Your Historic Day

eric lavine wrote: she also thought Africa was a country too.. towards November the choice got easier and easier,

You really believe that Eric? I'd say the libs went for her throat. She's the kind of woman they hate, good looking, successful, anti abortion, pro gun, pro hunting, conservative.

I hope Obama can come through with all his promises. What he's doing with his stimulous plan is akin to dumping a lot of ether down the the carb. The engine's either going to fire up or blow up.

I don't think I've ever voted for a candidate that was anything but the lesser of 2 evils.

What program were you talking about that Reagan took away for free college for fatherless kids? I got out of schools in 75 and there wasn't any program like that, other than a meager SSI benifit that about paid for my monthly supply of milk and chicken pot pies.

how can you blow something up that is already blown up?
Obama didnt create the mess were in, I saw some of the stimulus this morning, part of it was 600 million for government cars, people think they dont need new cars, but... lets spend 10 billion a month, in Iraq, lets search for a half dead man in Afghanistan,
that 600 million is 1/10th of whats spent every month on the war. it keeps money inside the walls of this country...
the Gitmo, thing is already getting blown out of hand, what do we do with them? put them in general population of our federal prisons and justice will prevail.
Bush blew it for the party, plain and simple and people are tired of it, its not Obama this Obama that, he is there because of that reason. jmo,with a laugh

Eric, the general prison population will either kill them or join them, not good either way.

I like Obama, he's cool. I hope he can get his party under control.

Peter, I'm working. Give me a call. 207-842-9030.

Peter, i think its from my natural father RIP, he wrote for the "stars and Stripes" and died young. I just put something out there, we are a society that wont bother until it affects us personally   and lately I'm affected...thanks, i dont know how i wound up doing what i do (job wise)

Kristof, we will keep you and your friends in our thoughts and prayers.

There was actually something called the SubPrime Lending Act? Sub Prime is a term I first heard in the early 2000s. But, back in the 90's I always heard it referred to as C paper. Lenders would say they specialized in B & C paper.

Leave it to the government to meddle in private businesses and screw it up.
Now they want to run the banks, the auto companies, health care ect. ect.
They cannot even run the government efficiently.

Yes, my friends, were in deep sh*t!

They way I see it, the government is not responsible, whether it be Clinton in the 90's or Bush in the 2000's, Dems or Reps. The banks and Wall Street are resonsible. They're the ones that provided and loaned the money. Sub Primes were attractive, like you said because of the fees. The returns were so much greater than on regular mortgages.
I hope these bail outs are loans and not free money.

I will say that when it comes to regulation involving appraisals, the Dems are typically the ones that sponsor or have anything to do with the legislation.

Back in the 1990's during the last bail out, FIRREA was invented which involved regulation of banks and licensing regulation of appraisers. It was pretty strict, but got really watered down during the 2000s. Not for the appraisers, just for the banks, so they didn't have to use appraisers at all. The Republicans were saying back in the 1990s that FIRREA was an accronym for "Finally I am a Rich Real Estate Appraiser".

btw 86, she reminds me of the blueberry girl on Willy Wonka, with a tear...sniffle,i fight with my weight problem....girlfriend, lay off the twinkies

86BFN wrote: It's all about buying votes and getting re-elected in my opinion.

Ding, Ding, Ding...we have a winner!

Eric, the banks had no dis-incentive to deny any of the loans. The originator, whether it be a broker or a mortgage bank took NONE of the risk. The people making the lending decision knew the loans would get sold to to a clearing house mortgage company and then to wall street.

If your job was to lend other peoples money and collect your fee and commission's, you would do just that. If your job was to lend your money out, you'd pay attention.   

The guys at the clearing houses and wall street also took none of the risks. Do you think that they understood the paper they were selling was suspect?   Of course they did. The money was in the fees and commissions. The investors in the securtized mortgage paper wound up with all the risk. Who was taking on that risk? The insurance companies (AIG) the investment banks (bear sterns, etc.). Do you think the guys buying the paper understood that it was suspect? Of course they did. In an effort to chase returns (their bonuses and stock options were based on this) they were willing to take the risks with other peoples money (the shareholders, policy holders, the pension funds, etc.)

They took none of the risks, and got all of the rewards. Every one is talking about the billions and billions being lost on this, no one is talking about the billions and billions that were made. Most of the money made was never transferred to the balance sheet it was paid out to management as compensation bonuses and expensed by the company. This transfer of wealth has been going on for a decade, yet when it all falls apart, W and his wall street buddy paulsin hand a trillion dollars to the same people who already made the money once.

Look at equity values (stocks)over the last decade, even if you take out the last 5 months, its easy to see the game on wall street was not to invest clients money in growth, it was to chase returns and collect the fees. The retirement industry (401k's, etc) has been like a great big fire hose pouring money at wall street, every month the 401k's contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to equities. Look total market capitalization a decade ago and compare it to today. In the mean time, trillions of dollars have gone into capital markets, where did all those hard dollars go? Paper losses? I don't think so. It went to the brokers,investment bankers, traders etc. the same guys we're bailing out now. BS

Rant over.