BS: Bad debts for sale

Subject: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 12:31 PM

The US government -- my government -- is going to use taxpayers' money (i.e., my money) to buy up bad debts and thereby rescue the financial institutions.

So I'm going to own a bunch of bad debts.

I'll be happy to sell these debts (just like the Big Boys have been doing) to the highest bidder.

Cash (Euros or gold preferred) on the barrelhead -- no credit, no swaps.

Step right up, ladies and gents, who'll open the bidding?

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: heric
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 12:47 PM

It's nice to daydream about having some teeny tiny piece of control over this and how it will affect our circumstances and our families. I can almost see the Napolean hat on your head as you hold the auction.

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 12:55 PM

Pay me 10% of their face value and I'll take 'em off your hands. Sure, you'll lose a little money, but you won't have to worry about all that paperwork. Consider it a bargain.

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 01:11 PM

You don't have to buy them, you will have to pay for them for the rest of your life with nothing in return.

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 01:22 PM

How refreshing it is to see a party who preached free enterprise, nationalising companies, left right and centre.
Oh how are the mighty fallen!

XG

Was I wrong?

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: Stringsinger
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 01:39 PM

It was McCain/Bush policy in Washington that created this malfeasance.
Clinton helped as well (to be fair).

Obama had nothing to do with it.

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 01:48 PM

Come on, folks! I'm trying to sell you some debt, just like the big financial institutions have been doing!

20% of all I make to MC!

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: heric
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 02:00 PM

I have a button made from deer antler.

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: gnu
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 02:04 PM

I have a dear aunt as cute as a button.

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: heric
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 02:08 PM

I have a green yo yo that was once stolen from DougR by George Bush, with a Certificate of Authenticiy.

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: gnu
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 02:17 PM

Garge is authentic? Thought he was eccentric?

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 03:12 PM

Those bad debts include a hell of a lot of your (American and UK) mortgages.

AIG remains a big insurer in Canada (Adds today on CBC and CTV); don't know how Canadian operations will be handled- some Washington treasury employee?

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: Janice in NJ
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 03:40 PM

Socialism for the rich. Dog eat dog free enterprise for the middle class. Penal servitude or military service for the poor. Welcome to the 21st century USA!

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 04:18 PM

No takers yet? Geez, it's such a great deal! You could bundle the ones you get from me with your own bunch and sell them all to someone else! This has potential for you to become really, really wealthy and I'm just trying to get you started.

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 04:42 PM

Rap-
Just think of as a reward earned for a really lousy management job.

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 04:49 PM

Yeah, but it wasn't MY management!

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: kendall
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 04:52 PM

Mr Bush was on tv today telling us what happened, and assuring us that they are definitely going to lock the barn now that the horse is gone.Just as soon as he can figure out a way to charge the taxpayers for the G.D. lock!

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 04:59 PM

Pay me 10% of their face value and I'll take 'em off your hands. Sure, you'll lose a little money, but you won't have to worry about all that paperwork. Consider it a bargain.

BWL, have him loan you the debt, sell it to Amos for more than you promised to give back to Rap, then . . .um . . . something something and give it back to Rap and you have a profit.

Hmmm. Someone has been making that short selling work--making like a bandit! But I forgot one of the steps.

Oh, yeah. Act like a crook but do it "legally." *Wink wink* from your rich friends when you skim the value out of a company or some investor's pockets.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: gnu
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 05:04 PM

How much did the Germans "lose" when they sold Chrysler?

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: katlaughing
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 05:11 PM

Fucking Wall Street speculators were "leveraging" i.e. borrowing thirty percent MORE than their assets to buy those mortgages in the first place. Bastards...they get to skate free and we all pay. BUsh et all really need to be tried for crimes against humanity for this and everything else he has perpetrated.

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 05:20 PM

Yeah, but I try to PAY my bills. I don't want other people's debts, no matter how much they're worth.

So I'm trying to sell them, just like the Big Boys do.

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 05:30 PM

The deregulation of the Glass Stearns act 28 years ago, freed Wall Street to cheat and lie, and it is is the direct cause of your present problems.

XG

"Many banks at the time were badly wounded by their personal and financial ties to securities trading. The 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, and later the 1956 Bank Holding Company Act, mandated the separation of banks, insurance companies and securities firms."

From here

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 07:14 PM

I have to argue with your premise.

These are not "bad debts". They are impaired assets.   

They are not "worth nothing". Whoever is in possession of them can realize some (undetermined) portion of their value. But it's the "undetermined" part that's the fly in the ointment.

Since the government will be buying them at a great discount, it is even possible that there may be a profit in them. In any case, the money paid on them now is far from a total loss.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 08:16 PM

It is the republican ownership coceity after all.

It was not Bush per se but the powers that put him there who planned to remove virtually all the wealth from the American Middle class.

I can only assume everyone here disagrees with intentionality.

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 08:40 PM

"Someone has been making that short selling work--making like a bandit! But I forgot one of the steps. "

Ah - Step 2 ... complete with Charted Business Plan...

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: kendall
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 09:00 PM

They have been trying to destroy the middle class for years.

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 09:27 PM

The loans are backed by property. The money will be recouped, but it will take a while. The losers are stockholders and employees.
Governments are the only institutions with enough money to carry out the salvage and reorganization of the mortgage industry.

There is no agreement on what caused the bubble (NY Times, "The Post-Lehman World," David Brooks, Sept. 19, columns).
Some blame the Fed's monetery policies.
Some say the flood of foreign investment allowed us to live beyond our means.
Some blame bad accounting regulations.

Brooks argues that regulators are needed who can overcome politics and human nature.
"...cracking down on subprime loans just when they were getting frothy would have meant issuing an edict that effectively said: "Don't lend money to poor people" (McArdle).

Bush, the Treasury, and congressional leadership made the right move. As Brooks says, statements so far by both candidates are moronic, neither seems to offer a coherent plan.
Control, not change, is needed.

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 10:26 PM

Tonight's Bill Moyers Journal (to no surprise) is talking about this. First he had two reporters (Gretchen Morgenson and Floyd Norris) from the New York Times and Morgenson said the same thing I have - that money didn't vanish, there are people out there who have it, and they're running away from the mess now, letting the tax payers put the missing cash back.

Heads should roll. Prison terms served. Though the prisons are full and these are (in general, I imagine) non-violent criminals. They should have to do tons of community service or good works to make up for their crimes.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 10:44 PM

Gretchen Morgenson and Floyd Norris are both wrong. Much of the money never existed. Promises on paper were passed around.

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: katlaughing
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 11:16 PM

It's the taxpayers who lose. And, if they were borrowing thirty percent more than their assets how is that money out there?

A lot of folks are calling it economic socialism.

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 11:40 PM

THink of it this week--you just bought a couple of investment banks. With no down payment!

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: Barry Finn
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 11:44 PM

So it's again help bail out the Big Boys at the expense of the rest when it them that fucked it all up & are gonna make out in the end like the bandits they are.
So where's all the trickle down help for the mortgage owners swimming in the cesspool & going under for the 3rd time? I went to the bank to see if I could save a fews dollars a month by remortgauging at a cheaper rate. They tell me I can shave maybe 1/8% off the rate I got 2 yrs ago when the rates were high but I can suck wind cause the house ain't worth what it was then but it's still worth way more than I owe on it. So I can only get relief if I'm gonna hit bankruptcy cause they don't want to own it unless they can cash in twice?
Now that the government is gonna own what the banks used to we're really gonna see a change.
Go for a mortgage & the government is gonna take your property as collateral you get to keep the house but we'll be paying rent to the Fed's for the land it sits on. This is i/adeal for them all.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 11:55 PM

actually kat, some of those firms were leveraging far more than 30percent more' - it was more like 30 to 1 ratio.

hopefully phil gramms (the architect of the bill that de-regulated credit swaps - and former advisor to McCain) Phil 'Nation of Whiners' Gramm - oh he must have meant the Wall Street guys..

those words have come back to haunt him and the mcain campaign.

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: katlaughing
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 12:10 AM

Oops, you're right, petr, thanks for the correction.

I figure if we, the taxpayers, are going to own the banks, we can go in and tell them/us? how much they/we are going to lend them/us, right?

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 08:29 PM

You know, not just Rapaire, but a lot of you are starting to sound downright unpatriotic. You should have, by now, executed your power of attorney forms in favor of The Secretary of the United States Treasury, and you should not be pretending you have anything to sell or loan.

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: Amos
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 09:16 PM

The payback by the borrowers is what the asset is planned around. IMmginiing a payback because of the underlying real property value, at a time when that market is plummeting southward, is a very overly-optimistic view, IMHO. The cost of money over time, combined with the length of time needed for these real estate assets to finish dropping and crawl back up to their previous heights, means those loans will not be worth their face value to the holder by a long shot.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 09:44 PM

Ah, yet another treasury raid.

Where is Sherlock Holmes when we need him? For that matter, where is Diogenes -- still looking perhaps?

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 10:06 PM

How's my math? I'm just trying to keep perspective.

I think there are about 100,000,000 homes in the US.
The feds intend to recoup lots of a $700 billion expenditure, so call it $300 billion.

That means they hope to spend about $3,000 per home, (after recoupment), and no more than $7,000? (Plus set up a new bureaucracy.)

But, as Donuel says - double that for interest on the new debt.

But then again, as Amos says (and implies) the bad debts can be expected to increase rapidy from today's estimates, due to multiple negative feedback loops (and lying!) (Alt-A no-doc loans haven't even hit yet, credit card defaults haven't hit yet, commercial real estate defaults haven't hit yet, etc.)

But, then again, we get to keep our 401K's floating for many more months. (80 billion kept us flat for a week, right?)

But, then again, if the financial services sector last year was 40% of all corporate profits, next year the market collapses again anyway, right? (Instead of collapsing just before an election.)

But, then again, the bad debt itself is already known to be far, far in excess of $700,000 right?

Is this stimulus somewhat like an injection of heroin?

I don't know. But I'm keeping my deer antler button.

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 10:09 PM

or, said better, far in excess of $700 billion.

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: Greg F.
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 05:09 PM

It was McCain/Bush policy in Washington that created this malfeasance.

NOT! The de-regulation mania that's responsible for all this began with the sainted Republican hero Ronnie Reagan & his handlers. "Voodoo Economics" at its finest, and the chickens have finally come home to roost.

Worked a treat, too, for the oil industry, ENRON, the airlines, public transport, environmental protection, workplace safety, education, medical insurance & on &on &on..............

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: Barry Finn
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 09:45 PM

Didn't Ronnie promise US that chicken if he got elected? So we got to eat chicken & crow & have been paying dearly ever since. And MaCain did help to continue Ronnies deregulation policies along & father into the 21st century. So if MaCain gets elected it'll be Bushes 3rd term & Ronny's 6th.
Damn we need change!
Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 09:17 AM

It's interesting that the "tax and spend" Democrats are now urging fiscal restraint on the "borrow and spend" Republicans. Makes a feller wonder who's who these days, don't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 11:56 AM

Lets just bill the IRS.
http://usera.imagecave.com/donuel/garbage2.jpg

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: Mr Red
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 12:22 PM

Makes a feller wonder who's who these days, don't it?

Hey! is you lot copying us Brits? We had the idea first.

Subject: RE: BS: Bad debts for sale
From: Stringsinger
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 05:59 PM

Socialize loss and privatize profit. It's the "'Merican way".