That's not true. You didn't, say "some" at all - here, let me help you with what you really said:That's fine *if* these people could understand what they were doing, but most who take out these sort of motgages are in the lower socioeconomic situation and are also below the IQ level to be able to comprehend what they are getting themselves into and thus are incapable of understanding what they were doing.
I helped your memory by adding a bit of emphasis in the quote of what you said... and you never did find the time to tell me where you read any study or finding that determined that most of these people had sub normal intelligence levels. I think you just made that up as you went along to justify your argument. Am I wrong?
If that is your new position, then I can live with that. Up until this point however, your rants about who has been "criminal" and who should be held to account have soley dealt with the lenders while portraying the borrowers as the victims - when the vast majority of the actually criminal behavior was on the part of borrowers.
I would find it rather refreshing, actually, if during the cleanup of this mess all the mortgage applications were reviewed and in those cases where criminal or civil torts were committed by borrowers, the law went after those individuals. Fraud rates as high as 70% or more on the part of borrowers... wow, that's a lot of court time! But we know that isn't going to happen, because the unwashed masses have drank the purple Kool-Aid and ares so fixated on them evil ol' moneylenders and making out the borrowers to be the unwitting victims.
See Lance, you just don't pay attention, whether it's not looking at the sub prime issue beyond what the claptrap tabloids are publishing or even bothering to look at my name in the posts. See that little part where it says "SE BC and NW Montana" by my name. SE BC should be your first hint I'm not necessarily an American. In fact, I'm a Canadian, and still currently a Canadian as far as residency status goes, although that will probably change this year when I spend more time in the US than in Canada for the first time - by choice. But by virtue of my visa and the fact I own property and work in both countries, I also have the priviledge of paying personal taxes in both countries.
So now that you've let your anti-American stereotypes out of the closet for all to see, should I just assume that like many Australians you don't think very clearly because you drink too much? Stereotypes are dangerous things to play with.
Here's that question for you again: who put a gun to the head of your money managers to force them to invest in the US market and particular high risk investments? Nobody, right? That was their CHOICE, as it was the CHOICE of investors to then buy into those high risk investments that were offered.
Once again, an excellent example of everybody refusing to take personal responsibility and single out somebody else to be the scapegoat for the consequences of their own actions. If those high risk investments had paid off as they hoped and they'd all made a killing on them, they'd be too busy slapping each other on the back about what a great investment vehicle they'd cashed in on to be throwing words around like "charlatan". But they didn't, and suddenly all the "charlatans" are the US lenders - and everyone else merely a pathetic, helpless victim who just didn't know what they were getting into.
You're also paying the price every day for allowing the population access to alcohol. Are you as bitter about that too - or is the price of alcohol in society one you're happy to accept? How many people die of booze related causes in Australia every year? And how many people are going to die in Australia of causes related to the sub-prime mess in the US?
I suspect you're a little choosy about what prices you find are unacceptable or not, but I'll take human life over speculative investment losses any day.
Furthermore, I'll still take the freedom of self determination over an intrusive nanny state any day of the week. Fortunately, I do have that option and I'm voting with my feet. A government powerful enough to do everything for you is also a government powerful enough to do everything to you - and God knows we're seeing enough of that recently.
You absolutely will not even begin to acknowledge that there was more wrongdoing on the part of borrowers than lenders - and certainly more criminal activity on the part of borrowers than lenders. It is all about the "unscrupulous lenders" in your mind, and everyone else an unwitting victim.
I'm glad you do seem to realize that the market is regulated in the US - although obviously not as regulated as you would prefer it to be from your alien vantagepoint over in Oz. Living part time under those laws in the US, and soon to be full time, permit me to prefer US residents making their decisions on their laws, rather than being instructed on what we should be doing by foreign investors from another continent who apparently lost some money somewhere along the way gambling on high risk investments.
I'll also have to have a look at my past posts to confirm that I never for one minute suggested that I supported a wide open marketplace free of regulation. Reasonable regulation is both necessary and common sense - nanny state regulation restricting everyone in an effort to prevent some people from being hurt by making risky and/or stupid investment decisions is something else again, and I don't support that.
Of course, if you can find anywhere that I posted support for an unregulated financial system, feel free to post a quote of that here to prove me wrong. I just don't agree with your view that Americans should regulate themselves to the point they're treated like children by their government. If that works for you in Australia, fine, go for it, but I'd prefer not to have that over here.
"Tightening up" to a nanny state with government control over how I invest is not what I want. I prefer to be governed as though I'm an adult, not an idiot.
You are, however, remarkably consistent in your view that it is all about going after the lenders and not the borrowers - who of course are merely the poor duped victims in all of this.
Exactly. Both consumer goods and financial transactions are regulated - but while you want Americans to tightly regulate themselves in the financial world to coddle them away from the potential of financial harm due to poor decisions, you sure wouldn't want the same strictness put in place for food and drink to prevent them from incurring much more serious physical harm from similarly poor decisions.
A complete, absolute lack of consistency in approach.
Aha... we've finally got to "some" unscrupulous borrowers. Ummmm... mortgage fraud is CRIMINAL, not "unscrupulous". Fraudulent loan applications ran as high as 70% in some reviews, with violations of occupancy agreements running around 25% as a result of people using these mortgages to flip houses and speculate.
Perhaps not in Oz, but in North America, when you get to figures like 25% and 70%, you're well beyond what people envision when somebody says "some borrowers".
You just can't help yourself. You can manage to acknowledge that there were unscrupulous borrowers - but you immediately follow that by putting the blame on the lenders trying to make a quick buck. What were all those lenders involved in mortgage fraud, speculation, and house flipping doing? Trying to earn Boy Scout badges? I think they were trying to make a quick buck, myself.
Y'know, I distinctly get the feeling you lost some money here and there.
It's a very acceptable price to me to have a country where the government does not regulate every aspect of my life from cradle to grave. And until the person steps up to the plate says they also think alcohol should be removed from society because of the price that freedom of choice leads to, they don't have a single moral or legal leg to stand on and lecture Americans to move into a nanny state to prevent people from making bad investment decisions because of that cost.
Lance, I have to hand it to you. You are incredibly consistent in making this all about the hapless borrowers being duped by the heartless moneylenders. But audits of the mortgage applications for defaulted mortgages found SEVENTY PERCENT had misleading and/or false information in them. Occupancy violations alone were around 25%, and lenders reported 20% more suspicious mortgage activity to the feds than ever before. Yet none of this apparently registers in your world, where all these borrowers were duped and anyone who thinks otherwise is apparantly heartless.
Mortgage fraud on the part of the borrower is a CRIME, not "unscrupulous". I don't think for one minute that all the fault and wrongdoing in this was on the part of borrowers, but you cling to this position that despite those high rates of CRIME among the borrowers, it's all about the lenders.
Well, not a small enough world that a 70% rate in falsified mortgage applications still translates into my interpreting it to mean that most of these people were duped.
How big does my world have to be before it's like your big world and I can look at a 70% mortgage application fraud rate on the part of borrowers and still claim most of those people were naive and duped?
Could some lenders have lied to these people? Promised them they would double their money, the rates would never go up, housing prices would never drop? Perhaps psychologically or emotionally pressured them? You bet they could, and some probably did. However, there are ALREADY laws about luring people into mortgages with those kinds of promises, and bringing us into the nanny state with a redundant set of laws is not where I want the country I live in to go.
Why don't you try, just for one single minute, to wrap your mind around the significance of what a 70% rate in falsified mortgage applications means. A 25% rate in occupancy violations? If I told you that 70% of the customers of that multi million dollar business you have had falsified their credit applications with you, would you look at those customers as poor misguided dears who needed more protection from the law - or would you be a little bit concerned about the character and quality of who you were dealing with. To take it one step further, if somebody then came up and said that YOU'RE to blame because they falsified their credit applications... would you find that a little bit unjust?
You did lose some money, didn't you!
Cheer up. First, the US economy is inevitably headed into the tank anyways, whether you want to blame it on sub prime, the war in Iraq, enormous deficit budgeting for decades, baby boomers now retiring, or whatever. Second, you can take solace that it is going to cost me one hell of a lot more than it is going to cost you - and my business doesn't and never will reach the multi million dollar levels that yours is at so I can afford it a lot less.
No. In my world we have a consistent approach. Not a hypocritical one where we say we want a nanny state to protect people from financial misfortune, but God Damn... DON'T YOU DARE TAKE THAT SAME APPROACH TO MY BOOZE AND MY MOTORCYCLE EVEN THOUGH THEY CAN CAUSE ME AND SOCIETY AT LARGE MUCH MORE HARM.
I don't care which way you go - but a little consistency in approach would be nice. Something that apparently is a foreign creature in your world.
Hmmmm... it's almost as though what you're really concerned about is losing some money on high risk investments - not about the well being of the stupid. So it isn't that a young kid and how he spends his money on expensive toys instead of school and a future shouldn't be protected by commerce restrictions while an adult in his 30's should be protected when trying to flip houses. It's about what it costs YOU.
How much do you figure you lost on sub prime related investments, Lance?
No. What I'm saying is that your claim that the sub prime situation is what is ruining the US economy is pure nonsense. Here, let me help you once again by reminding you of what you posted:this is hardly going to ruin the US economy like these home defaulters are.
I may not be an economic giant in your eyes, but I'm pretty certain that I'm right when I don't agree with your belief that the sub prime situation is what is ruining the US economy. A dumb ol' mountain boy I might be, but I think it is due to many, many issues and years of mismanagement all coming to a head. If Lance the Economist thinks that the ruin of the US economy is all about the home defaulters, then we'll just have to disagree on that point.
No. Restrictions to the point where we eliminate the potential of risk from consumption - just like the degree of restriction you want to ensure no economic harm can ever befall people with money related decisions they make. Which would mean about one drink per day, anything else being a crime. Let me know when you're going to publicly propose that in Oz, will ya. 'Cause I want to watch that one when the bars, restaurants, night clubs, and your fellow Aussies hear about that one.
Consistency, please.
Actually, I'm not the only former cop who thinks drug laws (or alcohol laws for that matter) are violations of civil liberties, not to mention being stupid in concept.
On the other hand, if we're going to have a policy of protecting people from making stupid decisions by way of regulating how they live their lives, we can't just do it with their financial decisions while ignoring what they eat and drink, now can we? Because then we'd just be a bunch of arsehole hypocrites.
Consistency Lance. Think "consistency". You want the US to bring in nanny state laws to prevent their investors from making stupid decisions that might hit your pocketbook, but you sure as hell aren't going to lobby over in Oz to have alcohol banned to eliminate the much more serious harm and death being caused by booze.
And then you turn around and talk about people who want some laws but not others. It is nothing but hypocritical to have a position on one hand that government should enact laws to prevent people from making stupid or overly risky decisions with their money. And yet not be advocating exactly the same sort of laws that would eliminate the ability of people to make stupid decisions regarding their consumption of alcohol - something that can outright kill them and is a causal factor in half the violent crimes committed.
Actually, you are consistent. Right to the end - despite findings like 70% mortgage application fraud on failed sub prime loans and 25% violations on occupancy requirements - you still hold to the position that all these people were "duped". Who "duped" them into falsifying their mortgage applications? Who duped them into violations on occupancy requirements?
First they were mostly of sub normal intelligence and couldn't understand. Now they were duped.
70% rate on mortgage applications for these failed sub primes. 70%. Think about what a 70% mortgage application falsification rate and what that means. But no... they were "duped".
Don't invest in American markets anymore Lance. Unlike me, you don't have to pay US taxes. If you want me to find sympathy for the 70% or so who committed criminal acts when getting their mortgages, you're barking up the wrong tree.
No, I think a 70% mortgage fraud rate is not a good thing. However, my "warped sense of justice and freedom" does not lead me to want to repeatedly put the blame on the lenders for that as you want to. Another cultural difference, I suppose.
That's your decision, from another country with a different ethos. If I want to live like a Brit or an Aussie, I'll move there. Meanwhile, I don't want my domestic policy dictated to me by foreigners. What you think is an acceptable level of government intervention in what I can and can't do with my money is not my values. That is consistent whether you talk about financial regulations, gun control, police powers of arrest and detention, or anything else.
And while you think my argument is stupid, I find yours to be hypocritical, deliberately narrow minded, and selfishly financially self serving. So yet again, we have differences of opinion and values. Which is why cultural differences exist in the first place.
Fine. We'll just ramp up sufficient laws and restrictions on access and use of alcohol so that it will be practically impossible to get legally impaired. You won't have a problem with that and how it impacts how people make choices with their lives, will you? After all, the impact of alcohol related deaths is far more significant than losing your shirt speculating on high risk investments.
Not ban cars - effectively prohibit speeding and ban vehicles capable of speeding. Which, given todays GIS technologies, could be easily done and very cheaply at that.
But you're right it won't happen. Because the self serving who demand that how people choose to spend their own money be regulated and controlled by government so their investment vehicles won't take a hit would never tolerate government action that would prohibit much more harmful behavior with alcohol, motor vehicles, etc. Because that would impact THEM and what they do in their lives.
It's also worth noting that in the US one of your civil rights is that of ownership and use of private property, including your money. To the best of my knowledge, driving a vehicle to begin with is a state issued priviledge - not a civil right. Given that, there's a lot more legal justification for restricting what people can manufacture in the way of motor vehicles and how they drive them than there is for restricting how people dispose of their property.
Oh no. You do manage to choke that out once in a while - and only after the facts are shoved in your face repeatedly. But anyone reading through your messages will see the ongoing consistent theme that what the lenders did was criminal, the borrowers were of sub normal intelligence, the borrowers were duped, and what needs to be done holding the lenders responsible for all of this. I'm tempted to go back through your posts and see how many times each post you keep repeating your mantra that the borrowers were duped.
Bugger all about holding the borrowers who committed mortage fraud accountable. Bugger all about regulating them. Bugger all about their criminal activities - which really WERE criminal in many cases (70% mortgage application fraud, remember?). Your theme is all about the lenders and how the US should change it's laws to protect your financial wellbeing over in Australia.
A very one sided view of things to say the least.
Yep. Right on schedule. There's the old "they wuz duped" theme again. Can't go more than two paragraphs before repeating that claim.
"Duped" Which apparently includes the 70% who submitted falsified mortgage applications...
I feel just as warm and fuzzy knowing your acceptance of alcohol in society and the toll of death, violence, disease and broken families it brings leaves us all that much safer. I'll take broke over dead any day, thanks.
I'll make you a deal. If you don't try to dictate how people residing in the US legally regulate their personal activities, I won't try to dictate how people in Australia regulate their personal activities.
I don't take the time to point out the hypocrisy in the arguments you're putting forward to convince you, Lance. Your mind is made up and it's mostly fixated on what's best for your pocket book over in Oz, not how people choose to live their personal lives in a foreign country.
The only reason I take the time to write this is so that readers have the option of seeing something other than the pablum that this is all the fault of the nasty lenders and all those poor innocent borrowers (70% of mortgage applications falsified, remember) were low intelligence people who were duped.
Where people go after that is completely up to them.
|
