How much actual WORK have you done today, machine gun Kelly?

You can call them frozen credit markets, they were frozen. But they were more injected credit markets, where more money was created, the supply increased, and money flow moving again.

The market would have supplied for Brazil as they have an economy that produces and consumes.

And an economy where the people and business have to survive on credit, really has no economic future.

Less banks is never a good thing for a Country, it creates problems were a few control the money flow, which is a very bad thing for the future of any Country or economy.


It's not really possible to be like the great depression. If our economy was like it was back then, then yes.. but today we produce, we generate revenue, we have several sustainable revenue generating markets that only need money flow to keep going.

The right corps go down, an extreme shift of power happens, and I don't think it would be to one corp but to many, thus splitting up the influence they have, giving us back a little bit for once.


Well, if every time my kid screwed up really bad, if I gave up a $100 and a ice cream, he's going to think it's okay to screw up again. So the first few times he just tests it, to see how giving I am, then he hammers it... and I bark, but I bail him out, then the nasty really comes down, and I do it again. Logically, me, you and nobody is going to stop, we have no reason to stop - and damn sure no fat cat, super ass greedy, super corp, multi-billionaire that currently about to fuck the entire country over for 1/3 of our countries wealth. Lessons have to be learned and sometimes you just have to cut them off, or they'll keep taking, and taking, and taking. And that's why it happened, and that's why it will happen again, it will only stop, once we stop feeding them our money!

It would have been better because this would have finally stopped... everything after that, is us doing it differently, so speculating on exactly how or what, isn't possible, as it hasn't ever happened in an economy as developed as ours.

You mean like in Iceland?

No one knows what would have happened with the bailout. At the same time, no one knows how we would have been if McCain and Palin were in the White House.

I look at it this way - Japan had some economic issues during the 1990s and their government did nothing, and their economy refused to grow. They call it the "lost decade". We could have done the same.... And done nothing.

Who the fuck knows.

incorrect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Decade_(Japan)

actually japan did very similar things that the US did.

wowsers. people still questioning if the bailout would have prevented collapse.

The banking system runs on credit. The credit markets allow banks to loan to each other & keep the system liquid.

When the banks had massive exposure to derivatives traded in dark markets, nobody knew what risk the banks were carrying. As a result, the credit market froze, as no bank could trust one another that they would exist much longer.

all of the publics liquid assets like checking & savings accounts. Some of this money is held in reserve. Some is guaranteed by the FDIC. However neither of these safeguards have anywhere near sufficient capital to deal with a frozen credit market.

additionally, most large corporations utilize large pools of credit to main inventories, pay employees, hedge energy costs etc.

If the credit market ceases to function, most of the functions of the banking system, & all businesses dependent on credit, simply stop functioning. There is not nearly enough cash in reserve to meet the needs of the economy in absence of credit.

When credit transactions stop, & banks are no longer able to pay out cash on the numbers in peoples bank accounts, panic will ensue. Only people who hold cash & guns will be able to participate in the economy. So drug dealers will do very well.

The people that control the printing press are the only people that could solve the problem. Thats exactly what they did, before time allowed the calamity to unfold.

bottom line is that there is no alternate explanation as to what would happen in absence of the bailouts, because the bailouts were the only thing that could be done, short of returning to the 19th century in 2 -3 months.

That seems inconsistent with the data. When money was tightened during the great depression is when the shit really hit the fan. Based on that mistake, that has been avoided and we have had different results so far. It may have other consequences in the future, but these facts are clear.

And while some of all of this is based on opinions, there is also a good deal of empirical data to take into account.

Many of the banks who received capital injections didn't need it and didn't want to take it, so yes it is possible that some would have survived, but that's not the point. Investment banks... well Lehman did fail and the result was plain to see, not just opinion. AIG, pretty much the sole insurer of all the CDS's wasn't in a position to figure out how to survive. It is just a brute fact that when the market place saw the contagion unfolding no body was letting go of any money, period. It was a matter of confidence withing the whole system and confidence is a fragile thing. It wasn't merely a coincidence that the credit markets unfroze when massive liquidity was injected.

Great, conspiracy theory. :1orglaugh

Sure, point me to the documentaries that you think are "better" and while your at it point out the ones that are not.

Hanlon's Razor

Perhaps "global collapse" means different things to different people. I find it hard to believe you unless you are naive about the consequences, which I don't think you are. I'll just chalk it up to hyperbole.

Unless one is spouseless, childless, penniless and has a cabin in the woods of Colorado with all the preparation still in place from Y2K, it makes no sense in real terms.

I'm not sure what you are referring to but as far as the bailout money goes it was not at 0%. And it is demonstrably false that the credit markets were not freed up one bit.


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Mkay. I did and they were. Not sure what the point is.

Again, not sure what this means. It is a brute fact that non-bank entities who were not even directly exposed to derivatives quickly found that they could not meet their obligations.

Well, the world is in trouble then isn't it? How far should we go back in time to view a sample economy without credit so we know what model of economics you think we'd be better off with?

Do you see anyone arguing for less banks? I don't. It's not relevant to the discussion. But, as an aside, consider Canada.

Huh? There was production, revenue generation, blah blah in the early 20th century. WTF are you talking about?

One reason it could be worse today is because total debt levels are much higher. Deflations are the same no matter when they happen. Just go study the deflationary collapses in history. And this is not opinion either, we were demonstrably entering a deflationary spiral.

Maybe, but like I said that is not obvious.


Your anecdotes and the rest of your speech is fine, but try and separate the value judgements and principles from the economics.



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Point is, they forced it to happen, without letting it unfreeze itself, which it would have done.


It was pretty simple to understand..... someone would have given them the cash, a few days without wouldn't kill anyone. It's not like the entire world froze up.



Not the entire world... we can see samples of 'better off' in our own houses that don't live on credit.


Nobody has to, less banks is a bad thing either way. Canada has shit ton of banks, 3 levels of them, multiple types, etc.

Production was nothing like today, revenue was nothing like today, hell the ability to move goods was nothing like today, no part of a 100 years ago is like today.


I've read other wise... as well, I've read that no spiral or signal of any kind was taking place before hand, then the code simply erased part of the market, our markets crashed, and the fraud was exposed to us.

I already know the crash had happened, markets frozen, and yet our country did blow up and business was still moving, perfectly fine.


Well, you asked "I still have not heard a reasonable explanation for why collapse would have been better."

And that's what the answer was that I gave you, a very reasonable, logical, even works on kids, answer to why it would be better to let it collapse.

Before or after economic meltdown? That is the question. It was clear the markets were in free-fall, it was clear that credit was frozen, it was clear the institutions were failing, it was clear that no money was changing hands and it was clear that institutions were holding onto money because of the uncertainty of contagion. The last thing they were going to do was risk letting go of the cash. There was not a single indication that it would have unfroze itself in any time period that would have been soon enough to avoid a cascade of failures.

There's not enough cash out there. Tell us exactly where it would have come from. Saying, "someone would have given them the cash" is both economically unfeasible and wishful thinking.


The overwhelming majority of households are in their houses because of credit. Do you own a home? If so, did you pay cash?

But answer the question, if credit is the problem, point to the period in time we should revert back to. Or is this just imaginary?

And again, it's not even relevant because not a single person is arguing for more control at fewer banks or larger "too big to fail" banks.

At a Domestic level, Canada has 22 banks as of October 2010. source. A paltry amount compared to the USA.



Now you're moving the goal posts. That's not what you started with.


I don't know how you can even argue that deflation wasn't unfolding. Even your own reply illustrates this. As you just noted, asset prices were collapsing (Equities, Real Estate, Commodities). 2009 CPI data ended the year at -0.4%. That's deflation in action.

Feel free to cite what you read that contradicts this. And try not to misdirect with "signals", "beforehand", etc.


Are you missing a word in here? Do you mean "didn't" blow up? If so, look at the timeline of events and then venture a guess as to why. Hint: it wasn't magic.


I'll give you that it is an answer, but I wouldn't characterize it as you have.


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After... the many markets had cash, money and business was still moving, a few dead spots did not shut the world down.



Plenty had cash... all over the world, this was not every bank, gov, or the world bank, and most of business was fine.

Exactly, and look what happened because of it... credit has inflated the cost of homes. I'm part of the problem, I buy and sell, using credit, making money by only shifting ownership while not actually creating anything, yet increasing the value.

Depends on the type of credit I guess... It should be like a 1000x harder to get a home loan than it is, I would say equal or worse than the 80's would work. Bank wise, I don't know when it started, when they were allowed to loan out so much more than they actually had in the bank, so whenever that was. Then pre-1886 for corps, not being people would mean they could only run on the investors credit and not credit for them.


It is relevant because less banks, and more importantly, more power by few banks... is the result of the bailout, so it's directly relevant and an issue, when those same banks created the mess and then got more powerful.

I mean really, this isn't complex or hard to understand, in America, this is a bad thing.


Canada is a socialist country, with banks controlled directly by the gov far better and more, than we do here. If America wasn't filled with a bunch of greedy shit stains, less banks would be fine, but until hell freezes over, a market where more banks can complete is greatly needed here.

This isn't hard to see, just by looking.. open your eyes and stop pretending it's not happening.



No, this is spot, it just clearly had to be explained to you differently. Point being, today and back then are so different and that they wouldn't be anything alike, in anyway, if the market crashed.




That's piss deflation, that's not even deflation after inflation of years compounded, come on. A little piss backwards after fake inflationary growth, please....


Never said it was magic... fact is, business didn't stop, money flow kept going, everything did not shut down.



It's easier for me to translate images in my head to an example of sorts to help express the understanding of what I see as the problem.

Enablers that keep feeding have enabled people that never stop eating.

It's apparent you don't appreciate fully the situation that we were in, when you make statements like "piss deflation".

If, in a short period of time (months) you witness the CRB collapse 50%, the equity markets collapse 50% and Real Estate collapse 50% + and credit freeze (cash hoarding), this is not piss deflation (as if that is even a term). I assume because you think representation by CPI at -0.04% yr/yr is a small number that somehow makes the deflation in assets above non-threatening or normally corrective. You simply don't understand the mechanics and the cause and effect of deflation. You should read a bit on it from an economics text book.

Then you pontificate on the minor differences in circumstances that make deflation today impossible (when the actual prevention was the injection of liquidity you ae arguing against). Tulip Mania, South Sea Bubble, Rail Road Bubble, Great Depression all had differences, too. Yet, deflation wiped them all out equally the same.

I've given hard examples of large, healthy businesses, and leaders of countries calling on behalf of businesses saying, "wtf, we can't access the liquidity we need to operate". You hand wave it away by saying "yeah, but there were some businesses that had liquidity" as if the spread in a few short days from investment banks > banks > insurance > GE (example) was obviously going to stop right there. An assertion without merit.

You conflate lack of credit in an economy that requires credit to function, with examples of people who abuse it, as if that explains why credit is bad and we need to return to an economic model from the distant past -- a total non sequitur.

You continue to argue against a position that I have never maintained (number of banks / too big to fail). As an aside, I point out Canada and you continue to argue against the strawman you created, moving the goal posts and now telling me to open my eyes as you explicate the difference between "socialist country" and human nature run amok. Spare me.

I'm not going to go around in circles with you anymore. Have a good weekend.


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SOMEONE POST PICTURES OF CONTESSA BREWER IN THIS GODDAMNED THREAD!!!!! (Yes, I'm shouting.)

Man, I would do things to her I wouldn't do to a farm animal. I LOVE her!!!!! Dumb, sexy bitch that she is.

I don't think most people don't understand what caused the panic, and I see a tendency to confuse the types of lending we are talking about.

The crisis wasn't happening in ordinary lending, like when a small business borrows a million to build a new building. It stopped that kind of lending, becaus eof the fear, but that was a symptom, a consequence, that wasn't where the problem was happening.

The bankers broke the buck. And this scared them so much they froze.

It started with short term lending and money markets, in shadow banking. This is banking that we ordinary people never really see or participate in, overnight loans between banks and to the largest corporations abd the very rich.

The thing that so many republicans and democrats have a hard time facing is this - the very first instant that the shadow bankers were in trouble, our government socialistically bailed them out.

Leading us to that muost american of paradoxes - socialism for the very rich and the corporations, rugged individualism for everybody else.

This is the moral, ethical, and political dilemma that we are all really talking about.

Socialism for the rich. Government protection for the rich. Government forgiveness and compensation for crimes and mismanagement by the rich.

Putting it in other words, what happened was a proof that the american claim to capitalism was a lie.

And a proof that american capitalism does not work.

So, no matter how many times somebody comes here and says "the rich are better than you, you are obligated to follow them", we have to face the recent empirical proof that the rich just mishandled everything and needed OUR lower class income, paid to the governmnet, to save them from their mismamagement, and they needed the government to give them a "get out of jail" pass.

Thats why there is so much heat and so little light in these discussions - we all sense the momentous disproof of the american capitalism story.