Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?

Originally posted by undo
are you suggesting because i love my significant others and don't want them to be hurt, that i'm irrational?

Im not suggesting anything to you. My post was directed at the person I replied to.

You sound like a very emotional person. Im not sure why you are discussing revolution with me, or the death of your loved ones, since none of my posts have been about revolution.

M post about reason and emotion was actually making the point that human beings are mostly emotional not rational and that was ok. That those of us who are more rational and less emotional are the outliers, or odd ones. Not the other way around.

You really have no argument with me. I agree that it is fine for the majority of people to be emotional decision makers rather than rational ones, thats just how human beings are, and I dont want your family to die in a revolution either.

Originally posted by dolphinfan
reply to post by Illusionsaregrander

 

So I gather that you are fine with the rational paying for the irrational behavior of the irrational. I'm not. Are a lot of folks in trouble with their homes? You bet. Is it the banker's fault? In some cases, yes. But right now, in many neighborhoods around this country the problem is that a gent who bought a house he could afford lives all around folks who bought homes they could not afford. Those buffoons went under on their homes and either walked away or foreclosed. Now what happened to the gent who bought a home he could afford? Now he owns more than his house is worth because his street is filled with foreclosure and for sale signs in front of houses bought by folks who could not afford them.

Its hard to blame all of that on the bankers.

We can turn this around all night. I believe in free will and responsibility. I don't care what financial schemes the bankers put together to create these non-conforming loans and I don't care what kind of sexy advertising was used by the real estate or banking industries to make weak minded people "have to have it". The bottom line is that nobody put the pen in somebody's hand and forced them to sign a loan document. If they did, the dude should sue him - and he would obviously win.

For every one of the folks who got over their heads in this mess who looks in the mirror and says "I should have known better and I'm to blame here" there are 1000 who look in the mirror and say "I can't believe that I was screwed! Its not fair!". Therein lies the problems with this society of ours.

Your first step would be admitting that free will, society and responsibility all have to work hand in hand.
No-one is born in a vacuum and given a manual on how to perceive the world.
Were all a product of our environment and how we were raised, as well as genetics.
Total Free Will and complete responsibility would entail everyone would be privy to all the information available from the start.

If you can get that out to the masses, we could not only have everyone being more responsible, but also making better decisions, and it would end poverty as well as a whole host of other things.

As it is now though there has to be responsibility from everyone, from those that buy to those that sell.
Perhaps you should take a course in hypnosis or psychology and subliminal messages.

reply to post by undo


There you go, Undo. Suppose your doctor told you you were fine, when you weren't? Suppose you had been delighted to hear about your bill of clean health, when actually he suspected you were sick?

There is some accountability there. Surely you can't deny that.

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander


I know everyone is not me, my education is enough not great but better than many. I though learned self responsibility early on. It is not a hard concept to learn.

Advertising might influence people to want to buy things but they have the responsibility to know if they can afford it or not. It matters not how much you are influenced to buy something if you do not have the means to buy it, it will just have to wait until you can.

If people would be responsible and stop trying to top the Joneses they might not get stuck in as many bad situations as they do. Who cares if Joey has flashy new shoes, my shoes work fine and will do so for another 5 years (last time I bought shoes I got two pair on sale $40 and just last year retired the first pair I wore them for 8-9 years, now I still have another pair just like them to get me through just as long). I have one car that I am slowly working on making faster (it is my pride and joy of cars, best one I ever had). I have a list of things I want done to it, but can only afford to do so much from time to time. I understand my limits on finances.

Sure I could go out and charge up all the stuff I want but then I still have to pay for it. Credit is great as long as it is used in the right way. When a person starts abusing it they are at fault for their own spending habits. How many of those same people that got into mortgage trouble also got into trouble with spending on credit cards? Chances are many of them did.

It is not about people being me but at least having the responsibility to say no. If they cannot say no they are at fault and should suffer the outcome of their choices. I have no dreams that everyone is like me (if they were there would be less fighting and speed limits would be nonexistent ). I am simply saying if they were being stupid they deserve what they get, maybe they will learn from it. I made mistakes with things when I was young and learned from my errors. I agree with Darwin in a few ways life is about the survival of the fittest sadly though we have a society today staged to where the stupid are taking over. If you have ever seen the movie Idiocracy you will understand where our society is heading. I think that movie is starting to be close to truth.

I wish everyone was like those of us who make sense and did not jump and the new shiny thing over on the table. I wish I could smack most of them on the nose with a paper and rub their noses in their own mess. Even then though many are just stupid even if they have an education they have no common sense and that falls back on parents and schools in a way.

For instance I watched a "Worlds Dumbest" tonight that had a good message and I was proud to see parents doing something smart for a change. It was about a kid that just turned 16, his parents had money they lived in a huge house, had a Hummer, and a few other expensive cars. They got the son a mid 80's S10 that was beat up looking and had a crap paint job and told him he could get a job and get it painted and fixed up. The kid flipped out and started yelling at his parents and hitting the truck with a baseball bat. He wanted new and felt entitled to something he had not earned. In the end he ended up driving the truck that his dad had just paid $200 for. I hope he learned a lesson, though I think many of today's youth would have just wrecked it to try to get better. Our world is in a sad state due to people feeling entitled to more than they have earned. Yes, everyone deserves to have a roof over their heads to keep them from the elements, to have a mansion though is going above and beyond, it is something you must earn.


Raist

reply to post by ladyinwaiting


we pay our mortgage on time, every month, because he has to have perfect credit score to keep his job.
: /
as a result, we cut corners in other areas, and ask for help from family if it gets really tough. but what happens if the cut backs they are calling for, cause them to pull his job or worse, his job and his disability? complete devastation. we'd default on our mortgage too. i'm not going to jail. they'll have to taser me to death, which shouldn't be too hard since i have a serious case of gulf war syndrome i caught from hubby. (it's contagious).

Originally posted by dolphinfan


So I gather that you are fine with the rational paying for the irrational behavior of the irrational. I'm not.

Now you are being emotional. No, I think I clearly said, several times, I think people should suffer the consequences of their behaviors and actions. I am not for the rational paying for the behavior of the irrational, but nor am I for the rational preying on the irrational and then crying when the irrational behave irrationally.

Originally posted by dolphinfan
Its hard to blame all of that on the bankers.

Regulations placed on banks (or other lending institutions) by governments whose job it is to ensure the country runs well for the people who make up that nation, need to be written to take into consideration the reality of people. Not idealized versions of reality. One huge problem with our economic theory is that it tends to rely on people being rational decision makers. They arent. You are right, its isnt all the fault of the banks. Its the fault of the corporations and other wealthy interests who have been manipulating our laws and economy for decades. The politicians who have been taking money and jobs from corporations, via the revolving door, and campaign money. Its the fault of economists who get so lost in their models and the idea that "perfect" can be substituted for reality meaningfully, when it cant. There is lots of blame to go around and lots of people to blame.

The average person IS being punished for their bad choices. Even the average person who made good choices is being punished for the bad choices of others. All I want to see is the above average person made to suffer the consequences of their bad choices. Which is NOT what is happening. Many of the people who had a huge role in causing this ended off benefiting. Not losing it all. Like they should have. We should not have propped up markets and institutions that were failing.

A free market needs to act like natural selection, and it cant when the rich people make the poor people bail them out.

reply to post by undo


That's not going to happen, if we bring justice to the nation's financial criminals. And by "justice", I don't mean killing. I mean "justice", in the usual way.

I'm sorry you were sick. Glad you are better, and I'm loving the new avy.

Off to walk the dogs and try to figure out a way to bring a class action suit against wallstreet. lol.
(Right.)

Originally posted by Raist

I know everyone is not me, my education is enough not great but better than many. I though learned self responsibility early on. It is not a hard concept to learn.

You think you learned it. It might actually be how you came pre-wired. A lot of research tends to suggest that people who can delay gratification are born that way. Although it can perhaps be practiced, its not fair to say it is easy for those who are not wired that way.

en.wikipedia.org...

I empathize with you. You are right, a lot of the worlds problems would be easier to deal with if more people were more rational, and more able to delay gratification. But they just arent. You have to just take a deep breath, stop wishing things (people) were different than they are, and work with what we have. Its the only rational thing to do.

Just be glad you are able to delay gratification. Many studies show it is the single greatest indicator of success. More so than IQ by a good margin.

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander


Well some gratification can be delayed some is difficult to delay

I would like to see these studies. I also wonder about my son, I think at times I spoil him which is where I think we learn self control to the biggest point. I hope I am not ruining him.

I think we do learn self control as well as having it ingrained in us. If we are spoiled we do not learn control. This is where I fight with my son (he is 4) he always wants things his way and tends to push buttons if he does not get it. This gets him a spanking or sent to bed or a time out, but his crying is still going

Raist

Number one greatest quote from the article the OP linked to.

www.rollingstone.com...

To understand the significance of this, one has to think carefully about the efficacy of fines as a punishment for a defendant pool that includes the richest people on earth — people who simply get their companies to pay their fines for them. Conversely, one has to consider the powerful deterrent to further wrongdoing that the state is missing by not introducing this particular class of people to the experience of incarceration. "You put Lloyd Blankfein in pound-me-in-the-butt prison for one six-month term, and all this bull# would stop, all over Wall Street," says a former congressional aide. "That's all it would take. Just once."

I tend to agree. A huge part of the problem is, like the article says, that fining a company is ineffective if it is the managers who are the evil doers. They collect their exorbitant salaries and bonuses, and the shareholders whom they are also screwing by running their company into the ground also pay the fines. Not really a deterrent.

Originally posted by Stewie
reply to post by Dance4Life

 

What? No one should go to jail? What are you drinking? Or have you been keeping up?

In other words, of 260 trading days in 2010, the firm lost money on 8, or 3.1%. In yet other words, the firm made money 96.9% of the time. We'll repeat that: JPM made money 96.9% of the time.

www.zerohedge.com...

Or, speaking of JPMorgan, how about this?

On March 23, 2010, GATA Director Adrian Douglas was contacted by a whistleblower by the name of Andrew Maguire. Maguire is a metals trader in London. He has been told first-hand by traders working for JPMorganChase that JPMorganChase manipulates the precious metals markets, and they have bragged to how they make money doing so.

www.zerohedge.com...

Tip of the iceberg. Goldman Sachs is the iceberg.

Hearsay and opinionated articles unfortunately aren't factual most of the time.

Manipulation is also an interesting word being thrown around recklessly. You could "manipulate" yourself a OTC Pink Sheet stock if you wanted to with your definition of manipulation.

There is no such thing as "manipulation" when all trades have a stamped time and sale (Time and Sales Order Book) which is readily available to the public for any derivative that is traded on the CME (Chicago Mercantile Exchange). All trades are real and all trades did occur with a counter-party. My definition of manipulation doesn't revolve around making a pity party because someone has more money than I. Unfortunately, that is always going to the the game.

Also, I do not think you understand what JPM does. See they do something called "Market Making" where they are quoting institutional orders a bid and ask. They PROFIT off of this spread. In reality they should never lose one day, because they are buying on the bid and selling on the ask - which is OPPOSITE to the trades they are taking in. In this instance your article is NOT referencing proprietary trading - which I believe hasn't been allowed since middle of 2010. - see Dodd-Frank reference below.

So when you say something like JPM OR GS never lose.. etc -> that isn't speaking about their proprietary trades, but actually their Principle - Book / Dealing Desk. Notice in the legislation they can invest up to 3% for hedging purposes only or direct investment into another accredited investment vehicle (such as a HF). This is referencing the Dodd-Frank Bill which was singed into law last year.

The people that lost money those days should have been fired. That is if they are not executed in an algorithmic format. See, this is where the public loses credibility through media and the "blogosphere" because of half-truths and innuendos. Whatever garners more webclicks to the site = more money through advertisement. It shouldn't be a real surprise as this happens 24/7.

Some of this is not easy to understand, but most people now live in the " CTRL -C / CTRL -V" world if you get what I am saying.

If the Volcker rule is already in effect (which I believe it is) then JPM CANNOT have their prop trading desk commingled with the actual entity JPM itself. I am not sure personally which banks already have to adhere to these more stringent regulations or not.

The Volcker Rule was not included in Obama's initial June 2009 proposal, but Obama proposed the rule[13] later in January 2010, after the House bill had passed. The rule, which prohibits depository banks from proprietary trading (similar to the prohibition of combined investment and commercial banking in the Glass–Steagall Act[15]) was passed only in the Senate bill,[14] and the conference committee and enacted in a weakened form that allowed banks to invest up to 3% of their Tier 1 capital in private equity and hedge funds[16] as well as trade for hedging purposes.

Link

What I feel is the most horrible aspect of this situation is that they're prosecuting the small players in this whole ordeal in order to pacify the people to believing that something is being done to somebody that caused this mess. Wall St. is straight up dirty...

reply to post by Dance4Life


ah cut the BS. it's pretty obvious manipulation is referring to things like pretending you have money that you don't, then lend non existent money to people with interest so that now you have real money created out of thin air. that's manipulation. lol doesn't take a rocket scientist.

reply to post by undo


I am not sure I follow.

Trading metals, proprietary trading, etc. has nothing to do with lending or making up things out of thin air.

I think what a lot of people fail to comprehend in this situation is this was a well planned crime, a deliberate one, that was actually planned well in advance.

During the Bush Sr. White House they did this on a smaller scale with the Savings and Loans, think of it as a trial run and to formulate an exact blue print later to do this with the banks.

In organized crime circles it's basically called 'busting out' a business, by so overloading it with debt that there is no intention to repay to leave the creditors and the insurance companies holding the bag (in this case average ordinary investors, 401k holders, small time stock market players and investors etc,and then the Government Treasury and the Tax Payer functions as the insurer)

The Bankers while guilty were in essence just facilitators of the crime. The real criminals were the super wealthy who do two things.

1. Dump massive cash into the market to lure investors in initially.

2. Pull out their investments all at once to panic the markets and cause rapid sell offs and depreciations.

Because the big money got in early, and then enticed the small investor to run up the market, when they pulled out they took big profits basically off the small investor.

But then they do three.

3. Control the investigatory agencies through political appointees these would include but are not limited too

A. The head of the SEC
B. The head of the FBI
C. The head of the Secret Service
D. The head of the Dow
E. The head of Nasdaq

These officials who aren't elected but appointed, then basically quash investigations of the 'wrong people' the big money oligarchs, and greed light investigations into sacrificial outsiders (people like Madoff)

Now the Bankers are crooks, but their are crooks behind those crooks who directed them, controlled them, yes made them rich, but made themselves a lot richer and this is how they do it.

You could arrest every banker on Wall Street, but you still wouldn't have gotten close to the real criminal master minds and the big money behind them, the guys with the clout and the connections to get their men appointed to the top of the regulatory and investigatory agencies.

The problem with just arresting every banker on Wall Street, is that the Master Minds and Big Fish Oligarch Players live another day to repeat the process and corrupt and steal once again.

The planning for this crime actually began back in the late 80's as they were reviewing exactly what went wrong and what went right with the Savings and Loan Bust Out.

This was a crime that the President(s) themselves were involved with, and much of the reason they were selected to be elected was to carry out this crime.

The people who would ultimately play the biggest and most critical roles in this crime, were actually all selected well over a decade before and carefully moved into position so all this could occur.

Who did this, the Shadow Government did this, the Powers that Be.

Now some of you know these people exist, some of you people refuse to, but the truth is that if you just want a pound of flesh, sure go after the Bankers but I am here to tell you, you never got close to the real criminals and real planners and perpetrators of this crime if that's all you do.

In 10 or 15 years they will strike again, if, and it's a big if, they failed to banrupt the nation enough to drive it into a North American Union or One World Government in that time, which is what they really want to do, by taking all this money out of circulation.

This is in part why the economy is so bad and why it's going to stay this bad and probably get worse, because they did this to take the money out of circulation, not because they need it, because they don't want you to have it. They aren't going to put it back in circulation.

People need to wake up, we are all suffering our own little tragedies to one extent or another because of this crime, don't you think it would make sense for ONCE to actually go after the real criminals?

reply to post by Dance4Life


i'm not referring to anything in particular (stocks, metals, whatever), i'm talking about the foundation of the system itself, which is what all this other stuff is built on. you have to think like a simple person, who doesn't get caught up in all the fine details, just the basics of how the system works from the ground up. if it starts out as manipulation, how can it ever be anything else but more manipulation? you're still working with the original wealth generated out of thin air, so everything purchased with it, every trade made possible because of it, is just more manipulation.

don't over think it. it's simple simon.

reply to post by undo


The only problem is it is not simple and not systematically taught in formal education. So the only foundation some have is word of mouth and opinionated readings. Most people think that the FR prints money themselves - which is entirely false.

There are things that don't make a lot of sense. Like JPM being able to receive money @ 0-.25% interest (Fed Funds Rate) for example.

There are things that make even less sense, such as Congress being able to have key economic heavy impact news before it hits the public and the stock market. Effectively giving them a time machine every week essentially. The weirdest part is that it's 100% legal for them to act on this information before it is released.

We should really look towards our elected rep.'s for fault, IMO.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


proto

you referring to rome again? and which rome? the mafia, the white pope, the black pope? not all these guys agree with each other. they just use one another.

Originally posted by Dance4Life
reply to post by undo

 

There are things that make even less sense, such as Congress being able to have key economic heavy impact news before it hits the public and the stock market. Effectively giving them a time machine every week essentially. The weirdest part is that it's 100% legal for them to act on this information before it is released.

.

i'm talking about how the banks were started in the first place
i don't mind people making money. i think the system is brilliantly constructed. i mean, that was smooooth. but because there are players in the system that abuse it to the detriment of everyone, and on purpose, and they try to throw each other to the crocodiles, i think it's inevitably dangerous

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


Good post, but what can we do? these 'powers that be' are literally untouchable.

Are they in control of China as well?