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No easy answers we're all farked
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MalibuGuru



Joined: 11 Nov 1993
Posts: 9293

PostPosted: Tue Apr 30, 2013 1:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I can't go as far as hating banks or bankers, however, I sure would have liked seeing the bad actors loose their Porsche's and Ferrari's. We need banking, we just don't need the excess and greed. Many of these regulations just make it harder on the small corner bank to open.

Speaking of small banks....I bought a Martin guitar at a Pawn shop for my son. It was expensive. Brought it home and discovered a small crack (repaired well) on the neck. Assuming they'd ripped me off, I called them angrily and told them of my plight. To my astonishment, they offered to cut the price in half, or refund my money. Wow, the lowest of low life banker was honest as the driven snow. Every once in a while their is a banker who wants to do the right thing.
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keycocker



Joined: 10 Jul 2005
Posts: 3598

PostPosted: Tue Apr 30, 2013 2:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

One can be rid of banks of they wish. I had no bank account until I was thirty four years old. Got my first credit card three years later because my new wife had one and added me.
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swchandler



Joined: 08 Nov 1993
Posts: 10588

PostPosted: Tue Apr 30, 2013 2:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

If it wasn't for banks of some kind, where would we put our 6 figure savings? I would hate to think about having that much cash stashed around the house.
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GURGLETROUSERS



Joined: 30 Dec 2009
Posts: 2643

PostPosted: Tue Apr 30, 2013 3:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

We have Building Societies SWC. They have always been considered to be less risky than banks in that they only loan out savers money as mortgages to house buyers, or owners (for improvements), with the building as security. (Default, and it's theirs.)

Nowadays, with all the fiddles going on in the financial world nobody can any longer be sure. Government regulation requires all Building Societies (banks also) to fully compensate all savers up to a maximum of £80,000 in the event of failure. (They must keep sufficient assets to do so.)

If you have more than that 'safe' amount, you spread it between two different societies. (I, of course don't .... but I've stocked up on windsurfers, bikes, and, er...mind your own business! Wink )
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capetonian



Joined: 11 Aug 2006
Posts: 1196
Location: Florida

PostPosted: Tue Apr 30, 2013 9:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Any society is farked where the best and brightest would rather become banksters than doctors or engineers or scientists.

Banks add value to society when they facilitate the funding of productive activity within society. Otherwise Slinky's characterization of them as blood suckers starts to seem fair.
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Tue Apr 30, 2013 10:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

slinky wrote:
I am puzzled as to why more is not being done to prevent another bubble and subsequent collapse.

Charges of him being a Communist and a Socialist are a joke!

Then why has has he stated on tape that his health care goal is "taxpayer-funded, government-managed health care [the dictionary definition of socialized medicine] within 10-15 years from now"?
Why blitz Mexico with ads touting food stamps for all who enter the U.S., with no requirement to do it legally?
Why have thousands of workers whose sole job is to persuade 150 new people per month to accept food stamps, including military veterans who do not want them?
Why boast in writing that his closest friends and the associates he sought throughout college were Marxists?
I'll spare you the other dozens of similar questions.

I've read some 15-20 apolitical economics books explaining bubbles, both generally and specifically, in very great detail. To summarize 4,000 pages in a few sentences, each administration has two basic options: let the bubbles pop (leading to major recession of even a depression on his watch) or inflate them artificially by printing play money --- quantitative easing -- to conceal them until the next administration assumes the office and suffers a depression far worse than the Great Depression. Whether the ensuing inflation will reach hyperinflation proportions, and whether it will be preceded by deflation, is hotly debated by experts. The problem is timing; at some ill-defined point, QE stops working and the president in office at that point will go down in history as the president who destroyed the nation's, quite possibly the world's economy, for 8-10 years. Bailouts, artificially low interest rates, free-wheeling loans to poor risks (which Bush repeatedly and loudly opposed), etc. are compounding the bubble problems. So far four of the six leading bubbles popped in 2007-2008, right on the schedule projected in writing by some of these authors, transferring their hot air into the remaining two bubbles with foreseeable near- to fully- catastrophic results some time in the 2013-2016 range.

Every few days honest news analysts discuss with a wide variety of experts whether Obama is simply ignorant of all this or knows it and refuses to accept the consequences of continuing and encouraging the same widely accepted dangerous policies intended to offload the crash onto the next watch. The housing bubble, for example, is rapidly and deliberately being artificially re-inflated right before our eyes and ears, as clearly shown everywhere from the front pages of the WSJ to the new blitz of commercials promising great profits to be had in buying and flipping houses.

They actually think we're THAT stupid, and millions of us who can't even identify a picture of Joe Biden or Dick Cheney ARE that stupid.
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Tue Apr 30, 2013 10:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

slinky wrote:
Imagine if our government were to print money and lend it at zero interest to everyone!

Do you think the economy might improve?

It does.
No.
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mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17742
Location: Berkeley, California

PostPosted: Tue Apr 30, 2013 12:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cap--I partially agree. The expansion of bank activities after repeal of Glass-Steagall made them more gamblers than investors in communities. But I have a particular distaste for Hedge funds. They have tried to give gambling with other people's money, and betting against the US economy, a good name. Bah.
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capetonian



Joined: 11 Aug 2006
Posts: 1196
Location: Florida

PostPosted: Wed May 01, 2013 11:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think once investors look at their long term after fees returns from hedge funds they'll realize they would have got better returns from buying S&P 500 index funds. More and more we are seeing that the funds that have outperformed year after year (like SAC) have done so with criminal activity.
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Fri May 03, 2013 8:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

From free financial (and commercial) newsletter "Gains, Pains, & Capital" comes this assessment. I don't know how credible Graham Summers is in general, but the facts and dozens of economics books, several of the richest investors in the world, and the WSJ journal concur closely and/or in general with his analysis summarized here.

"QE Has Been and Will Be a Complete and Utter Failure"; May 2, 2013

The Fed is now blaming Congress for the failures of its QE policies.

Behind this facade of bickering is the total and complete failure of the Fed’s policies to generate economic growth OR jobs. The US has not had a single year of 3% GDP growth since Bernanke became Fed Chairman.

As for QE… there is not one single example in history in which QE has successfully created jobs. The UK has engaged in QE equal to over 20% of its GDP and hasn’t seen a real recovery in employment. Similarly, Japan has employed QE equal to nearly 25% of its GDP and GDP growth continues to slow while unemployment stays elevated. [Those are 2 to 4 times our QE to GDP ratio].

As for the US, the Fed has spent roughly $2 trillion in the last year via QE. During that time a little over, 500,000 jobs were created… So the Fed is spending roughly half a MILLION dollars to create each job. This is what happens when you put Central Planners who have little if any real world experience, in charge of an economy. You spend millions of dollars to create low paying jobs, and the Fed’s argument is to keep doing this until unemployment falls ... clear indication the Fed literally is either totally clueless OR is engaging in QE for other reasons.

[the author's] view… it’s a bit of both. The Fed is largely comprised of academics like Bernanke who have little if any experience in banking (interesting that he’s in charge of the Central bank since he NEVER worked in a bank in his life) or the private sector.

Indeed, even the pro-Wall Street crowd at the Fed (Dudley and Evans) don’t see how their policies are crushing the banking sector. Citigroup plans to lay off 11,000. JP Morgan is laying off 14,000. Morgan Stanley is laying off 1,600, yet Evans and Dudley keep asking for more QE!

Investors take note, the markets are sending multiple signals [with the WSJ strongly concurring] that things are not going well in the world. Companies based on the real economy are dropping hard. And it's clear the Fed doesn't know how to get things back on track.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thus the emphasis on precious metals by many wealthy sages with solid track records. Gold's behavior in particular this year has been smack on track in both shape and timing.
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