5 ms·

So over a period of years your Scrooge McDuck money bin gets emptier and you are completely oblivious to this up until the point that it's basically empty? The

So over a period of years your Scrooge McDuck money bin gets emptier and you are completely oblivious to this up until the point that it's basically empty? The kind of incompetence involved here borders on mental retardation.

Cthulhu_ 13y ago
But hey, unregulated trading / currency, amirite? Freedom!1one! Fuk da bankz11!1
- Allower 13y ago
  Dude banks rip you off twice.. the second is when your government fucking bails them out.
  - bushido 13y ago
    The ignorance around TARP baffles me. Before I explain, let me state I am against bailouts in general. In the bailout $245B was given to private banks and $187B was given to fannie and freddie, money was also handed out to GM, insurance cos. etc. to a total amount of $610B. As of 2014, >$380B was returned in cash, >$235B was returned through dividends, the current "loss" to tax payers is approximately $12B. Which is expected to turn green very soon and generate substantial profits for "we the people". Most large banks refunded the govt. with substantial profits, so did the insurance cos. The TARP also saved a ton of jobs.
    - skyebook 13y ago
      Yes. This. The fact that Cheney went out and lobbied congress for this should say something about the dire nature of the situation
    - Consultant32452 13y ago
      The fact that those private banks did not have their shareholders wiped out completely and no one went to jail are the problems I have with TARP.
      - bushido 13y ago
        Jail for what exactly? No laws were broken, at least no laws that existed at the time. At best the whole situation in 2008 was a bank run[0] caused by a freeze in global liquidity. Sure the financial institutions made some risky speculation that lost them some money. Losses were big in absolute terms but quite tiny relative to the assets under management and profitability. a. Do I agree with (any company) functioning in the grey area. -- No. b. Do I agree with bailouts of any kind. -- No. c. Can I ever agree with people who ignorantly believe $20B in a recoverable overnight line of credit is more valuable than >$600B in assets and >$10 trillion loss in market capitalization. -- No. There ought to have been some convictions but none were related to the TARP directly or indirectly. Unfortunately, most quoted "crimes" were caused by human incompetence, a large number of other ones are caused by public ignorance and confusion about market making. Designated market makers were regulated and were required to stand opposite to their own clients when necessary. This was by design and regulation. I quote this because invariably someone is going to cry about how these designated market makers bet against their clients. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_run http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_run
        wpietri 13y ago
        How do you know that no laws were broken? I think the most we can be sure of is that federal prosecutors decided it was either ineffective or politically inconvenient to investigate. Without an investigation, I don't think we can know that nothing illegal happened. Indeed, given the string of multi-billion dollar Wall Street settlements over the last few years, suggesting that there were no laws broken leading up to TARP implies that the banks were atypically clean.
        Consultant32452 13y ago
        During the savings and loan crisis in the 80s there were a dozen task forces in the DOJ, over 1000 FBI agents were tasked with investigating the banks. It resulted in over 1,000 felony convictions. This financial crisis is significantly worse and we've had virtually no effort put into finding out the root causes. If nothing else we have internal e-mails from banks like Bank of America acknowledging that they knew they were selling junk bundled as AAA rated bonds which amounts to fraud. There's all sorts of evidence of collusion in the industry around getting those bond ratings and around selling them as something they were not. And that's just the stuff an armchair investigator can pull out of news articles over the years. Nothing compared to what a forensic accountant could determine. It's of course unrelated but when it was found that HSBC was found guilty of laundering money for drug lord the DOJ decided not to prosecute because doing so was a systemic risk. It doesn't take much to understand that there were no prosecutions from the banking crisis because of a fear of systemic risk.
    - muzz 13y ago
      TARP was just one of many bailouts
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - MrMan 13y ago
    well worth it compared to this

Cthulhu_ 13y ago

But hey, unregulated trading / currency, amirite? Freedom!1one! Fuk da bankz11!1

Allower 13y ago
Dude banks rip you off twice.. the second is when your government fucking bails them out.
- bushido 13y ago
  The ignorance around TARP baffles me. Before I explain, let me state I am against bailouts in general. In the bailout $245B was given to private banks and $187B was given to fannie and freddie, money was also handed out to GM, insurance cos. etc. to a total amount of $610B. As of 2014, >$380B was returned in cash, >$235B was returned through dividends, the current "loss" to tax payers is approximately $12B. Which is expected to turn green very soon and generate substantial profits for "we the people". Most large banks refunded the govt. with substantial profits, so did the insurance cos. The TARP also saved a ton of jobs.
  - skyebook 13y ago
    Yes. This. The fact that Cheney went out and lobbied congress for this should say something about the dire nature of the situation
  - Consultant32452 13y ago
    The fact that those private banks did not have their shareholders wiped out completely and no one went to jail are the problems I have with TARP.
    - bushido 13y ago
      Jail for what exactly? No laws were broken, at least no laws that existed at the time. At best the whole situation in 2008 was a bank run[0] caused by a freeze in global liquidity. Sure the financial institutions made some risky speculation that lost them some money. Losses were big in absolute terms but quite tiny relative to the assets under management and profitability. a. Do I agree with (any company) functioning in the grey area. -- No. b. Do I agree with bailouts of any kind. -- No. c. Can I ever agree with people who ignorantly believe $20B in a recoverable overnight line of credit is more valuable than >$600B in assets and >$10 trillion loss in market capitalization. -- No. There ought to have been some convictions but none were related to the TARP directly or indirectly. Unfortunately, most quoted "crimes" were caused by human incompetence, a large number of other ones are caused by public ignorance and confusion about market making. Designated market makers were regulated and were required to stand opposite to their own clients when necessary. This was by design and regulation. I quote this because invariably someone is going to cry about how these designated market makers bet against their clients. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_run http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_run
      - wpietri 13y ago
        How do you know that no laws were broken? I think the most we can be sure of is that federal prosecutors decided it was either ineffective or politically inconvenient to investigate. Without an investigation, I don't think we can know that nothing illegal happened. Indeed, given the string of multi-billion dollar Wall Street settlements over the last few years, suggesting that there were no laws broken leading up to TARP implies that the banks were atypically clean.
      - Consultant32452 13y ago
        During the savings and loan crisis in the 80s there were a dozen task forces in the DOJ, over 1000 FBI agents were tasked with investigating the banks. It resulted in over 1,000 felony convictions. This financial crisis is significantly worse and we've had virtually no effort put into finding out the root causes. If nothing else we have internal e-mails from banks like Bank of America acknowledging that they knew they were selling junk bundled as AAA rated bonds which amounts to fraud. There's all sorts of evidence of collusion in the industry around getting those bond ratings and around selling them as something they were not. And that's just the stuff an armchair investigator can pull out of news articles over the years. Nothing compared to what a forensic accountant could determine. It's of course unrelated but when it was found that HSBC was found guilty of laundering money for drug lord the DOJ decided not to prosecute because doing so was a systemic risk. It doesn't take much to understand that there were no prosecutions from the banking crisis because of a fear of systemic risk.
  - muzz 13y ago
    TARP was just one of many bailouts
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- MrMan 13y ago
  well worth it compared to this