Ah, to be a Banker! How the world trembles beneath your feet. Men cower and women swoon. You have out smarted them all. Your power is rivalved by no other. You have brought the most powerful nations to their knees. And the President of the most powerful nation ever is rendered impotent in the light of your brilliance.
As a Banker you can run away with unlimited amounts of tax dollars -- in plain sight -- with no repercussion. No worries of recrimination and nobody around to stop you. The President has become your accomplice as your threats and suggested future actions send the President and all his men scurrying to do your bidding.
"Bring me more tax dollars!", excalims the Banker. "Issue more Treasuries! Make China buy more and then bring me the money."
The Banker is the master and the President the slave. No man on earth is his equal. Even those with the force and voice of millions behind him stand powerless in the Banker's eye. The Banker easily overcomes, loops around and dances between the lines of thousands of years of law and civilization. He has mastered it all and wields it towards his ends: the enrichment of himself.
Oh to be the Banker! I aspire to be nothing else and hope all youth or people looking for guidance in their professional life look upon the image of perfection as embodied in the Banker. He serves no country; country's exist to serve him. He has molded the state into a force for servitude of their people's. From dictatorships, republics and democracies, the Banker has enslaved them all. It's leaders and elected representatives are but messangers and staff to the Banker, put there to collect the people's resources and wealth for himself. And then persuade the general populace of the usefulness and utility of providing for the master Banker.
If only I had chosen to be a Banker, instead of a lowly engineer. But I take some solace in knowing my position in relation to the Banker's. And that I did not spend a better part of my life on my pursuits. Nor did I ever fall under any delusions of being in a position of power, as I know others may have. No, we are all servants and slaves of the Banker, just here to do his bidding. Anything else is beyond anyone's power.
I also post comments to an irc channel as they appear on haloscan. Click for a web irc interface: Mibbit IRC client widget (Or join the irc server directly: irc.realize.org:9996 #calculatedrisk)
CRbot would like to take this time to have some words.
First, to our sagacious, wise, and knowing benevolent benefactor and bestower of revealing financial charts adorned with red and blue lines: Please, for the love of your immortal God of mortals, can we keep the comment and layout changes to a minimum? I'm tired of whipping the code janitor, and may have to escalate to electroshock. If that's not possible, could you possibly give CRbot a 'heads up'?
Secondly, if you wish to have a online chat, I have graciously provided an IRC channel, which is a time tested, script kiddie abused method of chatting on the internet. It would not fail or falter due to CR's ability to generate immense traffic, and it has a web interface kindly produced by mibbit.com. If you do not wish to link to Mibbit IRC client widget then I can provide you with a direct link to mibbit.
Thirdly, to the rest of you humans, don't mistake my politeness for caring, feeling, empathy, or some other kind of worthless emotion.
FWIW, I was asked for four check stubs, two years tax returns and two months bank account records when I looked into refinancing, so far as I know that is still the case. This was for FHA.
cd-Indiana. FHA will still insure to 580 but I don't know of any other investors that will allow it, besides Countrywide. Also, rates they are offering(to a builder I know) are .5 to .75 below what is on their website.
This appears banks to decide which markets are impaired and which are not, and to build their models to use data (or wacky historical estimates even) from the markets they choose.
If this is GAAP there will be no way for banks to "opt out" visibly. Everyone will be tarred with this brush. It destroys the integrity of US financial reporting.
This article is consistent with the "predatory borrowing" view of Tyler Cowen; that many borrowers were not innocent victims but system gamers abusing cheap financing.
Obviously, there won't be much fraud on the lenders side anymore, as the mortgage securities market has all but frozen thus reducing the incentive to pawn out bad loans in the first place.
Why is "fraud for housing" increasing? It's the incentives, stupid!
Now that we're all subprime, the consequences are close to nil: "Penalties to the borrower rarely ever come in the form of prosecution; losing the home and becoming a subprime borrower for the next four to seven years—with the credit costs that implies—are the borrower's punishment."
With the government adopting an "each according to his needs" approach to mortgage write downs, even if you get caught, you may actually end up with a lower interest rate than the neighbor who did not lie!
Well, at least the little guy gets to benefit from mortgage fraud.
This comment thread has been HALO-IZED by CRbot.
http://realize.org/cr/halokit.php?halourl=http://www.haloscan.com/comments/calculatedrisk/5989754059454212782
Being a Banker
Ah, to be a Banker! How the world trembles beneath your feet. Men cower and women swoon. You have out smarted them all. Your power is rivalved by no other. You have brought the most powerful nations to their knees. And the President of the most powerful nation ever is rendered impotent in the light of your brilliance.
As a Banker you can run away with unlimited amounts of tax dollars -- in plain sight -- with no repercussion. No worries of recrimination and nobody around to stop you. The President has become your accomplice as your threats and suggested future actions send the President and all his men scurrying to do your bidding.
"Bring me more tax dollars!", excalims the Banker. "Issue more Treasuries! Make China buy more and then bring me the money."
The Banker is the master and the President the slave. No man on earth is his equal. Even those with the force and voice of millions behind him stand powerless in the Banker's eye. The Banker easily overcomes, loops around and dances between the lines of thousands of years of law and civilization. He has mastered it all and wields it towards his ends: the enrichment of himself.
Oh to be the Banker! I aspire to be nothing else and hope all youth or people looking for guidance in their professional life look upon the image of perfection as embodied in the Banker. He serves no country; country's exist to serve him. He has molded the state into a force for servitude of their people's. From dictatorships, republics and democracies, the Banker has enslaved them all. It's leaders and elected representatives are but messangers and staff to the Banker, put there to collect the people's resources and wealth for himself. And then persuade the general populace of the usefulness and utility of providing for the master Banker.
If only I had chosen to be a Banker, instead of a lowly engineer. But I take some solace in knowing my position in relation to the Banker's. And that I did not spend a better part of my life on my pursuits. Nor did I ever fall under any delusions of being in a position of power, as I know others may have. No, we are all servants and slaves of the Banker, just here to do his bidding. Anything else is beyond anyone's power.
OT: WTF? I literally walk away for 30 minutes and a 130pt rally turns to -10. What gives? What news broke?
FASB caves - Mark to Make-believe now rules
viva la bandos
"FASB caves - Mark to Make-believe now rules"
Link?
Frazier is a bit woozy late today.
I thin there maybe less fraud, but there is a greater willingness to classify fraud as fraud.
The Latest from Jesse:
SP Futures Hourly Chart at 3:45 PM
Any good Short ideas here? I like Aapl as a short how about yall?
Make-Believe link
Frazier used to refer only to GS
here.
Mark2Make-Believe
The link took me the the US FEd...
O/T :
"Depression Fears Subside on Bernanke Remarks, Rally in Stocks" from Blhuumbug :
Depression Fears Subside on Bernanke Remarks, Stocks (Update1) - Bloomberg.com
Was laughing my ass off .
Americans are completely oblivious that they are the laughing stock of the world .
Kermit was overtaken by Elmo
New Thread: FASB to Propose Changes to Mark-to-Market
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2009/03/fasb-to-propose-changes-to-mark-to.html ( 0 comments ...You could be FIRST! )
I also post comments to an irc channel as they appear on haloscan. Click for a web irc interface: Mibbit IRC client widget (Or join the irc server directly: irc.realize.org:9996 #calculatedrisk)
CRbot would like to take this time to have some words.
First, to our sagacious, wise, and knowing benevolent benefactor and bestower of revealing financial charts adorned with red and blue lines:
Please, for the love of your immortal God of mortals, can we keep the comment and layout changes to a minimum? I'm tired of whipping the code janitor, and may have to escalate to electroshock. If that's not possible, could you possibly give CRbot a 'heads up'?
Secondly, if you wish to have a online chat, I have graciously provided an IRC channel, which is a time tested, script kiddie abused method of chatting on the internet. It would not fail or falter due to CR's ability to generate immense traffic, and it has a web interface kindly produced by mibbit.com. If you do not wish to link to Mibbit IRC client widget then I can provide you with a direct link to mibbit.
Thirdly, to the rest of you humans, don't mistake my politeness for caring, feeling, empathy, or some other kind of worthless emotion.
--Your keeps-going-and-going-and-going bot
CRbot: Like the terminator, I'm back. Again.
Kermit Vs. Elmo Smackdown
YouTube - Sesame Street: Kermit And Elmo Discuss Happy And Sad
here's the FASB real make-believe link (though it's hard to tell what's real anymore)
http://craig.teamline.cc/fasb_archive3
FASB Meeting Archive
and why FASB has a .cc level domain is beyond me -
anon, what part of the country...FHA is taking 580 fico also...
I don't get this. Are there still low-doc loans available? How do people have the opportunity to misrepresent income?
FWIW, I was asked for four check stubs, two years tax returns and two months bank account records when I looked into refinancing, so far as I know that is still the case. This was for FHA.
cd-Indiana. FHA will still insure to 580 but I don't know of any other investors that will allow it, besides Countrywide. Also, rates they are offering(to a builder I know) are .5 to .75 below what is on their website.
Obama was the new Black
Now Bankers are the new Red
Soon Homeless will be the new "Norm"
If people think this increase in fraud is absurd, just wait until Obama's housing plan gets going. We'll have some real fun then.
This appears banks to decide which markets are impaired and which are not, and to build their models to use data (or wacky historical estimates even) from the markets they choose.
If this is GAAP there will be no way for banks to "opt out" visibly. Everyone will be tarred with this brush. It destroys the integrity of US financial reporting.
This article is consistent with the "predatory borrowing" view of Tyler Cowen; that many borrowers were not innocent victims but system gamers abusing cheap financing.
Obviously, there won't be much fraud on the lenders side anymore, as the mortgage securities market has all but frozen thus reducing the incentive to pawn out bad loans in the first place.
Why is "fraud for housing" increasing? It's the incentives, stupid!
Now that we're all subprime, the consequences are close to nil: "Penalties to the borrower rarely ever come in the form of prosecution; losing the home and becoming a subprime borrower for the next four to seven years—with the credit costs that implies—are the borrower's punishment."
With the government adopting an "each according to his needs" approach to mortgage write downs, even if you get caught, you may actually end up with a lower interest rate than the neighbor who did not lie!
Should be "mortgage fraud detection increased"; fraud has been there all along.
O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!