The headlines in today's newspaper were really grim regarding the state of the economy. After Mr. Bush's speech last night - and using words like "...like the Great Depression..." were not, to say the least, comforting.
Everyone knows that the economy is in the toilet - and that the Fed by buying nearly three quarters of a TRILLION dollars worth of crap loans (and crap loan companies) is only a stop gap measure.
The thing that really pisses me off about all of this is the fact that almost a trillion dollars of bad loans were written (at least that we know of SO FAR) - and no one knew about it.
This really stinks to high heaven. This makes the Enron debacle almost seem like it was a high school prank. I mean, where in the hell do you "hide" that much red ink. Was NO ONE watching this?
Yeah, sure, when they were writing the loans they made loads of processing fees, commissions, and tons of money exchanged hands. Maybe it's a case of musical chairs and companies like Lehman and Merrill just got left holding the bag?
I don't think so.
I think there is a case for gross negligence and bad management on the case of all of these companies. You can't simply have a loss of that much money and use the excuse "we didn't realize it was that bad." That simply does not fly - and it's total and complete B.S.
So, while every single American gets to bail out private companies (to the tune of $8,000 for every man, woman and child) to prevent a run on the banks and the loss of homes and retirement accounts for millions of customers - the heads of these companies (and their boards) need to be held accountable for this mess.
Until (and if) that ever happens - this shameful state of affairs puts a tarnish on America and has a worldwide impact that has yet to be felt. Not to mention the fact that now, due to the weak dollar and abundance of questionable loans going up for sale - I predict that the level of foreign investment will skyrocket and whole chunks of the economy will be owned by non-American parties.
Being the capitalist I am - I say bravo for those foreign investors - and to hell with the idiots that ran 100+ year old institutions into the ground. What goes around - ALWAYS comes around.
2 comments:
It's like Doomsday!!!
OK shameless plug for my play. Sorry. But looking at the fact that we're in over our head with our mortgage, it's a total beeyotch. Hang 'em all, I say.
Take care, Bobby!
Before I left for Japan back in 2005 we almost bought a new house but I knew they were all way over priced. This was in Silicon Valley and Los Angeles California. Good thing we didn't stay.
When I went back to the US for a visit in August this year a bunch of nice houses in the area I was looking at back in 2005 were abandoned and now half the price. They had house repo bus tours everywhere.
Make sure to hang the a holes who over priced the houses too along with the banks. I think there was so many criminal acts in the banks and real estate sellers that they all should hang.
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