Comments on: TOO CLEVER BY HALF

By: Uncle Bruno

Uncle Bruno — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 14:18:29 +0000

What crisis? Wall St. bonuses are at an all-time high and shareholders got bailed out so they didn't lose anything. Unemployment hits 10%? So what? Not their problem.

By: Concerned Citizen

Concerned Citizen — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 12:52:40 +0000

"Wall Street is the CIA
the CIA is Wall Street"
- Michael C. Ruppert, 2004

See also, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man – John Perkins, 2005

By: Ecks

Ecks — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 07:24:24 +0000

I get the impression a lot of it was about leverage. Some clever clogs worked out that if you stacked a whole lot of boxes up to stand on top of them (efficient!) you could reach way high bananas. And it works beautifully and gets imitated as everyone else starts stacking up their crates, bracing their stacks against my stacks against your stacks, until something comes lose in the middle, and the fragile system has a lot of kinetic energy and no buffers, and no safety nets.

But then I always liked metaphors :)

By: Bob

Bob — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:32:37 +0000

I thought conservatives had explained the crash: the Community Reinvestment Act forced banks to loan to poor (read dark-skinned) people who defaulted. Never mind that CRA mortgages accont for only a small percentage of all mortgages, and never mind that only a small percentage of of CRA mortgages were defaulted on. No, dark-skinned people caused the crash. Can't blame smart guys.

By: Aslan Maskhadov

Aslan Maskhadov — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 19:18:58 +0000

The need for short-term profits is inherent in capitalism, so this theory cannot explain the crisis. If other banks are making money hand over fist doing one thing, one needs to follow suit or be driven out of business. It's the same as when one manufacturer employs new technology to produce more, and more efficiently. Those who stick with the old ways are likely to get shut out.

By: duquesne_pdx

duquesne_pdx — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:28:55 +0000

Please to forgive the lack of quote indenting…

By: duquesne_pdx

duquesne_pdx — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:28:10 +0000

/delurk

The mindset shifted from “We make a lot of money, don’t screw it up” to “Why make ten million when you could make eleventy billion?”

I'm not sure that's entirely it. I think it's more along the lines of that plus, "…besides, if it all comes crashing down, we'll all be cashed out and living in the Caymans or some other non-extradition treaty country in the extremely unlikely event that someone ever enforces oversight."

$.02

/relurk

By: ladiesbane

ladiesbane — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 07:23:12 +0000

The twist-and-slide that occurs between "let's not screw it up" and "hey, let's find the load limit by hitting the point of collapse" is part of all attempts at progress…except that when a person uses Just Too Much butter in a frosting, people simply refuse to eat it. The user is right there to judge. Hiring a middleman to make your investments removes a degree of threat, and therefore makes investors numb where they should be prudent.

This may be analogous to the electoral college.

Besides: the stock market is a gamble, and anyone not comfortable losing all he puts down should not be placing bets. I can make more money betting on fights and horse races than I can at the market — only because I know more about horses and men than I do about FCOJ.