Wall St. Explained

[Setec Astronomy]

In case some of you missed it, AIG had to get bailed out again, and it seems the culprit this time is that they provided debt insurance to all those banks and others that took on all those bad mortgages (in order to sell them to us as investments) to the tune of more than twice what AIG was worth (and as I understood it, that was just this debt insurance, not their other insurance divs. (so much for the staid, conservative insurance industry, eh?). Anyway, this latest development got me ruminating again on how THERE SHOULD BE A LOT MORE PEOPLE IN JAIL for what really seems to be a Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme run by the executives at all these financial companies (and those in some other industries) and I was reminded of this little slide show from last year:



subprime works - Google Docs (http://docs.google.com/TeamPresent?docid=ddp4zq7n_0cdjsr4fn&skipauth=true)



Warning: there is some profanity in there. Just put yourself in the place of the Norwegian guy, because with the state of the economy, that`s all of us.



PS Before you guys start blaming all the mortgage owners, that`s a little like the drug dealer saying he has nothing to do with all those addicts out there...

[imported_rydawg]

Great slide show and that is such the truth. This is going to be an interesting (in a bad way) year on what happens with everything right down the ladder.



Mortgage company 3 years ago: sell sell sell



Mortgage company today: help help help

[salty]

Ya that somes it up. Tough up hill battle coming.

[salty]

Here another one.





YouTube - The Crash of 2009 Is COMING To YOU!! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDEe0Ai6lTM)

[imported_BigJohn]

AIG announced that they would pay back one third of their bonuses. :shocked Only a third?? they should be forced to give back the whole amount.

[Accumulator]

AIG announced that they would pay back one third of their bonuses. :shocked Only a third?? they should be forced to give back the whole amount.



Noting that I`m absolutely no fan of AIG or incompetents in general...



It`s unconstitutional to pass ex-post-facto laws. Can`t "force them" to undo their contractual obligations or otherwise take the money away after the fact (so shoulda figured it out *before* the fact).



And note that not everybody who received a bonus got a big amount. Plenty of low/middle-level employees got little bonuses that they depend on to bolster an otherwise skimpy salary. I wouldn`t want the innocent to get spanked along with the guilty. And I want us to spank the guilty the right way, in accordance with the rule of law.



Shoulda figured out about the bonuses *BEFORE* offering them the bailout and made the proper demands *then*. Now it`s too late for this particular battle...blame the dummies who didn`t do their homework before giving away our tax dollars on this stuff. [Insert IMO regarding bailouts in general here..]



IMO the people who screwed up should voluntarily give up their bonuses. Yeah, I *would* do that, but then I have a samurai mindset on stuff like this, something that`s conspicuous by its absence in this whole sad saga.

[Apollo_Auto]

Nice post Setec, thanks! For any of you wishing to further educate yourselves about how banks work, how the government screws you and for other enlightening topics take a look at this (these) movie(s). Just make sure your nice and comfortable when you watch it and have a bottle of whiskey handy to help ease the pain :) Zeitgeist - The Movie (http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/)

[salty]

The Z movies will make you think.



The O.... Deception takes it one step further and names, names. "Insert current President name in title."



Take the movies with a grain of salt.

[Apollo_Auto]

The Z movies will make you think.



The O.... Deception takes it one step further and names, names. "Insert current President name in title."



Take the movies with a grain of salt.



OK Salty, I take them with a grain of salt or 2 (no pun intended :D), but you can`t deny that the large percentage of claims in the movie that attempt to debunk what we have been conditioned to believe as true, hold more water than the "stories" themselves. This forum is no place for a religious discussion, so let`s stay out of that, but the other things discussed in the film (as well as the first) reinforce the convictions I`ve had for years...

[salty]

A lot of people are naive to such thoughts. But if you look at history, it`s not too hard to imagine.



"The O.... Dec....." is kind of disturbing.



I wish everyone would watch these movies, and make up their own minds.