US Politics Mega-thread - Page 612

On November 07 2013 11:52 ziggurat wrote:
It's funny to come to the US politics thread and see no one talking about the disastrous roll-out of the Obamacare federal insurance exchanges. No one is talking about "if you like your policy, you can keep it". I would love to know what all the liberals here think about these issues!

On November 07 2013 11:52 ziggurat wrote:
It's funny to come to the US politics thread and see no one talking about the disastrous roll-out of the Obamacare federal insurance exchanges. No one is talking about "if you like your policy, you can keep it". I would love to know what all the liberals here think about these issues!

On November 07 2013 11:46 Roe wrote:


Why aren't they correct? I'm assuming you've read the article since it was homework for today's class.

On November 07 2013 12:26 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
GS doesn't sell MBS or internet IPOs to grandma, they're selling to sophisticated buyers who not only have the ability to decide value on their own, but a duty to as well.

On November 07 2013 12:28 sam!zdat wrote:


bullshit. they're selling it to grandma. you actually believe this "the market is full of rational actors" crap huh

On November 07 2013 12:23 farvacola wrote:
That's stupid; there are plenty of "American liberals" who wanted a public option and are actual liberals, whatever the hell that means.

On November 07 2013 12:35 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

Not everyone can buy MBS and IPOs. Do you really read all these books you keep linking to?

On November 07 2013 12:35 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

Not everyone can buy MBS and IPOs. Do you really read all these books you keep linking to?

On November 07 2013 12:51 sam!zdat wrote:


you're selling it to grandma because you are selling it to things grandma "owns," like her pension fund. which is run by some busyness school clown

and yokels lining up to buy twitter right now so i dunno about yer IPOs

On November 07 2013 13:01 IgnE wrote:


You have a tendency to revert back to your ideological knee-jerk responses even when the issues have already been discussed to death. Shouldn't your extreme free-market opinion be that Golden Sachs can be as shady and nefarious as it wants, but that you don't approve of the bailout and think that we should have let the financial industry collapse into itself, destroying the world's economy but setting the stage for new creative capitalist growth out of the ashes? How can you say this bullshit when you know what actually happened, i.e. the banks got bailed out. They engage in systemic risk-taking, extreme leveraging, and ordinary deception because they can pass the buck to the federal government. These points are already conceded. It's like you forget what's happened and start from ground zero every time with what your ideology tells you should be the correct answer. At least have the gumption to admit that Goldman is a predatory profit-seeking corporation, and that you are ok with that, but that you want it to die when its risky investments blow up in its face.

On November 07 2013 13:21 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
yeah sam, the busyness school clowns at GS are omniscient and the busyness school clowns at the pension fund are all stupid.

On November 07 2013 13:28 sam!zdat wrote:


they're all idiots, obviously. the blind leading the blind.

On November 07 2013 13:30 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

Then why should GS treat it's opinion as the one true truth?

On November 07 2013 12:44 farvacola wrote:
Well there are Democrats that wanted single payer too

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.) -- both possible 2016 Republican presidential contenders -- may be at odds again, the day after Christie celebrated his reelection.

During a Senate hearing Wednesday on the federal response to Hurricane Sandy, Paul voiced his disproval of the way some have politicized television ads meant to garner support for recovery fund campaigns.

Though Paul did not address Christie by name, he railed against funding campaigns in New Jersey that heavily featured political candidates, saying the ads give "a little bit of a black eye" to recovery efforts. The October 2012 storm killed more than 148 people and caused $68 billion in property damage.

“Some of these ads, people who are running for office put their mug all over the ads while they’re in the middle of a political campaign," Paul said. "In New Jersey, $25 million was spent on ads that included somebody running for political office."

Paul said this could create "a conflict of interest," upsetting taxpayers who expect their dollars to be spent otherwise.

"And that's why, when people are trying to do good and trying to use the taxpayer's money wisely, they're offended to see our money spent on political ads. That's just offensive," he said.

Paul reportedly also took issue with New York ads paid for using recovery funds. New Jersey and New York were hardest hit by the storm.

On November 07 2013 13:46 IgnE wrote:


Because when it's selling toxic shit to thousands of other banks in order to pad its own bottom line, there are no repercussions when it all goes bad, because there will just be a bailout. You seem to just be shifting the blame to the "sophisticated buyers" who bought all that shit from GS. It's like blaming the homeowners who bought homes that were mortgaged to the hilt because they were told that a home is a great investment that can only go up in value. You can't say it's just the buyers fault when GS claims to have a duty to its client while its employees are sending intraoffice emails laughing about how dumb the person they just sold the garbage to is for willingly getting fleeced.

I don't understand how you can sit here in 2013 and claim that GS is not knowingly fleecing people in order to line its own wallets with the security of a potential bailout in the background if anything goes wrong. Do you not remember the Abacus Fund, where GS lost $1bn for its client investors based on GS's own supposedly expert advice? Perhaps a particularly damning fact is that you would have been much better off simply investing in GS Inc. stock over the last ten years than actually letting them manage your money. They are predators on the financial landscape sucking up surplus capital and you apparently see no problem with this in a world where the bank bailouts "were necessary."

On November 07 2013 14:19 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
and then using it for something.

On November 07 2013 14:19 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

Most "toxic shit" wasn't that toxic. AAA MBS defaults were extremely ratre. The big problem there wasn't huge investment losses, it was how the securities were being used (like cash, which caused a run). As for something like Abacus, I think there were some disclosure issues there, but I don't think (correct me if I'm wrong) GS was managing client money there.

You seem to be mixing issues here. If we're discussing GS selling "shit" there's zero need to bring up bailouts. GS is in zero need of a bailout from selling things, be it shit or gold.

"Sucking up surplus capital" is what the financial sector is supposed to do. That's where my comment about the RS article sounding like a left wing version of "end the fed" came from. The financial sector is supposed to enable economic activity by quickly grabbing surplus money and then using it for something.

Facts of the case that all parties have agreed upon include:

• Goldman was approached by John Paulson of Paulson & Co. to assemble a synthetic CDO, dubbed ABACUS 2007-AC1, in exchange for a $15 million fee.
  
  
• Goldman brought in an outside asset manager (ACA Capital) to aid in the selection of collateral that was to comprise ABACUS. In the end, it consisted primarily of subprime mortgage securities.
  
  
• Goldman sold ABACUS to German-based bank IKB.
  
  
• Paulson effectively shorted ABACUS by entering into credit default swaps to buy protection on specific layers of the CDO (the senior tranches).
  
  
• The CDO ultimately failed as a result of the subprime market meltdown. In the end, John Paulson netted approximately $1 billion, IKB lost approximately $150 million, ACA Capital lost approximately $900 million, and Goldman lost approximately $100 million (which was partially offset by the $15 million fee it received from Paulson & Co.).

The disagreements between the parties center on the information Goldman provided to the parties on the “other” side of the transaction and on the sales strategies Goldman employed to close the deal.

In short, the SEC alleged that Goldman made materially misleading statements and omissions in connection with the ABACUS CDO placement. The SEC charged that Goldman’s marketing materials for ABACUS conveyed that ACA Management, an independent third party with experience analyzing RMBS credit risk, selected the reference portfolio of the RMBS underlying the CDO. In fact John Paulson (who, unbeknownst to IKB, had a direct adverse economic interest in the instrument) played a significant role in the portfolio selection. Additionally, the SEC alleged that Goldman’s salesman for ABACUS, Fabrice Tourre, misled ACA into believing that Paulson had invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the equity of ABACUS. Tourre further said that Paulson’s interests in the collateral selection process were aligned with ACA’s when in reality their interests sharply conflicted.