[nfb-talk] blind and wanting to improve things, not get labeled

Fri Apr 23 17:58:49 UTC 2010

I am thinking there were other economic factors in the slump after Bush took 
office. Enron and Worldcomm failed.  I think the prosperity during much of 
the Clinton era was due to fraud under the table, the extent of which didn't 
become apparent until well into the Bush administration.
I didn't wholly support either Clinton or Bush.  I just am pointing out that 
when the blame game and finger pointing start, you can't point your finger 
at just one party or president.  I did take note of something odd however --  
during the Gore/Bush election, someone made the claim that if Bush were 
voted in, the whole economy would fail.  Now really.  The outcome of that 
election was a surprise to everybody, but even so, how could the election of 
any president cause that kind of effect? and who would know? Before John 
slams my mail as radical right wing, I am not. I tend to be for the 
underdog, especially if the underdog has a good idea *smile*
--le

--le

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John G. Heim" <jheim at math.wisc.edu>
To: "NFB Talk Mailing List" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, April 23, 2010 9:32 AM
Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] blind and wanting to improve things, not get labeled

Yeah, you're talking about repealing Glass-Steagal (sp?). But I don't
believe that was the main cause of the banking crisis. After all, other
countries had their own banking crisises  and they never had Glass-Steagal
in the first place.

What happened was that the amount of money in the world available for
investments doubled in a 10 year span from approximately 1997 to 2007.
That's why banks had all this money to give to people for their mortgages.
If you're wondering where all this money came from to give people half
million dollar mortgages, it came mostly from China and India.

You might wonder why we'd care if investors from China and Indai lose
everything they invested in American mortgages. Well, there's that old
credit default swap thing.  Banks selling the CDOs also sold CDSs. That's
really what brought AIG down. Of course, a lot of American banks and hedge
funds were heavily invested in CDOs too. So it wasn't just people in China
and India who got burned when the housing bubble burst, it was people all
over the world who owned CDOs. But the real culprit in the crisis was the
credit default swaps.  Banks sold CDOs to people in China and India but they
also sold them CDSs. For an extra few points, you could ensure that your
investment in the CDO didn't lose money. You might not make as much but you
couldn't lose. Its called hedging and smart investors do it all the time.
Hence the term "hedge fund".

Congress is working on a bill to regulate derivatives like credit default
swaps. There are lots of kinds of derivatives besides credit default swaps
and Congress is working on a bill to regulate them. Who knows if it will
have any teeth. Probably not.

Anyway, all this is why I say I don't think repealing Glass-Steagal was the
primary cause of the banking crisis. If it hadn[t been CDOs, it would have
been something else. The banking crisis had a lot of causes but number one
on my list is probably that derivatives weren't regulated. Still aren't.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Wm. Ritchhart" <william.ritchhart at sbcglobal.net>
To: "'NFB Talk Mailing List'" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2010 7:04 PM
Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] blind and wanting to improve things, not get labeled

> The banking slime really did not get going until the Congress and
> President,
> (Clinton), removed much of the Depression era bank regulation.  Just to
> prevent anybody claiming I am Just Clinton bashing, It was a Republican
> majority in Congress.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf Of John G. Heim
> Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2010 12:55 PM
> To: NFB Talk Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] blind and wanting to improve things, not get
> labeled
>
> Holy cow, I keep hearing this argument and each time I just become more
> boggled. How in the world can someone argue that a banking crisis
> resulting
> from poorly enforced government regulations proves that we don't need
> those
> regulations? Its to ridiculous for words.
>
> If you claim that the banking crisis came about because the government
> failed to enforce its own regulations, that doesn't show that we don't
> need
> the regulations. In fact, it quite clearly demonstrates how *much* we need
> them.
>
> Saying capitalism didn't fail is like saying the Titanic didn't sink. It
> was
>
> just that an iceberg got in the way. Yes, capitalism did fail. Government
> also failed but what it failed at was keeping capitalism from failing.
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "T. Joseph Carter" <carter.tjoseph at gmail.com>
> To: "NFB Talk Mailing List" <nfb-talk at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2010 3:07 AM
> Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] blind and wanting to improve things, not get
> labeled
>
>
>> Notably, most of the fraud that people blame on the "money crowd" that
>> caused the financial debacle was the result of about three large firms,
>> who were basically paying the government to not do proper oversight,
>> combined with the government's own socialized mortgage industry which was
>> operating ridiculously.
>>
>> Capitalism didn't fail, government and private corruption failed.
>>
>> A bunch of blind people debating it on a mailing list aren't going to
>> suddenly find the magic pill to fix that problem, because none exists.
>> We
>
>> do have several recessions and a couple of depressions to look at for
>> what
>
>> did and didn't work, but even those things that did work are not a magic
>> pill.  There are still bad times to suffer through.  The remedies that
>> work just make the bad times go away faster.
>>
>> I think we're nearing the end of the useful debate on the topic of
>> liberal
>
>> vs. conservative vs. party affiliation on this list.  It's clear to me
>> that Ryan's list has merit because there are more people in line with it
>> than its target audience probably thought.  I think that says what need
>> be
>
>> said on the matter.
>>
>> Joseph
>>
>> On Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 07:29:24PM -0500, David Andrews wrote:
>>>Yes, the government wastes some money, but so does private industry,
>>>small
>
>>>business, and everybody else.  No process is perfect, there will be some
>>>waste, fraud, and everything else in any process.  Look at the financial
>>>debacle we are just coming out of.  I don't think government is any
>>>better, or worse at running things as anybody else.  The money crowd
>>>wants
>
>>>to be left alone, until they mess up terminally, then they want the
>>>government to step in, no strings attached.
>>>
>>>Dave
>>>
>>>At 01:25 PM 4/21/2010, you wrote:
>>>>Hello-
>>>>I'm just going to put my two cents in here. I think that when the
>>>>government does stuff, it ends up swallowing up a lot of money that is
>>>>wasted. I have spent several months applying for jobs in the federal
>>>>government and it has been a bit of a comic sketch. At the same time,
>>>>we have people in our society for whom we need to care, and the fact
>>>>is that any point in time, most people end up in that position.
>>>>Ideally, we would privately take care of this on our own- people
>>>>within a community would rise up and put together their own education
>>>>system for their kids and for all of them, we would help people out
>>>>with food when they needed it, doctors and therapists would take on a
>>>>few patients and clients pro bono at any one time. But until people
>>>>choose to do that over buying that brand new car instead of continuing
>>>>to drive it even though it is no longer the latest and greatest, we
>>>>need to have the government programs on which to fall back. That
>>>>doesn't even address the fact that certain communities have a deficit
>>>>of such resources.
>>>>
>>>>At my own church, I am in charge of organizing local community service
>>>>activities. We have a solid core of people who give generously of
>>>>their time and energy and money, but there are others who are very
>>>>much occupied by the things in their own lives and they just don't
>>>>really contribute to anything. Fortunately, most will give to others
>>>>in some form, but there are a lot of causes and people out there to
>>>>give to. I am personally in my mid 20's and my peers are a notoriously
>>>>self-centered population. I know some people who meet that discription
>>>>and others who do not. Honestly, I don't know what you would need to
>>>>do in order to try and meet the needs of others. However, as a person
>>>>with my masters in counseling and with a lot of personal experience
>>>>working with people who are needy in both an emotional and physical
>>>>sense, itt is absolutely not as easy as giving them money for food
>>>>each month. Talk to me one on one if you want to know what it looks
>>>>like to try and quote unquote "help" someone with schizofrenia or a
>>>>personality disorder.
>>>>
>>>>In addition, I am currently taking a class on universal media design
>>>>at the local state university. The principles of the class have to do
>>>>with  making media and web sites accessible to everyone, whether they
>>>>are using an old computer on a dial up connection, using a smart
>>>>phone, the latest and greatest computer with whatever internet
>>>>browser, they are hard of hearing,  or a use a screen reader. Despite
>>>>its principles though, I have had to do a lot of self advocacy. They
>>>>have us learning about java script from on-line clips that do not
>>>>provide enough information for me to keep track of what is happening
>>>>in the visual part of the training. Someone asked me to give feedback
>>>>on the web site for the business association of downtown Denver in
>>>>preparation for the AHEAD conference here this summer. It is all in
>>>>flash, and I was unable to get any content off of it. The business
>>>>association doesn't feel particularly obliged to change their web site
>>>>at all, even if it also means that people out for the night cannot
>>>>pull up their site on a smart phone. The conservative principle is
>>>>that economic forces will convince them to change it, but they aare
>>>>not yet terribly interested. Along the same lines, the web sites at CU
>>>>are often times poorly designed to the extent of decreasing
>>>>accessibility, but as a whole group of sites are looking at being
>>>>redesigned in the next couple of years, the man in charge of it
>>>>doesn't know the first thing about concepts such as the W3 standards.
>>>>I met with him and showed him a bit about what makes his current site
>>>>that he manages difficult to navigate with a screen reader. Maybe he
>>>>will be motivated to learn more, butthus far people outside of
>>>>disability services at the university have been pretty apathetic with
>>>>regards to making accessibility improvements to sites. All of this is
>>>>just to say that I don't tend to find that the best ideas win out; too
>>>>many people are caught up in the concept of how things have always
>>>>been done and "it works for me, so it's fine."
>>>>
>>>>With all of this having been said, I vote we stick with putting
>>>>concepts out there without needing to label them as being part of one
>>>>group or another. I am all for innovation, change, and progress. No
>>>>political group gets to lay claim to those words and my use of them
>>>>does not put me in any one group.
>>>>
>>>>Amelia
>>>>
>>>>--
>>>>Amelia Dickerson
>>>
>>>
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