"Best editorial on the matter yet"

If you accept his limiting his discussion to 3 twenty somethings with affluent parents. If you dig a little deeper and consider all the old folks living in near poverty, disabled vets without jobs, homeless, formerly middle class unemployed due to the fallout from the 2008 crash, who are also part of the movement, then his editorial starts to fall apart very rapidly. As for the "90% of us who have jobs", the last time I checked the real unemployment rate is more like 25%. Sorry, David, but I think there must be a better editorial than this one out there somewhere. By better, I mean a little more reflective of the actual situation. On the positive side, I think the young editor has a very bright future at Fox News, or perhaps working with Rush, Glenn, Ann, or Andy.

Vote with your wallet, don't give the government power to over regulate the market.

Edited by justin_baker on 11/22/2011 17:25:52 MST.

"who was it that put the gun to the head of the mortgage lender and car load lender, forcing them to make that loan with no evidence that it could be paid back?"

Jim, I see what you are saying and it comes down to greed. Greed of the consumer, greed of the mortgage broker, greed of the local bank. If you re-read my previous posts, you will see that I am not putting all of the blame on the consumer. Certainly not. In fact, I clearly state my feeling that some blame reside with the mortgage broker, bank, etc.

But the consumer is hardly an innocent 'victim.'

Regarding the reality of lost equity in home purchase, I do agree. It is a shame. But many of these people bought when assets were horribly overvalued to begin with. And this goes back to a previous point, living within one's means. The sad part is, and I do agree with you, some folks got caught.

Interesting point about saving cash for a home. I had a good friend that sold his house at the peak of the market, paid off approximately a 75% mortgage and started renting. I thought he was nuts. When the market fell, he was then able to buy back a similar house for cash. No mortgage. When probed as to how he knew that the market was going to fall, he indicated that he had no idea but the combination of not understanding why the local housing prices had risen so significantly gave him concern. There was limited immigration and migration of people in his area. There were few new jobs created over a period of time. WTI was over $140 USD/Bbl but there was plenty of supply available. The equities markets were way up but companies were not posting significant growth and / or profitability. So his confusion led to perfect hindsight. I wish I was so lucky.

We see some of this happening now. Folks are able to get back into homes because the value has fallen and interest rates remain low. This is positive.

"Hey David,

Do you have a credit card? If so, quick now, detail for us the fine print you've agreed to and what it actually means in real life. Quick now, without looking ... what's the overdraft fee on your check card (if you have one). One last question ... when your job becomes collateral damage of the next financial sector fubar how many years will your reserves cover your current obligations? In the event that your current obligations can be met with a minimum wage job then I'll alter the previous question to "How many months can your reserves cover" ... you can bet your bippy it'll take months to land that min wage job."

Jim, I do have a credit card, but it is paid in full monthly so a balance is never carried. I may not be the norm but you are correct, I do not have any idea what the 'i' would be on the agreement. Given my monthly purchases would be just a fraction of a mortgage, I am probably not the best example. If I took out a $300K mortgage, I WOULD read the fine print.

" It was the small banks and mortgage brokers that pushed crap higher and higher."

They wouldn't have gotten past round one if Wall Street hadn't been willing to take it off their hands so they could go and repeat the process. And there were a few big players involved as well. The likes of Countrywide, Bof A, and Wa Mu aren't exactly Podunk village banks.

"It should then continue with your local government to push local companies to stop manufacturing overseas and to keep the jobs local. Then it should be driven higher with your State Senators to bring back manufacturing to America."

+1 Surprised? ;-)

"Been out there asking questions and listening to the people, eh David?

So while we're pulling statistics and "facts" out of our ar$es, I'll throw some out there too:"

;=)

@Craig - you know what the best thing about being Canadian is? Not getting bogged down in US partisan politics.

I think you should understand that 'Occupy' is not only a US phenomenon. It is happing here too. In Europe too. So truthfully, I DO see and talk to the local 'Occupy' on my way to my office.

Sorry about the '9 out of 10' comment. I should have said vast majority of 'Occupiers,' as I know how numbers can confuse.

I prefer to get my information on the occupy direct from my local occupation.

@ Tom.

You are bringing issues into the discussion that have nothing to do with economic collapse. You are confusing social justice and social programs with yet allowing people to pursue their American right of capitalism and consumerism. Unfortunately, you can't have it both ways.

Round one occurred at the branch level. The crap was there, it existed long before Wall Street ever got a hold of it. They just smeared it globally.

"I believe that like any biological organism, humans will eventually push back if pushed too far."

Maybe the "Occupy" movement is party of that push back

"The only reason we saw housing prices rise the way that they did was because people were willing to pay the high prices and in doing so had to borrow copious amounts of cash."

After the "great depression", Glass Steigal prevented investment banks from merging with commercial banks. This was repealed. Investment banks made huge profits from marketing mortgage backed securities. The commercial bank side then gave mortgages to anyone that would sign up so they could peddle the mortgages to the investment side. The blame is not the people that took out the mortgages they couldn't afford, it was the banks that lent the money to someone that didn't qualify. That created speculative bubble in house prices, which then burst, which was a major reason for current rescession.

Don't blame the people that took mortgages they couldn't afford, blame the banks.

Since 2008, they went half way back to Glass Stiegel, but we're still at risk of another financial crisis. We need more "regulation".

For the years before the housing bubble burst, I would get advertising letters at least twice weekly from my mortgage holder, Washington Mutual, urging me to do things like refinance my house at 125% of appraised value, of course with an adjustable rate mortgage. The last one I got was two days before WM went bust and the FDIC took it over. I wish I had saved it as a historical document, because it was so typical of how the banks were pushing people to borrow, borrow, borrow. Unfortunately (as it turned out), I put in the recycling Tuesday and it went off with the trash collection Wednesday. Thursday I checked the news to find that my bank was gone!

The good news is that I paid no attention to those letters, continued to pay my standard mortgage (low interest because I took out a 15-year mortgage instead of 30) and will have it paid off in another 1 1/2 years!

Note to bankers, do you due diligence before buying bad loans? Oh wait, they did. With insurance and the government to bail them out, they were happy to buy loans no matter how awful they were. It's no wonder that small banks were willing to offer bad mortgages because they knew they had a customer that'd buy it all.

Edited by leaftye on 11/22/2011 21:04:30 MST.

In any case, I went downtown to visit the Occupy San Diego group. I didn't expect them to be clean cut young kids, but the difference surprised me. Even though I knew where they were located, on the way there I thought I might have been wrong because I passed many large groups of homeless people, and some of those groups had tents lining the sidewalks. So I get to Occupy San Diego and the group is much smaller than the homeless groups I saw previously. There weren't any tents or sleeping bags. There were as many or more police officers than protesters. That displeased me greatly. Now there's an article on the local news site that says it's costing the city $2.4 million to secure that site. I didn't stay long. I'll go back if they're planning an event.

"Now there's an article on the local news site that says it's costing the city $2.4 million to secure that site."

You mean the tax payers.

Exactly. They're abusing their resources and spinning it to make it look like they're solving a major problem when there's no problem at all. I want to be mad at the police, but I doubt they'd have that presence if it was completely up to them.

Here's what I'm hearing. I worked 70-80 hours weeks, made good financial decisions, didn't waste money, don't buy new cars, and don't have credit cards. But I need my taxes increased to help pay for the people who did. Yeah, I'm all over that. And I do think corporations should receive tax subsidies to move manufacturing jobs back to the US. Although there are jobs available in the US, but people only want a job in their own home town. Some times you have to move to find opportunity. At least my family always did.

Joe, I think you have your signals crossed.

You know what infuriates me? When big corporations screw the economy, get bailed out and give their executives that screwed things up hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses shortly after. When a very well paid group of executives drive their corporation into the bankruptcy, and Joe stock holder loses his share of the business while the fat cat lenders/banks still own the same part of the business as before. When big corporations get huge subsidies, and instead of passing along the savings to their workers, they give their executives enormous bonuses.

I remember back when F. Ross Johnson's pay and especially his golden umbrella was considered grandiose.

I think the matter is really very simple: if there is such a vast amount of controversy and disagreement, so much discontent and anger, such a discrepancy between the haves and the have-nots, and so much confusion about how things work and exactly why there is all this financial meltdown in the first place, then obviously there is a deep problem. That's what the OWS protests are about. As a society (not on the individual basis) things aren't working. There needs to be a serious referendum and committed will to change the way the system is working. All around. The OWS movement, in its very nature as an unfocused voice, is the call to TALK.

Edited by butuki on 11/22/2011 23:24:45 MST.

This video is typical misinformation, misdirection, and straw men.
If you heard about OWS in some main stream media outlet- you do not know what it is about -period!
Please stop trying to argue against a movement you know nothing about, it make you look foolish.
The point of OWS is to bring public awareness and debate on issues that the partisan multinational corporate owned media refuse to have. They control the narrative and frame all the debates. OWS is about the people finding a way to counter act the media and find a way around them so we can have an honest public discussion about serious problems we face as a nation.
We knew the media would use EVERY tactic it had to smear the moment- and this tread is prof of it. Every critique Ive heard on OWS has been nothing but uninformed nonsense thats so far off the mark its hard to bring oneself to waste energy debating it.
This is a new era. If you want to know whats going on you need to go to the movements own sites and go to social networking sites like youtube. The revolution is not being televised -its being streamed.
Some fun facts from someone whos actually stood face to face with riot police and had discussions with everyone from old hippies to young libertarians:
- OWS is NOT anti-capitalist. The over whelming majority are pro capitalist. Yes, there are anti-capitalist in the movement but they are a minority and we all share common problems/issues and work together.
- OWS is about restoring democracy. If you have not been paying attention multi national banks and corporations have effectively co=oped our government. They do this through lobbying, controlling our currency, and controlling our media. Google citizens United.
There, now you can longer say that OWS has no message.

The bail outs, bad ecconomy, wars, national debt, and deteriorating standing in the world have woke a lot of people up to whats happening.

I understand it seems like OWS is all over the place, but thats because so many issues are tied into the fact that corporations ( special interest ) quite literally write our laws and regulations so that they can profit. You can not really name an issue that is not effected by this.
- the drug war, immigration, the war on terrorism, job outsourcing, union bashing, over-regulation of small business and family farms, school lunch, healthcare, medical science, corporate subsidies, and wide spread fraud in the financial sector,

here is some fun reading:
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/CLGF-msnbc.pdf

"Please stop trying to argue against a movement you know nothing about, it make you look foolish."

Who said it was anti-capitalist? Misdirected, unorganized, and unfocused yes, but not anti-capitalist.