Both have a common characteristic, they’re securities that generate income by huge portfolios of stuff, good as long as no one asks how healthy are the things in the portfolios, until the pieces start going bad and stop making income in the aggregate. And it always is surprising and unexpected for legal purposes when they go tits-up.
August 21, 2019 at 1:04 am
interventor
A mortgage-backed security (MBS) is an investment similar to a bond that is made up of a bundle of home loans bought from the banks that issued them. Investors in MBS receive periodic payments similar to bond coupon payments. Those were the mortgages securitized and issued by Freddy and Fanny to unwary investors. One of the reasons for the past recession.
August 21, 2019 at 1:08 am
interventor
CDO stands for Collateralized Debt Obligation and it involves the pooling of debt to reduce risk and raise returns. CDOs have been widely blamed for the 2008 financial crisis, but most people do not know what they are. When a lot of debt (such as home mortgages) is pooled together, bonds can be issued on this debt. A major problem with CDOs may be that mortgages are split amongst the CDOs to such an extent that neither a master jigsaw puzzle solver, nor a Soviet bureaucrat may discern the fit.
What isn’t mentioned is that MBSs and CDOs would likely never been created if the Glass-Steagall Act had never been repealed. Glass-Steagall created a ‘wall’ between commercial and investment banks, a wall that no longer exists. The repeal allowed commercial banks and investment banks to become a single entity and to gamble with depositor money. It also opened the door for massive bank bailouts when their gambles failed and the banks were seen as “too big to fail” because their failure would have large negative effects on the economy. (It isn’t as if they didn’t even with the bailouts.)
In effect it helped privatize profit and socialize failure which in turn created a “Hey, we’ll make a ton of money if we succeed and we’ll still make a ton of money if we fail because Uncle Sugar will bail us out” atmosphere.
August 21, 2019 at 9:48 am
interventor
For those who don’t know their economic history, during the great economic expansion of the 1920s, banks could invest their depositors’ fund in stocks and bonds. As the stock market grew well beyond any reasonable level, the excitement continued. With the crash, depositors found their accounts were depleted, by such risky behavior. Such use of depositors’ funds was one of several reasons for the recession of 1929 becoming the great depression. Glass-Steagall required banks to split into banks used by customers for checking, savings and safer loans (usually backed by collateral such as car and home loans). Investment banks were allowed to loan for more risky loans (stocks, not included).
The change to Glass-Steagall made during the Clinton administration allowed all banks to have investment houses. However, they are not allowed to risk depositors’ accounts on the more risky loans or investments. Accounts protected by the FDIC are such protected accounts. This change allowed the banks to use the same buildings and personnel to perform both functions – giving savings as to labor and real property costs. After the recession of 2008, many banks split into separate corporate entities, retaining the same brick and mortar and personnel, but presenting a different face.
August 21, 2019 at 11:06 am
Pamela
What really gets me is under Clinton, I know it sounds bad or worse come to think of it, Lenders were forced to lend to people who did not meet the criteria for a loan. So if the Lender wanted $$$ for the people that were able to afford to buy a house, they had to lend to those who weren’t able to afford to buy a house.
August 21, 2019 at 12:38 am
Craig
Same as Woodman. 🙂
August 21, 2019 at 12:40 am
Craig
Got it. Highly specialized finance knowledge that only pretty f’ing smart folks like our president understand.
August 21, 2019 at 1:10 am
interventor
There are a few others.
August 21, 2019 at 12:46 am
WayneM
The problem is too many academics & other wastrels have misrepresented socialism, communism and capitalism to the point of them being disconnected from the reality of Marxism.
A well-meaning but ill-informed citizen told me that Canada is a socialist country and socialism simply means the government helps those in need… nothing more… So I quietly explained that Canada is not a socialist nation; we are a mixed-market economy with a parliamentary monarchist government with a too-robust welfare system which is slowly bankrupting us. He sputtered about our medical system. I asked what he knew (nil) and then healthcare is exclusively provincial jurisdiction as per our constitution and how the federal government routinely overreaches it’s authority to impose the “single payer” model.
I asked if he realized socialism meant the means of production were nationalized. He didn’t know what that meant and said he couldn’t see how that would work. I asked if he knew the difference between socialism and communism (ie: the elimination of property rights) and he looked shocked… but still protested that capitalism was abusive to the workers.
I explained that capitalism, like socialism and communism, were words Marx made up and that capitalism, as Marx represented it, had never existed…
The level of ignorance about basic political concepts is disconcerting. Who knew Idiocracy was a “how to” guide for leftists?
August 21, 2019 at 12:59 am
interventor
Point, communism means state ownership of the means of production — both industrial and agricultural. Socialism requires either ownership or state direction of such. Both, Adolf’s national socialism and Benito’s fascism allowed private ownership. Just produce as many Heinkel bombers and panzers as the state requires.
August 21, 2019 at 6:58 am
eon
See “syndicalist socialism”. Certain corporate entities favored by the government are “in the club” and are allowed to operate as fits the government’s desires. those which are not, are not permitted to operate at all.
Simson in Germany was a case in point. In the Versailles Treaty period from 1919 to 1932, Simson & Co., Suhl continued to manufacture or rework small arms for the Reichswehr just as they had since the 1860s. Within a year after Hitler’s ascent to power, Simson was gone, broken up between DWM and Spreewerke.
Why?
Simple.
The Simson family were Jewish.
There are other examples.
One of the Great Lies of the left is that many countries have “corporatism”, i.e. governments run for the benefit of corporations. They define this as a form of “capitalism”.
In fact, most such states with close “cooperation” between the government and private entities are pure syndicalist socialist types. The government commands and the private entities obey, not the other way around.
GM and Chrysler, under TARP, and the “too big to fail” bank bailouts after FM\2,were nearly perfect examples of “syndicalism” in action. and the left screamed “corporatism!” but you may have noticed, they didn’t object to Obama’s plan, just that they thought those companies somehow had too much “independence”. They demanded nationalization and would settle for nothing less- and they still are in that mode today.
The left tries to use the lie of “corporatism” to disguise their real process of creating “syndicalism” as a precursor to true, no-holds-barred, obey-or-we-will-kill-you communism.
And people keep believing them.
clear ether
eon
August 21, 2019 at 9:30 am
Doggo
The people keep believing them because they were educated in the public (socialist) school system, and have not even heard the words “corporatism” or “syndicalism”. In fact I haven’t heard them until today, but your explanation makes perfect sense. We need a long slow revolution of the education system in this country to reverse the last 80 years of subversion.
August 21, 2019 at 1:32 pm
eon
Thank you. If you want an object lesson in syndicalist socialism, study the way Italy was run by Mussolini and his gang from 1922 to 1943.
Then compare it to modern Democratic Party dogmas.
No wonder The One liked to be photographed with his chin up in an Il Duce pose. Over and over again;
The irony is that we expect our children, educated in “free” government schools, to be taught economic principles that expose the limitations and downright dangers of government. Your pal is precisely the kind of product I would expect from such schools. The “free” part just ensures that it is uneconomical for any significant schooling alternative to arise that would seriously challenge the propaganda factory.
August 21, 2019 at 1:07 am
ExNuke
Okay Chris, isn’t it about time for some skin to give everybody a breather? Staying wired up about things we can’t do much about with out resorting to the bullet box isn’t healthy or productive. Anyone who just wants to be outraged these days can just turn on CNN or browse Yahoo.
August 21, 2019 at 2:56 am
Fronk!
No, let’s stay focused on these seditious existential threats that are so popular with the knuckle dragger crowd these days before it’s too late.
When they came for me…
August 21, 2019 at 6:40 am
Old Codger
When they came for me…
I advised them that if they did not withdraw to the curtilage IMMEDIATELY that I intended to open fire with a “high caliber” (I know it’s either high power [which a 7.2X51/.308 win, is NOT] or large caliber [which IIRC a .308 IS] but I don’t expect THEM to know it) and continue to fire until they either withdraw completely or they put me down. I have decided that I would prefer to die in my own home than in a latter day Bergen-Belsen.
August 21, 2019 at 2:53 am
Mike-SMO
WayneM: But the commissar in school and the ones on the TeeVee told him “words”. They said that was all he had to know. Sooon he would know “wrecker” and “traitor” since those are the only reason “socialism” can, and always does, fail. He’ll have to learn to read it up-side-down from the sign they hang from his neck. The “well meaning” always go first. It is an old tradition.
But I agree with “Exnuke”. We need more “art” to encourage the soul. There is no shortage of “wailers” out there. Even though the current cartoons can be entertaining, It ain’t “ART”.
From “pharmacology”; the dose is the poison.
Just sayin’.
August 21, 2019 at 5:37 am
Bill G
The Nordic Model beloved by the left as socialism done right is not socialism, and they try to tell the left that they have a free market economy supporting a welfare state. The left doesn’t want to hear that.
Meanwhile, Venezuela is a socialist nation. Our self-labelled Best And Brightest just trot out the old “They didn’t do it right”.
Reality has no place in their world view.
August 21, 2019 at 10:26 am
Halley
The pragmatic Right half of Sweden has successfully prevented the mental Left half from going full FemSoviet. A constant, ongoing struggle…
August 21, 2019 at 11:32 am
interventor
Norway and Denmark use their North Sea oil profits to finance their adult Disneyland. However, leaning on a wasting asset isn’t the best long term solution. Norway advertises that the oil provides only 20 percent of government revenue. However, they omit the taxes paid by employees, VAT and taxes paid by companies that support the oil industry. In reality, about 30 to 33 percent of government revenue relies on the oil fields.
August 21, 2019 at 5:53 am
William Henry
Who said socialism works great until you run out of other people’s money.
Lenin referred to socialists as ( useful idiots ) and when he was done with them they where executed.
August 21, 2019 at 6:37 am
Wood
Margaret Thatcher.
August 21, 2019 at 6:25 am
Wotan
I have followed “CollusionGate” passionately from the beginning and, yes, the slow grind of the wheels of Justice tries my patience. That being said I recognize the need for Fox News to fill a 24 hour news cycle.
However, it is tiring to watch the news channels (even Fox) cover political fist fights as if they are world wars. The Democrat contenders for the crown are unserious (but dangerous) pygmies in their values and tactics…. *I just changed my mind … the 2020 Democrat nomination battles are nothing but the epilogue to CollusionGate’s attempted coup d’etat.* “Let the Good Times Roll Fox News!*
August 21, 2019 at 6:26 am
Toxic Deplorable Racist B Woodman
WH,
Margaret Thatcher, British Prime Minister, The Iron Lady, said that.
August 21, 2019 at 8:26 am
CaptDMO
“We” HAVE to ensure there’s SOME vehicle that pays the MSRP for “higher” education, medical “attention”, SRO housing, SNAP debit cards, and legal “representation” , so “we ALL” can have free
school, health, shelter, food, and law!
Or something.
A lot of smart words from a lot of smart people, but the TLDR version is this:
When gov gets involved with most anything other than national defense, the entities whose only ultimate raison d’etre is money/power (political, economic, academic, media) those entities will soon be irretrievably and irredeemably corrupted.
And so they are.
What part of Constitutional Enumerated Powers do they, and we, not grok?
Negative yield bonds?! W-T-F for?! I may as well just take my paper cash and hide it under my matress. Inflation will erode the money’s value just as fast, and it will still be in my possession, to spend on something of value, that will retain its value long after the bonds have “matured”.
August 22, 2019 at 12:28 am
NotYetInACamp
Buy a solid asset. Gold. Silver. Hammers. Road and land excavation equipment. People always got to move dirt.
August 22, 2019 at 9:22 am
Doggo
Firearms. Ammo. Survival gear. Just in case you have a boating accident and lose your current favorites.
August 21, 2019 at 12:51 pm
Kafiroon
So it all boils down to a few smart people, dumber than a rock, have convinced half the country that they know best.
Half the country believes them, also being dumber than a rock, and between them they will proceed to destroy everything to achieve their unachievable dream and kill all the rest of us in the process.
Got it.
August 22, 2019 at 12:24 am
NotYetInACamp
As politicians always have said, I only have to win the election by one vote.
Of course to be accurate, at least half of that half that think they want socialism, make no investment and get free returns.
August 21, 2019 at 7:35 pm
Matthew Parkhouse
Just look at the modern “homelessness industry”. What was once done by spirited volunteers is now done by staff-heavy “non-profits”. The government plays into the party as well, by requiring unhealthy enabling practices. Eric Hoffer reallly nailed the process – “Things start out as a cause or movement. They then become a business. They end up becoming a racket”.
August 21, 2019 at 10:27 pm
Too Tall
We must give the Progtard DildoCrats credit where credit is due, since they answer Voltaire’s prayer for us everyday:
41 Comments
Like they say, you can vote yourself into socialism (or communism) but you’ll have to shoot your way out.
Zar Belk!
That’s a big ditto.
Ok. I’ll plead ignorance.
What is/are “MBSes” and “CDO’s”?
Difference Between MBS and CDO
Both have a common characteristic, they’re securities that generate income by huge portfolios of stuff, good as long as no one asks how healthy are the things in the portfolios, until the pieces start going bad and stop making income in the aggregate. And it always is surprising and unexpected for legal purposes when they go tits-up.
A mortgage-backed security (MBS) is an investment similar to a bond that is made up of a bundle of home loans bought from the banks that issued them. Investors in MBS receive periodic payments similar to bond coupon payments. Those were the mortgages securitized and issued by Freddy and Fanny to unwary investors. One of the reasons for the past recession.
CDO stands for Collateralized Debt Obligation and it involves the pooling of debt to reduce risk and raise returns. CDOs have been widely blamed for the 2008 financial crisis, but most people do not know what they are. When a lot of debt (such as home mortgages) is pooled together, bonds can be issued on this debt. A major problem with CDOs may be that mortgages are split amongst the CDOs to such an extent that neither a master jigsaw puzzle solver, nor a Soviet bureaucrat may discern the fit.
What isn’t mentioned is that MBSs and CDOs would likely never been created if the Glass-Steagall Act had never been repealed. Glass-Steagall created a ‘wall’ between commercial and investment banks, a wall that no longer exists. The repeal allowed commercial banks and investment banks to become a single entity and to gamble with depositor money. It also opened the door for massive bank bailouts when their gambles failed and the banks were seen as “too big to fail” because their failure would have large negative effects on the economy. (It isn’t as if they didn’t even with the bailouts.)
In effect it helped privatize profit and socialize failure which in turn created a “Hey, we’ll make a ton of money if we succeed and we’ll still make a ton of money if we fail because Uncle Sugar will bail us out” atmosphere.
For those who don’t know their economic history, during the great economic expansion of the 1920s, banks could invest their depositors’ fund in stocks and bonds. As the stock market grew well beyond any reasonable level, the excitement continued. With the crash, depositors found their accounts were depleted, by such risky behavior. Such use of depositors’ funds was one of several reasons for the recession of 1929 becoming the great depression. Glass-Steagall required banks to split into banks used by customers for checking, savings and safer loans (usually backed by collateral such as car and home loans). Investment banks were allowed to loan for more risky loans (stocks, not included).
The change to Glass-Steagall made during the Clinton administration allowed all banks to have investment houses. However, they are not allowed to risk depositors’ accounts on the more risky loans or investments. Accounts protected by the FDIC are such protected accounts. This change allowed the banks to use the same buildings and personnel to perform both functions – giving savings as to labor and real property costs. After the recession of 2008, many banks split into separate corporate entities, retaining the same brick and mortar and personnel, but presenting a different face.
What really gets me is under Clinton, I know it sounds bad or worse come to think of it, Lenders were forced to lend to people who did not meet the criteria for a loan. So if the Lender wanted $$$ for the people that were able to afford to buy a house, they had to lend to those who weren’t able to afford to buy a house.
Same as Woodman. 🙂
Got it. Highly specialized finance knowledge that only pretty f’ing smart folks like our president understand.
There are a few others.
The problem is too many academics & other wastrels have misrepresented socialism, communism and capitalism to the point of them being disconnected from the reality of Marxism.
A well-meaning but ill-informed citizen told me that Canada is a socialist country and socialism simply means the government helps those in need… nothing more… So I quietly explained that Canada is not a socialist nation; we are a mixed-market economy with a parliamentary monarchist government with a too-robust welfare system which is slowly bankrupting us. He sputtered about our medical system. I asked what he knew (nil) and then healthcare is exclusively provincial jurisdiction as per our constitution and how the federal government routinely overreaches it’s authority to impose the “single payer” model.
I asked if he realized socialism meant the means of production were nationalized. He didn’t know what that meant and said he couldn’t see how that would work. I asked if he knew the difference between socialism and communism (ie: the elimination of property rights) and he looked shocked… but still protested that capitalism was abusive to the workers.
I explained that capitalism, like socialism and communism, were words Marx made up and that capitalism, as Marx represented it, had never existed…
The level of ignorance about basic political concepts is disconcerting. Who knew Idiocracy was a “how to” guide for leftists?
Point, communism means state ownership of the means of production — both industrial and agricultural. Socialism requires either ownership or state direction of such. Both, Adolf’s national socialism and Benito’s fascism allowed private ownership. Just produce as many Heinkel bombers and panzers as the state requires.
See “syndicalist socialism”. Certain corporate entities favored by the government are “in the club” and are allowed to operate as fits the government’s desires. those which are not, are not permitted to operate at all.
Simson in Germany was a case in point. In the Versailles Treaty period from 1919 to 1932, Simson & Co., Suhl continued to manufacture or rework small arms for the Reichswehr just as they had since the 1860s. Within a year after Hitler’s ascent to power, Simson was gone, broken up between DWM and Spreewerke.
Why?
Simple.
The Simson family were Jewish.
There are other examples.
One of the Great Lies of the left is that many countries have “corporatism”, i.e. governments run for the benefit of corporations. They define this as a form of “capitalism”.
In fact, most such states with close “cooperation” between the government and private entities are pure syndicalist socialist types. The government commands and the private entities obey, not the other way around.
GM and Chrysler, under TARP, and the “too big to fail” bank bailouts after FM\2,were nearly perfect examples of “syndicalism” in action. and the left screamed “corporatism!” but you may have noticed, they didn’t object to Obama’s plan, just that they thought those companies somehow had too much “independence”. They demanded nationalization and would settle for nothing less- and they still are in that mode today.
The left tries to use the lie of “corporatism” to disguise their real process of creating “syndicalism” as a precursor to true, no-holds-barred, obey-or-we-will-kill-you communism.
And people keep believing them.
clear ether
eon
The people keep believing them because they were educated in the public (socialist) school system, and have not even heard the words “corporatism” or “syndicalism”. In fact I haven’t heard them until today, but your explanation makes perfect sense. We need a long slow revolution of the education system in this country to reverse the last 80 years of subversion.
Thank you. If you want an object lesson in syndicalist socialism, study the way Italy was run by Mussolini and his gang from 1922 to 1943.
Then compare it to modern Democratic Party dogmas.
No wonder The One liked to be photographed with his chin up in an Il Duce pose. Over and over again;
http://1389blog.com/pix/Mussolini-and-Obama-striking-a-pose.jpg
clear ether
eon
The irony is that we expect our children, educated in “free” government schools, to be taught economic principles that expose the limitations and downright dangers of government. Your pal is precisely the kind of product I would expect from such schools. The “free” part just ensures that it is uneconomical for any significant schooling alternative to arise that would seriously challenge the propaganda factory.
Okay Chris, isn’t it about time for some skin to give everybody a breather? Staying wired up about things we can’t do much about with out resorting to the bullet box isn’t healthy or productive. Anyone who just wants to be outraged these days can just turn on CNN or browse Yahoo.
No, let’s stay focused on these seditious existential threats that are so popular with the knuckle dragger crowd these days before it’s too late.
When they came for me…
I advised them that if they did not withdraw to the curtilage IMMEDIATELY that I intended to open fire with a “high caliber” (I know it’s either high power [which a 7.2X51/.308 win, is NOT] or large caliber [which IIRC a .308 IS] but I don’t expect THEM to know it) and continue to fire until they either withdraw completely or they put me down. I have decided that I would prefer to die in my own home than in a latter day Bergen-Belsen.
WayneM: But the commissar in school and the ones on the TeeVee told him “words”. They said that was all he had to know. Sooon he would know “wrecker” and “traitor” since those are the only reason “socialism” can, and always does, fail. He’ll have to learn to read it up-side-down from the sign they hang from his neck. The “well meaning” always go first. It is an old tradition.
But I agree with “Exnuke”. We need more “art” to encourage the soul. There is no shortage of “wailers” out there. Even though the current cartoons can be entertaining, It ain’t “ART”.
From “pharmacology”; the dose is the poison.
Just sayin’.
The Nordic Model beloved by the left as socialism done right is not socialism, and they try to tell the left that they have a free market economy supporting a welfare state. The left doesn’t want to hear that.
Meanwhile, Venezuela is a socialist nation. Our self-labelled Best And Brightest just trot out the old “They didn’t do it right”.
Reality has no place in their world view.
The pragmatic Right half of Sweden has successfully prevented the mental Left half from going full FemSoviet. A constant, ongoing struggle…
Norway and Denmark use their North Sea oil profits to finance their adult Disneyland. However, leaning on a wasting asset isn’t the best long term solution. Norway advertises that the oil provides only 20 percent of government revenue. However, they omit the taxes paid by employees, VAT and taxes paid by companies that support the oil industry. In reality, about 30 to 33 percent of government revenue relies on the oil fields.
Who said socialism works great until you run out of other people’s money.
Lenin referred to socialists as ( useful idiots ) and when he was done with them they where executed.
Margaret Thatcher.
I have followed “CollusionGate” passionately from the beginning and, yes, the slow grind of the wheels of Justice tries my patience. That being said I recognize the need for Fox News to fill a 24 hour news cycle.
However, it is tiring to watch the news channels (even Fox) cover political fist fights as if they are world wars. The Democrat contenders for the crown are unserious (but dangerous) pygmies in their values and tactics…. *I just changed my mind … the 2020 Democrat nomination battles are nothing but the epilogue to CollusionGate’s attempted coup d’etat.* “Let the Good Times Roll Fox News!*
WH,
Margaret Thatcher, British Prime Minister, The Iron Lady, said that.
“We” HAVE to ensure there’s SOME vehicle that pays the MSRP for “higher” education, medical “attention”, SRO housing, SNAP debit cards, and legal “representation” , so “we ALL” can have free
school, health, shelter, food, and law!
Or something.
A lot of smart words from a lot of smart people, but the TLDR version is this:
When gov gets involved with most anything other than national defense, the entities whose only ultimate raison d’etre is money/power (political, economic, academic, media) those entities will soon be irretrievably and irredeemably corrupted.
And so they are.
What part of Constitutional Enumerated Powers do they, and we, not grok?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/germany-for-first-time-sells-30-year-bonds-offering-negative-yields-11566385847
Negative yield bonds?! W-T-F for?! I may as well just take my paper cash and hide it under my matress. Inflation will erode the money’s value just as fast, and it will still be in my possession, to spend on something of value, that will retain its value long after the bonds have “matured”.
Buy a solid asset. Gold. Silver. Hammers. Road and land excavation equipment. People always got to move dirt.
Firearms. Ammo. Survival gear. Just in case you have a boating accident and lose your current favorites.
So it all boils down to a few smart people, dumber than a rock, have convinced half the country that they know best.
Half the country believes them, also being dumber than a rock, and between them they will proceed to destroy everything to achieve their unachievable dream and kill all the rest of us in the process.
Got it.
As politicians always have said, I only have to win the election by one vote.
From whence disaster can spread.
Of course to be accurate, at least half of that half that think they want socialism, make no investment and get free returns.
Just look at the modern “homelessness industry”. What was once done by spirited volunteers is now done by staff-heavy “non-profits”. The government plays into the party as well, by requiring unhealthy enabling practices. Eric Hoffer reallly nailed the process – “Things start out as a cause or movement. They then become a business. They end up becoming a racket”.
We must give the Progtard DildoCrats credit where credit is due, since they answer Voltaire’s prayer for us everyday:
“Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.”