Finding an Editor

And some of the banks, or at least some of their leaders, were hardly short-sighted. Didn't you read about all those credit swaps? A credit swap is when you purchase insurance on a group of loans. If the loans go bad, you get the value of the insurance, if they don't, you lose what you paid for the policy. It's basically like placing a bet. Some smart investors said, "Hmmm...the government is forcing banks to make bad loans. You know what? Let's place a bet that all these bad loans will go bad, and make money hand over fist! If the government wants to be stupid, let's at least profit from it." So they did. The sharpest ones placed their bets about two years before the collapse, when they started noticing these blocks of bad loans. Then about a year or so before the collapse, credit swaps came pouring in as others began to catch on. Haven't you heard some of these interviews with these now very rich investors? They were very aware of government policies and accurately predicted the results.

Two years...nothing helps patience more than a sure thing.

It was #2 and the sad fact was they did get away with it. None of them went to jail for collapsing the economy.

Alrighty then...you can believe that if you want. That's probably part of why you're a good fiction writer, lol. That makes Democrats pretty awful though, not that I didn't already know that, lol. I wonder what motive they had for enriching the banks? Campaign contributions you think? Or hmmm....that triple bailout money makes a pretty nice slush fund for the Democrats.

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Originally Posted by John Oberon

Alrighty then...you can believe that if you want.

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Yes, I'll believe reality. There's a show on CNBC called something like "American Greed." If you watch it you'd probably develop a different view on the world of finance. My first job out of college was at an office that went out of business because the owners were skimming money. So yes, business people often think more of enriching themselves in the short-term than in the long-term. See also, the Great Depression. I suppose you'll say it was caused by noted liberals Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. lol

But Mutt...you forget or perhaps disregard...this supposed plan by the banks to issue thousands of bad loans (which in itself is ridiculous) in order to enrich themselves on the backs of the taxpayers does not work unless the government is complicit. Is that what you're saying? You're saying the government, especially the Democrats, were in on the plan, right? Because if they weren't, the whole thing falls apart.

It's pretty obvious that about anything not concerning editing you're a fool. This isn't a theoretical debate like whether god exists or not. Like I said at the beginning, turn off the Fox "News" and read some newspapers or something. Yeesh.

Well, you're the one who said it was #2. I guess you're a fool too, lol. My brother!

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Originally Posted by John Oberon

Well, you're the one who said it was #2. I guess you're a fool too, lol. My brother!

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Well of course they believed they could profit and get away with it. I don't know why you insist on acting like bankers are somehow immune to greed when there's plenty of evidence to the contrary. Maybe it's news to you, but people frequently don't do the logical common-sense thing, especially when millions of dollars are involved.

Get a clue already. At this point it seems like you're just trolling, arguing for the sake of arguing.

Here's some help to find that elusive clue

I don't deny that greed affects everyone. But you have yet to explain how putting yourself out of business makes a greedy person any money. It was only by the bailouts that the biggest banks didn't go under. You have to explain from your viewpoint why a bank would intentionally do something they KNOW will put them out of business. What they did, would not and could not make them rich, it could only bankrupt them, and they KNEW it.

Now I've explained pretty darn clearly why they would do such a thing, but you've explained zero. All you've said is essentially, "They wanted to go bankrupt so they could rake in the money." Can you explain how that makes sense in any universe but yours?

I can understand price fixing and all the rest. Yep, no doubt that kind of stuff goes on, but that's not what happened. Thousands of bad loans happened. Loans that never should've, and under normal greedy banking rules, never would've happened, happened. Explain that.