Banking Crisis

[subroc]

cotts135

Feel free to offer some viable options for us lay people to comment on. I expect you are waiting for someone to vilify and blame the bankers because they wouldn't say it was their fault. Maybe they don't believe it is their fault. Maybe they believe it is Dodd and Franks fault and were being polite by not pointing the responsibility at them.

[cotts135]

cotts135

Feel free to offer some viable options for us lay people to comment on. I expect you are waiting for someone to vilify and blame the bankers because they wouldn't say it was their fault. Maybe they don't believe it is their fault. Maybe they believe it is Dodd and Franks fault and were being polite by not pointing the responsibility at them.

Have you watched the video??????????

Just don't think people should be rewarded for failure. These guys are tasked with making a profit. If they run there business into the ground they need to go. I am not here to argue what congress did, we can take that up in another thread if you like.
I would also like to know what rules Dodd and Frank violated.

[subroc]

I think I was clear in the above post

I doubt I will watch anything by Bill Moyers.

His left wing bias oozes of him like pond slime. He likes to feature himself as an unbiased reporter. In my view he is the embodiment of everything that would be considered an example of extreme left wing bias in media trying to portray itself as unbiased and fair.

[Mike Noel]

No one has commented on the piece. It was about responsibility the CEO's of these companys failed to take and the peril we face if they remain in charge. Placing blame on one party or another is futile at this point. There is plenty of culpability for both parties. We need now to move on and fix the problem instead of pointing fingers. Here is the link:http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02132009/watch.html

I did watch that and it is true that both the BHO administration and the banking industry are very snug in bed together. 80% of the Econ/Treasury team are "Rubinistas"....you know Robert Rubin, ex Treas secretary under Clinton, one of the original proponents of DE-REGULATION and one of the leaders of CITIBANK during the meltdown, and got paid $17MM in 2008. For those of you who keep blaming de-regulation of the banking industry on the Bush admin you should get your history straight....it started under Clinton.

Look at the trail of campaign $$ and it runs directly from Freddie/Fannie/Lehman/Goldman/Citi et al to BHO's war chest.

One misleading piece of info is the part where they play the Morgan Stanley conference call tape. That money they are talking about is not going to investment bankers but to retail brokers that work strictly on commission. The Citi/Morgan Stanley joint venture will not work if all of the brokers leave in mass.....and if they dont pay them a retention bonus then they will leave and get an up front deal from another brokerage firm.

Are we supposed to ask those who took govt/taxpayer funds to not compete and thus fail???? I want them to succeed.

[subroc]

...Bush got into two wars while cutting taxes for big shots...

Didn't he cut taxes for everyone else that paid taxes too?

[cotts135]

I did watch that and it is true that both the BHO administration and the banking industry are very snug in bed together. 80% of the Econ/Treasury team are "Rubinistas"....you know Robert Rubin, ex Treas secretary under Clinton, one of the original proponents of DE-REGULATION and one of the leaders of CITIBANK during the meltdown, and got paid $17MM in 2008. For those of you who keep blaming de-regulation of the banking industry on the Bush admin you should get your history straight....it started under Clinton.

Agree almost totally. Robert Rubin is just one of the few who is benefiting financially from running a Banking company into the ground. Get rid of him. Although Deregulation started under Clinton your implication that the fault lay with him alone is not warranted. Bush chose to keep the regulations in place so some fault lays with him.

Look at the trail of campaign $$ and it runs directly from Freddie/Fannie/Lehman/Goldman/Citi et al to BHO's war chest.

Can you back up this claim?

One misleading piece of info is the part where they play the Morgan Stanley conference call tape. That money they are talking about is not going to investment bankers but to retail brokers that work strictly on commission. The Citi/Morgan Stanley joint venture will not work if all of the brokers leave in mass.....and if they dont pay them a retention bonus then they will leave and get an up front deal from another brokerage firm.

This smacks of a entitlement mentality The culture at these firms and on Wall street is that if I work hard I deserve all these perks. Is working long hard hours limited to just these guys? Not hardly. Alot of us have worked hard and barely get by. These guys run companies into the dirt and get rewarded. I have a hard time accepting that.

Are we supposed to ask those who took govt/taxpayer funds to not compete and thus fail???? I want them to succeed.

I want them to succeed also.

[Keith Farmer]

I suggest anyone interested in the "bailout" procedure read this and the book The Creature From Jekyll Island:

http://philologos.org/bpr/files/Misc_Studies/ms060.htm

KF

[Mike Noel]

Agree almost totally. Robert Rubin is just one of the few who is benefiting financially from running a Banking company into the ground. Get rid of him. Although Deregulation started under Clinton your implication that the fault lay with him alone is not warranted. Bush chose to keep the regulations in place so some fault lays with him.



Can you back up this claim?



This smacks of a entitlement mentality The culture at these firms and on Wall street is that if I work hard I deserve all these perks. Is working long hard hours limited to just these guys? Not hardly. Alot of us have worked hard and barely get by. These guys run companies into the dirt and get rewarded. I have a hard time accepting that.



I want them to succeed also.

I was not trying to imply that Rubin was alone...he had help from cohorts and the administration that followed continued much of the same.

Just look at lists of top campaign donors that were/are public. I cant put my finger on one now but the financial services industry gave BHO and Dems a lot more money than the Republicans....perhaps they were betting the come on the election....perhaps not.

The guys that ran these banks into insolvency were not the brokers that are going to get these retentions awards. The brokers make REAL money for these companies, ie. they are all profitable. If they produce $X they get paid a percentage of $X, if they produce nothing they get paid nothing, compared to the investment bankers whos departments lost $100s of millions and they still get paid $5-$10MM.

I know a little about that as I employ about 20 of them. There is a real difference between the commission pay structure that these brokers are under and the salary-bonus pay structure that is in the headlines and drawing the most ire from the public.

[cotts135]

I was not trying to imply that Rubin was alone...he had help from cohorts and the administration that followed continued much of the same.

Just look at lists of top campaign donors that were/are public. I cant put my finger on one now but the financial services industry gave BHO and Dems a lot more money than the Republicans....perhaps they were betting the come on the election....perhaps not.

The guys that ran these banks into insolvency were not the brokers that are going to get these retentions awards. The brokers make REAL money for these companies, ie. they are all profitable. If they produce $X they get paid a percentage of $X, if they produce nothing they get paid nothing, compared to the investment bankers whos departments lost $100s of millions and they still get paid $5-$10MM.

I know a little about that as I employ about 20 of them. There is a real difference between the commission pay structure that these brokers are under and the salary-bonus pay structure that is in the headlines and drawing the most ire from the public.

If your experience is what you say it is, and I have no reason to believe it is not, I will defer to your knowledge of what is really going on. It is my understanding thought and correct me if I am wrong, that in general the standards for Homeowners loans were drastically lowered. With that in mind it seems to me that those selling these loans or turning them over time and time again collecting commissions for their firm had no reason to stop even if they knew it wasn't right. They knew the risk and I am sure Senior Management also knew. It was all good when housing prices continued to rise and these firms raked in money hand over fist. When the market tanked and they were holding these loans that were worth more than what they could sell the house for they sought the help of the taxpayer.
As I see it they wanted to take advantage of all the upside but not take accountability for the downside. I believe alot of these firms violated the law and should be investigated.

[Mike Noel]

If your experience is what you say it is, and I have no reason to believe it is not, I will defer to your knowledge of what is really going on. It is my understanding thought and correct me if I am wrong, that in general the standards for Homeowners loans were drastically lowered. With that in mind it seems to me that those selling these loans or turning them over time and time again collecting commissions for their firm had no reason to stop even if they knew it wasn't right. They knew the risk and I am sure Senior Management also knew. It was all good when housing prices continued to rise and these firms raked in money hand over fist. When the market tanked and they were holding these loans that were worth more than what they could sell the house for they sought the help of the taxpayer.
As I see it they wanted to take advantage of all the upside but not take accountability for the downside. I believe alot of these firms violated the law and should be investigated.

They should be investigated. My point is the investment brokers who are the subject of that phonecall about the retention awards that was played on Moyers show had little, or really nothing to do with the low standard home loans that got put into any of a myriad of mortgage backed bonds or any other securities. That was a whole other "division" of Wall Street that participated in that practice.

Dont confuse those investment brokers with the mortgage brokers who perpetuated the fraud that took place in putting people in inappropriate mortages....two distinctly different animals.