Gary_Yngve Posted March 8, 2009 Share Posted March 8, 2009 I find it disturbing that within a day of criticizing the administration he was contacted by four senior staff members. Depends what they talked about. Could have been on a spectrum from brown-nosing to blackmailing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DirtyHarry Posted March 8, 2009 Share Posted March 8, 2009 Steve is attempting to defend the financial industry's hope / fantasy that if they just hold on to the assests long enough they'll come back around - that they're really 'retaining' their value so long as the loans are being serviced - so there is no need to mark them to market or even assume they might not be worth at least the loan amount. In order to support that position you have be willing to say with a straight face that all the real estate is holding its value and everything is going to be fine. As a member of the first family of capitalism he's pretty much obligated to defend it even in the face of its complete and utter failure. Interesting. I thought he at at least had a good point that mark-to-market contributes to the wild up and down swings of the market, the boom and bust - when the market is up assets are overvalued and when they are down they are undervalued. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JosephH Posted March 8, 2009 Share Posted March 8, 2009 That is, and to a degree would be, a valid argument - had we not gone about our business like a crackwhore who'd just won the lottery. The problem with Steve's attempted defense of the financial industry is that they're trying to use that 'swing' / 'volatility' argument to conceal the true impact of overwhelming loan origination and underwriting fraud, overgrasping use of debt, and the fact this was all more about 'churning' numbers than any real value creation. He's saying in a effect, "if you ignore the details and don't call it a bubble, it will come back again". In the end, that's the deal with 'mark-to-market' - it's designed to be governor on valuations, to keep them honest. If that's thwarted long enough by obfusticating true asset values behind ABS' shimmering curtains of sliced-and-diced loans and fraudulent ratings, then a terrible bill eventually becomes due. The issue with the conversion of all our debt to ABS's is their disconnecting proxy effect - that the market valuation you're marking to isn't the demand for the underlying assets anymore, but of the ABS - and hell, most of the time you couldn't even identify the actual houses, cars, credit cards, or students the pieces of paper represented. In essence, it's saying "let's try to reinflate the bubble of fantasy" rather than fix the problem - it's a defense of insanity, greed, fraud, and turning a blind eye. It's got a lot in common with a masturbating 14 year old who hopes screaming "close the door!" after his mother inadvertantly walked into the bathroom will return the situation to normal. The problem with basing our economy on churning housing values, or inflated dotbomb companies, is that it's mostly fluff and doesn't represent real exportable value - it's all good until some fool yells "where's the beef?". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JayB Posted March 9, 2009 Share Posted March 9, 2009 Don't have much time to add anything to this thread other than to confess to having just had a moment of head shaking and rapid blinking upon having found myself in broad agreement with many statements put forth by both Tvash and JosephH in a single thread - and to recommend that anyone who has an interest in the bank implosion listen to the "This American Life" episode entitled "Bad Bank" that came out last week. I also think that on a long-term basis we'd be much better off if our policymakers put their emphasis on dramatically improving the rules that govern how all debt is originated and securitized, and spent less time pondering how to fundamentally restructure the mechanisms that govern large swaths of the economy and placing the government at their center as a participant rather than a neutral rule-maker/enforcer. And - while I wish Obama the best and think that it'd be insane to expect him or any other president to have made much headway on a crisis of this magnitude - I do think it's fair to criticize his response in terms of the message that his budget and his policy biases (inasmuch as their evident so far) are sending about the future. Expectations about the future establish economic incentives that have enormous impacts on the decisions that people make in the present. If you are fortunate enough to have capital to invest at this point, and are attempting to decide where to do so, it's hard to imagine that the prospect of the "Employee Free Choice Act" will tip the ledger in America's favor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tvashtarkatena Posted March 9, 2009 Author Share Posted March 9, 2009 You should climb with me sometime. I'm not nearly as annoying in real life; Ivan fills that space so completely... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fairweather Posted March 9, 2009 Share Posted March 9, 2009 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tvashtarkatena Posted March 9, 2009 Author Share Posted March 9, 2009 You stink. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fairweather Posted March 9, 2009 Share Posted March 9, 2009 Your wing man? Hell no, you can be mine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tvashtarkatena Posted March 9, 2009 Author Share Posted March 9, 2009 They so kicked ass on those commies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tvashtarkatena Posted March 9, 2009 Author Share Posted March 9, 2009 Vogon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tvashtarkatena Posted March 9, 2009 Author Share Posted March 9, 2009 OOOOHHHHHH YEEEEAAAAHHHHHHHH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tvashtarkatena Posted March 9, 2009 Author Share Posted March 9, 2009 I know everything about every sci fi movie ever made. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fairweather Posted March 9, 2009 Share Posted March 9, 2009 (edited) Gorby knew it was over when he saw this. Edited March 9, 2009 by Fairweather Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tvashtarkatena Posted March 9, 2009 Author Share Posted March 9, 2009 Fuckin 'Saturn 3'? Yeah, I've seen that shit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tvashtarkatena Posted March 9, 2009 Author Share Posted March 9, 2009 "Man from Earth'? Um...yeah. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fairweather Posted March 9, 2009 Share Posted March 9, 2009 'Screamers'? (It's not about yur mom.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tvashtarkatena Posted March 9, 2009 Author Share Posted March 9, 2009 Don't even talk to me about shit like Dark Star. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tvashtarkatena Posted March 9, 2009 Author Share Posted March 9, 2009 Moms don't scream when you fuck em in the ass. They cry. 'Screamers', bitch? R U FIN KIDDING ME? Give me something hard. Some Korean shit or somethin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tvashtarkatena Posted March 9, 2009 Author Share Posted March 9, 2009 Speaking of Korean, 'The Host' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fairweather Posted March 9, 2009 Share Posted March 9, 2009 Moms don't scream when you fuck em in the ass. They cry. 'Screamers', bitch? R U FIN KIDDING ME? Give me something hard. Some Korean shit or somethin. Kam sa ham ne da. Ang yang ha shim ne ka? Ko map sum ne da. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j_b Posted March 9, 2009 Share Posted March 9, 2009 if i say the 'wall street urinal' is biased, how is that a "lie"? it's an opinion, not a lie. it's only a lie if i say it but don't believe it, but trust me, i believe the opinion page of the wsj is biased, and that's no lie. also, just because tvash and i are -- per your rather biased perspective -- "liberals", doesn't mean we need to get our ideas "coordinated". only you crypto-fascists believe everyone from the same end of the political spectrum needs to goose-step in unison. Um, all Op Ed pages are biased. That's where the 'opinion' part comes in. The reporting (and that would be in a different section) has a focus, as doas any paper, but the writing, editing, and vetting are all of a high standard. Certainly not. The corporate media (so-called MSM) routinely omits, spins and lies like they almost all did for the Iraq war. Latest example: FAIR Study: Media Blackout on Single-Payer Healthcare Proponents of popular policy shut out of debate 3/6/09 Major newspaper, broadcast and cable stories mentioning healthcare reform in the week leading up to President Barack Obama's March 5 healthcare summit rarely mentioned the idea of a single-payer national health insurance program, according to a new FAIR study. And advocates of such a system--two of whom participated in yesterday's summit--were almost entirely shut out, FAIR found. Single-payer--a model in which healthcare delivery would remain largely private, but would be paid for by a single federal health insurance fund (much like Medicare provides for seniors, and comparable to Canada's current system)--polls well with the public, who preferred it two-to-one over a privatized system in a recent survey (New York Times/CBS, 1/11-15/09). But a media consumer in the week leading up to the summit was more likely to read about single-payer from the hostile perspective of conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer than see an op-ed by a single-payer advocate in a major U.S. newspaper. Over the past week, hundreds of stories in major newspapers and on NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, NPR and PBS's NewsHour With Jim Lehrer mentioned healthcare reform, according to a search of the Nexis database (2/25/09-3/4/09). Yet all but 18 of these stories made no mention of "single-payer" (or synonyms commonly used by its proponents, such as "Medicare for all," or the proposed single-payer bill, H.R. 676), and only five included the views of advocates of single-payer--none of which appeared on television. Of a total of 10 newspaper columns FAIR found that mentioned single-payer, Krauthammer's syndicated column critical of the concept, published in the Washington Post (2/27/09) and reprinted in four other daily newspapers, accounted for five instances. Only three columns in the study period advocated for a single-payer system (San Diego Union-Tribune, 2/26/09; Boston Globe, 3/1/09; St. Petersburg Times, 3/3/09). The FAIR study turned up only three mentions of single-payer on the TV outlets surveyed, and two of those references were by TV guests who expressed strong disapproval of it: conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks (NewsHour, 2/27/09) and Republican congressman Darrell Issa (MSNBC's Hardball, 2/26/09). In many newspapers, the only argument in favor of the policy has been made in letters to the editor (Oregonian, 2/28/09; USA Today, 2/26/09; Washington Post, 3/4/09; Philadelphia Inquirer, 2/27/09; Atlanta Journal Constitution, 2/26/09). In contrast, the terminology of choice for detractors of any greater public-sector role in healthcare--such as "socialized medicine" and "government-run" healthcare--turned up seven times on TV, including once on ABC News's This Week (3/1/09) and five times on CNN. CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen has herself adopted this terminology in discussing healthcare reform, stating (CNN Newsroom, 2/26/09) that "if in time, Americans start to think what President Obama is proposing is some kind of government-run health system--a la Canada, a la England--he will get resistance in the same way that Hillary Clinton got resistance when she tried to do tried to do this in the '90s." Particularly in the absence of actual coverage of single-payer, such rhetoric confuses rather than informs, blurring the differences between the Canadian model of government-administered national health insurance coupled with private healthcare delivery that single-payer proponents advocate, and healthcare systems such as Britain's, in which healthcare (and not just healthcare insurance) is administered by the government. The views of CNN's senior medical correspondent notwithstanding, opinion polling (e.g., ABC News/Washington Post, 10/9-19/03) suggests that the public would actually favor single-payer. Though more than 60 lawmakers have co-sponsored H.R. 676, the single-payer bill in Congress, Obama has not expressed support for single-payer; both the idea and its advocates were marginalized in yesterday's healthcare forum. But given the high level of popular support the policy enjoys, that's all the more reason media should include it in the public debate about the future of healthcare. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3733 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billcoe Posted March 9, 2009 Share Posted March 9, 2009 The corporate media (so-called MSM) routinely omits, spins and lies like they almost all did for the Iraq war. Or they take a hard turn into no mans land in an attempt to distract from the real issues. Sleevegate anyone? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bonnie-fuller/why-wimpy-david-brooks-in_b_173025.html BTW, I think that laziness and cost savings attempts are responsible for a lot of the medias shortcoming. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j_b Posted March 9, 2009 Share Posted March 9, 2009 (edited) It's not about shortcoming, it is about systematic propaganda to further the interests of people who own them. Such as when they hired dozens of retired generals who regularly attended white house sessions as "military analysts" to discuss Iraq every night on the news. Or laid off Phil Donahue who had a wildly successful TV talk show because he didn't toe the line on Iraq. Or refused to critize Bush for years while they didn't wait for a month with Obama. etc ... Edited March 9, 2009 by j_b Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j_b Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 Here's the New York Times peddling the "republicans tried to shut down government because they are concerned about deficits" line as if the last 8 years (and more) didn't happen. Must be a coincidence ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter_Puget Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 (edited) It's not about shortcoming, it is about systematic propaganda to further the interests of people who own them. Such as when they hired dozens of retired generals who regularly attended white house sessions as "military analysts" to discuss Iraq every night on the news. Or laid off Phil Donahue who had a wildly successful TV talk show because he didn't toe the line on Iraq. Or refused to critize Bush for years while they didn't wait for a month with Obama. etc ... Right on brother! You & me we keep walkin' around & we see All the bullshit around us You try & keep your mind on what's going down Can't help but see the rhinoceros around us & you wonder what you can do & you do what you can To get balled & high & you know I'm still goin' need you around You say it's healing but nobody's feeling it Somebody's dealing - somebody's stealing it You say you don't see & you don't You say you won't know & you won't let it come Everything someday will be gone except silence Earth will be quiet again Seas from clouds will wash off the ashes of violence Left as the memory of men There will be no survivor my friend Suddenly everyone will look surprised Stars spinning wheels in the skies Sun is scrambled in their eyes While the moon circles like a vulture Someone stood at a window & cried 'One tear I thought that should stop a war But someone is killing me' & that's the last hour to think anymore Jelly & juice & bubbles - bubbles on the floor Castles on cliffs vanish Cliffs like heaps of rubbish Seen from the stars hour by hour As splintered scraps & black powder From here to heaven is a scar Dead center - deep as death All the idiots have left Epitaph The cows are almost cooing Turtle doves are mooing Which is why a poo is pooing In the sun Sun. [video:youtube] Edited March 10, 2009 by Peter_Puget Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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