5 Comments

1. 

   Cobb on October 16, 2008 at 5:12 pm

   Another narrowly focused beatdown which is not really economic in its nature. You can pretend that everything falls at the feet of Phil Gramm, but whether or not he authored the legislation it does nothing to explain the confluence of events which made anybody want swaps. Unless you talk about the reason swaps were used then you just have an incomplete picture.

   The foolishness is that in the end, the only conclusion you can come to from this argument is Phil Gramm did this to us, don't vote for McCain.

   The more complete story is more complicated, which has to do with some of the issues held over from the Dot Com bubble. Which is basically that Greenspan as Fed Chair reduced interest rates so low that the overall loan business in America became spectacularly profitable. So how and why would it be that so many people got into the business of loaning money? Then you'd have to look into the confluence of legislative affairs that allowed all sorts of essentially banking businesses become what had traditionally been the province of the savings and loans business – whoops there is no savings and loan business. So who was going to get everybody home loans? 'Mortgage originators' which is a broad swatch of businesses that include banks, some of which were predatory.

   People Are Stupid.

   • 

     blacksmythe on October 17, 2008 at 11:02 am

     It was “not really economic in its nature” in as much as the journalist from the National Review was either a racist idiot or a shill for racist idiots. Doesn't know a thing about CDS but still fakes a position of expertise in blaming black people.

     “The foolishness is that in the end, the only conclusion you can come to from this argument is Phil Gramm did this to us, don't vote for McCain.”

     I'm going to work this next season on taking off the filter. Something I said I'd do for some time but haven't made the turn yet.

     Most of what you wrote including and after the quote above was bullshit. The complete story is complicated. But what isn't all that complicated is the reality that neoliberalism doesn't work. Deregulation does not increase productivity, does not increase liberty, does not lift all boats. Now of course we can go from there to “don't vote for McCain” but that conclusion is the no brainer right? I mean you're voting for McCain, but that's because you don't really believe in government. And because the line is shorter on the GOP side. But this election is going to be a landslide victory.

     So where we should really be going isn't towards a vote against McCain but something more substantive.

     The National Review journalist couldn't take the heat because he didn't have a particularly good relationship with the truth. He and truth just didn't get a long. Didn't have a good working relationship. But this isn't just because of the racist thing. There is that of course. There's more though. Again, something more substantive.

     Real quick. you're a bit older than i am. do you remember why the savings and loans industry collapsed?

     For those of us who want

2. 

   loan modification addict on January 28, 2009 at 10:18 pm

   “The foolishness is that in the end, the only conclusion you can come to from this argument is Phil Gramm did this to us, don't vote for McCain.” ——- this is an oversimplification. you need to read more into this before coming into conclusions

3. 

   loan modification Expert on July 18, 2009 at 8:47 am

   I don't know.
   Let everybody decide what he can utilize from this writing.

4. 

   Lester Spence (@LesterSpence) (@LesterSpence) on May 14, 2012 at 5:58 pm

   From the Archives: Old School MC Beatdown over the economy http://t.co/kBtle3ZP