Goldman executives cheered housing market's decline, newly released e-mails show

reply to post by David9176


Yes.

GS was just a market maker.

PLEASE watch the Blankfein part.

Whatever questions you have put them in here or PM me.

reply to post by endisnighe


Well you have to remember who was trading these..

The most advanced minded institutions..

Not me or you or John the plumber or whoever that shill was

It is just a way to lay off risk - there are many reasons actually

Please, watch the whole blankfein part

Whatever you need explained or question PM me or write in here, I will do my best to explain as I feel I have a very good understanding after watching every hour of his testimony.

reply to post by GreenBicMan


I know the asshats or the sockpuppets are given their every script to play. That is one thing I assumed was obvious as I watched it.

Did it seem that way to you?

It seemed to me the questioners had NO idea of what they were even asking. How is it that we have MORONS that will not even attempt to learn what they are supposed to regulate!?

As for the shorting-put or the long options, I get all that. What I AM ASSUMING that happened will really get peoples shackles up.

I think it was all planned, all the way, including these investigations.

reply to post by endisnighe


Please go to the up to the minute market thread to see every opinion I have on the matter.

It includes all of what you have stated.

Originally posted by desert

These guys participated in the tanking of the economy on a scale that must make Osama Bin Laden envious, as even he couldn't do this. These people deserve to be called "enemy" also. Keep Gitmo open for THEM!

One problem.....Gitmo is probably part of their 'organisation'....

Originally posted by GreenBicMan
Guys please..

If you watched this whole panel today you should be able to conclude the problem is the Senate and elected officials. How dumb can they seriously be? #, I'm not that bright and I could have taken 10 hits of acid and drank 476 beers and slapped my hand with a hammer and been smarter than the "maverick" or that moron Levin.

The best course of action would be to get rid of every politician, never vote DEM OR REPUB. again, ever - then never allow corporate campaign contributions.

GS didn't make anyone lose their house. It was your elected reps most of you cherish so much that allowed the bank to give you those loans based on your phantom job or paltry 50k and under salary.

Our government didn't make people buy subprime mortgages.. Nor is it their fault the housing bubble happened.

It was actually the fault of the "market," which misallocated ass loads of cheap capital in newly engineered securities which were given the same risk-rating as US treasury bills.

Another big factor was greed on the part of mortgage lenders -- which operated as a volume business, so they had no incentive to make good loans. Their only concern was to make as many loans, to as many people, as they possibly could.

"Wallstreet's" responsibility was to securitize those loans in a financial instrument which had an accurately articulated risk to return ratio.

Then, people bought/sold/traded in these derivatives; AIG eventually created an instrument which could be used to insure these other subprime instruments.



Nobody thought anything of any of this, because the entire market had its eye on these things, and theoretically, if the entire market has confidence in them, then they must be a good investment.

Of course, what happened was one of three things:

1) Everybody was wrong.

2) Wallstreet knew this was coming, but continued to "inflate the bubble" anyways, because crises are very profitable to people in the finance business.

or

3) Some people were wrong, some people knew it would all go south; in either case, the bubble happened, and wallstreet had a big hand in inflating it, whether on purpose or accidentally.

[edit on 27-4-2010 by Kaytagg]

reply to post by Kaytagg


Sorry KTG

MBS didn't make John Doe take out 2 home equity loans, get a new pool installed, pick up a new Ford F-150 and then hold their hand as they default on their home payment after getting 10x too over-levered.

This is just a cycle of getting over-levered in all parts of the economy. Now the people that took too much risk PAID DEARLY (corp's and regular people) and now they are getting flushed out and that is how the economy sheds itself of all the wrongdoings.

I didn't make it this way, but it is painfully obvious when everyone you know has 2 mortgages, brand new HDTV's in every room and a remodeled kitchen.

What you are saying right now is taking all the responsibility off the people that got over-levered and are now paying the price.

Too #ing bad, this is America and you got blown up. I don't give a # because it has happened to me as well and I learned my lesson. If you don't agree I am sorry.

No offense

[edit on 27-4-2010 by GreenBicMan]

reply to post by GreenBicMan


GS was one of the corps that "took too much risk." They bought insurance from AIG, which also "took too much risk." In fact, they took so much risk that they went billions of dollars into the red. GS, apparently, also bought insurance from somebody else, which was to be paid in the event that the govt didn't bail out AIG.. That seems rather dubious, to me, but whatever.


The fact of the matter is, a few dozen irresponsible borrowers shouldn't be enough to tank the world's economy.. What tanked the world's economy was a massive misallocation of capital into the housing sector, as I explained in my above post.


It has nothing to do with the end users, who lost their homes.

After all, would you buy a subprime security? If the answer is yes, then you lose money. But the question was "would hundreds of billions of dollars in capital be used to buy subprime securities?" the answer was YES..


As they say, "Owe the bank 1 million dollars and can not pay, I have a problem. Owe the bank 100 million dollars and can not pay, the BANK has a problem."


The housing bubble was a systemic problem, which was enabled by trillions of dollars in investment capital; had there been any sense on wallstreet -- or had the markets been as infallible as they're often purported to be -- those trillions would never have been invested in the first place, because nobody would make the loan, nobody would buy the securities, and nobody would bother to insure them.

Again, this was a massive market failure, because it's the markets job to make correct decisions on where to invest capital; what they ended up doing was imploding the world's economy in a housing bubble.. That's not what I call an infallible market...

On that note, do you think the 2001 tech bubble (or dot com bubble, as it's often called) was the fault of websites not producing enough porn -- or whatever it was that they were suppose to be doing which was worth billions of dollars.


That is another MARKET FAILURE, just like the housing bubble.


And it's fine to have market failures, as long as they do not pose systemic risk.

What's not fine is claiming that the market is infallible; obviously it's not.

reply to post by Kaytagg


What are you saying?

How many people defaulted on home loans?

Not a few?..

And certainly GS might have made a .0001% difference in the long run and nothing more. This is garbage. Americans usually for some reason have a hard time taking responsibility for things. You seem like an apologetic for these over-levered people that spent above their means.

I on the other hand don't see it that way and you should have to pay when you get over-levered and blow up. Case closed IMO.

reply to post by Kaytagg


It was due to speculation.

What else was the tech bubble about?

Just like housing market speculation.

reply to post by GreenBicMan


Well, I will have disagree with you on the housing. That component was like a perfect storm. With the problem with the financiers and banks, you had idiot land developers.

I was building for a land developer for many years. They had me switch up on residential private homes to apartments then to commercial.

They never used their own money, always financiers. BUT, they kept diversified.

Anyway, time for some more CHEESE!

reply to post by GreenBicMan


GS was positioned to make billions of dollars on the housing bubble (although it wasn't a bubble when they took their long positions; and don't tell me "they had shorts too," everybody has shorts -- it's a hedge, the long is what matters in this case, because the long was greater than the short, IE positions to make money off gains, while limiting losses via the shorts).


The issue here isn't that people took out stupid loans, even if they were predatory in nature. (They deserve to lose their house or become a debt slave, I agree. Buyer beware, and all that.. although, honestly, those loans should not have been legal imo, but sometimes freedom means having the means to hang yourself.)

The issue is (for the third time?) that the market believed these bad loans could make money.

Don't know how to put it any simpler. Yes, those people defaulted and lost everything; yes, they're in huge debt or on the street; yes, there was a housing bubble -- IE, houses across the board were mispriced.

But that's why you don't invest billions of dollars into that #. However, the "market" didn't see it as a bubble, or a bad investment. They saw it as a great way to make money, and they even propped up the bubble. Turns out they were wrong.

How wrong were they? How many people were wrong? Enough to cause rippled across the entire world (economically) and threaten an entire collapse of the US economy. That's pretty #ing wrong, if you ask me. Not a careless error/mistake.

reply to post by Kaytagg


Hey, my family lost about 65% of our wealth during the tech bubble.

Nobody #ing gave a #. I don't give a # about the people now.

Welcome to the real estate market. It can go down as well if you look at an inflation adjusted chart.

GS didn't make much in the end on this whole thing and nor does it look like they did anything but just participate in the whole thing like everyone else.

What about that circus of Senators. You know the mother#ers that lie, spin and twist every #ing thing that comes out of their holes on both ends. Those mother#ers speak in half-truths 24/7 and will rail 3 lines in front of your face just to prove they are untouchable. Then when institutions trade credit instruments to mitigate risk or for countless other things then it's "game on"

Anything to detract from all the lending practices they let happen.

McCain can billyslap his x-wife, but he is concerned for America because of GS right? Must be nice to beat up your wife then be able to laugh about in the end.

This rant isn't directed at you but we do disagree on some things.

reply to post by endisnighe


What about the housing do u disagree on?

Originally posted by endisnighe

It seemed to me the questioners had NO idea of what they were even asking. How is it that we have MORONS that will not even attempt to learn what they are supposed to regulate!?

How it is that we have morons is that politics is a popularity contest. It has nothing to do with intelligence, with ability, with character or integrity. Thats how it is that we end up with morons regulating things they dont understand and dont care to understand.

Our voters also dont care to understand, or even educate themselves even the tiniest little bit on the issues that matter the most, and because of this, we can have elections that are decided by who has the coolest chant, ("Drill baby drill?" or "Yes we can?") and who looks the best.

Its annoying as hell.

Originally posted by GreenBicMan
reply to post by Kaytagg

 

What about that circus of Senators. You know the mother#ers that lie, spin and twist every #ing thing that comes out of their holes on both ends. Those mother#ers speak in half-truths 24/7

Buyer beware?

See, it works for elected officials, too

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander


Or those who receive the most campaign contributions...


Money buys elections.. Crazy, innit?


Maybe this is the conspiracy theorist in me talking, but I think Bush hand picked some of the most retarded people on the planet to head the SEC, and he did it on purpose, because his base works on wallstreet, just like Obama's base works on wallstreet. Conflict of interest? Hell yes.. Is anybody going to do anything about it? Hell no -- because they don't even know what "it" is.

/edit to add: ::Sarcasm:: But at least they can understand topics like "gay marriage," and how important it is to elect somebody based on whether or not they're going to ban/allow it ::Sarcasm::

[edit on 28-4-2010 by Kaytagg]

Originally posted by Illusionsaregrander

Originally posted by endisnighe

It seemed to me the questioners had NO idea of what they were even asking. How is it that we have MORONS that will not even attempt to learn what they are supposed to regulate!?

How it is that we have morons is that politics is a popularity contest. It has nothing to do with intelligence, with ability, with character or integrity. Thats how it is that we end up with morons regulating things they dont understand and dont care to understand.

Our voters also dont care to understand, or even educate themselves even the tiniest little bit on the issues that matter the most, and because of this, we can have elections that are decided by who has the coolest chant, ("Drill baby drill?" or "Yes we can?") and who looks the best.

Its annoying as hell.

The world is now based on soundbites

Our elected officials are so #ing dumb it is getting disgusting and I have officially entered "upset" mode. Usually couldn't care less.

Originally posted by Kaytagg
reply to post by Illusionsaregrander

 

Or those who receive the most campaign contributions...


Money buys elections.. Crazy, innit?


Maybe this is the conspiracy theorist in me talking, but I think Bush hand picked some of the most retarded people on the planet to head the SEC, and he did it on purpose, because his base works on wallstreet, just like Obama's base works on wallstreet. Conflict of interest? Hell yes.. Is anybody going to do anything about it? Hell no -- because they don't even know what "it" is.

/edit to add: ::Sarcasm:: But at least they can understand topics like "gay marriage," and how important it is to elect somebody based on whether or not they're going to ban/allow it ::Sarcasm::

[edit on 28-4-2010 by Kaytagg]

gay marriage indeed

jesus,god,whomever save us from the "straight talk express"