PLEASE read this and watch the videos...

IRGuy · Post by **IRGuy** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 12:56 pm

Please watch these.. The best explanation I have seen for how we got into this financial mess.. and who caused it.. Take the time to learn for yourself.. A total of less than 20 minutes.. it is a complicated problem, but it can be laid at the feet of those who caused it! It will be time well spent, because all the info you need is here in one place! http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=fiXwZI_YqHY http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs

h2ojst · Post by **h2ojst** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 5:01 pm

Frank,I wish it really was that simple. I've been in the financial business for almost 30 years & my father some 20 before that. Please remember that the subprime mortgage market was a mere 3% of all mortgages sold in the US. The video lumps many different mortgage packages into subprime & that simply is not true. Fanny & Fredy did not purchase any subprime loans. Yes, they did buy some non-conforming products but not true subprime. In my opinion, this entire mess is due to greed on Wall Street. The housing boom was nothing more than a time bomb waiting for a place to happen. These banks need to absorb their own stupidity. Take whatever hit is necessary & move on. Lending criteria needs to be returned to reality. Everyone cannot qualify for a Bertram! Joe Tomaini 1988 Sportfish Attitude Adjustment II Fort Lauderdale, FL

Rick · Post by **Rick** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 5:47 am

I agree with you both... Barney Frank is a disgrace to our state & country. All he's ever done is point the finger of blame and doesn't have a clue on how to nuture economic growth. But he'll spend our money all day long. These companies and institutions wrote their own death sentence and I'm not sure what the implications are if we just let them go, but it seems only fair. Take the auto industry....do I want to bail out Ford who screwed millions of customers by making cars with the worst quality in the world ? No. They don't deserve it. But that'll be thousands of jobs and another jolt to the economy we just don't need. It's a tough problem and I'm not sure what the answer is, but Wall St greed is a good place to start. Rick Ticket 85 SF Merc 454 MPI's Falmouth, MA

greysole · Post by **greysole** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 12:13 pm

Frank, I won't be able to check out those links till later tonight. I think that there are a lot of contributing factors to this mess. I don't have a lot of expertise in this area. However, I recently read a Newsweek article about Credit Default Swaps (CDS) as they are known in the investment world. If you google it you will find a number of articles about these relatively "new" investments. Everyone should read up on these, as I think that these are a big part of the problem. I believe that many companies & executives took extraordinary risks (relative to past history) by investing in this type of investment because it was so lucrative and they believed mistakenly that the risks were spread out more than they actually were. The politicians seem to prefer to play political football rather than make the hard decisions necessary to help keep the country strong.