Donald Trump..... Screw the politicians!

So you had buyers overbuying, Real Estate agents pushing the overbuying, mortgage brokers over selling bigger loans and nutty ARMs, those who didn't properly document the loans, those who bundled the loans, those who rated the loan tranches without checking what was really in them, those that bought the bundles without checking that the rating agencies were rubber stamping, Fanny / Freddy and the government pushing everyone into buying a house.

If you remove any ONE of those, there is a good chance that the banking crisis would not have happened or at least would have been a lot less severe. Too many people to blame and so sad that none of them did the right thing.

I actually heard a co-worker say this: "I can afford this new home with my balloon ARM loan. When the 3 years is up, the value will have gone way up and I can just refinance then as I will have all this equity and can get a better rate than I can with my 5% down now." I knew we were in serious trouble right then and that was back in 2002. It actually took longer to burst than I thought, which was probably worse as the bubble had more time to grow before it popped.

 

I remember people bragging about buying new homes with "$100k in equity" the day of closing. I kinda laughed because these were people that couldnt make change of a $100 with whats in their pocket let alone swinging balloon payments or understanding finance.
There were even sellers/agents giving buyers stacks of cash at closing! At one point there was a whole office of bilkers in NJ that would make up W2s and fake 1099s to get buyers qualified & closed for the commissions!

 

So, did bankers just suddenly go insane after years of writing loans with a reasonable default rate?

 

Yes.

They didn't have to service the loans, they knew all they had to do was con an underwriter into approving it and it would be promptly sold off.

 

Do you really think that I've been sitting comfortably on the sidelines feeling that Sweatypants would keep all of us abreast on how the economy works and how it's doing? Get real. Some of what you say is close to accurate but it goes much farther than that. How the economy works is a complicated affair that needs a bit of study and a large amount of input from the experts involved with it on what's happening and why. Part of what you're claiming is not what those experts explain it to be. Every action taken by the Fed has a reaction of some kind. Some of it is positive and some of it's negative. The larger the debt ratio gets the more negatives result from it.

 

And what were the results of all those defaults from all those loans? How many people, through defaulted retirement investments etc., lost everything that they had worked for all those years and the American taxpayer had to pick up the pieces and pay for putting them back together. Billions of dollars of loss resulted from it. All that value was based on,,,,nothing. The cost of the paper was more valuable than what was printed on it.

 

As far as what the taxpayer lost, the US government actually made money on the bank bailout loans. The losses to the government were the auto maker bailouts and the cash for clunkers debacle. No one likes to talk about that because the banks all have to be evil and we couldn't possibly talk bad about the hard working folks in the US auto industry.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/12/19/news/companies/government-bailouts-end/

 

The taxpayers are not the government. I don't believe anyone got rebate checks, but I know my 401k's got hammered.
We shared in the losses, but not the profits.

 

Unless you pulled out of the market when it tanked or were overly invested in bank or auto stocks, your 401k should have recovered very nicely by now.

Also, not all taxpayers are invested in the stock market, so the taxpayers as a general group were not necessarily harmed.

 

They did recover, but that doesn't reimburse for the three years they were in the negative from where they were before the crash.
And anyone with a retirement account was affected, even if they didn't notice.

 

Earning power is going down. Most ponzi schemes don't collapse until the end....duh...

 

Is that an opinion or a fact?

 

I'm pretty sure that would fall under the "readily apparent" category.

In the past 6 years, had your:

Income increased? How much?
Your health insurance costs increased? How much?
Your property taxes increased? How much?
The cost of food increased? How much?

The only thing cheaper now is fuel, and those decreases are far outweighed by the increases everywhere else.

 

Not disagreeing but the timeframe you listed is different than what kangasj listed.

But to your specific questions, I don't think you want me to answer those questions as my specific example would not support your position. Better to look at the macro level than a specific data point.

 

Yes. By alot.

Yes, a little.

No, gone down when I petitioned to have them reassessed

I'm not sure.

I'm not sure your closing statement is accurate either.

 

Fer Gawd's sake, don't listen to Jon! The man's a raving lunatic!

 

That't besides the point! When is the last time you've seen the government setting interest rates where they've been the last few years...basically trying to prop up the markets? When is the last time you've seen negative interest rates being discussed. In your memory have you ever seen the U.S. government lie so much? And yes, it is a fact that most ponzi schemes don't collapse till the end.

Regarding the standard of living.....here you go...

http://www.mybudget360.com/cost-of-living-1938-to-2013-inflation-history-cost-of-goods-inflation/

Of course, I can always find data to back up my point on the internet

 

That's all I was asking for...show both sides of the coin. Thanks.

Oh and BTW, I don't know who this Jon is that you guys are referring to...

 

He's an asshole. Ignore him.