Current Financial Mess 22

[cjd97]

I thought that a group of Engineers would be the perfect audiance to ask the question......Is this financial crisis being talked about on TV for real? What do you guys think?

A large part of me doesn't feel sorry for people who bit off more than they could chew with their mortgage. I also don't feel sorry for the banks who wrote the bad mortgage. I personally think we should let the banks fail, let the people lose their houses, and get back to the old times of actually sharing risk when lending/borrowing money, ie having 20% down to buy a home.

Kind of a side note, with everyone supposedly losing their homes and the banks not being able to liquedate them, where does the PMI insurance come into play? I would assume these folks are paying PMI if they are "subprime" loan canidates. Isn't PMI designed for situation such as this?

Just wondering your thoughts.

 

[thruthefence]

ie mortgage brokers; there was a broadcast on NPR about mortgage brokers in Florida, one of the biggest problem areas, it told how some 10,000 or so "Licenced" brokers in that state were convicted felons. Apparently Florida had maybe 3 people assigned to certify & police that particular aspect of the mortgage industry. It also alluded to the fact that the "mortgage scam" was actually 'taught' by the con artists in prison as what to do once you're "outside".

here's a link:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92793930

and here:

http://floridaforeclosurefraud.com/...on-out-of-a-job-felons-still-brokering-loans/

when there is this much "easy money" out there, via "easy credit" the roaches come out from under the rocks.

 

[BigInch]

zdas, I disagree with your comment about the electorial college. Don't be so hasety to condem the Constitution. The EC is a form of a check and balance similar to why the House has its number of members based on population from each state and why the Senate has fixed equal number of members from each state. In the Senate, each state is equally powerfull, but in the house the larger states effectively have more power. The electorial college, based on population (House of Representatives) is a check against the immense imbalance of power that a state with low population has in relation to a state with high population in the Senate. Obviously, it is grossly unfair, "population-wise" for Alaska to have as much power in the Senate as California, but was necessary for the states to agree to unify. To counter that imbalance, the HR was created, based on population, and all the duties were split. One of the duties is the election of the president by the electorial college, since based on population, is essentially a HR function. The states with the largest populations were intended to have more influence over the election of the president. The president is elected by the states according to their populations. So, IMO, the EC is a perfect division between the power of the states and the power of the nation's people as a whole. Essentially it tends to prevent a group of states with relatively low populations from having too much relative influence in the politics of the legislative branch of the federal government, just as they do not share equal powers with all the states in the House of Representatives. It therefore prevents undue influence of a region of the United States over the will of the whole population as a nation. But, likewise, it was never intended that the president was to be an officer elected solely by the nation's people, as is the common misconception, as doing so the people would then have too much influence over the will of the states. The EC power split by state also tends to check the "American Idol" or "Messiah" or herd effect of an entire population, but ...not at times when great changes are needed.

"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
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[zdas04]

BigInch,
Do you really believe your post or are you just pulling my chain?

The way I see it, each state gets membership in the Electoral College equal to the sum of their representatives and senators.

A state like Wyoming with around 1/2 million people has three votes so each person in the state gets 1/166,667 of a vote. In California there are 36 million people and 53 representatives and 2 senators--1/645,000. With the Electoral College someone in Wyoming has 4 times as valuable a vote as someone in California.

That just doesn't jibe with my understanding of the "one person one vote" concept. The whole concept of "winning a state" and getting 50.00001% of the vote in a state and all the EC delegates also flies in the face of my idea of "democracy".

A bunch of states have decided on their own to divide their EC votes (which is not prohibited in the Constitution, a document that I revere) to approximately match the popular vote which seems to help, but it doesn't mitigate the problem of voters in small population states having a disproportionate voice.

Reading the Federalist Papers and the discussion seemed to be about getting a prompt vote count instead of equity. I may just be reading too much into it.
David

 

[IRstuff]

Dave,

That's exactly the intent. The idea is to prevent "tyranny of the majority" by ensuring the minority would have a disproportionately large vote, making it critical that a candidate pays at least lip service to those states, otherwise, one could simply spent one's time campaigning in the high population states and blow off all the other states.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[zdas04]

Then it is a stupid intent. There is no state that has an homogenous opinion on any subject past today's weather. There are liberals, conservatives, and every other flavor of wacko in every state. Why should the accumulation of environmental wacko's in Oregon cancel the votes of Conservatives in that state?

David

 

[vc66]

Whoever wins the popular vote should win the election, IMO.

V

 

[TheTick]

It's "fair" because those are the terms the states agreed to when they joined the Union. As an entity, the USA as a country is a collection of member states, not just a pile of people in one arbitrarily subdivided region. It is the states that decide who the president is. It's not a "national" election, it's a simultaneous election of electors in all 50 states.

Some states are divvying up electoral votes by percentage of popular vote. That's up to each state to decide. It's not up to the federales.

It's about States' rights. In the Civil War, the South was in the right about everything but the slavery issue.

 

[TheTick]

The more populist we get in our selection of presidents, the lower quality we will have. It was only recently that politcal parties started selecting candidates almost entirely by votes in primaries. Dumb idea.

Political parties are actually private entities, and should maintain stronger control over who they select. Now the parties have virtually no control over the quality of their candidates. That's how we got the likes of Clinton vs. Dull; W vs. Kerry and W vs. Gore. Lose-lose elections 3 times in a row.

 

[ctopher]

I know my vote doesn't count either way, and now at the point where I really don't care. Everyone that has ran for Pres, Senate, etc for the past couple decades I didn't care about and not much has got better since.
It's no different than going to a car lot and deciding which sales person I want to help me, but I don't have a choice!

my .02, sorry.

Chris
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 08 3.1
AutoCAD 08
ctopher's home (updated Aug 5, 2008)
ctopher's blog
SolidWorks Legion

 

[BigInch]

Perhaps I did get the effect backwards, but my point still stands. Its a states rights thing, its not at all about the popular vote or the absolute wishes of the nation's people.

Yes, there is the "danger" in a democracy that the rule of averages takes precedence. If it was about the rule of only the intelligent, or the dumb, only the landowners or the renters, only the rich or only the poor, or fill in your own pet attribute, then it just wouldn't be democracy now would it.

Votes never count. They only confirm decisions already made by those involved in the process.

"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
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[BigInch]

Tick, I had to star you for your point about popular votes being a relatively late introduction into the electorial process. Its a very good point as its plainly evidence of the original intent having been diluted by the "popularity contest" aspects of the current situation and assures that only those who can afford the massive campaign expenses can ever hope to enter any campaign for any major office. It virtually assures that only the rich can be viable candidates and that Joe the plumber, or you or myself can never aspire to hold any office above dog catcher. The only hole in their methods was a possible opening for a massiah that can generate massive campaign donations. The guys already in power knew damn well what they were doing when they changed it to a popularity contest. They guaranteed that those in power pretty much would stay in power forever after... at least until they screwed up horribly.

"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
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[davidbeach]

The biggest advantage to the electoral college at this point is that we will never have the need for a national recount following a presidential election. It might turn out to be very close overall but it won't be that close in most states. Therefore, no matter how close the national results, only a limited number of states might need a recount. On the other hand, if it were just the popular vote we wouldn't be in the mess we are now.

 

[hokie66]

BigInch, TheTick, well done in explaining and defending the electoral college system. It makes perfect sense to me, and I think it is brilliant, rather than "stupid".

Tick makes the best point of all about the proliferation of primaries. Populism has taken over, and this makes 4 lose-lose elections in a row.

 

[BigInch]

Yes hokie, as usual, there have been so very very few changes to the original system, as "envisioned by the founding fathers", that have proven themselves that hindsight would suggest that they should have required 7/8 agreement to effect ammendments. I hesitate to suggest 7/8, simply because 3/4 is what the Constitution originally required and you know, that's probably the best number as well. 7/8 might have prevented the "Prohibition" debacle, but have denied the possibility of enacting the other ammendments which have proven themselves to be good changes.

A also like davidbeach's comment noting the potential for recounts and other challeanges to the electorial process with a popular vote. Can you imagine what this year would be like with the "current financial mess" (remember that?), if recounts prevented any president from taking office for 6 months or so? The potential delay in seating a president caused by court cases seeking to address voting process errors, voter right issues, fraud, registration errors, lost ballots, counting errors, hanging chad (remember that?)etc. could be catastrophic in pressing times, the current mess perhaps being only a minor one of those.



"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
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[BigInch]

Just saw this quote,

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." Winston Churchill

"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
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[BillBirch]

BigInch,
So is watching reality / "talent" shows with viewer voting, or for that matter TV ratings in general.

 

[SomptingGuy]

... back to my thinking that voters should write down the name of their chosen candidate.

- Steve

 

[IRstuff]

As one might recall, there were no "environmental wackos" in 1789. There were, however, a clear delineation between the wants ans desires of the rural/frontier states vs. the more populous states. The electoral system was a concession to those states, to bring them on board the Constitution, by ensuring that those of the original 13 states would have some degree of veto power relative to the more urbanized and heavily populated coastal states.

While the original reasons are OBE, the rationale is still valid. The Constitution is ALL about checks and balances.

The "environmental wackos" keep in check the "oil drilling Mafia." I, for one, certainly don't want my coastline littered with oil derricks and polluted water from oil spills. Particularly since the reserves in the US are pitiful compared to elsewhere. Even if we could get ALL the oil in US out of the ground, it would amount to barely a few years or decades of consumption, at which time we would be bone dry and leverageless.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[BigInch]

IR I certainly agree with your comment about conservation of homeland oil. As everybody knows by now, every drop of home oil that can be conserved for later use will help the ever worsening issue of supply security and interruption, if nothing else.

A few decades of meeting less than one half of the almost always increasing national demand hasn't gotten anywhere in the past, so its proven that it isn't a reliable energy strategy for the future. As we have already seen, it will result in very expensive oil .. at best. Everyone seems to think that drilling at home will make cheaper oil available to Americans, but they also fail to recognize that the domestically produced oil price went up in accordance with market conditions too. That logic fails.

As far as offshore drilling is concerned, I grew up on the Gulf Coast and have done a lot of scuba diving off the rigs there. While they may not be the prettiest things in the world, they are relatively clean these days and do attract much sea life. I for one don't believe that they are the cause of very much oil pollution. While there is some natural seepage of oil from Gulf of Mexico bottom, I believe that much of what is seen is the result of the shipping traffic and balasting operations, not necessarily related to the petroleum economy alone.

Personally I don't like wind turbines or vast solar fields located in highly traveled and visible scenic areas either, but they obviously have environmenal benifits over offshore drilling, coal mountain mining and coal, oil and NG burning power plants. I also think its better to spend money on green power in any form than on an oil war in Iraq. (I say that, because even Allen Greenspan admitted it was common knowledge.)

While the present financial crisis is blamed on other things, I believe a good portion of the past USD devaluation and the forthcoming recession was caused by pumping 20-25 billion out every month for foreign oil. In the last 30 years, I have noticed that whenever oil prices spike for a year, 2 years of recession or a near-recessive US economy is the result. This time the effects of those two factors have to be multiplied together as well as to that of the war cost. What I find really incredible is with all that, everyone still wants a tax cut. Does everyone think those bills never need to be paid? The only practical way to pay for it all that I can see is to allow massive inflation and pay them back in cheaper dollars. That is also the fact that doesn't get mentioned when some say that "The taxpayer made money" the last time they did it with the mortgages in the 90's. Sure the taxpayer made money, but only because the inflation rate made it possible to sell the properties off at a higher price. So what this new bill will do is put everything on ice, until the inflation rate heats up and brings the prices back to the level they were or higher. Man.. you can do a lot of stuff with the books when you don't include the inflation that I think is sure to follow. You think its been bad this last year? Nothing to what's going to happen next year. I hope I'm wrong, because inflation and recession isn't a very nice thing at all.

"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
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[thruthefence]

IRstuff; what "leverage" do we have now?