The government forced them to create CDO's? to bundle up non-AAA holdings and sell them as AAA? to extend themselves beyond their ability to cover their loses?

In a word - yes - the government forced the issue. Before the government interfered, lenders had actuarial tables and KNEW with 100% certainty who could and couldn't afford a loan the second they walked in the door. Mortgage rates were in the 8% to 10% range. Banks 'made' money on loans with the interest. People who earned less than 30K a year had a tough time getting into a house because (DUH!) they didn't really earn enough money. It was common sense. People that were POOR couldn't just go out and buy houses willy-nilly.

Then the government came along. They wanted people to get loans cheaper and more often and entirely for political reasons. But banks aren't charities and if they can't make the money on the interest (which you can't with sub-prime) then how do you make money? Hmmm... Oh yeah - let's get rid of this little thing called "Glass Steagall"! Now let's use the Fed to jack around interest rates until they are below 5%. Now you banks are commanded by government to make your profits by bundling the loans as derivatives. Now it is almost impossible to survive as a lending institution without doing what we tell you. Oh yeah, you banks? When it all blows up down the road it is YOUR fault... There you go banks!

That was government meddling with the market. They changed the rules so Barney Frank could tell voters that they had "UFFODUBBLE HOW-SING!". It was true left-wing, neolib stupidity on parade and it screwed up the entire planet. They were the ones that changed the laws. The private sector had no choice but to react to the rules that government barfed up.

The system that GOVERNMENT established turned the housing market within a very short time from a staid system of "moderate loans paid off by interest" into a crazed gold-rush of "cheap loans for everyone paid off by bundling". Banks had no choice to play that game because that was playing field that GOVERNMENT created. Any bank offering a SANE loan at an 8% interest rate and making its profits over 30 years was getting clobbered by lenders handing out loans at 2.5% ARMs that were making a bundle on the back end. Banks knew it was crazy, but those were the rules that GOVERNMENT set up and they didn't have any choice but to operate within that rubric. But government said, "Hey - if the loans blow up don't worry about it! We'll cover those bad loans with Freddie/Fannie and you won't be on the hook for it..." Government.

You see, that's what that happens when government interferes with the market and picks the winners and losers by changing rules, laws, and policy. The whole thing would have been impossible without a corrupt government starting the ball rolling for political purposes.

Everybody on the planet learned after the Great Depression that having an 'environment' where bundling and other such investments could exist was not good. That's why Glass-Stegall was created. It stopped a BAD investment practice and it worked for over 50 years without government being "involved" in a single, bloody thing. That's what !good! government does. It establishes a simple, basic set of rules and then STOPS INTERFERING. The reason for the housing failure was not because government WASN'T regulating the market. It was because the government WAS regulating the market in a terrible way.

Reinstate Glass-Steagall - a common sense law - and then ban the government from EVER interfering with the housing sector again. Things work just fine when you set up a simple, transparent system and then forbid the government from coming within a million miles of it.

shagen. That was a good 'un.

In reply to this comment by shagen454:
I love how right wing & right-wing centrist (democrats) nutjobs like to say Michael Moore made millions. Yes, yes he did... but he was lucky and he would have kept on doing what he was doing if he were getting a 30k salary. I'm sorry to point out to you uber greedy capitalist fucks that most people do not become a fucking documentary film maker to make lucrative benefits.

I love how right wing & right-wing centrist (democrats) nutjobs like to say Michael Moore made millions. Yes, yes he did... but he was lucky and he would have kept on doing what he was doing if he were getting a 30k salary. I'm sorry to point out to you uber greedy capitalist fucks that most people do not become a fucking documentary film maker to make lucrative benefits.

>> ^hpqp:
Ugh, this reminds me of Wakefield and the whole anti-vax shtick. Well-intentioned quacks are still quacks,Ugh, we get it. Burzynski's a quack. The thousands of people he has cured are quacks. Wakefield's a quack. And the thousands of parents whose children had a adverse reaction to being vaccinated are quacks too. They're all self-deluded and well-intentioned quacks. Why? Because the authorities told you so. Your blatant arrogance is sickening.
>> ^hpqp:
and making such a biased, *conspiracy-theory based "documentary" filled with anecdotal evidence, confirmation bias and the usual quack argument of "Big Pharma's out to get you and your cash" won't make things any better. Sounds like you haven't watched the film. Maybe you should be more specific on what the "conspiracy-theory" the film is based on? And irony at it's best, your "research" is filled with nothing but "anecdotal evidence" and "confirmation bias"... trying to "debunk" with bunk. Nice job. And I need a citation for "Big Pharma's out to get you and your cash". I don't know where that came from. Of course I'm pretty sure by this point that you're just full of shit.
>> ^hpqp:
Burzynski is a bit harder to debunk than others, because there may be a shred of truth in his claims, but up until now there has been no scientific evidence to support his claims.
Gotta love the double-talk going on here.
>> ^hpqp:
As for raking in the cash, Burzynski definitely has that down pat, demanding 30-60K for his treatments (example: at 963 patients in 1996, @30K/pers.=almost 29mio$... heck, almost enough to make a propagandish film to the glory of one's self!).And you do it again. First you got a problem with the argument you allege the film is making "Big Pharma's out to get you and your cash", and then you turn around and make the same argument against Burzynski. Only the film didn't make the "quack argument" and you did. So who's the real quack here?
>> ^hpqp:
The American and Japanese NCIs, as well as a pharmaceutical company (Sigma-Tau) showed interest in his claims, but were unable to duplicate his results, and not a single phase III randomised clinical study has been done with antineoplastons. The only "evidence" that supports Burzynski's claims come from his own publications, which have been criticised for not respecting basic research protocol (e.g. no control groups, omission of mentioning previous treatments, counting patients who did not even have malignant cancer, etc). Moreover, his claims do not seem to hold on a biochemical level. His credentials are shady as well.Maybe you should watch the film instead of copy-pasting false information from fallacious articles of 10+ years ago.
>> ^hpqp:
I'm all for researching new and out-of-the-box treatments,Clearly. That's why you've had such an open mind here.
>> ^hpqp:
but cannot stand when quacks fill their pockets out of the despair of sick and dying people.
But you can stand when the US government criminally suppresses a discovery that could have helped save millions of lives over the last two decades. Bravo!

Ugh, this reminds me of Wakefield and the whole anti-vax shtick.

Well-intentioned quacks are still quacks, and making such a biased, *conspiracy-theory based "documentary" filled with anecdotal evidence, confirmation bias and the usual quack argument of "Big Pharma's out to get you and your cash" won't make things any better. Burzynski is a bit harder to debunk than others, because there may be a shred of truth in his claims, but up until now there has been no scientific evidence to support his claims. As for raking in the cash, Burzynski definitely has that down pat, demanding 30-60K for his treatments (example: at 963 patients in 1996, @30K/pers.=almost 29mio$... heck, almost enough to make a propagandish film to the glory of one's self!). It's easy to say you have great results when you're the only one giving the evidence.

The American and Japanese NCIs, as well as a pharmaceutical company (Sigma-Tau) showed interest in his claims, but were unable to duplicate his results, and not a single phase III randomised clinical study has been done with antineoplastons. The only "evidence" that supports Burzynski's claims come from his own publications, which have been criticised for not respecting basic research protocol (e.g. no control groups, omission of mentioning previous treatments, counting patients who did not even have malignant cancer, etc). Moreover, his claims do not seem to hold on a biochemical level. His credentials are shady as well.

I'm all for researching new and out-of-the-box treatments, but cannot stand when quacks fill their pockets out of the despair of sick and dying people.

links on the research:
The chemical breakdown of his claims:
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Cancer/burzynski1.html

Long in-depth report on his claims, history, etc.
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/OTA/ota05.html

Unscientific methods:
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Cancer/burzynski2.html

relying on people's vulnerability to sell woo:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/05/harnessing_peoples_good_to_pay_for_woo.php

edit: nice publicity stunt, btw, shutting down the "documentary" shortly after posting it, then sending people to your website.

You can look at it any way you want. I'm considered "middle-class" by all terms. I have super cheap rent in one of the most expensive places in the US, that is of my own accord. But I sure as hell can't afford anything. I take public transit, ride my bike, I still eat the best organics in the nation and have the best friends I could have ever met.

I've had many jobs where I've done the work of the higher-ups and seen what they do while making 5X the amount of money I do. I know they know they're lucky, but, I've also seen how they choose to make financial decisions for their own gain - one of those being getting others to do their work for them. Corrupt fucks.

One of my main influences for being more "socially" inclined was my father. A CEO, he wasn't a scumbag or anything - at least not to my knowledge (he did help build prisons) but just the thought of people putting profit before their own lives & family is sickening.

To his credit, he grew up in Philly with a mother who lost her husband (an olympic athelete) early on. She grew up during the depression and only had a 4th grade education. She was one of those cuties that saved huge tin foil balls. I know my father worked hard and felt obligated to but I think and will always think he cared too much about making profit.

He still touts that. Now that I am nearly an old man he admitted while we sipped on some bourbon and smoked a cigar that, "All I ever wanted was to make money." My reply was "yeah." I looked him in his empty eyes and saw a robot. Sure he has a super nice house on a lake system, an amazing wife, nice cars, a speed boat, a golf course... hardly any friends, kids that don't appreciate him... but he has shitloads of money. Good for him! That's amazing. Money really informs people what life is truly about, keeps people focused on what is really important. Paying your taxes, keeping your yard and hair well groomed, going to stiff social events and working. Man, that is just not a life worth living in my opinion.

On the opposite side of the spectrum their are jobs where everyone is paid nearly the same, they buy into their businesses and co-own their businesses and everyone comes out a winner with 30k+ bonuses at the end of the year. The only people that may not think they're winners are people that are greedy fucks that require too much. But, at the same time these people are able to live regular lives that promote interaction, activity & family. Not that I believe in having a family, but when you do not have to take your bullshit job home with you or work many many extra hours the better it is for everyone.

>> ^quantumushroom:

You fellows are buying into something you don't seem to have thought all the way through. If you spread all wealth equally across the board, in a month things would look about the same as they do now, as foolhardy choices were made and the inexperienced gambled their "profits" away.
Communism attempted to eliminate the profit motive. It's been a disaster everywhere it's been tried.
Socialist countries are not only less competitive than capitalist ones, many of them across Europe are now in serious trouble.
You do know most of the American "poor" are well fed, own their own homes, have two vehicles, 3 TVs, cable, computers, appliances, etc?
One other thing. I do not believe for one second that if any of you "revolutionaries" won the lottery, you wouldn't immediately put together a legal team to rival Mr. Burns' on The Simpsons and proceed to exploit every tax shelter and loophole possible.

This has a lot to do with what is happening in this country. It's a charade, on one hand you have these bizarre christian fundamentalists who say they want "small government" when actually they want to control the lives of Americans through their own personal agendas. Then you have corporations who seek to control the masses through lobbyists so you keep buying their products.

It's relevant because in many public schools they eat subsidized corporate garbage. Some schools have corporate advertising. The school's have PTO's run by a bunch of garbage eating, fundamentalist christians and everyone wants control of some personal agenda & crusade and enforce it on everyone else. Teachers are supposed to be knowledgeable about their topics, fuck your stupid standard curriculum syllabus and let them teach kids the best way they can. Stop making America sterile!

What the hell happened to this country, why does everything have to be controlled and why can't we just listen to one another, argue if need be. Maybe, just maybe I am wrong, maybe you're wrong but hopefully one of us fucking learns something. And if I am wrong I'll admit it, I won't go on some anti-intellectual crusade and try to obscure FACTS. This country needs to relearn what is necessary/unnecessary to control.

Teachers should be paid well. The irony is I went to a private school for Junior High & some high school. All the kids were rich spoiled brats, some of them had lambos & Vipers... the teachers were the best I ever had. But, I could make as much as those teachers working at fucking Kinkos. It's hilarious to think that that really is the way America works. My parents spent 10k a year & those teachers were paid less than 30k/yr. Sure, it was a "better" environment than a public school for those teachers - but their whole objective was to get these brats into Princeton. Oh, but we don't want democratic laws & regulations to tell us how we should run businesses & schools... please.

>> ^Enzoblue:

The bad: the scaling I think, the hands tourney was no bigger than a Ren faire sideshow as was the Dothraki wedding. In the book they were epic. Also that wedding was done during the day and so was the birth of the dragons, which was off-putting. I didn't feel Drago's army was anywhere near 30k.
All in all I was hoping for a breakthrough in cinematic skill, (like the Rings), but got the budget restrained version.


It's television, and you should compare it to other television shows, not movies. They don't have $300 million to spend on 10 hours of footage like LOTR. Scenes like Tyrion getting knocked out and missing the fight are there so that the producers don't blow half of the season's budget on a battle that wasn't even important.

My two bits:


Characters: All perfect with the exception of Catelyn(not pretty enough), Littlefinger(just a bit off), Hodor(was young in book, not 50+), and Danerys(too doe eyed, but growing on me), Ilyn Payne. The others, especially the Stark boys, Tyrion, Viserys, Cersei and Varys were exceptionally casted. Gems like Aemon, Florel, Bron and Septa Mordane blew me away.

Adaptation: Expected mostly, story offs are reasonable for the most part, (the Others are now called White Walkers, etc).

The bad: the scaling I think, the hands tourney was no bigger than a Ren faire sideshow as was the Dothraki wedding. In the book they were epic. Also that wedding was done during the day and so was the birth of the dragons, which was off-putting. I didn't feel Drago's army was anywhere near 30k.

The downgrading of the dire wolves is disappointing, (they were such a huge spiritual role in the book), but they require CG and that's costly I guess. I hope they're saving that money for the dragons.


The petty: Having Tyrion apparently knocked out during his first battle, in book he fought bravely. Having Danerys immune to fire.

The Unforgivable: Having the knight of the Flowers gay for Renly, including a scene of him sucking him off, even dubbing in the slurping sounds. Pathetic. In book Loras might have been gay, but Renly was a playboy and even married.

All in all I was hoping for a breakthrough in cinematic skill, (like the Rings), but got the budget restrained version. I'll take it though.

I mean I don't really give a shit about bookstores or video stores. I watch most film off of StageVu, so I'm a damn hypocrite. But, if I do get the courage to go into the local video store they have an immense amount of film and it's run by a guy who played in that legendary band Jawbreaker. It's always an amazing time browsing their art film, criterion collection and horrid hard-to-find 80's films. I think I've gone into City Lights once or twice. Seen it, been there, done that. I think I bought an Arthur Rimbaud book from the Beat section, haha. And that is pretty much the only book I will ever need again.

I definitely try to buy local, it's much more difficult in smaller towns where the chains already have a chain around the local economies necks. I try to buy from small local grocers, farmer's markets or the co-op. I like the idea of the co-op but truthfully they are really much more expensive. But their workers get huge bonuses at the end of the year $30k+ and they don't have asshole managers). Sometimes I mess up and end up going into Trader Joe's (TWO BUCK CHUCK!!!) but I definitely won't support Safeway and all of their shit biotech-foods.

I definitely think changing America's mind on where they buy their goods from would have an immense impact on the country for the better. The less oil on your food the better. Starting a co-op is a great way to take power back locally and empower local farmers - though, like I said the consumer ends up paying a bit more for food (albeit, really good food).

you are, however, a terrible economist. = P
>> ^JiggaJonson:

>> ^Porksandwich:
I mean can't you understand that they are getting 7 digit salaries to act like a complete asshole? Wouldn't you do that if were offered that kind of money?
No. That's why I work 60+ hour weeks teaching for a salary that's <30k a year. Because I'm not a whore.

Well you are obviously not a "business man", money is everything. And yes, that whole "It's just business" line bugs the hell out of me...let's people justify a lot of clearly wrong behavior sometimes even legally wrong.
>> ^JiggaJonson:

>> ^Porksandwich:
I mean can't you understand that they are getting 7 digit salaries to act like a complete asshole? Wouldn't you do that if were offered that kind of money?
No. That's why I work 60+ hour weeks teaching for a salary that's <30k a year. Because I'm not a whore.

>> ^Porksandwich:

I mean can't you understand that they are getting 7 digit salaries to act like a complete asshole? Wouldn't you do that if were offered that kind of money?
No. That's why I work 60+ hour weeks teaching for a salary that's <30k a year. Because I'm not a whore.

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