I parted ways with Sarah Palin yesterday

[Tex]

*cue sound of hell freezing over*

While our more liberal friends here fret over Palin potentially removing "Heather Has Two Mommies" from our public libraries, yesterday I was unhappy with some of her comments about how a McCain administration would handle Wall Street.

She (and McCain) seem to think that more regulation is the answer. They think the regulatory agencies haven't been doing their job, and that's why these companies are in trouble. I even heard McCain vow that this would not happen again under his tenure. Really, John? You gonna legislate how they invest now?

Enron gave us the disaster that is Sarbanes-Oxley. We don't need another one of those. We need less gov't involved, and to let market forces play their role.

Palin has a touch of a populist in her, and I really don't like that. I can barely stand McCain as it is, so this just reinforces my distaste, but however much I like his running mate, I'm constantly reminded that he'll be the one running the country.

Ugh.

[MikeWaters]

I take it you are against all these federal interventions in saving these companies. As well as against federal backing of any mortgage.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

I take it you are against all these federal interventions in saving these companies. As well as against federal backing of any mortgage.

Tex, answer Waters' question. Anyone who's taken handouts from parents knows loss of independence is a price. How do you answer Barney Frank's diabolical logic?: “I mean this is one more affirmation that the lack of regulation has caused serious problems. That the private market screwed itself up and they need the government to come help them unscrew it.”

[MikeWaters]

essentially the govt. wants to regulate the private market so that there is less lying and cheating.

Company X says there product is worth $1 million. It's really worth $100,000. Company Y buys the product. Company Y sells to Company Z. And so forth. In Tex's world, the lies are ok, and should not be regulated.

[Tex]

I allow that a certain amount of regulation is necessary, and Palin may be right that it failed. I simply don't believe more is the solution.

I don't understand the intricacies of these ballouts enough to say whether they are good or bad, but generally speaking I'm against them.

As to the "little guy" who gets hurt ... many little guys getting hurt now are people who bought too much house, or had no business buying a house in the first place. We cannot expect the gov't to insure us against our bad business decisions, or against the reality of the business cycle.

Welcome to a capitalist society, folks. People take risks, and make and lose money.

[BYU71]

Of course you have to have some regulation, even Mitt Romney says that. We have regulation on the Presidency, he can only run for two terms. Please tell me you aren't against that. We ought to have it for all politicians.

The problem with regulation is not the regulation, but those who enforce it. Regulators get in bed with politicians and the big and influential money on Wall St.

I started 25 years ago with a big Wall St. brokerage firm. The solid lesson I learned working form them was my first duty to my clients is to protect them from the firm I worked for.

By the way for all you libs who might be cheering my words, you will find if you look closely enough a large number of those fat cats back there ripping people off on Wall St. are democrats.

[BYU71]

Originally Posted by Tex

I allow that a certain amount of regulation is necessary, and Palin may be right that it failed. I simply don't believe more is the solution.

I don't understand the intricacies of these ballouts enough to say whether they are good or bad, but generally speaking I'm against them.

As to the "little guy" who gets hurt ... many little guys getting hurt now are people who bought too much house, or had no business buying a house in the first place. We cannot expect the gov't to insure us against our bad business decisions, or against the reality of the business cycle.

Welcome to a capitalist society, folks. People take risks, and make and lose money.

You would like the game to be a little fairer though. You are now seeing those who took advantage of the game getting hammered. Trust me there are some fat cats losing fortunes right now and I cheer.

[Travis Henry]

Originally Posted by Tex

*cue sound of hell freezing over*

While our more liberal friends here fret over Palin potentially removing "Heather Has Two Mommies" from our public libraries, yesterday I was unhappy with some of her comments about how a McCain administration would handle Wall Street.

She (and McCain) seem to think that more regulation is the answer. They think the regulatory agencies haven't been doing their job, and that's why these companies are in trouble. I even heard McCain vow that this would not happen again under his tenure. Really, John? You gonna legislate how they invest now?

Enron gave us the disaster that is Sarbanes-Oxley. We don't need another one of those. We need less gov't involved, and to let market forces play their role.

Palin has a touch of a populist in her, and I really don't like that. I can barely stand McCain as it is, so this just reinforces my distaste, but however much I like his running mate, I'm constantly reminded that he'll be the one running the country.

Ugh.

Listen I'm all for capitalism and less regulation than existed prior to Reagan. But sometimes laws and/or regulations serve a useful purpose and I don't agree that it should be a total free for all. The Great Depression didn't happen because there were too many laws and regulations, it happened due to a fruition of flaws that are inherent in a completely unchecked capitalist system.

A lot of the problems that are the root cause of the current economic mess could have been prevented by few more well-placed and limited laws. I'm probably simplifying this a little bit too much, but imagine if there was a law prohibiting Option ARMs to anyone that has less than $10 Million of net worth. My understanding is that negative amortization loans were never offered to anyone unless they were already wealthy and had a lot of collateral to back up the loan. By 2005 they were handing them out to illegal alien strawberry pickers in California. The market regulated itself most of the time because risk was attached to origination. But then these loans were packaged up into MBS and somehow deemed to be so low risk that banks were allowed to deem them as basically the same as cash for the purposes of meeting reserve requirements.

Where the rubber truly meets the road for me is when the government is forced to bail out these entities due to their idiocy while there is little extraction of pain for those that are responsible. These guys were making gobs of money all along the way but do you think they're going to have to give any of it up? Do you really think the former heads of Bear Stearns are really looking for where their next meal is coming from?

I agree with most of the actions the Fed is taking because I believe these operations are too big to fail. The failure of Fannie Mae and AIG would be truly catostrophic to the economy (whether Fannie Mae should ever have existed at all is another discussion). But an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

[Tex]

Travis Henry is the 3rd person who seems to think I want no regulation at all. I went back and read my post just to see if I was unclear.

I don't think I said that. Either I need to take a communications class, or you folks need to read a little more closely before knee-jerking.

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by Tex

Travis Henry is the 3rd person who seems to think I want no regulation at all. I went back and read my post just to see if I was unclear.

I don't think I said that. Either I need to take a communications class, or you folks need to read a little more closely before knee-jerking.

Classic Tex post. "I didn't take that position" followed with no position at all.