Banks Out Of Control

[Charlie]

So Everyone he has heard of Banks foreclosing homes w/ bad mortgages.

This is one case where the Bank, in this case Bank Of America, tried to foreclose a home they didn't have the "mortgage" to.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBuCSTFJffY

[HegemonKhan]

yes, some-many of our banks are quite corrupt, not to mention our insurance companies too. We've got quite a bit of corruption problems in the U.S., businesses and *government too*, alike.

ENFORCEMENT, ENFORCEMENT, ENFORCEMENT; where is it? Oh, ya, we're no longer a nation of laws, but of men, sighs... We're above the law, we don't care about the law, we can break the law whenever we want, we don't care when people break the law, etc etc etc.

our country is rampant with law-breakers, at almost every facet of activity.

[kkck]

^Well, its not like there is a single country out there which is not the same. Best case scenario they are better at hiding it..... I would say in my country you see stuff 10 times more outrageous than that on a daily basis (from the government mostly, although some private companies do pretty bad stuff).

[HegemonKhan]

A counter law-breaking back on the banks, foreclosed homes are being invaded by squaters/homeless people, hehe :D

People are taking over the foreclosed homes, hehe. This actually did came up on the news some time ago.

there's a lot of "horror" stories that have come up within the U.S., banks (I think it might have been bank of America yet again, lol, but I'm unsure) not letting American Flags fly and getting a huge PR firestorm about it.

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off-topic:

with an insurance company, I don't remember the details very well now (as it was quite some time ago on the news, but it was quite infamous, here in the U.S.) a person needed a medical proceedure or they would die, and they like woulda had the money next month or whatever or something like this, but the insurance company refused to pay for it, citing it was an "exotic" medical proceedure (or something like this), well due to the public PR on the news, they finally change their minds only like 10 minutes after the person died...

ya, corruption is quite rampant in our country, government supports businesses' corruption, and businesses supprt governments' corruption

our wonderful "Obama health care socialized plan" has had like over 160 waivers ("we can't afford the damned Obama health care plan") so far, even by Nancy Polosi for her own district in San Fran, who was one of the major advocates and "pushes" of getting it passed... sighs... playing favorites... most of them are unions... that's really fair and just.... ughn!

billions/trillions spent on "stimulus" that did ZERO stimulus for the money we spent on it, we literally were BURNING UP billions/trillions of dollars with that stimilus BS farce.

All of Obama's economic advisers turned tail and ran back to their universities after failing to save the economy of our country, and quite arguably they made it fkn worse... argh... Why do they still ahve jobs at the univerisities, they fkn FAILED at economics, argh! Economic Professors of ECONOMIC FAILURE... and teaching the next generation of economic idiots to destroy our country economically, lovely....

etc etc etc

[kkck]

Of course the US can't afford the obama health care plan... How would that be vaguely plausible with the recession (meaning money is not being made), the bailouts and the war? Universal health care is not a bad thing in principle in my opinion but in turn obama choose the worst possible moment to do it.

To me one of the biggest failures of the obama administration is that obama has failed in properly uniting the country. Right now the nation is basically polarized between the republican party and the democrats to a level which I don't think I have seen before. The democrats are insane in thinking that merely raising taxes will help them deal with the debt and maintain all the spending they want to do. Republicans in turn want to keep down and even decrease taxes and deal with the debt with decreased spending alone which is IMO not enough as the debt is simply too large right now... democrats want to spend money as if the US was as rich as it was a decade back and the republicans want to charge the taxes they would if money was raining in the country from elsewhere.... I don't see the US coming out of the recession anytime soon so I am guessing they won't be making enough money to pay their debts with decreased spending or increased taxes alone lol. They should do both IMO just to manage the debt for the time being. The economy most likely won't grow and perhaps it will actually shrink and people will likely receive less benefits from the state but ultimately it will control the massive debt which should be a priority IMO. Such measures should solve the problems the US has with their bond ratings too (if increased taxes and decreased spending don't give any credibility to the Us's ability to pay their debt then nothing will lol). Both the republicans and democrats are getting too dogmatic here. Republicans want low taxes and low spending on principle while democrats want high taxes and high spending on principle... Neither of them is being practical in the least. US needs a president to tell the people that they are in fact a broke country and everyone (rich and poor alike although poor will invariably suffer more as they are the ones that need to make their way up) has to suck it up and do their part to bring the economy up.

To me the most immediate issue that should be solved with insurance companies is that they drive the price of medicine up. Doctors and hospitals might feel bad for charging 20000 dollars from a poor family for an operation but they won't feel a shred of remorse from charging twice that from an insurance company lol. Insurance companies work with contracts which cover specific things. Taking measures to stop insurance companies from driving the price up would make a huge difference (not sure what those measures could be to be honest but IMO it does seem like the most efficient approach to quickly improve the existing system there).

[HegemonKhan]

well, here's my take on it:

if the government took 100% of EVERYONE'S money that's still not fkn the trillions that we have to reduce... (heck, if the U.S. took the money of other countries it's still not fkn enough, lol)

so, obviously taxing is not the answer, lol. looks at democrats askew, "the math don't work, ya know?"
sorry, democrats, but our rich, isn't that rich... tax the rich is epic fail.

maybe if we had 10000000 Bill Gates and 10000000 Oparahs and 1000000 J.K. Rowlings, than "Taxing the rich" would net the trillions we need....

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(the below obviously isn't possible, but it's how to deal with our economic mess)

first 100% gov spending must stop, so it doesn't get bigger.

all taxes msut be removed, but businesses must spend their money/profits on generating more profits which go to the U.S., lol

businesses need to compete with world, so that our businesses get workers and grow, generating more profit

than we got to wait like maybe 50-100 years and we'll have generated enough money to eliminate our econ mess...

that should do it... in a nutshell.... sighs....

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we have to generate more wealth than our interest on our debt, to be able to bring it down. it's that simple in what is needed to be done, but how to do that.... is another matter...

input (generation of wealth) > output (debt/interest)

[Roflkopt3r]

well, here's my take on it:

if the government took 100% of EVERYONE'S money that's still not fkn the trillions that we have to reduce... (heck, if the U.S. took the money of other countries it's still not fkn enough, lol)

so, obviously taxing is not the answer, lol. looks at democrats askew, wondering if they got a brain...


Sorry but that's a really weird take you have on it...
A state has an income -by taxes- and spendings. To reduce debt, mostly both income has to raise and spendings decrease. For the U.S., one of the most obvious ways of decreasing spendings is the army, while taxes are very, very low and thus should be raised.
See it like this: With low taxes, you won't even be able to afford the raw skeleton of a state. The state is, what all citizens combined need for the benefit of all. A gouvernemnt to set the rules, a body of jurisdiction, an army to defend, police to maintain order, schools for the future of the nation, streets, infrastructure.

Standard and Poor's lowered the U.S. credit outcome to negative not mainly because of the high spendings, but because the congress agreed on prolonging bush-era tax lowerings.

Oh and don't think that the money the state aquires would be lost or something. It goes to officials -who will spend it again- and industry. For maintaining the army for example, both U.S. arms industry gets money as well as the soldiers.
Taxes are not just flat out killing the economy or something like that.

[HegemonKhan]

editted my previous post a bit.

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my point is that we need to increase the rate that we generate wealth..

let me try to explain...

reduce spending by 5 and raise taxes by 5 = 10

generating $10 of wealth

vs

letting businesses generate more wealth: lower taxes, regulations, and etc...

now our country's businesses have much larger profits

and now our government takes those increased profits

reduce spending by 50 and raise taxes by 50 = 100

generating $100 of wealth

so....

which is more effective ???

+10 out of 1,000 = 100 "units of time" to remove debt

+100 out of 1,000 = 10 "units of time" to remove debt

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we need to increase our GDP/GNP, first and than tax and cut spending!

we need to grow our busineses our countries wealth generation first, and than take it to pay off our debt!

---------- Post added at 05:52 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:45 AM ----------

raise taxes = U.S. will have no businesses left to tax, they all moved to china.

if I was a business, and U.S. raised taxes, see ya, going to china, bye bye U.S., you ain't getting any of my profit, those raised taxes did a lot of good for ya... now you're not getting anything at all.

businesses need to be encouraged, the U.S. needs to generate more wealth than it pays interest on its debt, to lower the debt down.

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As a worker, I'm going to the job that pays more vs less.

Well, it's the same for the owners, they're going to the country that has the least cost.

that's globalization. raising taxes is just going to reduce our businesses in the U.S., and than how does the U.S. generate wealth? fed prints money? inflation to the extreme! oh we will just tax people even more...

speaking of redictribution of wealth and robin hood... now the U.S. has become the sheriff of nottingham, continuing to tax people more and more when they don't have the money to pay the taxes... oopsy! instead of being robin hood, the gov. has become the sheriff! you can't tax people forever higher and higher taxes... you run out of money!

---------- Post added at 06:10 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:52 AM ----------

more taxes = less profits = less workers = less capitol = less growth = even less profits to be taxed = actually less tax dollars coming in, despite the higher taxes

less taxes = more profits = more workers = more capitol = more growth = even more profts to be taxed = actually more tax dollars coming in, despite the lower taxes

more workers = less unemployment = more wealth/tax dollars going to the gov/country/businesses = UPWARD Spiral !!!!!

less workers = more unemployment = less wealth/tax dollars going to the gov/country/businesses = DOWNWARD Spiral !!!!!

---------- Post added at 06:22 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:10 AM ----------

err, I'm getting off-topic.... and getting into an ancient economic debate... capitolism vs socialism... my apologies!

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back about banks, as is the topic of this thread:

needless to say, the fed's actions aren't exactly doing a very good job of getting us out of this economic mess, and it's quite arguable that the fed's actions were not actually needed to be done. regardless, the U.S. econ is collapsing anyways, the fed failed to stop it!

[earthforge]

now our country's businesses have much larger profits and now our government takes those increased profits

How? Missing the intermediate step.


we need to increase our GDP/GNP, first and than tax and cut spending!

we need to grow our busineses our countries wealth generation first, and than take it to pay off our debt!

But who gets the money? Right now, it's the bonuses for the CEO's. There's no path to people who are searching for work. Unemployment is incredibly high, and even then you must remember that the qualifications to be "unemployed" are narrow (my parents, out of work for 20 years, are not considered "unemployed".)

I feel like you've got it backwards.


raise taxes = U.S. will have no businesses left to tax, they all moved to china.

if I was a business, and U.S. raised taxes, see ya, going to china, bye bye U.S., you ain't getting any of my profit, those raised taxes did a lot of good for ya... now you're not getting anything at all.

businesses need to be encouraged, the U.S. needs to generate more wealth than it pays interest on its debt, to lower the debt down.

As a worker, I'm going to the job that pays more vs less.

Well, it's the same for the owners, they're going to the country that has the least cost.

that's globalization. raising taxes is just going to reduce our businesses in the U.S., and than how does the U.S. generate wealth? fed prints money? inflation to the extreme! oh we will just tax people even more...

Here's what's been happening for the last 5 years. It doesn't matter if taxes or high or low, the fact is that outsourcing is the cheapest way to lower costs because in outside countries, they don't have the regulations we do. And we've further.

So it doesn't matter. The only way to solve it is to restrict and regulate and make it uninteresting to outsource, and that's only by directly blocking them from, e.g., manufacturing elsewhere.


speaking of redictribution of wealth and robin hood... now the U.S. has become the sheriff of nottingham, continuing to tax people more and more when they don't have the money to pay the taxes... oopsy! instead of being robin hood, the gov. has become the sheriff! you can't tax people forever higher and higher taxes... you run out of money!

Seems more like Dennis Moore to me.


more taxes = less profits = less workers = less capitol = less growth = even less profits to be taxed = actually less tax dollars coming in, despite the higher taxes

less taxes = more profits = more workers = more capitol = more growth = even more profts to be taxed = actually more tax dollars coming in, despite the lower taxes

I don't follow. If there are more profits, why would there be more workers? If that was the case, why didn't the stimulus package increase the number of jobs?


more workers = less unemployment = more wealth/tax dollars going to the gov/country/businesses = UPWARD Spiral !!!!!

less workers = more unemployment = less wealth/tax dollars going to the gov/country/businesses = DOWNWARD Spiral !!!!!

But I agree with this.


err, I'm getting off-topic.... and getting into an ancient economic debate... capitolism vs socialism... my apologies!

No, that's not what it is. It is the invisible hand versus regulation debate. Name calling is immaterial.


needless to say, the fed's actions aren't exactly doing a very good job of getting us out of this economic mess, and it's quite arguable that the fed's actions were not actually needed to be done. regardless, the U.S. econ is collapsing anyways, the fed failed to stop it!

"Oh we sailed the rolling ocean and we took her at full speed,
who could've known an iceberg would so rudely intercede?
Here's a toast to present company and people of refinement and renown
on the end of the ship is rising while the other end goes down..."

[HegemonKhan]

I don't know economics very well, so sorry for my quite fumbling posts... sighs...

the details certainly aren't simple, but my point I badly was trying to make:

I think we have such a debt, that at current levels of GDP, we can't immediately simply tax and cut spending to our recovery.

I think we have to probably like double our GDP, before we than than be able to tax and cut spending our way out of this mess to recovery.

I think our economy is in that dire of straights... :(

[BexXx]

It's mad to think that all the way over in america the banks are in dire straights just like europe...wake up calls needed methinks! Well over here it's all our greedy government's fault, they've raised the cost of living but lowered wages and they expect us to be able to pay the bills! *sobs*

[Roflkopt3r]

It's capitalism not capitolism btw :amuse

Companies are struggling either way. They will always cut personell wherever they can, and when they earn more money, often enough they just invest it in moving their production lines into cheaper countries.
To say that economic growth of companies of a countriy would be equal to more employment sadly is not quiet true these days anymore.

About banks in general: The european central bank currently is not very stable either to my informations. I think it is still guaranteed for by more solvent countries like France and Germany, but it holds an incredible amount of risky credits.