700 Billion Dollar Question

So put them in with the other thieves that are doing 10-20. then multiply their time by the ratio of stolen goods. That should be good for 2,000 years EA.

 

Personally, I'd like to see them do hard time. But when you commit a crime without violence or threat of violence, the BoP puts you in a minimum-security or no-security prison. (There's actually no security at Yankton, or wasn't when I was there. The only thing stopping you from walking away is the threat that they'll find you and then put you in a prison with an actual fence.) But I like your idea of multiplying their time by the amount of money they stole. Actually, with a long enough term, the BoP might just regard them as a flight risk and put them in a level 1 prison with a fence.

At Sandstone FCI (a level 1-2 prison) the inmates live in very large barracks. No cells (unless you're in administrative detention or disciplinary segregation) and no privacy. Nobody considered dangerous is there and you're extremely unlikely to be the target of violence unless you do something stupid, but the living conditions are so crowded that it's very unpleasant. I'd be satisfied if the sub-prime crooks did 20 years there and lost all their assets so their families could not benefit from their crimes.

I knew a guy at Yankton who had defrauded S&Ls of what he said was half a million dollars. He socked it away where the government could not get it, and felt it was well worth the 18 months he was serving. That would be sad, if these guys serve a year or two in an FPC and manage to hold onto the millions they stole, but that's probably the worst that will happen to any of them.

 

Interesting how some saw this coming before Bush was even prez..

The complete story.. New York Times date line Sept 1999
Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending - New York Times

Alternate link

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink


Hmmm... 4 more years of Bush's economics are starting to sound good verses Obama revisiting Clinton's total annihilation of our global economy.

 

YOU were keeping them out of your nice person... Western europe never fell into comunism.

Now is their turn, and now US is beginning to be worried, theay are no longer communists but the most greed capitalists, more than USA, last time I was in Moscow, I saw an amount of Lambos Ferraris, Hummers, Maybachs, Rolls, etc you will never see... With hotel rooms for my 4 star standard starting always from 500$...

They are full of natural gas, oil, and a lot of manpower living in the deepest misery...

If I were you, I would be afraid of Russia... For me it has no sense...

 

And why do you think Western Europe never fell into communism? It's because our much-hated nuclear weapons and armed forces were there protecting your nice person.

Last time I checked, it was Europe who was more dependent on Russian energy. They've got Europe by the balls. Does that make sense for you?

 

No war for oil has been started by Europe on its own, for the shame of their citizens...

Look at our roads, even driving a BMW 530 we were saving more fuel than any american...

And, we are not so dependent from them as you think, I think US economy would suffer more the eventual shortages than EU...

Have I heard fuel shortages in Atlanta??? No fuel shortage in EU as far as I know...

Regarding your nuclear weapons... ok, what could I say, you were helpful, but remember, CCCP fighted against the same enemy, then your individual greed (and their greed) played the role of cold war, you just defended your market, they defended their own... don't try to tell me it was solidarity... a comunist europe would have defeated USA... you just were defending yourselves... Don't tell me stupid things. I thank all the help you provided in the 2nd WW, but don't use it as "freedom" Iraqi war...

 

Well, if the Russian performance in Grozny was any indication we would have absolutely slaughtered them without nukes.The Russians relied on their overwhelming numbers during WW2 to defeat the Germans. In the modern age they would have suffered crippling losses. Grozny showed how incompetent the Russian brass can be.

 

I didn't bring Iraq into this, you did. I'm only throwing stones at your assertion that Europe did not make any glorious benefit from the American influence in Europe after WWII.

It sounds more to me like you just want to hold on to your view that America is greedy and evil. Far be it from me to deprive of of that which you hold so dear.

 

There are many reasons for the current situation, however the bottom line has been a fairly simple question...

Do we prop up bad debt with good money or do we allow the consequences to occur?

In ky admittedly limited experience, I have found that throwing good money after bad is usually a very poor investment strategy.

I would rather not bail out anyone but if given a choice between bailing out indivuduals who mde poor chices vs financial firms that made poor choices, I'll take the people every time.

It simply seems to me that this bailout will likely create some sort of temporary stability over the next year or so as we slide into a recession and maybe even a depression that may well take years to overcome. or... We could allow the financial institutions to gobble eachother up and deal with their problems (heck... they created the problems), take the pain up front, and emerge from this fiasco in a year or so with a correction that will provide far more stability going forward and allow our economy to grow again a healthy manner.

Picking the pockets of the taxpayers to prop up poor business decisions by corporations and "experts" who likely made far more than most people, is insanity in my feeble opinion.

I'm all for helping others but if my business makes poor decisions nobody comes along to bail me out. This whole scenario is simply wrong, ethically and morally.

The 1999 piece in the NY Times pretty much spells it out.....

September 30, 1999
Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending

By STEVEN A. HOLMES

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.
The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.

''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''

Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.
In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.

''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''

Under Fannie Mae's pilot program, consumers who qualify can secure a mortgage with an interest rate one percentage point above that of a conventional, 30-year fixed rate mortgage of less than $240,000 -- a rate that currently averages about 7.76 per cent. If the borrower makes his or her monthly payments on time for two years, the one percentage point premium is dropped.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.

Fannie Mae officials stress that the new mortgages will be extended to all potential borrowers who can qualify for a mortgage. But they add that the move is intended in part to increase the number of minority and low income home owners who tend to have worse credit ratings than non-Hispanic whites.

Home ownership has, in fact, exploded among minorities during the economic boom of the 1990's. The number of mortgages extended to Hispanic applicants jumped by 87.2 per cent from 1993 to 1998, according to Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. During that same period the number of African Americans who got mortgages to buy a home increased by 71.9 per cent and the number of Asian Americans by 46.3 per cent.

In contrast, the number of non-Hispanic whites who received loans for homes increased by 31.2 per cent.

Despite these gains, home ownership rates for minorities continue to lag behind non-Hispanic whites, in part because blacks and Hispanics in particular tend to have on average worse credit ratings.

In July, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed that by the year 2001, 50 percent of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's portfolio be made up of loans to low and moderate-income borrowers. Last year, 44 percent of the loans Fannie Mae purchased were from these groups.

The change in policy also comes at the same time that HUD is investigating allegations of racial discrimination in the automated underwriting systems used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to determine the credit-worthiness of credit applicants.

 

Excerpt from B&M article.....

Full story. http://businessandmedia.org/printer/2008/20080924145932.aspx