o/t food for thought 10 years on

[KerrAvon]

Around 2003 the US mortgage market started to slow considerably , profits and bonuses obviously fell as a result .

The industry began a campaign to offer mortgages to the less wealth off , financially vulnerable and any Tom , Dyck and Harry it seems to bolster profit and more importantly bonuses .

Individuals took it upon themselves to place personal bonuses before the clients ability to pay , that seems to be at the heart of the industry's culture .

As I said illegal practices were used to gain the fee and then move on to the next victim .

The years that have followed have seen unprecedented misery in many forms , the majority of the millions affected are responsible working people .

Nobody really was taken to task over the matter considering the implications it caused .

Hardly the greatest advert for deregulation and free market capitalism Kerr .

Just as Venezuela and the wreckage that was left in Eastern Europe are great adverts for Socialist economics.

I can see that you want to paint sub prime borrowers as victims and understand why, but what about personal responsibility, animal? Are you saying that people did not appreciate that they were taking out a mortgage or that they would have to make repayments?

The reality is that borrowers were making the same gamble that lenders and traders in mortgage debt were making - which was that property prices would rise at such a rate as to make any increase in mortgage rates manageable.

[KerrAvon]

The information comes from the American Sociology Review Financial Crash 2007-2009 , its a 27 page PDF document which I am unable to link .

The individuals weren't prosecuted I gather because it was thought it would add more instability to the market at that particular difficult time .

I would imagine their guilt was without question given the industry paid substantial fines althought not through a criminal court clearly .

So you don't believe in individual responsibility then after all , the shareholders pick the tab up for the companies misdemeanors and a world wide crash and subsequent recessions .

Some of the information in your post came from a study called The Causes of Fraud in the Financial Crisis of 2007 to 2009: Evidence from the Mortgage-Backed Securities Industry, which is a study of white collar criminogenesis. Not all of it does though - there is material added in. Where did you get it from?

I understand that you need to have evidence against individuals to prosecute indviduals. I also know that the evidential standared required in criminal cases is substantially higher than in civil cases, which are what the settlements relate to. Finally, I understand that it is a feature of a capitalist system is that it is the owners of capital who carry the risk associated with that. They are the owners of the company so of course they pick up the tab in terms of loss in the value of their capital and reduced or non-existent dividends. If you don't agree with that you presumably think that the shareholders at Carillion should have been compensated when that company went belly up?

[millmoormagic]

Food for thought indeed...

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politi...rs-on-13239615

[ragingpup]

Just as Venezuela and the wreckage that was left in Eastern Europe are great adverts for Socialist economics.

I can see that you want to paint sub prime borrowers as victims and understand why, but what about personal responsibility, animal? Are you saying that people did not appreciate that they were taking out a mortgage or that they would have to make repayments?

The reality is that borrowers were making the same gamble that lenders and traders in mortgage debt were making - which was that property prices would rise at such a rate as to make any increase in mortgage rates manageable.

The problem I have with you repeatedly using Venezuela as a stick to beat Labour is that I personally, nor any Labour supporters/members I know, can identify with Venezuela, it's culture and economy and it bears no resemblance to the last Labour manifesto, which is what we have to go on in inspecting what a Corbyn government would do in the UK. Let's be honest, what Labour proposed was quite moderate, centre ground social democracy. I don't see why, just because Corbyn, and many on the left and beyond, admired what Shavez did for a short period of time in Venzuela before his death, and wished him and his successor well before it all went tits up, it means that there is any possibility or intention to implement any form of old school socialism onto the UK economy. You Kerr obsess about this in the way that you perceive that we all wear Corbyn lenses! Huge simplification and reduction of argument. Come on lad, you can do better than that

I'm happy to move towards more state controlled form of social democracy that uses the mechanics of the capitalist market but with controls and accountability of the market economy working for the people that live within it. The 2008 crash discussed in this thread, and any such boost/bust surges need to be anticipated, and regulated so that we all don't have to pay again for human nature.

[KerrAvon]

Why is that the Left are so quick to try to close down debate when it becomes inconvenient for you?

Whether it is Roly with his yawn images, you with your waahs to the mods and 'we've done this debate before' or Corbyn with his promise of state interference in our free press, you just can't live with different views to yours.

You say that no Labour members can identify with Venezuela? Really? I guess the goggles come with shutters:

https://reaction.life/ten-times-corb...ros-venezuela/

[sawmiller]

We don’t need Corbyn to re-create Venezuela here - a no deal Brexit will take us a bit closer to that

A Norwegian colleague of mine said that many of Labour’s policies would be regarded as reasonably mainstream in Norway. Interesting how others view us. What we lack here is an effective opposition and I can see both Cons and Lab parties splitting

[sawmiller]

Why is that the Left are so quick to try to close down debate when it becomes inconvenient for you?

Whether it is Roly with his yawn images, you with your waahs to the mods and 'we've done this debate before' or Corbyn with his promise of state interference in our free press, you just can't live with different views to yours.

You say that no Labour members can identify with Venezuela? Really? I guess the goggles come with shutters:

https://reaction.life/ten-times-corb...ros-venezuela/

Interesting link information but slightly undermined Kerr as reaction.life isn’t totally unbiased

[animallittle3]

Just as Venezuela and the wreckage that was left in Eastern Europe are great adverts for Socialist economics.

I can see that you want to paint sub prime borrowers as victims and understand why, but what about personal responsibility, animal? Are you saying that people did not appreciate that they were taking out a mortgage or that they would have to make repayments?

The reality is that borrowers were making the same gamble that lenders and traders in mortgage debt were making - which was that property prices would rise at such a rate as to make any increase in mortgage rates manageable.

The borrowers were the victims and the rest of the economic world too .

Without subprime products then there wouldn't be subprime lenders and subprime borrowers .

We aren't talking about one or two isolated cases here , thousands of individual cases were settled with regulators over predatory lending and securities fraud .

The difficulty in taking these allegations to a criminal court are extremely complex , the sheer monetary technical knowledge required by prosecutors to take a case to trial was one problem , even the regulators themselves were often struggling to keep up apparently .

In the 80's people within the industry offered themselves willingly and provided evidence to prosecutors and convictions were obtained , this doesn't appear to have happened post 2007 , possibly because the industry was under such close scrutiny due to the sheer size of the crash and may have frightened many people off who valued their career and on going lifestyle , code of corporate silence perhaps .

The Obama government were very worried about tax payers money at that post crash era getting tied up in very complicated and lengthy court cases , millions of americans had lost their jobs due to the crash and the subsequent recession was biting hard .

I think what's quite revealing is that the US finance industry found itself at a tipping point in 2003 and identified a highly profitable sector as the source to maintain profits and lifestyles , a companies reputation built over decades of good business practices were no match for greed and criminality it seems when push came to shove .


Not an industry I'd be willing to stand by but each to their own morality of course , the price of everything and the value of nothing springs to mind .

[KerrAvon]

Interesting link information but slightly undermined Kerr as reaction.life isn’t totally unbiased

Very few media sources can be said to be. The Daily Mirror wouldn't run that article for example, as it would be embarrassing for Corbyn who once said that Venezuela was ‘an inspiration to all of us fighting back against austerity and neoliberal economics in Europe’. About a sixth of the population have fled since then. I can understand why Labour supporters get all squirmy and want to talk about something else when things like that are mentioned.

[millmoormagic]

Why is that the Left are so quick to try to close down debate when it becomes inconvenient for you?

Whether it is Roly with his yawn images, you with your waahs to the mods and 'we've done this debate before' or Corbyn with his promise of state interference in our free press, you just can't live with different views to yours.

You say that no Labour members can identify with Venezuela? Really? I guess the goggles come with shutters:

https://reaction.life/ten-times-corb...ros-venezuela/

I'll tell you what is inconvenient, right wingers continually offering their support to the worst, the worst gov't in my lifetime, using Corbyn as a pathetic excuse. As Sawmiller says, the labour party's policies are far from radical, plain common sense for many, though it depends of course how you wanna look at it, either accept the status quo, you know, shyte rail service, shyte utility service, people really struggling to get by, millions of them, food banks and homelessness the only growth industry, great tax benefits for the rich though and of course, you're alright, jack...or really want to help the country out...