Thai Stock Index Plummets, Hits lowest since 2003

[LaoPo]

Sorry Spee, larvidchr and Steely Dan but I have no intention to drag this topic any further into a political debate about the Republican and Democratic candidates for the US elections and whether they are good or not so good.

Political discussions about foreign countries is not allowed on TV.

THIS topic is about: Thai Stock Index Plummets, Heading To Lowest Since 2007

Personally, I went too far already and I'm sorry for that. Mea Culpa.

Let's stay on topic, please.

LaoPo

[larvidchr]

Thank you for that information Steely I was not aware that the UK had their own sub prime problems other than those they have from buying in on the US market, and of cause there is the election and all statements over there should be viewed in that context.

[larvidchr]

Sorry Spee, larvidchr and Steely Dan but I have no intention to drag this topic any further into a political debate about the Republican and Democratic candidates for the US elections and whether they are good or not so good.

Political discussions about foreign countries is not allowed on TV.

THIS topic is about: Thai Stock Index Plummets, Heading To Lowest Since 2007

Personally, I went too far already and I'm sorry for that. Mea Culpa.

Let's stay on topic, please.

LaoPo

OK LaoPo, it is a money subject but the line is of cause very thin to politics, so I will end it here for my part, I would not want to risk getting black listed, no pun intended.

Regards

Edited September 23, 2008 by larvidchr

[AlKing]

The only day that SET won't fall is when it is a weekend or public holiday.

[Jai Dee]

BOT chief insists on going along with Suchart

Bank of Thailand (BOT) governor Mrs. Tarisa Watanagase insisted she could work with new finance minister, Mr. Suchart Thadathamrongvej, stressing there was no significant capital flight from the country amidst prevailing turmoil in the US financial market following Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy.

“There is still ample liquidity in local money markets to support the Thai economy”, Bank of Thailand governor Mrs. Tarisa Watanagase said yesterday. NBR>

"There is no need to inject added liquidity into the markets," she said.

Mrs Tarisa added that prevailing turmoil on Wall Street over the past month would have a negligible impact on the Thai financial system and that capital outflows were low compared with other countries in the region.

Major central banks around the world have been injecting hundreds of billions of dollars into the international financial markets to stave off a complete seizure of credit markets in the wake of Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy and the near-collapse of insurance giant AIG.

Mrs. Tarisa stressed that exposure of Thai banks to Lehman Brothers was insignificant compared with their total balance sheets.

The central bank estimated that Thai banks hold seven billion baht worth of Lehman Brothers investments or forward exchange contracts.

Total outstanding foreign assets held by Thai banks are also relatively small, at US$7 billion. Mrs. Tarisa said that a number of banks were in the process of unwinding their overseas positions to reduce risk.

Meanwhile, the appreciation of the Thai baht is being driven by weakness in the US dollar, which has fallen against most currencies over recent days as investors forecast prolonged difficulties for the US economy as the costs of the financial crisis increase.

Baht yesterday was quoted at 33.74/80 baht to the US dollar, a one-month high. Last week the Thai currency was among the best performers in the region against the dollar.

"The fact that the baht appreciated stronger than other regional currencies may reflect the fact that foreign capital outflows from Thailand have been less than from other countries in the region," Mrs. Tarisa said.

She brushed off concerns that the central bank may have difficulties working with Suchart Thadathamrongvej, the presumed successor to Surapong Suebwonglee as Finance Minister.

Mr. Suchart, an economist and academic, was a strong critic of the central bank's move to raise interest rates earlier this year to help curb inflation.

But Mrs. Tarisa said she did not expect any problems. "The central bank is confident that it can work with anyone. There are no conflicts," she said.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Vachira Aromdee, director of international economics for the Bank of Thailand, said 20 regional central bankers were in agreement that the US financial crisis would have a modest impact on the region.

Last weekend in Bangkok, the Bank of Thailand hosted the 27th Seanza Governors' symposium, which brought together central bankers from 20 countries in the Asia Pacific, Australia and New Zealand.

Mrs Vachira said while the fallout from the US crisis was expected to be mild for the region, central bankers agreed that more aggressive policies were required to help accommodate the rise in volatility in financial markets.

Source: Thai National News Bureau Public Relations Department - 24 September 2008

[sriracha john]

Dropping like an over-sized anchor again at first bell this morning...

SET falls 5.8% on US bailout failure

Thai shares lost 5.8 per cent of their value in the first minute of trading Tuesday on the news that US Congress had rejected a 700 billion dollar bail-out for the US financial system.

The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) index crashed through the 600-point barrier in the first minute of trading, hitting 571.15, down 35.14 points or 5.8 per cent.

- DPA / 2008-09-30

[AlKing]

Dropping like an over-sized anchor again at first bell this morning...

SET falls 5.8% on US bailout failure

Thai shares lost 5.8 per cent of their value in the first minute of trading Tuesday on the news that US Congress had rejected a 700 billion dollar bail-out for the US financial system.

The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) index crashed through the 600-point barrier in the first minute of trading, hitting 571.15, down 35.14 points or 5.8 per cent.

- DPA / 2008-09-30

Oh my god. I think I lose another zillion.

[nickh]

Asia Stocks Fall in Worst Rout for 21 Years as Bailout Rejected

Sept. 30 (Bloomberg) --

Asian stocks dropped, extending the worst global sell-off in 21 years,

after the rejection of a $700 billion plan to rescue the financial system by U.S.

lawmakers exacerbated concern more banks will fail.....

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...5g&refer=uk

[ratcatcher]

Any predictions on where the U.S.dollar and the Thai baht are heading in the next few weeks?

Today U.S.dollar about B34 + or -. I believe.....

Edited September 30, 2008 by ratcatcher

[george]

Breaking News:

World markets nosedive;

Emergency meeting called by Thai Finance Minister

Full story:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/World-Market...-M-t215251.html

[thailand_tom]

Interesting to know what this means for AIA Thailand (100% AIG owned). They have millions of policies here.... Thai english speaking media have not written a word about it.

My wife could not find out anything from our (Thai speaking) broker (yet).

Anybody?

http://www.forbes.com/markets/2008/10/04/a...3markets27.html YOU CAN CHECK BLOOMBERG OR GO TO THE AIG STOCK QUOTE PLENTY OF NEWS..I DON'T THINK AIG WILL MAKE IT IF IT ALREADY BLEW THROUGH 61 BILLION OF THE 85 BILLION LOAN..BUT GOOD LUCK

[sriracha john]

another 2% drop this morning...

Thai shares open 2.10 per cent lower

Thai shares dropped 12.38 points or 2.10 per cent when the market was open for trading Monday morning. The composite index of the Stock Exchange of Thailand dropped to 577.67 at 10:10 am with a trading value of Bt1.389 billion.

- The Nation / 2008-10-06

--------------------------------------------------

currently at 11:45, it's even lower...

569.20 -20.85

[toptuan]

BOT chief insists on going along with Suchart

Bank of Thailand (BOT) governor Mrs. Tarisa Watanagase insisted...there was no significant capital flight from the country amidst prevailing turmoil in the US financial market....

"There is no need to inject added liquidity into the markets," she said.

Mrs Tarisa added that prevailing turmoil on Wall Street over the past month would have a negligible impact on the Thai financial system ....

Mrs. Tarisa stressed that exposure of Thai banks to Lehman Brothers was insignificant compared with their total balance sheets.

....

Meanwhile, Mrs. Vachira Aromdee, director of international economics for the Bank of Thailand, said 20 regional central bankers were in agreement that the US financial crisis would have a modest impact on the region.

Source: Thai National News Bureau Public Relations Department - 24 September 2008

I'm so relieved.

Thank God for a consistently transparent government bureaucracy we can all trust!

Edited October 6, 2008 by toptuan

[PeaceBlondie]

It may be off topic, but so what? If Carter and Clinton wanted to give every Black welfare recipient two Cadilacs and a mansion, they needed help from lots of Republican voters and bankers. What we have just seen is the failure of government to govern, banks to run their banks, and executives to run corporations. They all should have been paraded down Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue naked and in shackles. Instead, guess who gets to save us? The same folks who raped us.

[sriracha john]

the afternoon session, at 15:00, reveals even further significant dropping...

561.45 - 28.60

[Spee]

It may be off topic, but so what? If Carter and Clinton wanted to give every Black welfare recipient two Cadilacs and a mansion, they needed help from lots of Republican voters and bankers. What we have just seen is the failure of government to govern, banks to run their banks, and executives to run corporations. They all should have been paraded down Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue naked and in shackles. Instead, guess who gets to save us? The same folks who raped us.

Well said PB!

Here's a couple other ways of looking at it:

1) The original Congressional bailout bill was a mere three pages long. It didn't pass. The bailout bill that eventually was passed last week was a whopping 450+ pages long. So in order to get it passed, the Congress had to add 400-some-odd pages of pork. Sort of makes one sick, doesn't it?

2) From an interview with the noted economist Dr. Walter E. Williams here: http://www.objectivistcenter.org/ct-1750-.aspx

"TNI: Finally, if you could recommend one book for Americans to read, what would it be?

Williams: It would probably be Frederick Bastiat’s The Law. He lays down a philosophy that explains what government is. He’s been very, very influential in the way that I look at some things. He asks, How can you determine whether there’s been legalized plunder? And he says: See if government does something that, if a person did the same thing privately, he would go to jail.

For example, I could see an elderly lady sleeping out on a grate in the dead of winter, and I could come up to you with a gun in my hand, and say, “Sir, give me your $200.” Then, having gotten your $200, I’d go down and buy the lady some food and housing and medical attention. Well, most people would say I would be guilty of theft, regardless of what I did with the money.

So I ask them: Is there any conceptual distinction between that act, and when the government—when the agents of Congress, the IRS—comes up to me and says: “Williams, you know that $200 you made last week that you planned to buy some nice wine with? You will not do that. You’ll give it to us, and we will go downtown and help the lady out.”

Bastiat would say there’s no conceptual distinction between those two acts—that the first act is illegal theft where you go to jail, and the second act is legalized theft. Both acts involve taking the rightful property of one person and giving it to another, to whom it does not belong. Bastiat doesn’t actually explain it the way I do, but the gist of what he’s saying in his book is identical."

[AlKing]

I have lose everything. Why should I jump off?

[Payboy]

I have lose everything. Why should I jump off?

dont forget to tie your hands behind your back and stick your head in a polybag before you jump...

wouldnt want any speculation that it wasnt suicide...

[larvidchr]

It may be off topic, but so what? If Carter and Clinton wanted to give every Black welfare recipient two Cadilacs and a mansion, they needed help from lots of Republican voters and bankers. What we have just seen is the failure of government to govern, banks to run their banks, and executives to run corporations. They all should have been paraded down Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue naked and in shackles. Instead, guess who gets to save us? The same folks who raped us.

I am sure you are right, plenty of blame to spread around, but it did start some place and that is not just "so what" when the parading is to be done, the shackles we can agree on but the naked bit ahemm!

And it is unfortunately not just the people that "raped you" who get to save you, you have just landed your Country on our foreign aid banana republic list, admittedly it is to save our own asses since your enormous economy is, as it turns out unhealthily, interlaced with ours, but morally and ethically this one really is one you should take care of on your own, and an apology from your Politicians to the non American tax payers around the World who now have to help foot this bill and indirectly support US home-owners, would be quite in order.

Have a good one PeaceBlondie

[Spee]

but morally and ethically this one really is one you should take care of on your own, and an apology from your Politicians to the non American tax payers around the World who now have to help foot this bill and indirectly support US home-owners, would be quite in order.

Whooooooa there Nelly ............. !! Hang on just a sec ...

How exactly are you or any other non-American tax payers footing the bill and/or indirectly supporting US home-owners? Be specific please.

While waiting for your answer, I'll make a speculation. Possibly you, along with others, have made some investments in some stock market, whether in Thailand or somewhere else. Did you have any concept of the risk of investing when you made your investement? Did you invest with some (false) impression that you were entitled to some guaranteed rate of return with no risk of loss? When you made your investment, did you have any notions or were you advised that there may possibly be a correlation between your investment and the ebb and flow of the US stock market?

Frankly, with the market on the downswing or possibly nearing the bottom of a correction, any wise investor would be scraping up every spare nickel to invest in sound profitable companies whose stock is now likely to be a little or a lot undervalued.

Look at what Warren Buffet, arguably one of the savviest investors of all time, has done. He took a huge amount of money and invested it for a large share of a stable, profitable dividend paying company, Goldman-Sachs. The guy is going to make a killing for himself and his stockholders over the long run.

If I had spare liquid capital at this point, I would be grabbing all the stock I could afford in stable, profitable blue chip stocks, just as Warren Buffet is doing. Moving money out of the market now is what the herd mentality is doing. Unfortunately, those investors who really do well, like Warren Buffet, make a killing by wisely not following the herd and shopping for bargains. In today's market, there are a lot of bargains out there.

If the <deleted>' governments will just get the heck out of the way and let the free markets sort this problem out on their own, we would all be a lot better off over the long run. There is opportunity in FAILURE, just as there is opportunity in SUCCESS. Unfortunately current trends are for governments to try to solve one or more failed social policies with yet more taxpayer funded spending programs.

[animatic]

but morally and ethically this one really is one you should take care of on your own, and an apology from your Politicians to the non American tax payers around the World who now have to help foot this bill and indirectly support US home-owners, would be quite in order.

Whooooooa there Nelly ............. !! Hang on just a sec ...

How exactly are you or any other non-American tax payers footing the bill and/or indirectly supporting US home-owners? Be specific please.

While waiting for your answer, I'll make a speculation. Possibly you, along with others, have made some investments in some stock market, whether in Thailand or somewhere else. Did you have any concept of the risk of investing when you made your investement? Did you invest with some (false) impression that you were entitled to some guaranteed rate of return with no risk of loss? When you made your investment, did you have any notions or were you advised that there may possibly be a correlation between your investment and the ebb and flow of the US stock market?

Frankly, with the market on the downswing or possibly nearing the bottom of a correction, any wise investor would be scraping up every spare nickel to invest in sound profitable companies whose stock is now likely to be a little or a lot undervalued.

Look at what Warren Buffet, arguably one of the savviest investors of all time, has done. He took a huge amount of money and invested it for a large share of a stable, profitable dividend paying company, Goldman-Sachs. The guy is going to make a killing for himself and his stockholders over the long run.

If I had spare liquid capital at this point, I would be grabbing all the stock I could afford in stable, profitable blue chip stocks, just as Warren Buffet is doing. Moving money out of the market now is what the herd mentality is doing. Unfortunately, those investors who really do well, like Warren Buffet, make a killing by wisely not following the herd and shopping for bargains. In today's market, there are a lot of bargains out there.

If the <deleted>' governments will just get the heck out of the way and let the free markets sort this problem out on their own, we would all be a lot better off over the long run. There is opportunity in FAILURE, just as there is opportunity in SUCCESS. Unfortunately current trends are for governments to try to solve one or more failed social policies with yet more taxpayer funded spending programs.

If you invest in a balanced portfolio of bluechips and bonds

with a small percentage of more speculative forward looking growth stocks

you will likely weather most economic storms, with a tightened belt.

If you plunge drastically on hunches, or panic regularly you get loses and stress.

Most of these Wall Street basket cases forgot these basic rules,

in a headlong quest for individual brokers or brokerages to make

a name or a killing. Bush spent years putting in cronies that ignored

or dismamtled the existing structures that kept rapaciousness at bay.

We are NOW paying for that lack of foresight.

Most of these loses were based on new and speculative 'devices'

to leverage profits from thin air. And ignored blythly the basic rules

of good governance in banking and investments.

Pathetic really.

Edited October 6, 2008 by animatic

[LaoPo]

The SET has reached a 5 YEAR LOW -since October 2003-

551.80 = Change -38.250 = Change -6.483 %

That's (almost) -40% lower since it's highest point of 906 on October 30, 2007 - 1 year ago.

LaoPo

[LaoPo]

If you invest in a balanced portfolio of bluechips and bonds

with a small percentage of more speculative forward looking growth stocks

you will likely weather most economic storms, with a tightened belt.

Not THIS time animatic...not this time, not even with a tightened belt

LaoPo

[animatic]

If you invest in a balanced portfolio of bluechips and bonds

with a small percentage of more speculative forward looking growth stocks

you will likely weather most economic storms, with a tightened belt.

Not THIS time animatic...not this time, not even with a tightened belt

LaoPo

Perception, n'est pas is everything.

Voices like yours is why the markets fluctuate so wildely.

Gloom and doom. This is the talk that sold the bail out.

Well I wouldn't have bet the farm on the SET for any amount of money.

If that is what you are implying.

Taxes will go up, that's a given.

The dems become Tax and Salvage if Obama wins.

No choice he has been left with total <deleted> to work with.

But Bush wasted more on the war than this bail out.

Edited October 6, 2008 by animatic

[Spee]

Bush spent years putting in cronies that ignored

or dismamtled the existing structures that kept rapaciousness at bay.

We are NOW paying for that lack of foresight.

Most of these loses were based on new and speculative 'devices'

to leverage profits from thin air. And ignored blythly the basic rules

of good governance in banking and investments.

I would agree that Bush's executive fiscal policy enacted through the Treasury of trying to keep inflation artificially low has been positively awful. The Treasury policy to bail out one failed company but not another is also a horrible public policy. Bailing out companies is not the role of the Treasury. It's primary job is to manage the money supply and ensure there is sufficient money available to loan to banks when they need it. Bailing out private companies is out of scope.

However, the facts of the flawed treasury policy aside, your statements about Bush cronies being at the root of these problems are completely false and unwarranted.

It is a verified fact that under Bush, the Executive branch of government tried more than a dozen times between 2001-2006 to effect legislative change through Congress to rein in out of control social programs and lack of regulatory oversight. Each time, these petitions went to a quick death in the Congress. While I fault the Congress primarily, I also fault the Bush administration for lacking the instestinal fortitude and political savvy to get these changes implemented.

As for the root causes, we should look to a failed program from the Carter years, called the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) which was massively expanded under the Clinton administration, under the advice of people like HUD leader Andrew Cuomo, financial advisor Franklin Raines and legal adviser Jamie Gorelick.

Now let's fast forward to the post-Clinton years during which, for example, a quasi-public company like Fannie Mae was looted by its senior executives and run into the ground. Who was running Fannie Mae during this period, bankrupting the company while lining their pockets with hundreds of millions in pay and bonuses? Example number 1 would be Franklin Raines, who was the CEO of Fannie Mae. Example number 2 would be Jamie Gorelick, who despite having absolutely zero experience in the real estate business, was made a Chairman of Fannie Mae and was paid tens of millions of dollars. I could cite another former Clinton staffer who is still a Fannie Mae executive, but I think you get the idea.

So let's do the math here.

- bad social programs grossly expanded under the Clinton administration (the late 1990's to be specific).

- several former Clinton cronies getting grossly wealthy while "managing" the taxpayer backed company for which they were caretakers into bankruptcy.

- what's wrong with that picture? At the very least, it is malpractice and fraud.

I'm not trying to paint the Bush administration as saints by any stretch. But if we're looking for accountability and people to investigate and prosecute (and for sure I think we should), then let's keep the facts straight and put people like Raines and Gorelick at the top of the hit parade.

Once we're done with them, let's starting looking at people in Congress who blocked Bush attempts to increase regulation and allowed companies like Fannie Mae to run wildly out of control. At the top of that list should be people like Christopher Dodd, Barney Frank and wanna-be Prez Barack Obama, who had their noses in the front of the trough for monetary lobbying handouts from of all places, Fannie Mae. Gee, go figure.

As one of my heroes, Walter E. Williams says here: http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/video.apx.-c...09-25-0218.html

"These problems were caused by the government. If you see a building on fire, you don't call the arsonist who caused the fire."

Oh, and by the way, let's not just fault the US businesses who bundled and sold overvalued mortgages as securities. The only way they could sell these things is if there were buyers out there who thought they could make a buck off them. So people in the international investment community are equally to blame for not recognizing what was truly going on, when the facts were plainly out in the open.

A friend of mine in the UK is a very successful investment counselor. He saw these problems coming a mile away and got all of his clients out of these investments several years ago.

Why didn't other people do likewise? Let's just call it greed and/or incompetence and leave it at that.

[LaoPo]

If you invest in a balanced portfolio of bluechips and bonds

with a small percentage of more speculative forward looking growth stocks

you will likely weather most economic storms, with a tightened belt.

Not THIS time animatic...not this time, not even with a tightened belt

LaoPo

Perception, n'est pas is everything.

Voices like yours is why the markets fluctuate so wildely.

Gloom and doom. This is the talk that sold the bail out.

Well I wouldn't have bet the farm on the SET for any amount of money.

If that is what you are implying.

Taxes will go up, that's a given.

The dems become Tax and Salvage if Obama wins.

No choice he has been left with total <deleted> to work with.

But Bush wasted more on the war than this bail out.

Ah...I see. It's MY fault isn't it ?

I was under the impression that the whole debacle started with the subprime mess and the lousy products, invented and sold on/by Wall Street and allowed and promoted by the US Government, causing the crisis...

But, guess what, it's now MY fault....

I better go sit in the corner and feel ashamed...

BTW, what the heck do you care, sitting on a tropical island where I set foot on land almost 20 years ago ?

Why don't you go to the beach and enjoy life instead ?

LaoPo

[animatic]

Bush spent years putting in cronies that ignored

or dismamtled the existing structures that kept rapaciousness at bay.

We are NOW paying for that lack of foresight.

Most of these loses were based on new and speculative 'devices'

to leverage profits from thin air. And ignored blythly the basic rules

of good governance in banking and investments.

I would agree that Bush's executive fiscal policy enacted through the Treasury of trying to keep inflation artificially low has been positively awful. The Treasury policy to bail out one failed company but not another is also a horrible public policy. Bailing out companies is not the role of the Treasury. It's primary job is to manage the money supply and ensure there is sufficient money available to loan to banks when they need it. Bailing out private companies is out of scope.

However, the facts of the flawed treasury policy aside, your statements about Bush cronies being at the root of these problems are completely false and unwarranted.

It is a verified fact that under Bush, the Executive branch of government tried more than a dozen times between 2001-2006 to effect legislative change through Congress to rein in out of control social programs and lack of regulatory oversight. Each time, these petitions went to a quick death in the Congress. While I fault the Congress primarily, I also fault the Bush administration for lacking the instestinal fortitude and political savvy to get these changes implemented.

As for the root causes, we should look to a failed program from the Carter years, called the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) which was massively expanded under the Clinton administration, under the advice of people like HUD leader Andrew Cuomo, financial advisor Franklin Raines and legal adviser Jamie Gorelick.

Now let's fast forward to the post-Clinton years during which, for example, a quasi-public company like Fannie Mae was looted by its senior executives and run into the ground. Who was running Fannie Mae during this period, bankrupting the company while lining their pockets with hundreds of millions in pay and bonuses? Example number 1 would be Franklin Raines, who was the CEO of Fannie Mae. Example number 2 would be Jamie Gorelick, who despite having absolutely zero experience in the real estate business, was made a Chairman of Fannie Mae and was paid tens of millions of dollars. I could cite another former Clinton staffer who is still a Fannie Mae executive, but I think you get the idea.

So let's do the math here.

- bad social programs grossly expanded under the Clinton administration (the late 1990's to be specific).

- several former Clinton cronies getting grossly wealthy while "managing" the taxpayer backed company for which they were caretakers into bankruptcy.

- what's wrong with that picture? At the very least, it is malpractice and fraud.

I'm not trying to paint the Bush administration as saints by any stretch. But if we're looking for accountability and people to investigate and prosecute (and for sure I think we should), then let's keep the facts straight and put people like Raines and Gorelick at the top of the hit parade.

Once we're done with them, let's starting looking at people in Congress who blocked Bush attempts to increase regulation and allowed companies like Fannie Mae to run wildly out of control. At the top of that list should be people like Christopher Dodd, Barney Frank and wanna-be Prez Barack Obama, who had their noses in the front of the trough for monetary lobbying handouts from of all places, Fannie Mae. Gee, go figure.

As one of my heroes, Walter E. Williams says here: http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/video.apx.-c...09-25-0218.html

"These problems were caused by the government. If you see a building on fire, you don't call the arsonist who caused the fire."

Oh, and by the way, let's not just fault the US businesses who bundled and sold overvalued mortgages as securities. The only way they could sell these things is if there were buyers out there who thought they could make a buck off them. So people in the international investment community are equally to blame for not recognizing what was truly going on, when the facts were plainly out in the open.

A friend of mine in the UK is a very successful investment counselor. He saw these problems coming a mile away and got all of his clients out of these investments several years ago.

Why didn't other people do likewise? Let's just call it greed and/or incompetence and leave it at that.

I never said they were at the root causes,

but I did say I though that their policies made it MUCH worse than it should have been.

He tried for oversight of 'social programs', they fit his mantra of cut cut cut.

but little if anything for financial oversight. He may have made visible attempts,

but obviously only for show.

CRA was a good idea run badly.

I have a friend ho got a CRA loand in NYC to build a home and business in a area needing rehabilitation.

It worked perfectly the whole street perked up and became a communitee,

My friend paid his loan and has a nice home and working business.

This goes back into the Regan years.

It is long term and certainly congress was a prime culpret.

But in the much last 8 years this COULD have been dealt with

and not have gone nuclear as it just did.

When Bush had BOTH house and Executive.

Barney Frank and Dodd were NOT gonna control things then.

But nothing got done and this was still floating in the back ground.

But not deep background.

You argument is MUCH stronger than many posters.

And many points make good sense, but I detect a bit of a slant.

One way or another it's a cockup for sure.

[animatic]

Bush spent years putting in cronies that ignored

or dismamtled the existing structures that kept rapaciousness at bay.

We are NOW paying for that lack of foresight.

Most of these loses were based on new and speculative 'devices'

to leverage profits from thin air. And ignored blythly the basic rules

of good governance in banking and investments.

I would agree that Bush's executive fiscal policy enacted through the Treasury of trying to keep inflation artificially low has been positively awful. The Treasury policy to bail out one failed company but not another is also a horrible public policy. Bailing out companies is not the role of the Treasury. It's primary job is to manage the money supply and ensure there is sufficient money available to loan to banks when they need it. Bailing out private companies is out of scope.

However, the facts of the flawed treasury policy aside, your statements about Bush cronies being at the root of these problems are completely false and unwarranted.

It is a verified fact that under Bush, the Executive branch of government tried more than a dozen times between 2001-2006 to effect legislative change through Congress to rein in out of control social programs and lack of regulatory oversight. Each time, these petitions went to a quick death in the Congress. While I fault the Congress primarily, I also fault the Bush administration for lacking the instestinal fortitude and political savvy to get these changes implemented.

As for the root causes, we should look to a failed program from the Carter years, called the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) which was massively expanded under the Clinton administration, under the advice of people like HUD leader Andrew Cuomo, financial advisor Franklin Raines and legal adviser Jamie Gorelick.

Now let's fast forward to the post-Clinton years during which, for example, a quasi-public company like Fannie Mae was looted by its senior executives and run into the ground. Who was running Fannie Mae during this period, bankrupting the company while lining their pockets with hundreds of millions in pay and bonuses? Example number 1 would be Franklin Raines, who was the CEO of Fannie Mae. Example number 2 would be Jamie Gorelick, who despite having absolutely zero experience in the real estate business, was made a Chairman of Fannie Mae and was paid tens of millions of dollars. I could cite another former Clinton staffer who is still a Fannie Mae executive, but I think you get the idea.

So let's do the math here.

- bad social programs grossly expanded under the Clinton administration (the late 1990's to be specific).

- several former Clinton cronies getting grossly wealthy while "managing" the taxpayer backed company for which they were caretakers into bankruptcy.

- what's wrong with that picture? At the very least, it is malpractice and fraud.

I'm not trying to paint the Bush administration as saints by any stretch. But if we're looking for accountability and people to investigate and prosecute (and for sure I think we should), then let's keep the facts straight and put people like Raines and Gorelick at the top of the hit parade.

Once we're done with them, let's starting looking at people in Congress who blocked Bush attempts to increase regulation and allowed companies like Fannie Mae to run wildly out of control. At the top of that list should be people like Christopher Dodd, Barney Frank and wanna-be Prez Barack Obama, who had their noses in the front of the trough for monetary lobbying handouts from of all places, Fannie Mae. Gee, go figure.

As one of my heroes, Walter E. Williams says here: http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/video.apx.-c...09-25-0218.html

"These problems were caused by the government. If you see a building on fire, you don't call the arsonist who caused the fire."

Oh, and by the way, let's not just fault the US businesses who bundled and sold overvalued mortgages as securities. The only way they could sell these things is if there were buyers out there who thought they could make a buck off them. So people in the international investment community are equally to blame for not recognizing what was truly going on, when the facts were plainly out in the open.

A friend of mine in the UK is a very successful investment counselor. He saw these problems coming a mile away and got all of his clients out of these investments several years ago.

Why didn't other people do likewise? Let's just call it greed and/or incompetence and leave it at that.

I never said they were at the root causes,

but I did say I though that their policies made it MUCH worse than it should have been.

He tried for oversight of 'social programs', they fit his mantra of cut cut cut.

but little if anything for financial oversight. He may have made visible attempts,

but obviously only for show.

CRA was a good idea run badly.

I have a friend ho got a CRA loand in NYC to build a home and business in a area needing rehabilitation.

It worked perfectly the whole street perked up and became a communitee,

My friend paid his loan and has a nice home and working business.

This goes back into the Regan years.

It is long term and certainly congress was a prime culpret.

But in the much last 8 years this COULD have been dealt with

and not have gone nuclear as it just did.

When Bush had BOTH house and Executive.

Barney Frank and Dodd were NOT gonna control things then.

But nothing got done and this was still floating in the back ground.

But not deep background.

You argument is MUCH stronger than many posters.

And many points make good sense, but I detect a bit of a slant.

One way or another it's a cockup for sure.

[larvidchr]

but morally and ethically this one really is one you should take care of on your own, and an apology from your Politicians to the non American tax payers around the World who now have to help foot this bill and indirectly support US home-owners, would be quite in order.

Whooooooa there Nelly ............. !! Hang on just a sec ...

How exactly are you or any other non-American tax payers footing the bill and/or indirectly supporting US home-owners? Be specific please.

While waiting for your answer, I'll make a speculation. Possibly you, along with others, have made some investments in some stock market, whether in Thailand or somewhere else. Did you have any concept of the risk of investing when you made your investement? Did you invest with some (false) impression that you were entitled to some guaranteed rate of return with no risk of loss? When you made your investment, did you have any notions or were you advised that there may possibly be a correlation between your investment and the ebb and flow of the US stock market?

Frankly, with the market on the downswing or possibly nearing the bottom of a correction, any wise investor would be scraping up every spare nickel to invest in sound profitable companies whose stock is now likely to be a little or a lot undervalued.

Look at what Warren Buffet, arguably one of the savviest investors of all time, has done. He took a huge amount of money and invested it for a large share of a stable, profitable dividend paying company, Goldman-Sachs. The guy is going to make a killing for himself and his stockholders over the long run.

If I had spare liquid capital at this point, I would be grabbing all the stock I could afford in stable, profitable blue chip stocks, just as Warren Buffet is doing. Moving money out of the market now is what the herd mentality is doing. Unfortunately, those investors who really do well, like Warren Buffet, make a killing by wisely not following the herd and shopping for bargains. In today's market, there are a lot of bargains out there.

If the <deleted>' governments will just get the heck out of the way and let the free markets sort this problem out on their own, we would all be a lot better off over the long run. There is opportunity in FAILURE, just as there is opportunity in SUCCESS. Unfortunately current trends are for governments to try to solve one or more failed social policies with yet more taxpayer funded spending programs.

One of the ways have been the hundreds of billions of Dollars, the amongst others, most European central Banks was forced to pump into the system to support the Dollar a few weeks ago, and now the Governments supporting or buying up of many big European financial institutions who would otherwise fold under the burden from their US sub prime investments thus making the State the bearer/part bearer of the risk involved with these loans. The money used for these purposes is TAX PAYER money, get it?

Ireland, England and Germany being examples of country's that effectively have nationalised financial institutions to save them from folding, whatever future losses those institutions might have to take will be on the backs of the tax payers, the point being that the need to buy, and those perhaps future losses have not come mainly from risky domestic investments, but from the US sub prime scam.

Edited October 6, 2008 by larvidchr

[Spee]

but morally and ethically this one really is one you should take care of on your own, and an apology from your Politicians to the non American tax payers around the World who now have to help foot this bill and indirectly support US home-owners, would be quite in order.

How exactly are you or any other non-American tax payers footing the bill and/or indirectly supporting US home-owners? Be specific please.

One of the ways have been the hundreds of billions of Dollars, the amongst others, most European central Banks was forced to pump into the system to support the Dollar a few weeks ago, and now the Governments supporting or buying up of many big European financial institutions who would otherwise fold under the burden from their US sub prime investments thus making the State the bearer/part bearer of the risk involved with these loans. The money used for these purposes is TAX PAYER money, get it?

Ireland, England and Germany being examples of country's that effectively have nationalised financial institutions to save them from folding, whatever future losses those institutions might have to take will be on the backs of the tax payers, the point being that the need to buy, and those perhaps future losses have not come mainly from risky domestic investments, but from the US sub prime scam.

I'll ask the same question again: How are you specifically footing the bill and/or indirectly supporting US home-owners?

In the first paragraph, you mention the ECB has pumped liquidity into the monetary system. Ok fine, I'll buy that. But this has been done as part of a larger strategy to keep inflation under control (I think the reported target is no higher than 4.1%). How does this relate to you footing the bill and subsidizing US home-owners?

In the second paragraph, it sounds like you are blaming the socialist nature of European governments on the subprime problem, which would hardly be true would it? And as far as socialized businesses possibly suffering losses and potentionally pushing those losses on to the backs of taxpayers, I only have a few questions in response:

- Has such action by the ECB and other central banks affected you personally as yet? If so how?

- What is the direct (or indirect) subsidy relationship between you and a US home-owner?

- What the heck are governments doing playing around in the commodities markets in the first place? (and making very poor investment decisions to boot)

- Isn't there something fundamentally wrong with that? If I were you, I would be more pissed off at my home government for being so stupid and for having nationalized these businesses in the first place.

- Shouldn't this crisis be a call to action to Europeans and other affected nations to de-socialize, de-centralize and reduce the size and complexity of their elected governments?

As I've suggested before, there is always opportunity in faillure, just as there is opportunity in success. Shouldn't Europeans and other nations use this example of governmental failure as positive motivation and opportunity to reclaim their individual economic freedom from their government and rally to insist that their governments stick to the business of governing, and leave the business of running businesses to the businessmen (and women)?