Best Net Neutrality Explanation Ever

[gdonovan]

You're not seriously putting the onus on the person and not the lender? You cant possibly be making the argument that lenders did it for charity.

Your seriously not indicating the person borrowing the money is without any blame are you?

I'l give you a some perspective- Back when I purchased my home I took out a loan and which I put down over 15% of the purchase price in cash. GMAC made it clear that if I defaulted on the loan they would own the house and I would lose the house and the 15% of course.

No ifs, ands or buts. Even then I had to provide reams of paperwork to support GMAC loaning me the funds. Proof of employment for the last 5 years, bank records, etc.

Everything was spelled out, black and white. The agent was careful to spell it all out too, even putting up with calls at ungodly hours of the evening. The closing was the most nerve wracking thing I have ever done, I have not signed so much paperwork before or since.

Now 15 years later I own my home- lock, stock and barrel.

I have little patience for people who state "they were taken advantage of" when there is no shortage of people who will walk you through the process while making the largest purchase of your life. While there is crooks in the business, only a fool will look at a 20-50k salary and think they can buy a 250k home.

 

[computerpro3]

You're not seriously putting the onus on the person and not the lender? You cant possibly be making the argument that lenders did it for charity.

But its still beyond the point here. You can take on a risky loan and hold on to it to see what happens and make a later argument for giving or not giving such future loans. What the lenders did however is bundle the loans, disguise them for AAA investments, and sell them to every which place they could, from pension funds to major global investment firms.

Meaning.. all fairness mandates aside, the bank wanted to give the larger loans so they have MORE to sell after they disguise it, to make more immediate money off of it.

Apparently you didn't even read the article I posted. Be banks WERE NOT giving out those lones unilaterally Clinton and he congress put government pressure on them to do so. No matter which way you look at, it started with the government explicitly interfering wry banks and telling them to essentially commit predatory lending so Clinton could have a talking point about a home for every American, regardless of hpw sustainable it is.

The reason I posted that article from 1999 is because you can't argue with it. It actually happened, and played out EXACTLY how they predicted, rubric down to the bailout. Again, its quite a clear progression of events regardless of your inability to get past got bias. See my signature quote - you can deny that grass is green all you want, but it doesn't change reality.

Moving on from that, the onus is far more on the person taking out the loan Jan it is on the bank. If I murder someone with a fork I bought at Walmart, is it the clerks fault that sold me the fork? After all, he didn't warn me it could hurt someone! If you sign up for a cable tv bill and can't afford it, is it your fault or Comcasts fault?

Your inability to see these simple things is quite frankly astounding. It's very cut and dry.

 

[computerpro3]

Apparently you didn't even read the article I posted. Be banks WERE NOT giving out those lones unilaterally Clinton and he congress put government pressure on them to do so. No matter which way you look at, it started with the government explicitly interfering wry banks and telling them to essentially commit predatory lending so Clinton could have a talking point about a home for every American, regardless of hpw sustainable it is.

The reason I posted that article from 1999 is because you can't argue with it. It actually happened, and played out EXACTLY how they predicted, rubric down to the bailout. Again, its quite a clear progression of events regardless of your inability to get past got bias. See my signature quote - you can deny that grass is green all you want, but it doesn't change reality.

Moving on from that, the onus is far more on the person taking out the loan Jan it is on the bank. If I murder someone with a fork I bought at Walmart, is it the clerks fault that sold me the fork? After all, he didn't warn me it could hurt someone! If you sign up for a cable tv bill and can't afford it, is it your fault or Comcasts fault?

Your inability to see these simple things is quite frankly astounding. It's very cut and dry.

Meant to say until, not unilaterally. Typed it on a phone and autocorrect owned me.

 

[Gavv]

Net Neutrality = Housing problems

Yet we have come so far in focusing our attention on the original topic.

 

[gdonovan]

What the lenders did however is bundle the loans, disguise them for AAA investments, and sell them to every which place they could, from pension funds to major global investment firms.

And who enabled this?

Ah yes, our friends Barney Frank & Chris Dodd.

Barney made it clear he didn't care of banks crashed and burned as long as people got "free" housing. Doesn't look so free now does it? Even Barney is backtracking like mad now that the poop has hit the fan.

Buckle up kiddies because the crash and burn isn't done yet.

 

[gdonovan]

Net Neutrality = Housing problems

Yet we have come so far in focusing our attention on the original topic.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

The internet is working fine, the last thing we need is the "government fixing it" they don't fix a damn thing but make it worse.

 

[Bootleg Usher]

Yeah, just look at Pennsylvania! Nearly 3/4 of the forests there are in private hands, and the forest footprint is growing.
Damn that free market. Obviously Pennsylvania is a barren wasteland.

That is great to hear there are responsible people in Pennsylvania. In Alberta, there is a big mine and cement plant right outside of Banff National Park, about as close to the border of the park as possible. Around here if land isn't protected it either turns into housing subdivisions or gets drilled or mined.

 

[Dethred]

Hold on a second, I'm confused here. I see a lot of government bashing here but the Net Neutrality law is to prevent ISP's from doing this, but yet people still bash the government?

So without the laws, ISP's could do this, like how Comcast already has started doing it. Who's next?

I think people just like bashing the government without actually knowing what they are talking about.

Its amazing how many completely ignorant responses it took before someone like you spoke a bit of sense. Way too much propaganda from the usual government-is-always-the-enemy crowd. I believe much of the reason why these companies haven't begun segmenting usage is due to the uncertainty of possible government intervention. It certainly has nothing to do with competition. I have been to very few places where there are more than one high speed internet provider.

I am all for the government regulating what these companies can do. If they aren't happy with their (up to) 80% margins, then I suggest they find honest ways of making money. Maybe instead of directly banning such practices, they can just deny access to run lines through public land, and allow citizens to deny such access as well. Not sure about what easement laws that would screw up, but you get the idea.

 

[The Red]

Your seriously not indicating the person borrowing the money is without any blame are you?

I'l give you a some perspective- Back when I purchased my home I took out a loan and which I put down over 15% of the purchase price in cash. GMAC made it clear that if I defaulted on the loan they would own the house and I would lose the house and the 15% of course.

No ifs, ands or buts. Even then I had to provide reams of paperwork to support GMAC loaning me the funds. Proof of employment for the last 5 years, bank records, etc.

Everything was spelled out, black and white. The agent was careful to spell it all out too, even putting up with calls at ungodly hours of the evening. The closing was the most nerve wracking thing I have ever done, I have not signed so much paperwork before or since.

Now 15 years later I own my home- lock, stock and barrel.

I have little patience for people who state "they were taken advantage of" when there is no shortage of people who will walk you through the process while making the largest purchase of your life. While there is crooks in the business, only a fool will look at a 20-50k salary and think they can buy a 250k home.

You are correct, but ppl aren't stupid either. I want you to think about the magnitude of this failure and think how many people it would take. Do you really think that those individuals were just the "stupid" portion of the population? That's a pretty hard sell considering the people who lost the most were the middle working class.

Now I want you to consider what financial demographic knows the most about investment, lending, and risk management. Figure into that equation that it takes having disposable income to also have any hands-on with real financial risk. Now its starting to become clearer a bit, no? ..

Meaning, those who are least likely to have any working knowledge of investment and lending, the 25-50k individuals, sure do make the perfect "prey" don't they?

People had trust in their lenders, is what it really comes down to. The rates they were quoted when they came into the offices to get those loans DID seem payable on paper, otherwise it would have been simple math when they couldn't make the first months payment. What happened here, is that they were quoted using the volatile sub-prime rate, which was crazy low, and if that rate didn't change, all those people would have been fine and paid their loans off WITH interest, like they signed for.

What went wrong is that when the economy turned, just a little bit, those at the margin of just exactly being able to make payments on their home had their sub-prime rate go up, up enough to cause them not to be able to make payments.. then they defaulted, causing further downturn and everyone else's rates to go up to make up for the defaults.. and this turned into a sub-prime avalanche, crashing lending and taking home prices down with it.

The culprit is not the individual who was quoted a rate and shown how he could pay it off if the rate stayed the same... the culprit is the lender who lent that person the maximum amount they could, using an unstable rate, knowing right in-front of the guy signing the loan that they were placing them at the edge of ruin should the rate change.

They could have lent less and they could have declined someone, but they wanted their money upfront because they knew that the loan would be sold off to other investors and they themselves would have absolutely no risk left to themselves.

Apparently you didn't even read the article I posted. Be banks WERE NOT giving out those lones unilaterally Clinton and he congress put government pressure on them to do so. No matter which way you look at, it started with the government explicitly interfering wry banks and telling them to essentially commit predatory lending so Clinton could have a talking point about a home for every American, regardless of hpw sustainable it is.

The reason I posted that article from 1999 is because you can't argue with it. It actually happened, and played out EXACTLY how they predicted, rubric down to the bailout. Again, its quite a clear progression of events regardless of your inability to get past got bias. See my signature quote - you can deny that grass is green all you want, but it doesn't change reality.

Moving on from that, the onus is far more on the person taking out the loan Jan it is on the bank. If I murder someone with a fork I bought at Walmart, is it the clerks fault that sold me the fork? After all, he didn't warn me it could hurt someone! If you sign up for a cable tv bill and can't afford it, is it your fault or Comcasts fault?

Your inability to see these simple things is quite frankly astounding. It's very cut and dry.

What's cut and dry is that you keep ignoring all responsibility and presenting the lenders as hapless children under already too much gov regulation, that even with a sitting republican extremist ally for 8 years they could not repeal?

The Clinton program required equal consideration for lending, it did NOT specify the size of loans. You cant possibly believe that it was regulated to not consider the size of the loan the person was asking for... I mean, to believe that would just be nuts, it would be like saying Clinton told them to lend someone 1 billion dollars if they were poor.

The size and risk of the loans was in the bank's favor, how can you not get it? ..

1) Bank make loans
2) Bank bundles the loans into investment products with growing ratings propped by quantity & size of loans
3) Banks sell loans as investments
4) The bank loses all risk on the loan when sold as investment
5) The bigger the loan, the bigger the investment the bank can cash out when it passes the risk & reward to investor buying the bundle

The end.

The lenders went above and beyond taking risks on people, much further than than ANY govt regulation asked of them to consider. And they did it all for their personal short term gain.

 

[computerpro3]

You are correct, but ppl aren't stupid either. I want you to think about the magnitude of this failure and think how many people it would take. Do you really think that those individuals were just the "stupid" portion of the population? That's a pretty hard sell considering the people who lost the most were the middle working class.

Now I want you to consider what financial demographic knows the most about investment, lending, and risk management. Figure into that equation that it takes having disposable income to also have any hands-on with real financial risk. Now its starting to become clearer a bit, no? ..

Meaning, those who are least likely to have any working knowledge of investment and lending, the 25-50k individuals, sure do make the perfect "prey" don't they?

People had trust in their lenders, is what it really comes down to. The rates they were quoted when they came into the offices to get those loans DID seem payable on paper, otherwise it would have been simple math when they couldn't make the first months payment. What happened here, is that they were quoted using the volatile sub-prime rate, which was crazy low, and if that rate didn't change, all those people would have been fine and paid their loans off WITH interest, like they signed for.

What went wrong is that when the economy turned, just a little bit, those at the margin of just exactly being able to make payments on their home had their sub-prime rate go up, up enough to cause them not to be able to make payments.. then they defaulted, causing further downturn and everyone else's rates to go up to make up for the defaults.. and this turned into a sub-prime avalanche, crashing lending and taking home prices down with it.

The culprit is not the individual who was quoted a rate and shown how he could pay it off if the rate stayed the same... the culprit is the lender who lent that person the maximum amount they could, using an unstable rate, knowing right in-front of the guy signing the loan that they were placing them at the edge of ruin should the rate change.

They could have lent less and they could have declined someone, but they wanted their money upfront because they knew that the loan would be sold off to other investors and they themselves would have absolutely no risk left to themselves.



What's cut and dry is that you keep ignoring all responsibility and presenting the lenders as hapless children under already too much gov regulation, that even with a sitting republican extremist ally for 8 years they could not repeal?

The Clinton program required equal consideration for lending, it did NOT specify the size of loans. You cant possibly believe that it was regulated to not consider the size of the loan the person was asking for... I mean, to believe that would just be nuts, it would be like saying Clinton told them to lend someone 1 billion dollars if they were poor.

The size and risk of the loans was in the bank's favor, how can you not get it? ..

1) Bank make loans
2) Bank bundles the loans into investment products with growing ratings propped by quantity & size of loans
3) Banks sell loans as investments
4) The bank loses all risk on the loan when sold as investment
5) The bigger the loan, the bigger the investment the bank can cash out when it passes the risk & reward to investor buying the bundle

The end.

The lenders went above and beyond taking risks on people, much further than than ANY govt regulation asked of them to consider. And they did it all for their personal short term gain.

I would agree with you if anything you said actually was remotely accurate.

The Clinton program required equal consideration for lending, it did NOT specify the size of loans. You cant possibly believe that it was regulated to not consider the size of the loan the person was asking for... I mean, to believe that would just be nuts, it would be like saying Clinton told them to lend someone 1 billion dollars if they were poor.

Now you're starting to understand just how retarded the Democrat's were (are). This is exactly what happened. Go look it up.

 

[Stiletto]

Aka, for all you blind haters out there, in this case govt == good guys, IPSs == bad guys.

Wait...you just called people blind, and then said that the government was the good guys, and the corporations were the bad guys.

Way to go.

In other news, the government is expanding its influence every year on private industry, and ISPs have not yet done what net neutrality claims it will protect against.

 

[Monolith2013]

Protecting the environment is one situation where government involvement is great, since the free market would chop down every tree standing, just look at Easter Island.

Trees are a renewable resource, we have paper companies that reforest what they cut down... There are more trees in North America today than there were when Columbus landed in 1492. And all this was down under a free market.

Any ways, to the rest of you socialists on this post... Wtver man... Tell it to me when you've got the Gov't boot on the back of your thin little neck. I'm about fed up with people calling us all teabaggers or randroids or wtf else they think is catchy & clever. Net Neutrality is nothing more than a way for the Gov't to get it's greedy hands on another free market so it can tax it and then of course, censor it. They'll create another Pravda (aside from MSNBC, CNN, PBS, NPR, etc...), albeit, they really don't need much help, hell, just look at this news post by [H].... It's not like this was an un-bias news post. O and speaking of taxes... I love how the lot of you keep posting faux ads saying Google, You Tube, etc $5/month... How much do you think it'll cost you when the Gov't starts taxing and regulating the net????? Didn't think about that one did you.... Or what will start to happen with online retailers, merchants, services, etc... When they have to jump through even more hoops and regulations to sell their service or wares; What will that cost you?????

The bottom line, you're the freaking fringe minority, and in the end you'll be the ones getting a reality check.

 

[sMiLeYz]

Trees are a renewable resource, we have paper companies that reforest what they cut down... There are more trees in North America today than there were when Columbus landed in 1492. And all this was down under a free market.

Any ways, to the rest of you socialists on this post... Wtver man... Tell it to me when you've got the Gov't boot on the back of your thin little neck. I'm about fed up with people calling us all teabaggers or randroids or wtf else they think is catchy & clever. Net Neutrality is nothing more than a way for the Gov't to get it's greedy hands on another free market so it can tax it and then of course, censor it. They'll create another Pravda (aside from MSNBC, CNN, PBS, NPR, etc...), albeit, they really don't need much help, hell, just look at this news post by [H].... It's not like this was an un-bias news post. O and speaking of taxes... I love how the lot of you keep posting faux ads saying Google, You Tube, etc $5/month... How much do you think it'll cost you when the Gov't starts taxing and regulating the net????? Didn't think about that one did you.... Or what will start to happen with online retailers, merchants, services, etc... When they have to jump through even more hoops and regulations to sell their service or wares; What will that cost you?????

The bottom line, you're the freaking fringe minority, and in the end you'll be the ones getting a reality check.

You do know that DARPA (aka the government) created the internet right?

 

[Zangmonkey]

Internet service is a consensual monopoly with the public. This is just like the water company: it's silly to let individual companies tear up streets to deliver water piping individually to clients... instead we grant a monopoly under certain provisions including but not limited to government-approved rate adjustments or cooperative maintenance with other city services.

Your locality grants the sole wiring contracts to Comcast/Charter/etc and they provide the service.

"Fundamentally", government shouldn't regulate the service offerings of the ISP's... except in this case we the people have given the ISP's the monopoly for the implied agreement of fair services.
This is where the core of net-neutrality comes into play: it is reasonable for us to demand non-discriminatory provisions when we grant monopolies.

One of the largest opposition points to NN has been that if we prevent them from tiering access like this then they will lose incentive to upgrade their networks.... I contend that their incentive to upgrade network is that, if they do not, and cannot adequately provide the service, they will lose the monopoly.

I want government OUT of the internet. And roads, and the electricity grid.

Deregulation did wonders for California electricity in 2000.

I hope you are being sarcastic?
The standardization (resulting from regulation) of the power grid is what really empowered small providers to be able to "feed the grid" and prevent large-scale monopolies like we have in the ISP market today.

Like it did for the financial and housing markets...

Red Herring. The Financial and Housing markets were not unregulated, they were manipulated. Government incentivized overly risky and unsustainable speculation by directly intervening in the housing market and proving advantages to single specific companies.... I'm not saying they should be completely unregulated... but you should not perpetuate the lie that they were.

 

[gdonovan]

You are correct, but ppl aren't stupid either. I want you to think about the magnitude of this failure and think how many people it would take. Do you really think that those individuals were just the "stupid" portion of the population?

I guess you are not aware that "subprime loans" only make up a small percent of the market. In 2000 it was only 2.6%, rising to 13% in 2007.

Subprime loans really ARE a small percent of the market which is why a number of people who actually pay thier loans on time are bent. They see a group of people gaming the system and getting a taxpayer handout to boot.

I recall you might have used the work "greedy" at one point, I suspect it might apply here.

 

[gdonovan]

How much do you think it'll cost you when the Gov't starts taxing and regulating the net????? Didn't think about that one did you.... Or what will start to happen with online retailers, merchants, services, etc... When they have to jump through even more hoops and regulations to sell their service or wares; What will that cost you?????

The government has been howling for years about "lost tax revenue" via the internet, I find it amusing how selective amnesia has kicked in among the "net neutrality" defenders.

Why would the government spin 180 degrees on this issue? The correct answer is they have not. Just like "global warming" is morphing into "climate change" as the public can see its all an utter joke "net neutrality" has nothing to do with keeping the internet free of taxes and government censors.

Are you people living in a cave? Are you aware that there is a call to have a "litmus test" applied by the government before they will reissue broadcast licences?

 

[LightningCrash]

You do know that DARPA (aka the government) created the internet right?

You do know that Samuel Thomas von Sömmering created the Internet, right?

 

[FrizzleFry]

Ok. I was referred to this thread for a 'good explanation of Net Neutrality', and all I got was 5 pages flamewar and a couple of drawings, with the word 'Tea Bagger' thrown about occasionally.
Does anyone have a link to what is actually in the bill? Because right now I have know way of knowing - you will have to forgive me if I choose not to rely on what has been said here.
I suppose I am one of said 'Teabaggers' as I place little trust in the government, at least this government, in the area of the market. Their record isn't very good, passing a healthcare bill despite polls indicating 3/4 of us didn't want it, and trying to keep its contents hidden until passed does not inspire confidence, for example.
But I am not an anarchist. There are things the government does well, and things it does not. I do not believe there should be no regulation, but favor a minimalist approach.

I would not have a problem with telling ISP's they can charge per unit of bandwidth but can't discriminite on its content. If that is actually what is in the bill, then it would have my vote.

 

[Seventyfive]

As some people have mentioned, ISP's got massive tax credits and grants in order to expand and give us cheap bandwidth. They never fulfilled their responsibilities and goals yet still took the money. Technically, the fiber they laid belongs to the taxpayers who subsidized it with their tax dollars (yes, tax money comes from taxpayers, not from obama's stash). Therefore, we should be pushing for deregulation of the fiber that way we can have more ISP competition.

<rant>
Having the government step in with some kind of "equalization of opportunity" bill is not going to help anyone because CONGRESS IS CORRUPT AND WILL GET BRIBED TO DO SOMETHING THAT DOES NOT HELP US. If you hate the corporations, wake up and realize that corporations don't hurt you, it's corporate lobbyists that get special treatment FROM THE GOVERNMENT.

If you don't like pepsi you buy coke, if you don't like coke you can drink water, but what do you do if you don't like the government? You get fucked! What do you do if the government passes a law saying "you must buy coke or else"? You get fucked! At the end of the day, the government is the only real monopoly and it's the worst kind of monopoly because it will never get stopped or go out of business and it has guns and jails. Name me a corporation with guns and jails that can force you to do something? THERE ISN'T ONE!!
</rant>

 

[Deadly Ramon]

At the risk of being branded a "Randroid" or a "Tea Bagger," this latest Rasmussen survey indicates that most voters in the USA would rather not have the FCC control the Internet as it does radio and television broadcasts.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 21% of Likely U.S. Voters want the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate the Internet as it does radio and television. Fifty-four percent (54%) are opposed to such regulation, and 25% are not sure.

It doesn't mention the latest Net Neutrality proposal by name, but it's pretty clear given its wording and when it was conducted what was being alluded to when the public was polled. Granted, the majority isn't necesssarily right, argumentum ad populum is a logical fallacy, but it does mean that the government has a bit more persuading to do to a skeptical audience before it can pass this regulation with majority approval, which is important in a democratic republic.

 

[dr.stevil]

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

The internet is working fine, the last thing we need is the "government fixing it" they don't fix a damn thing but make it worse.

amen

 

[gdonovan]

 

[satsunada]

Now 15 years later I own my home- lock, stock and barrel.

Your entire point is murdered by this statement. Your home was bought when banks weren't trying to screw people (openly) and weren't taking dumb risks. Glass-Steagall was repealed in 1999, which setup the whole subprime and credit default mess in the first place. On top of that, the bill you refer to was even later than that.

To sum up, you're referencing the wrong source material.

As soon as the banks realized they could issue subprime loans at ridiculous rates and that stupid people would take them, then realized they could gamble and do credit default swaps and make more money, then they could bundle them into derivatives and make even MORE money.. the banks pushed it. They even INVENTED loans to put on their own books to keep money flowing when the housing prices dropped. Then they tried to shuffle the fake loans off on investors when things went sour. Only Goldman Sachs dumped enough to save themselves and did that by screwing entire european countries. The same things they did before Glass-Steagall, they are doing now. It's not a coincidence that the first massive crisis we face since the Great Depression is caused 10 years after the repeal of the law written to make the Great Depression not happen again.

 

[The Red]

And last but not least:

 

[gdonovan]

Your entire point is murdered by this statement. Your home was bought when banks weren't trying to screw people (openly) and weren't taking dumb risks.

Oh? How is the fact that I paid for my house (at an intrest rate that is considered murder now) take away from anything I have stated?

Jimmy Carter = community reinvestment act

Bill Clinton = community reinvestment act + federal strong arm tactics if you (the banks) refuse to comply and give out junk loans.

Federal meddling is why were in the mess we are in today.

 

[:):)]

The FCC has said that they have nothing against turning the internet into a "pay per use" service.

Sources?

Pics or it didnt happen.

 

[:):)]

As some people have mentioned, ISP's got massive tax credits and grants in order to expand and give us cheap bandwidth. They never fulfilled their responsibilities and goals yet still took the money. Technically, the fiber they laid belongs to the taxpayers who subsidized it with their tax dollars (yes, tax money comes from taxpayers, not from obama's stash). Therefore, we should be pushing for deregulation of the fiber that way we can have more ISP competition.

<rant>
Having the government step in with some kind of "equalization of opportunity" bill is not going to help anyone because CONGRESS IS CORRUPT AND WILL GET BRIBED TO DO SOMETHING THAT DOES NOT HELP US. If you hate the corporations, wake up and realize that corporations don't hurt you, it's corporate lobbyists that get special treatment FROM THE GOVERNMENT.

If you don't like pepsi you buy coke, if you don't like coke you can drink water, but what do you do if you don't like the government? You get fucked! What do you do if the government passes a law saying "you must buy coke or else"? You get fucked! At the end of the day, the government is the only real monopoly and it's the worst kind of monopoly because it will never get stopped or go out of business and it has guns and jails. Name me a corporation with guns and jails that can force you to do something? THERE ISN'T ONE!!
</rant>

Oh yeh, Deregulation is awesome. Just ask Ken Lay, Andy Fastow, and JEff Skilling how goverment de-regulation and unwilingness to get involved works best for everyone.

 

[satsunada]

Oh? How is the fact that I paid for my house (at an intrest rate that is considered murder now) take away from anything I have stated?

Jimmy Carter = community reinvestment act

Bill Clinton = community reinvestment act + federal strong arm tactics if you (the banks) refuse to comply and give out junk loans.

Federal meddling is why were in the mess we are in today.

You bought a house before the strong arm tactics, heavy deregulation, derivitives market, and Glass Steagall repeal. You were even in before the credit default swap was even invented so the banks had no reason to try and screw you. They had little to gain from screwing people back then. The repeal of antibundling regulations, Glass Steagall, and a weak regulation allowed the banks to issue stupid loans to stupid people. It's called predatory lending. They weren't predators when you signed your mortgage.

 

[gdonovan]

You bought a house before the strong arm tactics, heavy deregulation, derivitives market, and Glass Steagall repeal. You were even in before the credit default swap was even invented so the banks had no reason to try and screw you. They had little to gain from screwing people back then. The repeal of antibundling regulations, Glass Steagall, and a weak regulation allowed the banks to issue stupid loans to stupid people. It's called predatory lending. They weren't predators when you signed your mortgage.

I'm sorry but your argument is preposterous.

I took out a loan with points and paid it back in 15 years, how could *I* get screwed? The terms were all there in black in white when I signed. The only way I could screwed as you put it is if I defaulted on the loan. And then it would not be a "screwing" it would be me not living up to the terms I agreed to.

A lot of people who took out sub-prime loans chose to either ignore the reality of the situation (rates do go up as well as down, people lose jobs) and plan accordingly if things went bad or deliberately tried to game the market.

You choose to ignore the fact that the government insisted banks make loans to people who were high default risks in the intrest of *fairness* with several people *on record* stating they didn't care if banks crashed and burned as long as people had "free" housing.

Listen as Franks and friends insist "all is well"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs

The same Franks stating "well maybe not so much"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...0/03/05/AR2010030501764.html?wprss=rss_health

 

[singe_101]

There are a lot of false choices here, laissez-faire or oppressive government control, faith in the government or faith in market forces for the optimum outcome.

The reality is that we need to just minimize the damage. The government and private telecom companies will definitely work together, to our detriment. There are no clean hands.

But letting private companies dictate the internet's future is absurd, especially with their infrastructure rights as mentioned previously (just enough government to shield them). They are responsible to the shareholders, period. That's like letting BP/Transocean determine safety standards for drilling because they have to budget for explosions and rebuilding. Even if the government cronies are corrupt, they at least have to answer to varied interests that want a cheap, reliable internet, one that can't (really) be drastically changed without the lethargic process of federal legislation. Comcast can change things very quickly and might do it to make quarterly earnings projections.

 

[PersonalJ]

You bought a house before the strong arm tactics, heavy deregulation, derivitives market, and Glass Steagall repeal. You were even in before the credit default swap was even invented so the banks had no reason to try and screw you. They had little to gain from screwing people back then. The repeal of antibundling regulations, Glass Steagall, and a weak regulation allowed the banks to issue stupid loans to stupid people. It's called predatory lending. They weren't predators when you signed your mortgage.

Maybe if idiots could understand that adjustable rate mortgages had changing interest rates, they wouldn't have defaulted.

 

[singe_101]

Maybe if idiots could understand that adjustable rate mortgages had changing interest rates, they wouldn't have defaulted.

It doesn't matter who is more at fault, if the situation can have a huge negative impact on the economy, maybe there should be some safeguards.

Trust me, I know the vast majority, super-majority of people cannot adhere to simple accounting principles, let alone true internal controls (even business owners). Keep a balance in the checking account? There are myriad overdrafts. Avoid usurious credit cards and payday loans? Millions don't. They cannot assess the time value of money worth a damn, so home loans can be a shitshow, especially ARMs. But the government can calculate the time value of money, enforce contracts, punish fraud, etc. And they'll actually translate all of a document, not omitting fine print in English, etc.

 

[satsunada]

I'm sorry but your argument is preposterous.

I took out a loan with points and paid it back in 15 years, how could *I* get screwed? The terms were all there in black in white when I signed. The only way I could screwed as you put it is if I defaulted on the loan. And then it would not be a "screwing" it would be me not living up to the terms I agreed to.

A lot of people who took out sub-prime loans chose to either ignore the reality of the situation (rates do go up as well as down, people lose jobs) and plan accordingly if things went bad or deliberately tried to game the market.

You choose to ignore the fact that the government insisted banks make loans to people who were high default risks in the intrest of *fairness* with several people *on record* stating they didn't care if banks crashed and burned as long as people had "free" housing.

Listen as Franks and friends insist "all is well"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs

The same Franks stating "well maybe not so much"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...0/03/05/AR2010030501764.html?wprss=rss_health

I'm talking about the timing. Banks were more honest and HAD TO look out for your welfare and that of your loan 15 years ago. Their entire business was based on loans and checking accounts and they had to take care of it. As soon as the derivatives market exploded and banks played in the stock market, they stopped being so careful. When they started making money on subprime loans, they even stopped caring about their own practices.. knowing fannie mae and freddie mac would back them up.

I'm basically saying that you're like a soldier who worked in the military from 1994-2000 and is now going around saying "I'm not sure what everyone's talking about, the military is perfectly safe" to people that have lost kids and family.

That said, you might want to verify who or what entity has your mortgage paperwork now and that everything is ok. The banks aren't being real picky with paperwork atm and even people who have paid their bills and stuff are getting thrown out or trapped in court proceedings.

For the other guy saying people should know better, how many people were lied to about adjustable rate rules? Did anyone fathom, at the time, that banks would hike the rates up at a stupid rate? Not all people think to question bankers on smart financial planning because they are supposed to know these things. It's like going to a dentist or mechanic, the average person doesn't understand so they have to trust people that should know what they're doing and will look out for the consumer as much as themselves. In this case, that aspect failed. The people that knew better started gambling and making bets and greed took hold with no oversight or weak regulations. Effectively, the banks became drug dealers who started using their own product. And any good pusher knows you can't do that...

In some cases, government oversight is bad. In many cases, it's necessary for our protection. Just because something is inconvenient when you want to break rules or be anarchic or when someone else feels that way, doesn't mean that it's wholly wrong to exist.

 

[Zangmonkey]

You bought a house before the strong arm tactics, heavy deregulation, derivitives market, and Glass Steagall repeal. You were even in before the credit default swap was even invented so the banks had no reason to try and screw you. They had little to gain from screwing people back then. The repeal of antibundling regulations, Glass Steagall, and a weak regulation allowed the banks to issue stupid loans to stupid people. It's called predatory lending. They weren't predators when you signed your mortgage.

Banks are not, and never have been in the business of losing money. They made more risky loans for one reason: they could profit by packaging them, reselling them to the government or government-aided banks, or by packaging them *with* government backed loans and insuring them.
Without government implying a federal guarantee to many loans, offering special rates based on the percentages of "low income" loans, and subsidizing borrowers the banks would never have chosen, of their own volition, to issue them.

"Predatory lending" is a buzzword to offload more public anger to the banks. They certainly deserve some blame but, to quote a now-internet-iconic V, "if you're looking for the guilty ones, you need only look in a mirror."

 

[singe_101]

Some banks are in the business of losing money, long-term.

You really think that bank executives would never prioritize short-term bubbles for profits, bonuses, stock value, etc. and then just get fat contracts (pay me X for the next ten years, profit or loss) or leave before thing turned ugly? How many businesses can go back and collect tainted gains from 2005, 2006? Maybe if bonus compensation were contingent on long-term success and delayed for 5 or 10 years to get the clear picture, okay.

Bankers should not set all the banking rules, traders/brokerage should not set the securities laws, McDonald's, Wal-Mart, and BK should not control beef safety laws, BP and Exxon should not dictate environmental laws or drilling standards, etc.

 

[Zangmonkey]

Some banks are in the business of losing money, long-term.

You really think that bank executives would never prioritize short-term bubbles for profits, bonuses, stock value, etc. and then just get fat contracts (pay me X for the next ten years, profit or loss) or leave before thing turned ugly? How many businesses can go back and collect tainted gains from 2005, 2006? Maybe if bonus compensation were contingent on long-term success and delayed for 5 or 10 years to get the clear picture, okay.

Short term profits to offset losses are still a profitability strategy... often hedging on drawn out results if fast-gotten gains and be invested elsewhere to offset the losses. While bankers get fat-cat packages and golden parachutes these are not long-term strategies for banks. Banks have boards and long term investors and plans which don't cooperate on the same schedule as short-term cheats (and when they do we send them to prison: see Enron).

Bankers should not set all the banking rules, traders/brokerage should not set the securities laws, McDonald's, Wal-Mart, and BK should not control beef safety laws, BP and Exxon should not dictate environmental laws or drilling standards, etc.

I am pretty sure that nobody is suggesting that here.

 

[captainfish]

This is the most stupid and most anti-american thing our socialists could have ever done!!

 

[singe_101]

Oh I know about a cautious, non-TARP bank, it's where my accounts are. The CEO actually trashed it. And if boards and, say, internal auditors have valid reasons that this or that should be changed, I'll listen.

Putting some of the Enron slime in jail is not enough, not with so many people suffering huge losses. They invented profits and were hailed as innovators in the paper chase. And Skilling, Lay, et al (well, probably various trusts, etc.) would have been able to sell their stock before the market could realistically punish them.

That's what I fear with Comcast, Verizon, and about 5-6 other heavy hitters doing with the internet. Where was Comcast ten years ago? 15? Huge, but not this gargantuan. Retroactive punishment is never going to happen, hell Verizon has immunity from surveillance, etc. They need some basic laws passed, and those can be incredibly difficult to change again, but it can happen. Vehicles thirty years ago were pretty clunky, even cheap ones now are pretty nice, and the government has done a lot with that area.