Anyone scared about the economic crisis?

[classicman]

:bites tongue:

[tw]

Originally Posted by lookout123

damn those banks for not wanting legislation allowing people who can't afford their homes to keep them.

When banks were responsible - did not have a mafioso persona - banks lend only to those who could afford it. Now that they have so many customers that should never be approved, well, it is the customer's fault?

Banks once determined when someone could afford it. Now that the purpose of any company is profits, screw the applicant. Only profits are important.

But again, any company whose purpose is profits therefore deserves to have no profits - and severe punishment.

How curious. Those using extremist politics also advocate a mafia objecctive of profits only - screw the employee, customer, economy, and product. This is Rush Limbaugh’s philosophy that even called Colin Powell a flaming liberal.

Banks that did their job have customers who could afford their homes. Oh. That means the product is more important than profits? A concept so difficult for loyal Limbaugh extremists to admit. Screw the customer. If he cannot afford the house, we will put him there anyway to maximize profits. Extremists say that is good. And now blame the customers for not doing what every bank once had to do when banks had to be responsible.

Clearly that flaming liberal Colin Powell is to blame.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by lookout123

damn those banks for not wanting legislation allowing people who can't afford their homes to keep them. the devils!

You know a lot of the people who have lost their home or are in danger of losing their home did nothing wrong. They bought the right house, they could afford it, it wasn't a problem, but after the economy tanked, and people started losing jobs, or getting pay cuts, they couldn't afford to keep them. Some people probably tried to sell their house, but couldn't, because the market is so bad.

AND, let's not forget, those banks are complicit in giving people mortgages they knew they couldn't afford. They were the ones in the position of power. They are the more responsible individuals here for putting someone into a house they clearly could not afford. And that doesn't even go into all the other shady trickses financial institutions were doing.

I'm sick of people blaming only the people who bought more house than they could afford, because those people are not the ones who caused the crash. The people in power are the ones who caused it. Any ethical bank is not going to sign off on a mortgage that someone cannot afford. And the banks who did just turned around and sold it to someone else so they wouldn't be responsible for it. It was wrong, what all those financial people did.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

skank of America and shittybank did not pass the test, but the government wants them to raise capital privately instead of giving it to them.

On another note, the banks spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying Congress to NOT pass the bill that would have allowed a bankruptcy judge to order refinancing of someone's home who was in foreclosure. Before any of you have a cow, rich people can save any number of extra homes they have, or yacths, farms can be saved, and many other things. Only if you are so unlucky as to own only one home, which you happen to live in, you do not get that same courtesy. And the bill was just recently voted on again. And it didn't pass. Surprise surprise. Why is it we will protect someone's vacation home or thier yacth, but not someone's primary residence?

Get the story here... In a recent radio address on Radio Chicagoland Senator Richard (Dick) Durbin remarked on power the financial services industry still wields at a time when that industry is theoretically under great scrutiny: "The banks — hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place."

The banking lobby won a significant victory in Congress on May 1, 2009 when 12 Democrats joined a united Republican Caucus to vote down an amendment to President Obama's housing bill. At issue was a measure that would have allowed bankruptcy judges to modify mortgages to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.

The House version of the bill, which provides wide housing assistance and consumer protection measures, passed with the amendment, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently said she does not expect the measure to be included in the final bill since the Senate voted it down.... (there's more) http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05082009/profile.html

This fucking blows. We need another Pecora Hearing, like they had in the 30s during the Great Depression. It will be the only way we can win against the powerful banks. http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04...anscript1.html

About the stress tests... http://voices.washingtonpost.com/hea...ress.html#more

Moyers is a great commentator but he is Left of Huffington.

[classicman]

Advanta Corp., the credit-card issuer for small businesses, may leave 1 million customers scrounging to find new lenders and debt holders facing losses of 35 percent after the company shut down accounts to preserve capital.

Advanta will cease lending June 10 after uncollectible debt reached 20 percent as of March 31,... The lender earmarked $1.4 billion to buy back securitized card loans with offers of 65 cents to 75 cents on the dollar....

Advanta decided to cut off customers after “charge-offs” rose to twice that threshold, from 9.6 percent at year-end.

“The question is how many business owners depend solely on their Advanta credit card,” said William Dunkelberg, chief economist at the National Federation of Independent Business. While most probably have other sources of credit, self-employed entrepreneurs may have trouble getting a new card, he said. “Credit is harder to find than it’s ever been in this expansion,” said Dunkelberg, whose biography lists him as a former Advanta director...

“We’ll be shutting down accounts for future transaction activities, but many of the customers will maintain balances and pay us off over time,” Browne said yesterday in a telephone interview. “We’ll have to service and collect on that, and that will be the first order of business for the company.”

More than 90 percent of Advanta’s small business customers will have “adequate” access to alternative credit after the company halts lending, Browne said...

“Early amortization has been viewed as a catastrophic event for issuers,” Scott Valentin, an analyst at Friedman Billings Ramsey & Co., said today in a research note. Advanta’s filing said that the charge-off rate for uncollectible loans may increase after accounts are closed. Valentin said that’s likely because “the cards have substantially less utility to cardholders,” cutting the incentive to keep up with payments.

“They’re hoping they can stay alive barely until the environment changes,” said David Robertson, president of the Nilson Report, the Carpinteria, California-based industry newsletter. This is “a big sign that the credit-card industry has problems that are going to be around for several years.”

IMO Advanta made a huge mistake when they quietly raised everyone's interest rates to 36% last year. My credit is spotless, so immediately I just transferred my remaining balance to another company, and I suspect that's exactly what everyone else with decent credit did... leaving Advanta with only the customers who didn't have good enough credit to leave. Do the math.

The insane thing is that I had Advanta as my business card for YEARS, with a balance sometimes as high as $12k, never was late on a payment once, and when they jacked my interest my balance was only around $1400. It was a stupid thing to do to customers with good credit.

[TheMercenary]

I have been keeping an eye on my interest rates. So far the only change I have seen is a notice that they are going to increase the fees for overseas transactions, which sucks because we just booked a trip to Freeport.

[skysidhe]

The school where I work it being closed. It isn't the only state agency being hit hard. Oregon's unemployment is second in the nation.

I have no idea why I am not freaking out.

http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/i..._oregon_s.html

http://www.pww.org/article/view/15643

http://content.usatoday.net/dist/cus...30811835.story


It passed ways and means yesterday. It goes to the house for a vote then to the senate.

The property although old is huge and beautiful. It borders Bush park and the hospital. By closing the school the state gets a double whammy in revenue.

[classicman]

2 year bump on this baby.

[Trilby]

I was at a meeting yesterday. 85% of the people there were unemployed.

'Course, this is (was) a GM town. Then NCR left.

We're twisting in the wind here. We are Flint, MI South.

[skysidhe]

The place where I work is surrounded by a chain link fence. wow did that not feel good but short term job training is good although I occasionally have fleeting worries about the future. I don't entertain them because it's a waste of energy. A job will happen because it must is the only thing I put faith in.

The other thing is just to keep putting one foot in front of the other and enjoy the good things as they come until I get to where I want to be.