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ORIGINAL: Edwird

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ORIGINAL: bounty44

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ORIGINAL: tamaka

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ORIGINAL: JVoV
We bailed Wall Street out. I'm OK with calling in a favor for Puerto Rico.

Except 2/3 of it is citizen-owned mutual funds... not Wall Street

on the whole I cant speak to who holds the debt, but I own some thousands of dollars in a particular municipal bond that is invested in Puerto rico. so im always a little hacked off when I read about their seemingly continual self inflicted financial woes.

You are "hacked off" at others for events out of their control resulting in deterioration of your position in those bonds, but of course not hacked off at your own stupidity in investing in munis in a territory where the benchmark bond was already down to 53-55 cents on the dollar to face value even before the first hurricane hit. It is just astounding the abject stupidity invoked, and actually admitted to, here.

If you are so aware of this alleged 'self infliction,' then why did you invest in those PR munis the first place? And are you also trying to say that governments are the only ones who indulge in such self infliction? Or that if corporations 'just inadvertently happen upon' such self infliction (which they do 1,000X more often than even small governments) , it's okay? let bygones be bygones?

And you want people to hand you a tissue? And cover the cost your unmitigated stupidity while at it?

Pay attention, folks, this what the modern day Republicans and their mantra are all about: "I did something really stupid, because I am stupid, I can't run the simplest business successfully, nor do I have any clue about even the most basic investing concepts, but it's not MY fault, it's because taxes are too high, and I can't pay workers $5 an hour, and I'm not allowed to dump crap into the river" etc.

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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

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ORIGINAL: Edwird
Wall st. doesn't just "allow" small countries to do financial harm to themselves- they actively promote and sell it.
Countries like the US or UK can get away with bad decisions (current prez as witness, e.g.) with out having the wolves at the door, but . . .
Yes, PR, Greece, et al. might have been stupid in some internal affairs, but all Greece did was to act in accordance with US Republican hearts in not bothering to actually collect taxes.
What happens when Wall St. steps in is to escalate the matter to entirely unmanageable proportions. Goldman Sachs' interest rate swaps with Greek debt, e.g. Like I pointed out earlier: "We can reduce your payments, while increasing total debt 5-X. What a deal!"
("Of course, we can just shut down your dinky little island if you say no to our magnanimous offer. So, how about it? We've got suckers waiting in line, here.")

In other words, it's Wall Street's fault that PR made stupid decisions.

Btw, I'm all for Wall Street taking losses when it takes risks that don't pan out. I don't believe in "too big to fail."

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ORIGINAL: ThatDizzyChick

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Btw, I'm all for Wall Street taking losses when it takes risks that don't pan out.

And yet, that don't happen.

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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery
Maybe companies receiving welfare should have to perform work/service in exchange.

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ORIGINAL: JVoV

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ORIGINAL: MrRodgers

Oh no question as I too hated TARP as it saved wall street and not the economy. However, once we were forced (financially raped) to fund it, there is a much greater bang-for-the-buck by financing a business that would have risked 100,000 jobs or more, then to protect a few dozen billionaires.

Our founding fathers would have sent wall street principals home, bankrupt and maybe tarred and feathered.
But it was the whole foundation of the auto makers, suppliers and to an extent, employees that had Bush start the whole process.

Jesus wouldn't have liked them much either, I think.

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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

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ORIGINAL: MrRodgers
We agree again except for the fact that the bailout did not save the financial system as it was before say 2006 when housing started into a depression. (the alleged value behind the MBS's) 2 million jobs lost 2006-2008.
Lending tightened to a trickle and while the auto cos. had to reorganized with a 'new' nameplate, wall street was allowed to simply consolidate it's trash with it scum on our dime.
I read somewhere that $16 trillion in household wealth...down the tubes. How much 'household wealth' did wall street lose ?
Some even argued for a complete temporary US govt. takeover of the entire banking system. Tell me how that could ever be assumed...would be worse ?

Determining "wealth" isn't an exact science. Some things have supposed value that may or may not be true. Let's say you have a Joe Shlabotnik rookie card and the valuation books say it's "worth" $1M in pristine condition, which is the condition of the card you own. You 'could' count that as an asset worth $1M, but if you had to sell it, you might not find a buyer at $1M. If you were absolutely pressed for money and could only find a buyer at a price of $500K, how much is that card actually worth?

The same goes for stocks in an artificially inflated marketplace. If your portfolio was 'worth' $1B last month, but the marketplace corrects and today your holdings are only worth $500M, your "worth" declined $500M, but in reality, it did no such thing. It really was only worth $500M a month ago.

Radio ads selling gold (I think) referred to it as the Wall Street Casino. And, while households lost a lot of money there, the adage is, the House never loses, and Wall Street is the House.

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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery

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ORIGINAL: Edwird

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ORIGINAL: bounty44

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ORIGINAL: tamaka

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ORIGINAL: JVoV
We bailed Wall Street out. I'm OK with calling in a favor for Puerto Rico.

Except 2/3 of it is citizen-owned mutual funds... not Wall Street

on the whole I cant speak to who holds the debt, but I own some thousands of dollars in a particular municipal bond that is invested in Puerto rico. so im always a little hacked off when I read about their seemingly continual self inflicted financial woes.

You are "hacked off" at others for events out of their control resulting in deterioration of your position in those bonds, but of course not hacked off at your own stupidity in investing in munis in a territory where the benchmark bond was already down to 53-55 cents on the dollar to face value even before the first hurricane hit. It is just astounding the abject stupidity invoked, and actually admitted to, here.

If you are so aware of this alleged 'self infliction,' then why did you invest in those PR munis the first place? And are you also trying to say that governments are the only ones who indulge in such self infliction? Or that if corporations 'just inadvertently happen upon' such self infliction (which they do 1,000X more often than even small governments) , it's okay? let bygones be bygones?

And you want people to hand you a tissue? And cover the cost your unmitigated stupidity while at it?

Pay attention, folks, this what the modern day Republicans and their mantra are all about: "I did something really stupid, because I am stupid, I can't run the simplest business successfully, nor do I have any clue about even the most basic investing concepts, but it's not MY fault, it's because taxes are too high, and I can't pay workers $5 an hour, and I'm not allowed to dump crap into the river" etc.

Yeah, business 201 is changing with the market conditions. Not institutionalizing a past one.

Welfare for companies, but not people.

Maybe companies receiving welfare should have to perform work/service in exchange.

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ORIGINAL: WhoreMods

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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery
Maybe companies receiving welfare should have to perform work/service in exchange.

Corporate workfare? That seems an idea with potential.

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In the age of marketing and promotional genius though we need a catchy name like...Corporate Food Stamps.

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ORIGINAL: MrRodgers

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ORIGINAL: WhoreMods

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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery
Maybe companies receiving welfare should have to perform work/service in exchange.

Corporate workfare? That seems an idea with potential.

In the age of marketing and promotional genius though we need a catchy name like...Corporate Food Stamps.

And we aren't to change anything really. We have the ideal 'system' in place...don't ya'know.....

It's called 'State Capitalism' where the state exists to first protect...the capitalist. Then the great capitalist proletariat gets to fight each other for jobs and change to find roof to live under and food to eat.

I say how about $15/hr...see Australia. They have problems but nothing like at least 1/2 of the bottom 60% here.