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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (487197)	6/11/2009 1:50:54 PM
From: bentway	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1573231

"The Bush administration took a laissez-faire approach toward the economy, which is understandable. Blaming that for the recession is nothing but "coulda shoulda woulda" from those who think micromanagement is the way to go." Ten, the unregulated investment banks were operating with a daily average leverage of 30/1 ( before Bushworld, it was typically 15/1). On a bad day, this overnight borrowing would go to 50/1. This is while they were selling poisoned mortgage backed securities to everyone who'd buy, and insuring them against losses with credit default swaps that were insolvent when they were written. Because, these were our top investors. The smart guys who knew what they were doing, KNEW the risks. In laissez-faire Bushworld, all they needed was no regulation whatsoever, a totally free hand. Imagine if you owed 30 or 50 times more than you were worth. Which brought us to today, with Obama as janitor. What's disturbing is, the investment banks are trying to pay back all that TARP money, and continue on as if nothing happened and nothing is amiss. Are YOU for that? A lot of your (R) colleagues are.

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (487197)	6/11/2009 2:01:44 PM
From: michael97123	Respond to of 1573231

"BofA-Merrill Forced by Bernanke, Paulson: Lawmakers- AP Bank of America's Ken Lewis on Thursday testified at a U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing to examine the government's role in the bank's acquisition of Merrill Lynch. The allegation came as Bank of America Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lewis testified that the federal government threatened to remove board members at his bank if it reneged on a promise to acquire Merrill Lynch, despite Merrill Lynch's crumbling financial state." This happened under bush/paulson and actually after the fall of Lehman, this singular action may have save the US financial system from total catastrophe. Cudos to bush/paulson/bernanke for having the balls to act. Rt wing better calm down about obama and economic issues or get hoisted by own petard.

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (487197)	6/11/2009 3:16:46 PM
From: combjelly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573231

"Not particularly, since the market is anything but free of regulations." And there is a reason why that is true. Just look at what happened. For example, instruments that were totally unregulated, like the CDS market, were used for high stakes gambling. And that melted down in a spectacular fashion. When real estate regulations and requirements were loosened, that became a gambling table too. The results weren't pretty. And, so on. Look what happened to the savings and loans when they had their regulation loosened. I could go on for a long while and further back in time. So you can't claim that the circumstances were unusual. It has happened every time it has been tried. Back in the days when it was felt that governments had no place in managing a monetary policy, the economies boomed and busted like clockwork. It was only when regulations established some degree of stability that things changed. And allowed the middle class to blossom instead of getting wiped out every decade or two.