Post: #1

You know, it would be fun to go back and look at the posts here that thought OWS was the shits.

But, hey, I've received warnings, and it's time to be a kinder, gentler, and even tenderer Tenderman.

However, I do enjoy the current state of the OWS movement, as succinctly described by these remarks.

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/w...he-fjords/

Quote:OWS: Pushing Up Daisies, Not Pining for the Fjords

Quick: what important world event happened one year ago yesterday? Give up? Don’t worry. We didn’t get it either.

Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street—the movement that was to be the Left’s answer to the Tea Party, the one that had the chattering classes abuzz with excitement that History had reached an inflection point.

Instead, the slow process of attrition has all but killed off the movement. As MercuryNews reports, fewer than 500 people showed up for an anniversary demonstration in San Francisco, and very small numbers turned up in New York as well, considerably fewer than the thousands who were turning out at events late last year.

OWS, like John Cleese’s parrot, is still dead. If you can’t get more than “hundreds” of demonstrators to turn out in San Francisco, it’s past time to call the hearse.

Oh, well, [sarcasm]It had good intentions.[/sarcasm]

The good news is that we no longer have filthy, garbarge and disease ridden encampments, with the occasional rape thrown in for excitement.

Post: #2

I agree with the sentiment of the movement (Wall Street rape of America), but I'll concede that it turned into a hippie thing with protesters I didn't identify with.

Post: #3

(09-19-2012 03:36 PM)Roosh Wrote:  I agree with the sentiment of the movement (Wall Street rape of America), but I'll concede that it turned into a hippie thing with protesters I didn't identify with.

With all due respect Roosh -- and God know, if anyone deserves a fairly large measure of respect, it's you -- Wall Street is only part of the problem.

Other sources of the rape?

1. Cheap government mortgages backed by GOVERNMENT sponsored entities.

2. Fly-by-night mortgage companies that underwrote those mortgages and then fobbed them off in huge pools that were supposed to spread risk.

3. Stupid borrowers who either (a) borrowed speculatively thinking real estate has nowhere to go but up or (b) were intellectually incapable of understanding what they were getting into.

All of this greased by easy money in the previous 15 years (including back to the Clinton Administration) from the Federal Reserve and huge borrowing by the Federal government.

On top of that, you have a huge college education bubble where kids get useless degrees in gender studies and environmental sciences, borrowing huge sums of money (from guess where? bank loans fobbed off the US government) to acquire those degrees and finding that the only skill they have pitching a filthy tent in the middle of an urban park.

So, yeah, Wall St. played its role, but it couldn't have played it without a huge supporting cast of government bureaucrats, profligate politicians, and "do-gooder" public servant yahoos like Barney Frank.

Post: #4

Most of those kids really weren't committed to their cause. If you're going to challenge "authority", you've got to expect those in authority to push back. These kids caved at the first whiff of pepper spray. They failed to understand that the critical element of any peaceful protest is the ability to endure violent tactics employed by the authority you're challenging. That means you're going to get pepper sprayed and tear gassed. You'll probably feel the business end of a rubber baton. And taking that abuse is part of how the game works.

They weren't willing to make the sacrifice. That's why the movement died.

Post: #5

I'm reading "Architects of Ruin: How a Gang of Radical Activists and Liberal Politicians Destroyed Trillions of Dollars in Wealth in the Pursuit of Social Justice" right now by Peter Schweizer and he seems to be pointing to a different source which would be, public interest and civil rights groups such as ACORN and vague laws such as Community Reinvestment Act which were grossly abused by those groups and their members: Pres. Barack Obama, Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Bill Clinton to name a few.

The housing bubble, as he has pointed out up the point that I've stopped, was brought about by groups like ACORN twisting the interpretation of the CRA to a point where banks were accused of blatant racial discrimination in the form of "redlining"; literally drawing out poor, often, black sections of town which were deemed un-creditworthy, and then, forced by law to lend to people who had poor credit who oftentimes happened to be ethnic minorities such as African Americans. Many banks had done this in the past so I'm not excusing them, but there came a point where too many false claims were being made against unbiased statistical data- a lota black folks had jacked up credit histories. The cumulative effect of these defaults is the result of decades of pressuring from community interest groups.

So was this housing bubble really the result of predatory lending or predatory race baiting and self-destructive embezzlement?

Post: #6

(09-19-2012 04:05 PM)tenderman100 Wrote:  With all due respect Roosh -- and God know, if anyone deserves a fairly large measure of respect, it's you -- Wall Street is only part of the problem.

Other sources of the rape?

1. Cheap government mortgages backed by GOVERNMENT sponsored entities.

2. Fly-by-night mortgage companies that underwrote those mortgages and then fobbed them off in huge pools that were supposed to spread risk.

3. Stupid borrowers who either (a) borrowed speculatively thinking real estate has nowhere to go but up or (b) were intellectually incapable of understanding what they were getting into.

I'm glad that you were able to become a millionaire despite all of the craziness in the U.S.

Post: #7

(09-19-2012 04:27 PM)choichoi Wrote:  I'm reading "Architects of Ruin: How a Gang of Radical Activists and Liberal Politicians Destroyed Trillions of Dollars in Wealth in the Pursuit of Social Justice" right now by Peter Schweizer and he seems to be pointing to a different source which would be, public interest and civil rights groups such as ACORN and vague laws such as Community Reinvestment Act which were grossly abused by those groups and their members: Pres. Barack Obama, Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Bill Clinton to name a few.

The housing bubble, as he has pointed out up the point that I've stopped, was brought about by groups like ACORN twisting the interpretation of the CRA to a point where banks were accused of blatant racial discrimination in the form of "redlining"; literally drawing out poor, often, black sections of town which were deemed un-creditworthy, and then, forced by law to lend to people who had poor credit who oftentimes happened to be ethnic minorities such as African Americans. Many banks had done this in the past so I'm not excusing them, but there came a point where too many false claims were being made against unbiased statistical data- a lota black folks had jacked up credit histories. The cumulative effect of these defaults is the result of decades of pressuring from community interest groups.

So was this housing bubble really the result of predatory lending or predatory race baiting and self-destructive embezzlement?

You can keep blaming poor blacks and civil rights for our current state of affairs at this point, but the problem is a lot bigger. I sold motorcycles during the peak of the housing boom. Poor blacks weren't the only ones spending like drunken sailors.

But keep blaming government. I doubt anyone will change your mind.

Post: #8

(09-19-2012 05:18 PM)porscheguy Wrote:  You can keep blaming poor blacks and civil rights for our current state of affairs at this point, but the problem is a lot bigger. I sold motorcycles during the peak of the housing boom. Poor blacks weren't the only ones spending like drunken sailors.

But keep blaming government. I doubt anyone will change your mind.

Government is not the ONLY problem, but it has been -- and if Obama get elected, is likely to continue to be -- a major CONTRIBUTOR to and FACILITATOR of the problem.

Think of it this way. Government is the pimp that provides you with the escorts and the porn. But in the end, you pay.

Post: #9

(09-19-2012 04:31 PM)MikeCF Wrote:  I'm glad that you were able to become a millionaire despite all of the craziness in the U.S.

How have you gotten a hold of my brokerage statements?

Post: #10

(09-19-2012 06:35 PM)tenderman100 Wrote:  

(09-19-2012 04:31 PM)MikeCF Wrote:  I'm glad that you were able to become a millionaire despite all of the craziness in the U.S.

How have you gotten a hold of my brokerage statements?

I don't need to.

The only guys happy to see OWS and quick to blame middle america are all 7 figure + guys.

Otherwise they'd be advocating for the rich, for free, which would make them morons.

Post: #11

Watch this Tendermann!

Post: #12

(09-19-2012 04:05 PM)tenderman100 Wrote:  

(09-19-2012 03:36 PM)Roosh Wrote:  I agree with the sentiment of the movement (Wall Street rape of America), but I'll concede that it turned into a hippie thing with protesters I didn't identify with.

With all due respect Roosh -- and God know, if anyone deserves a fairly large measure of respect, it's you -- Wall Street is only part of the problem.

Other sources of the rape?

1. Cheap government mortgages backed by GOVERNMENT sponsored entities.

2. Fly-by-night mortgage companies that underwrote those mortgages and then fobbed them off in huge pools that were supposed to spread risk.

3. Stupid borrowers who either (a) borrowed speculatively thinking real estate has nowhere to go but up or (b) were intellectually incapable of understanding what they were getting into.

All of this greased by easy money in the previous 15 years (including back to the Clinton Administration) from the Federal Reserve and huge borrowing by the Federal government.

On top of that, you have a huge college education bubble where kids get useless degrees in gender studies and environmental sciences, borrowing huge sums of money (from guess where? bank loans fobbed off the US government) to acquire those degrees and finding that the only skill they have pitching a filthy tent in the middle of an urban park.

So, yeah, Wall St. played its role, but it couldn't have played it without a huge supporting cast of government bureaucrats, profligate politicians, and "do-gooder" public servant yahoos like Barney Frank.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.ph...=bloviator

Post: #13

(09-19-2012 06:51 PM)el mechanico Wrote:  


Watch this Tendermann!

Ween!! I love Ween!!

This is worthy thread hijack. Why? Dean Ween is one of the greatest guitar players that no one has ever heard of.

Watch them cover Led Zeppelin's "All of My Love"




Here's their amazing Jimmy Buffet parody -- "Bananas and Blow" with one of the greatest guitar solos ever at 2:29
"Stuck in my cabana/livin' on Bananas and Blow"




And here they are doing "Dr. Rock."




So many other great songs -- "Piss Up a Rope"..."Waving My Dick in the Wind"

Genius. Pure genius.

Post: #14

(09-19-2012 10:19 PM)LostGringo Wrote:  http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.ph...=bloviator

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.ph...=simpleton

Post: #15

(09-19-2012 06:48 PM)MikeCF Wrote:  I don't need to.

The only guys happy to see OWS and quick to blame middle america are all 7 figure + guys.

Otherwise they'd be advocating for the rich, for free, which would make them morons.

So you hate that OWS has failed miserably,eh?

Oh, well...too bad for you.

Post: #16

(09-19-2012 04:05 PM)tenderman100 Wrote:  

(09-19-2012 03:36 PM)Roosh Wrote:  I agree with the sentiment of the movement (Wall Street rape of America), but I'll concede that it turned into a hippie thing with protesters I didn't identify with.

With all due respect Roosh -- and God know, if anyone deserves a fairly large measure of respect, it's you -- Wall Street is only part of the problem.

Other sources of the rape?

1. Cheap government mortgages backed by GOVERNMENT sponsored entities.

2. Fly-by-night mortgage companies that underwrote those mortgages and then fobbed them off in huge pools that were supposed to spread risk.

3. Stupid borrowers who either (a) borrowed speculatively thinking real estate has nowhere to go but up or (b) were intellectually incapable of understanding what they were getting into.

You forgot to mention the credit rating agencies who gave AAA ratings to MBS's and CDO's based on subprime mortgage loans. Not a single thing has been done to make sure the same thing won't happen again.

Post: #17

(09-20-2012 01:33 AM)P Dog Wrote:  You forgot to mention the credit rating agencies who gave AAA ratings to MBS's and CDO's based on subprime mortgage loans. Not a single thing has been done to make sure the same thing won't happen again.

Correct.

Post: #18

redacted

Post: #19

The issue with OWS is that they never had clear demands, agenda, goals, or a leader. OWS displayed our generations worst attributes in equality for all even if it means getting nowhere.

You can't give people the chance to make the secession to support or not support if you do not state where you stand. This is what turned off do many. I remember getting so much hate, as I vowed OWS as a dud from the start. I even spent one day 'protesting the protestors', going around asking questions and trying to get people to understand with out clear goals the movement will fail. I got booed out of their stupid little commie council for suggesting they set an Agenda of demands for the press. They proceeded to talk about washrooms/porta-pottys instead.

OWS only had one legitimate movement and uprising in Oakland when the City had a general strike and stormed the Port, a million strong. They had a clear agenda and all rallied behind it. That is a real movement.

contrast OWS to the Quebec/Montreal Student movement. The Student movement had clear demands and leadership. The press went to the same spokesman whom told them the agreed agenda of the group and because of this many people whom weren't students joined the movement and march.

OWS in the end shows our generations inability to fight back. OWS has thrown in the white towel, with an election 2 months away they are dead in the ditch. Claiming that they refuse to join a corrupt system of politics.

True enough...

But it was the very same OWS group whom cried and screamed for the re-installation of glass-stegall which could only be done via conventional political means. Even if you don't like the system you must waltz with it briefly before you crack it's kneecaps. Even the radical SNCC and it's leader Stoakley Charmichael (Kwame Ture) whom advocated a full blown bloddy coup at times met with political leaders. It's just a needed step to gain legitimacy. Which you need to gain to attract the masses to support you

The OWS and any future movement will most likely fail since it is to easy to exploit are generations weak spots for validation, materialism, and consensus neutrality rather then Democratic bias with ideals of the greater minority incorporated and protected. Imagine if OWS in its hayday said:

"Student debt is destroying our generation and University has become a racket of extortion. We propose that students all across America stop paying their student loans effective immediately."

Leave the feisability of this idea out of here but the dramatic effect and shock of this would of been like a kidney shot to the finance system as it needs that monthly roll over of debt to function. OWS never had the balls to do anything like that because the largely feminine movement never had any from the start.

Unless our generation grows a pair and quick we will be fleeced dry by the Bankers. They will take every nickle from you.

RIP OWS

Post: #20

No one true cause, no direct leadership or spokespeople and no foreseeable no long-term impact.

Quote:Unless our generation grows a pair and quick we will be fleeced dry by the Bankers. They will take every nickle from you.

In the EU some of us are more worried about our governments fleecing us for everything rather than the private sector, but I agree with all of your other points Kosko.

Post: #21

Excellent post WestIndianArchie.

Are you paying attention Tenderman? Do you have something to add, or do you need to search the Fox News archives for a rebuttal?

Bloviator. I rest my case.

BTW, exactly how did you arrive at your statement that you are "smarter than 98% of the men out there"? One would think that a thoughtful man would not post such a figure without some sort of analysis based on empirical evidence, no?

A final note. While your efforts at fitness are admirable, you might want to cease with the boasting, especially given the numbers you posted. I mean, if you ever spent any time in an actual gym you would know that bragging about benching your own weight - is laughable. Yes, even at 60.

Post: #22

(09-19-2012 06:48 PM)MikeCF Wrote:  

(09-19-2012 06:35 PM)tenderman100 Wrote:  

(09-19-2012 04:31 PM)MikeCF Wrote:  I'm glad that you were able to become a millionaire despite all of the craziness in the U.S.

How have you gotten a hold of my brokerage statements?

I don't need to.

The only guys happy to see OWS and quick to blame middle america are all 7 figure + guys.

Otherwise they'd be advocating for the rich, for free, which would make them morons.

What if I find it more enjoyable to troll uninformed, college aged liberals who didn't realize they were voting for a corporatists when they masterbated to pictures of Obama at night?

Post: #23

(09-20-2012 02:14 PM)LostGringo Wrote:  Excellent post WestIndianArchie.

Are you paying attention Tenderman? Do you have something to add, or do you need to search the Fox News archives for a rebuttal?

Bloviator. I rest my case.

BTW, exactly how did you arrive at your statement that you are "smarter than 98% of the men out there"? One would think that a thoughtful man would not post such a figure without some sort of analysis based on empirical evidence, no?

A final note. While your efforts at fitness are admirable, you might want to cease with the boasting, especially given the numbers you posted. I mean, if you ever spent any time in an actual gym you would know that bragging about benching your own weight - is laughable. Yes, even at 60.

First of all, I have benched my weight -- a few reps, with a spotter, at a gym I go to from time to time.
Mostly I work in my little home gym using this bench

and this set of weights


See: http://www.amazon.com/Ironmaster-Super-B...ight+bench
and
http://www.amazon.com/One-Pair-Adjustabl...mbbell+set

I am now doing dumbbell benches with two 70s. Try it sometime...see if you can even get them onto your thighs. Alas, because these dumbbells are adjustable, the rods poke out a bit, so you have to be very careful you don't impale yourself when you bring them up.

Second, what's with this Fox News stuff? I'm telling you, the minute a rabid left winger hears a different argument that doesn't comport with his warped world view, he yells "Fox News!! Fox News!" -- a knee jerk reaction of the sort a cockblocking fatty has when grabbing the elbow of her HB friend you're trying to game.

Third, and finally, here's what I wrote in my post

Quote:2. Fly-by-night mortgage companies that underwrote those mortgages and then fobbed them off in huge pools that were supposed to spread risk.

and here's what WestIndianArchie wrote

Quote:What happens when you take loans, pool them, slice them up into securities that pay interest higher than the US government?

You attract a lot of big money. Pension Funds, Hedge Funds, Mutual Funds...

And if you convince them that the underwriting is basically sound, and that the default rate is going to be low, and the mathematical forecasting model works, that the loans in your mbs would be spread out geographically, and that even if all of that fails, you can be made whole with a credit default swap - what you get is a mortgage derivative market 10-20 times bigger than the actual mortgage market.

I think we're in agreement here. Mortgages were pooled (as were HELOCs) and the bright minds thought the diversification and risk sharing of the pools would keep them safe. WIA also mentioned CDSs, which I think should only be used to hedge actual holdings and not used for speculative purposes (unless the OTC CDS market could somehow replicate the solidity of an exchange market like the CBOE).

And yes, private entities drove a lot of this (the most egregroius example being Countrywide).

But here's the point -- and I know it may be a bit too subtle for you -- but I will take a run at it. And it's this:

Without the government’s housing policy, there would never have been a financial crisis. That’s not saying that government housing policy caused the financial crisis. Rather, the government’s housing policy set the stage for the financial crisis. The CRA, Federal Housing Enterprises Regulatory Reform Act of 1992, which mandated sub prime loans. And then, on top of that, we have a easy money policy by the Fed, the dollars flow, and the stage is set.

Without the creation of all of the subprime and other weak mortgages, we wouldn’t have had a mortgage meltdown that ultimately was the cause of the weakness in the financial system. The government entities created the CONDITIONS for the bubble, and then the Countrywides, The BofAs, the HSBC's, aided and abetted by the CDS underwriters like AIG and Bear Stearns, pushed it over the cliff.

The debate about the "cause" of the financial crisis continues to rage. On the left you have, "it's all about the greedy wall streeters." But frankly, the commentators on the right have nailed it, it seems to me.

See:

http://www.aei.org/article/economics/fis...al-crisis/

Of course, the left sneers -- it's AEI!! It's Fox News!! Like the fatty cockblocking.

Quote:IF THE GOVERNMENT was responsible for 19.2 million of the 27 million subprime and other risky loans, that leaves 7.8 million similar loans that came from other sources. These were mortgages securitized by the private sector (often called Wall Street in the Commission's report) and held by financial institutions around the world. How were these mortgages the result of U.S. government housing policy?

This is an important question. Even though these privately securitized mortgages were less than one-third of the total number of subprime and other risky loans outstanding, they are the reason that banks and other loan originators generally have been blamed--in the media, in most books and films about the financial crisis, and of course by the Commission--for the financial crisis.

The securitization of subprime and other risky loans was also a new phenomenon in the housing bubble that ended in 2007, and it was a direct result of the extraordinary growth of the bubble itself. Most bubbles in the past lasted three or four years. In that time, delinquencies begin to appear and the inflow of speculative funds begins to dry up. The bubble that deflated in 2007, however, had an unprecedentedly long 10-year life. The reason was that the money flow into that bubble was not from private speculators looking for profit, but primarily from the government pursuing a social policy by directing the investments of companies or agencies it regulated or otherwise controlled.

Housing bubbles tend to suppress defaults. As housing prices rise, people who can't meet their obligations can sell the house for more than they paid, or can refinance, so delinquencies are limited. By 2002, five years into the bubble that began in 1997, investors were beginning to notice that subprime and other risky loans--which usually carried higher than normal interest rates because of their risk--were not showing delinquencies or defaults commensurate with their risks. In other words, the data suggested that mortgage-backed securities (MBS) made of these loans were offering unusually high risk-adjusted yields. This stimulated the development of a private market in securitized subprime loans--something that had never existed before.

This market was about 4 percent of all mortgages made in 2002, but by 2004 had grown to 15 percent. It kept growing through 2005 and 2006, but completely collapsed in 2007, when the 10-year bubble finally topped out and began to deflate.

Thus, the 7.8 million subprime and other risky loans that were securitized during the 2000s and still outstanding in 2008 were also the indirect result of U.S. government housing policies, which had built an unprecedented bubble in the late 1990s. The bubble created the necessary conditions--a long run of subprime loans without the expected losses--for the growth of a huge securitization market in subprime and other risky loans in the mid-2000s.

Before leaving this subject, it is important to address one statement that has appeared again and again in the mainstream media, in statements by members of the Obama administration, and was repeated in the Commission report. This is the claim that Fannie and Freddie became insolvent because, seeking profits or market share, they "followed Wall Street" into subprime lending. This idea neatly avoids the question of why Fannie and Freddie became insolvent in the first place, and focuses the blame again on the private sector.