Rolling US Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

there was a bill that had the "transgendered" part of the LGBT rights stripped right out, Hurting. People who are not me wrote about it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sara-whitman/barney-frank-bails-on-the_b_66604.html

You may now return to the Official Thread Topic as per the ILX norm.

4/10.

Frank was part of the deck chair re-arrangement committee in 2003.

I think his callboy brought the deck chairs, in fact.

But who paid for them?

So I noticed at Monday night's Mets game that the years-old ad on Shea Stadium's left-field fence -- "AIG: THE STRENGTH TO BE THERE"

now says

"AIG AIG"

Conservative crackup: O'Reilly flips out in populist attack (on behalf of Wall St, of course) against Rush/ideological wingnuts en passant to blaming Democratic Congress - represented by "disgusting" Barney Frank - for Wall St meltdown

hey, maybe this is where morbs gets his coverage

wau

no..more like WAMU...as in WTF W/ JP MORGAN CHASE BUYING WAMU

wamu is a big west coast bank. and i don't think jp morgan chase is. how inconvenient is this going to be?

Wamu has gone national in recent years

yes but not my point: what is going to happen to all the wamus over here in california...do they just magically turn into jp morgan chase? i dont recall seeing any of thosehere

why did i ever leave BoA oh right...the customer "service" and uncontrollable egregious urge to slap fees on everything, thats why. "woohoo"

i don't see what the problem is

listen, let me mourn for and show anger/frustration at my dead bank in my own way, kthxbye

i know someone who just changed to citi from wamu this week. what are you other wamuers doing - nothing?

i didn't realize that Chase had no West Coast presence

the acquisition kinda makes sense for them, it would seem

ive had chase for awhile. i kind of hate them

All other WAMUers are doing nothing.

wells fargo, yo

"wamu is a big west coast bank. and i don't think jp morgan chase is. how inconvenient is this going to be?"

very inconvenient for me since wamu's credit card company is my own company's main client and pays my paycheck.

http://sinfest.net/comikaze/comics/2008-09-25.gif

What do you get when you subtract M(oney) from WaMu?

WAU
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/washington_mutual_future

I'm getting that "Maybe I should withdraw ALL my savings from ny bank" feeling. I'm ignorant? Dunno. Tell me otherwise.

from MY bank

your savings should be insured by the FDIC up to $100,000

economic crisis comes crashing into gabbneb's living room

jesus christ these people they're quoting

HOW DARE ECONOMICS HAPPEN TO ME

NYC supermarket prices are SCARY. Glad I can do my grocery shopping at the local Indian groceries (Jersey City) where prices are still sane for fresh produce and the like. Fuck a D'Agostino's.

MASS EXODUS

I hope not

jesus christ these people they're quoting

HOW DARE ECONOMICS HAPPEN TO ME

you've never been to new york, right?

we don't stand in line, we stand ON the damn line

paulson on bended knee:

“I didn’t know you were Catholic,” Ms. Pelosi said, a wry reference to Mr. Paulson’s kneeling, according to someone who observed the exchange. She went on: “It’s not me blowing this up, it’s the Republicans.”

Mr. Paulson sighed. “I know. I know.”

best economic meltdown ever.

hahaa

i would normally say that just sounds too absurd & theatrical to be true, but if the sky's remnants really do need to fatefully finish falling before Bush II is over, then i guess it makes sense that the american treasury secretary has to get on his knees to plead for the alleged survival of the country's economic system.

it kind of seems appropriate

gabbneb and Barney Frank get down on knees for return to "centrist" Clintonomics

i didn't realize that Chase had no West Coast presence

― gabbneb, Thursday, September 25, 2008 8:40 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
the acquisition kinda makes sense for them, it would seem

― gabbneb, Thursday, September 25, 2008 8:41 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yeah because if anything has been shown by all this it's that the economy needs MORE giant banking institutions and fewer competitors.

That Zabar fuel surchage seems like a dumb PR move. Don't put out a big sign saying you're going to slap a surchage on every purchase - just quietly raise prices across the board. Zabar's food is so overpriced anyway, who would notice another 1.8% - unless you put up a big sign calling attention to it?

Meanwhile, John Paulson, a hedge fund manager who did very well in the subprime meltdown (no relation to Hank) has a very sane and reasonable op-ed in the WSJ calling for scrapping the (Hank) Paulson plan for a straight preferred investment plan:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122238667352477103.html?mod=article-outset-box

If the recalcitrant House GOP forces this thing back to the drawing board, I think we would all owe them a big debt of gratitude.

FASCINATING [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

From our Media Researching friends:

prior to this year, the watchdogs at ABC, CBS and NBC found time for only 10 stories on the financial health and management of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

09/26 09:46 AM

its no coincidence that the only orgs conservatives keep mentioning are these two, right?

The reasons conservatives keep mentioning Fannie and Freddie is because that's the only ingredient into this mess that they were on the right side of politically - ie., calling for reform. The philosophical reasons they disliked Fannie and Freddie were because of their quasi-public status. Of course now that we're seeing a government takeover of large swathes of the financial landscape, that philosophical objection is being largely forgotten in the onrush of events. Nonetheless, that's the one area that many conservatives can point to where they called for reform. Nevermind that Fannie & Freddie were basically along for the ride on a bubble that was largely inflated by the Fed and global imbalances, and that they avoided the worst excesses of Wall Street and other mortgage lenders (which were enabled by GOP anti-regulation bias).

They avoided the worst excesses of Wall Street?Fannie and Freddie were the largest buyers of subprime mortgages between 2004 and 2007, and their exposure was over a trillion dollars.

Along for the ride? Hell, they paid for the gas on that ride.

That the conservatives are being politically opportunistic about Fan/Fred is beside the point. Those organizations were in dire need of reform.

They avoided the worst excesses of Wall Street?Fannie and Freddie were the largest buyers of subprime mortgages between 2004 and 2007, and their exposure was over a trillion dollars.

Not true. They didn't buy subprime mortgages. They bought senior AAA tranches of mortgage-backed securitizations of sub-prime assets. Those were securitizations of loans originated by non-agency lenders and packaged by Wall Street banks. They never bought the riskiest structures cooked up by Wall Street and the rating agencies- and the ones that have led to the sharpest losses.

^^good posts, actually getting some perspective here

Can anyone be in doubt that the ratings agencies need to be taken out and shot?

There are some even-handed accounts of Fannie & Freddie's involvement in the subprime debacle, by people who don't have a partisan axe to grind. Basically Wall Street banks were buying up subprime lenders and packaging those subprime loans into securitizations. These lenders were making credit available on very loose terms with little verification. The huge influx of this cheap money caused the mortgage market share of Fannie & Freddie to shrink dramatically. Unfortunately the agencies also slipped their standards a bit to compete with this Wall Street/Countrywide/etc. axis, and they also bought some of the junk that these banks wer packaging, though they stuck to the safest tranches. But to say they were driving this process is revisionism of a high order.

They didn't buy subprime mortgages.

Oh please. Are you saying that they had no idea what they were buying nor the risk involved, implicit or otherwise. And next you're going to tell me that the widespread mismanagement and accounting irregularities were irrelevant, too? In the end, subprime debt is subprime debt.

http://www.realestatejournal.com/buysell/mortgages/20070420-hagerty.html

Also, I never said they were driving the process. I said they were paying for the fuel.

um, this is not my area, but isn't it giant banks that have stepped into this crisis to save the day? and if Chase didn't step in now, wouldn't that reduce competition on the west coast? who else could step into the breach? it certainly makes Chase an even huger national bank, but would it be better to allow BoA or Citi to increase their existing west coast positions? it appears to me that the retail banks that are in trouble here - indymac, wamu, wachovia - had too much exposure to the california (and florida) housing market(s), and maybe you need a more national bank to step in for them, with adequate size and presence elsewhere to absorb the losses.

it appears to me that the retail banks that are in trouble here - indymac, wamu, wachovia - had too much exposure to the california (and florida) housing market(s)

Wells Fargo is based out here and is sitting pretty last I checked.