's ruse to jam everybody into credit they couldn't afford so his buds in the banks could pay you 2% for depositing your money and then loan it out at from 5% to 24%. Now they want to blame it all on the "irresponsible" borrowers and brokers.

Yanche wrote:

rockwood wrote:Wasn't it Bill Clinton that wanted to put some social security funds into the stock market when he was in office? I swear I remember the debate about this.

Sorry it was Bush that brought it to the public. From Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Sec ... ted_States)

Begin quote:

"President George W. Bush called for a transition to a combination of a government-funded program and personal accounts ("individual accounts" or "private accounts") through partial privatization of the system. The personal accounts could be invested in various managed investment funds similar to the government employees' Thrift Savings Plan, in which the investor can choose between Treasury Bills, Corporate bonds and a stock market fund. Since the Report of the 1994-1996 Advisory Council on Social Security,[8] the Social Security program has been the subject of widespread debate. After Bush highlighted the issue in his 2005 State of the Union Address, the debate became especially intense."

End quote.

The Wikipedia article outlines the different debate points, pro and con and ideological.

This is the one I was thinking of.
http://people-press.org/report/70/support-for-clinton-but-not-for-social-security-funds-in-market

stockingfull wrote:Yeah, privatizing SS, that was the big GOP ticket after the 2004 election.

"OSMA" -- ("Ownership Society" my a$$.) The "ownership society" was Dubya's ruse to jam everybody into credit they couldn't afford so his buds in the banks could pay you 2% for depositing your money and then loan it out at from 5% to 24%. Now they want to blame it all on the "irresponsible" borrowers and brokers.

Would you agree though that everyone who borrowed money signed paper's to do so? Would you agree they knew they had to pay it back? Did the bankers hold a gund to anyone's head?

Sure, I'd agree.

Now, would you agree, in turn, that a banker's security on a mortgage is the house, and that it was pretty idiotic of them to assume that housing would continue to appreciate at 20-25%/yr indefinitely, so they could be adequately protected when making loans for more than 100% of the purchase cost of houses during that time?

stockingfull wrote:Sure, I'd agree.

Now, would you agree, in turn, that a banker's security on a mortgage is the house, and that it was pretty idiotic of them to assume that housing would continue to appreciate at 20-25%/yr indefinitely, so they could be adequately protected when making loans for more than 100% of the purchase cost of houses during that time?

Yes I would. I would also add to fact that trying to securitize mortgage’s into complex investment vehicle was a huge mistake and that can be placed solely on the bankers shoulder’s. I just get sick of hearing about the poor borrower’s in the whole mess.

The Feb 8th 60 minutes had a piece on a women where she knowingly signed up for a refinanced mortgage in which it had a “pick a payment” option. It had 4 options where one was a “minimum” payment that didn’t cover all the interest on the mortgage, one payment was interest only, one was interest + principle, the final was a payment that amortized the loan over 15 years to offer a quicker payoff date. The lady also went on to indicate that here entire monthly income couldn’t cover the minimum payment that didn’t even cover all the interest thus every month she would spend every red cent of her monthly income and was still adding to the principle.

Sad story right? Well it turns out that she had refinanced 3 other times getting a check for about $20,000 each time. She blew that money and wasn’t complaining then but now it’s a sob story. Sure the brokers that allowed her to refinance so many times were greedy and wrong however she was also greedy so long as she was getting those $20,000 payments upon completion of the refinanced loans.

My belief is that people ALWAYS will be exactly as irresponsible as they can get away with. To be sure, lots of those loans never should have been made, but bankers aren't supposed to be loaning money to people who can't repay it, especially if they don't have adequate security to protect themselves.

My belief is that real estate was the last cow the bankers had available to milk, and they invented investment devices to try to pass the risk off and then they milked that cow -- to death.