more lawless bankers. tis the season

24 minutes ago, evildictait​or wrote

I would argue that we shouldn't have to trust the banks. If the banks want to do risky lending, fine - whatever. So far as it's their money (and money they've been given to invest) that they're putting at risk, I have no problem with them spending it all on lottery tickets, using it to build a massive gold statue of their CEO or going to vegas and putting it all on black.

The problem with the banks isn't that they are irresponsible. It's that they're irresponsible with money that isn't theirs and with no comeback when they screw up.

It's never been their money. It's always been our money. Be it savings or debt.

The problem is, we do not care about our money, because of the safety net. In case of bank collapse, someone else has to pay.

In order for that dead lock situation to change, we need to remove the safety net.

6 minutes ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

It's never been their money. It's always been our money. Be it savings or debt.

Nope. Banks have private investors, handle shares for customers that want to invest it, handle business investments and have their own cash (i.e. profit) that they can re-invest, as well as money raised from their own shareholders.

If they lose that, I frankly don't care.

The problem is with the money in non-invested accounts, like current accounts.

I do care if they lose that (as do most people, who use banks to store money rather than to invest money), and I think the best way to ensure that we never need to bail them out again is to make sure that they can't freely add risk to those non-invested accounts without insuring against their own bank's failure.

The majority of money that a bank has is invested, and a fair fraction of the rest of it would be if the difference between interest between a non-invested account and an investment account was more reasonable.

If a bank basically seperated it's services into a low-risk but pay-for-service of storing your money in a safe that'll still be there if the bank goes bust, versus their zero-bailout, but now entirely free-to-invest-as-they-please savings accounts, the government could back off from the banks, remove lots of regulations, and let banks get on with doing whatever the hell they want with the money that is their's to lose.

1 hour ago, evildictait​or wrote

The problem is with the money in non-invested accounts, like current accounts.

+1

Rolling Stone reported in April 2012 that the [MF Global - John Corzine's lost money] number stands at $1.6 billion, and that "nobody disputes the fact that MF Global officials dipped into customer accounts and took...customer money."

None of that money has been found or repaid to those from whom it was stolen. No prosecutions.

Maddus for sheriff. Get a rope.

3 minutes ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

*snip*

ING did not issue any CDOs

*snip*

Exactly! There you go. I knew you could do it.

CDOs are AAA-rated financial instruments. ING didn't need to use leverage to buy them because they ALREADY HAD money and needed to invest it. And to further reduce their risk, they purchased CDSs. See? No law forced them to be dumbasses, and they weren't being dumbasses being on the BUY side.

The dumbasses were on the SELL side, and no laws forced them to be dumbasses either. They were just being greedy. Nobody forced investment banks to use leverage to buy assets and create CDOs. Nobody forced investment banks to sell these CDOs to investors, which included the retail banking side of their own company. Nobody forced insurance companies to sell CDSs to back these CDOs without having any collateral.

2 hours ago, evildictait​or wrote

*snip*

I do care if they lose that (as do most people, who use banks to store money rather than to invest money), and I think the best way to ensure that we never need to bail them out again is to make sure that they can't freely add risk to those non-invested accounts without insuring against their own bank's failure.

And the instrument used to insure against their failure can't be some phoney baloney CDS that has no collateral backing it.

Mr. Smith's memoir, "Why I Left Goldman Sachs," is set for publication on Oct. 22. The release date comes just seven months after Mr. Smith publicly resigned from the bank with an Op-Ed page article in The New York Times that detailed his disappointment with Goldman's business practices that reflected, more broadly, a corrosive culture at the nation's largest banks.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/09/12/former-banker-promises-inside-peek-at-goldman-sachs/?src=dlbksb

It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off. Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as "muppets," sometimes over internal e-mail.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/opinion/why-i-am-leaving-goldman-sachs.html?_r=3

No, he didn't find Jimmy Hoffa... and he seems basically just to bemoan the culture of contempt investors like those at GS have today towards me and you; he does not finger any criminals.

Probably just a fluff piece to make a quick buck.

" & blah blah woof woof "    

http://projects.propublica.org/bailout/main/summary

Bailout Detailed Breakdown $603.8B Outflows