The People Pushed for What?
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@scottalanmiller said in Mobile Payments:
@zachary715 said in Mobile Payments:
@scottalanmiller said in Mobile Payments:
@dashrender said in Mobile Payments:
@scottalanmiller said in Mobile Payments:
Basically you just asked me if I trust that Google, a giant corporation with billions and billions of dollars to lose, will not engage in reckless, insane behaviour to intentionally commit a felony by attempting to steal credit card data and identities? Think that through. Is there any large, well known company that has ever engaged in behaviour like that? You can't get big, have so much to lose, and do things so petty and dangerous.
You can't - do you not remember the banks that were to big to fail? They weren't reckless directly to the consumer, but they were reckless in their investments, etc.
That's false. Your information is from the news and was falsified. Maybe some of the banks were in bad positions, but that's not what that was about at all. That's what was fed to the public to get people to vote to shift resources away from the public sector.
Digressing here, but interested to hear you expand on this. I've been fascinated with the '08 downturn and watched many interviews, documentaries, and otherwise studied this. If it wasn't about banks who had overleveraged themselves with bad mortgages and such, then what do you attribute it to?
From inside the financial industry, it was really simple. Basically the ultra-rich want more money but will rarely stoop to stealing it, there are ethics, even if you don't agree that they are that ethical. A common tactic is getting the poor to voluntarily give up their money via "democracy." This system works great because it basically involves getting the public to act unethically in an attempt at unscrupulous self interest that, in the end, benefits the rich. The poor feel vindicated for "sticking it to the man", and the rich get richer will feeling innocent because they mearly leveraged the unethical behaviour of the masses - no one made them do it. Everyone "wins." The poor feel righteous, the rich feel smart and rich.
What was done here, was false information that the banks were failing was spread. In almost no cases did the banks do anything wrong, at least not legally wrong, but rumours are often all that it takes. They got the public riled up and got them to pass legislation that would allow the government to step in and nationalize the banks. In any other country, this would have just been seen as an authoritative government in a reckless nationalization scheme. In the US, the ability to cover up government corruption through propaganda is way higher than most, so nearly all people saw it as the people being protected from "big evil companies."
That's what happened... but here is the financial benefit to the rich and why the poor paid the price.....
In a new thread - I'd really like more information on this. The people voted for what?
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The people demanded that the government nationalize some of the banks and then to put caps (e.g. remove the free market and go to a communist form of planned economy) for financial staff that service the public (e.g. not the ultra rich.)
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Where did that demand come from? And don't just say - the people. If it was the people, why did the people make this demand?
Assuming the rich manipulated the poor into this action, how did they do it?
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@scottalanmiller said in Mobile Payments:
@zachary715 said in Mobile Payments:
So you're saying banks weren't actually holding a bunch of sh!t mortgages that they had given to underqualified individuals who couldn't afford them, and then let it spiral out of control?
First - the banks affected by the seizures often weren't even mortgage banks. We were not, we were an investment bank at record profits. Second, that crap mortgages existed was totally legal and ethical. That people accepted loans that they had no intention or realistic ability to pay is not the fault of the bank unless they lied about it, which is an unrelated matter.
Are you really blaming banks for giving loans? That's not a reasonable thing. Banks had zero responsibility to determine if a house was the right choice for you, only if the loan was acceptable to the bank. It is unethical for people to put that kind of demands on a bank who has no idea or responsibility or knowledge to do so.
I agree that banks should be allowed to loan whatever they want, and people who can't be bothered to understand the position they put themselves into should just have to suffer.
But the claim - no idea if it's true or not, is that the mortgage lenders were failing because of a downturn in the economy, so all those fools who lost their jobs could no longer afford their homes, and the banks now have a ton of house they can't sell because no one has any money to buy them. The house itself is a near useless asset (in the the short term) compared to cash.. so the banks were "failing".
Is all of that a lie?
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@dashrender said in The People Pushed for What?:
Where did that demand come from? And don't just say - the people. If it was the people, why did the people make this demand?
Assuming the rich manipulated the poor into this action, how did they do it?
People make this demand because they always do... the poor tend to lash out at the successful. Jealousy drives a lot of things. Ever heard of "Occupy Wall Street" or communism? Those are big political movements of this. Take from the rich to give to the poor. That worked for Robin Hood because it wasn't an open market and the rich were getting rich from taxes, not be earning it. Here, it was take from those that work to give to those that vote.
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@dashrender said in The People Pushed for What?:
Assuming the rich manipulated the poor into this action, how did they do it?
Running a news story is all it takes. As you know, it's easy to say one thing that is true and get people to hear another thing that is false.
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@dashrender said in The People Pushed for What?:
But the claim - no idea if it's true or not, is that the mortgage lenders were failing because of a downturn in the economy, so all those fools who lost their jobs could no longer afford their homes, and the banks now have a ton of house they can't sell because no one has any money to buy them. The house itself is a near useless asset (in the the short term) compared to cash.. so the banks were "failing".
Is all of that a lie?
I doubt that it was a lie in all cases, but it was certainly used as a cover for broader action that had nothing to do with mortgages or loans. That some bank was going to fail is likely. But that was a distraction to get the ball rolling on the nationalization efforts.
