Quotes Entirely Relevant to Investing 10-12-2008
by Mr Juggles“A bank is…a manufacturer of credit. The cornerstone of credit is confidence — confidence of men in men. A panic is a collapse of credit. It is an intensely human affair, and many of the determining influences are of a personal and confidential character, and very inadequately reflected in the cold figures of the bank statement.”
-E.W. Kemmerer (1911)
And who’s the biggest bank of them all? The Federal Reserve.
We lent too much against production that will never be high enough to pay it all back. We either over-estimated production or underestimated risk (flip side of same coin). I’m being kind. What I really mean is that at the behest of government we’ve been running a confidence game and now we’re wise the the con game and no longer have confidence that we’re not being duped. So, the government is trying to start up another con game to make us think all is well and distract us from the original con.
So, yeah. It’s all about confidence.
/Threadjack
The cephalopod invasion begins!
/End Threadjack
@ size
One of my favorite parts from Paulson’s speech this AM was the part that went something like,
“We need to (force) compell participating banks to modify loans to homeow(ned)ers who can afford their loans…”
Um, I know you’re finally getting the whole idea of pandering to “main street”, Hank, which is to say that you’re finally starting to get the hang of lying out of your a$$, but come on, if people could afford their* homes, no modifications would be necessary, k?
*In terms of parlance, can we start a petition or something so that the media, politicians, whoever stops using the posessive to describe the relationship between individuals and homes on which they previously obtained an unsustainable mortgage to “purchase”?
Having -20% equity in a home does not an owner make you.
No, but right now it does make you somebody who is more important to the bank than the guy with 50% equity in the home, who is making all his payments.
@pleb
Yeah…but if the deadbeat were more important to the bank when he came looking for the loan, then he’d be a lot less important now.
Oh wait! Then the bank would be “redlining” and not meeting it’s obligations under the CRA, etc. because everyone must have a mortgage whether they can afford it or not. Is it coincidence that home “owners” tend to vote for the incumbent? You decide.
Remind me again why we’re giving government more power?
end rant.
I love foreclosures. Effing crones that “own” their places of residence. Yeah, I’ll take your house cause you don’t effing know what to do with it or how to keep it, and no I’m not sorry and really lack the pity for your idiotic ass.
Why are we giving the government more power? In a nutshell, because the bottom 45% of workers pay no or next-to-no taxes and want more of our money, the next 10% want on that gravy train, and a lot of fairly wealthy people with lots of education think that “redistributing the wealth” means “redistributing the wealth of my bastard neighbor, who I hate, but not touching a dime of mine.” Oh yeah, and both parties – not the voters but the parties – seem to have bought into the idea. Plus the actual rich have figured out that the best way to get and permanently hold on to money is to use the power of government to make it happen. See, e.g. antitrust law, a body of law primarily used to squash the competition and create monopolies.
It’s not a rant to state simple truth, though those opposed to speaking the simple truth about what’s going down will tell you you’re ranting.
A bank is a manufacturer of bullshit.
Every century or so, people wake up and smell it.