>> ^TheSofaKing:

Republicans don't get satire. They'll never figure it out.

But Freudeans know what it means to have a big gun fetish.


Most Republicans...just don't get it.

Perfectly said, Cenk.

Look forward to seeing you on CurrantTV.

I personally loved every 1:45 minutes!

Don't hide the good ones, lads!

That YouTube primer was well done.

You're bigger than you think.

Oh, yeah, joking around and saying that some girl in a video looks hot is exactly the same as robosigning foreclosures and laughing at the people you helped evict.

Right.

@bcglorf,

The problem I have with your point of view mainly rests on the presumption that the people who were defrauded "got what they deserved." I just don't see it that way. It's sort of justifying the bankers actions.

When somebody who is in a position of power and respect, as are most bankers and investors I would say, you can't blame John & Jane Doe for trusting in their advice.

The bankers and investors should have known better, and the vast majority of them did, but that didn't stop them from spreading the lies and conning people into signing their lives away.

P.S. - I hope Greece defaults. Something is rotten in Denmark when entire countries must go bust in order to satisfy Wall Street.

@bcglorf,

There were a lot of "house flippers" as I've heard them called, but I doubt it was a majority of the "bad loans" that Wall Street was packaging in their CDO's. I'm guessing 20% of those loans would be a high guess, most likely in the 10% range.

I'm convinced that the Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs) were a major culprit that caused a lot of people to lose their homes. Back around 2004, there was a big advertising blitz here in the states about how people could refinance their homes using an ARM and make themselves some easy money.

What actually happened was that those loans were sold---which I don't think was always allowed---and the fine print said that each time the loan was sold, there was an adjustment to the mortgage.

My parents bought a little house for a rental. Their first month's mortgage payment was about $180. Not six months later, they were paying almost $500, and they couldn't get out of it. They were lucky. It wasn't their primary residence and they were able to sell the place suffering a relatively minor loss.

Anyway...I still haven't found anything new about Greece's problems, but as of today it still seems to be a powder keg situation.

Cheers.

EDIT:

Look at this graph from Wikipedia.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Sovereign_credit_default_swaps.png

One look at that tells me that Greece's problem probably doesn't have much to do with its social spending.

@bcglorf,

You're right that it has to be looked at more closely. If you find anything concrete, please feel free to share the link with me if you feel like it.

Regarding the "social spending" angle, I'm curious to know how much of that had to do with investing in some of the more trashy gizmos that Goldman et al had to offer.

We know that here in the states, a number of pension funds took a major hit when Wall Street tanked. They had invested heavily in the CDO scam (AAA rated). Wall Street was bailed out, they weren't.

I'm curious to know how much of Greece's damage was caused by similar investments.

I'm betting it was substantial.



P.S. - G.S. has been behind a lot of really dirty financial shit and they always seem to get away with it. A number of municipalities in the USA have suffered gravely thanks to G.S. They were basically looted. Matt Taibi wrote a great article about it in Rolling Stone, but I can't find the link just now. Worth a read if you feel like Googling for it.

This is worth a read, but I don't think it's the same article I was thinking of.

Cynicism is a cancer.

It's our culture. It's Hollywood. A peaceful rectification doesn't sell tickets.

>> ^holymackerel013:

This song always reminds me of the end of Napoleon Dynamite. Napoleon's girlfriend plays tetherball with him as the credits begin to roll with this song is playing. It's actually a very nice scene.


Thanks for sharing. Never saw Napoleon. I'll add it to the NetFlix queue.

I went to a Foot Locker shoe store to buy some running stuff, and the entire staff was engrossed in that movie. I said to myself "It must be good."

>> ^conan:

oh boohoo Rachel, those bad rich folks. What did you say when they offered you millions for your show?


So that they could make tens of millions off her talent, you mean?

Hey! Give me some money! I'll be a "job creator" too!

Remember: it doesn't really count unless the rich are getting richer.

Anything less, is dirty Kenyan Kommunism.

I miss that team. Hope to see the day when Rachel had Keith on, and the other way around.

This smacks of the "ownership society" where somebody owns everything and there are no common grounds.

It's preposterous and doomed, since all progress is rested upon the shoulders of those who have gone before us.

Greedy backstabbing pigs...pardon my willful tourettes.