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Ummm...somebody had to ask the banks for those loans, right?
Ireland, like Spain, has a bankers' problem, not a citizens' problem. The greedy banks sold too many products (construction loans and mortgages) to too many people, inflating a house building bubble. Nobody forced them. It's 100% the bankers' fault.
Ummm...somebody had to ask the banks for those loans, right?
When you're building 1.5 houses for each person in the country, you simply cannot lay it at the feet of the bankers entirely. Developers/Builders need to take a huge hit for this.
That being said, any banker with a room temp IQ should've seen the build up for what it was.
In the relationship borrower-lender, whom do you think has the most power, info, lawyers, accountants, loan application verifiers?
Since when does simply asking for a mortgage qualify for, succeed in obtaining a mortgage?
I was referring mainly to the developers and builders which I made pretty clear in a subsequent post.
In which case, the developers are not innocent waifs waiting to be preyed upon by evil bankers.
builders are liable for the construction loans. They shouldn't take out the construction loan if they don't have buyers. If builders build without themselves qualifying the buyer (beyond his down payment), then 'em.
All this is sourced back to the financial sector, which runs the planet.
Uhh... what?
Surprised no one called out this tidbit yet.
Just so I'm clear, you are stating that the Money Supply has increased 400% since January 2009?
Fed purchases of US debt up 450%
On Jan. 28, 2009, a week after Obama’s nomination, the Fed owned $302 billion in U.S. Treasury securities. On April 25, 2012, the latest date reported, the Fed owned five and a half time that much in U.S. Treasury securities--$1.668 trillion.
That is an increase from January 2009 of $1.366 trillion—or 452 percent.
Under Obama, the Federal Reserve has become the single largest owner of U.S. government debt. When Obama entered office, en ies in the People’s Republic of China were the largest holders, followed by en ies in Japan. At the end of January 2009, China owned $739.6 billion in U.S. government debt and Japan owned $634.8 billion.
thanks
So USA is paying interest on Treasuries to the Fed, instead of China, etc.
Pretty cool
It would be if the Fed hadn't just printed those dollars out of thin air to buy those bonds. The money that comes from China and Japan etc. are real dollars in circulation.
when the US govt buys Treasuries, it spends the money (aka real dollars).
The root problem now is not that situation, but that the 1% is blood-sucking up so much of the national income (and not spending it), while the 99% is not getting enough national income (the pie) to consume the economy upward.
If the more of the national income was going to the 99%, they'd be spending it and stimulating the velocity of money, the general weatlh.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 06-12-2012 at 04:25 PM.
So is it your contention that the 1% somehow render the money useless?
Here I was under the assumption, that no matter where the money flows, it still flows.
You don't mean that they are burning it do you?
The US government doesn't buy treasuries. The US government sells treasuries. The US has to sell more treasuries to fund it's bloated spending than private investors want to buy at the current rate of return, so the Fed waves it's magic wand and *creates* a new trillion dollars to soak up the difference, ultimately devaluing all the other dollars in circulation.
The Credit squeeze that was partly responsible for the size of the Recession has not gone away altogether. That is one of the reasons that the only way that people can get their financial houses in order is to de-lever. They can't get credit unless they are in pretty good shape vis-a-vis debt load.
Now why has the credit squeeze not gone away entirely? Because Bernanke et.al. had used the lowering of the cost of borrowing as the grease that kept us out of recessions or that minimized the pain of the recessions for at least since the days of GHW Bush. The last time debt costs were increased quickly and by a substantial amount was during the tenure of GHW Bush. The country went into a recession that LOTS of folks all over, and EVERY republican in the land, denounced as a political ploy by the Fed to give the White House to the other Party.
Since then the Fed has been paranoid about increasing borrowing costs or even not DECREASING costs when the economy was heading for a recession. The result of that continual easy credit was the bubbles that defined the economy throughout the 90's and the first decade of the the new millennium. That easy credit had more to do with the over-borrowing than anything else, including the housing policies of Republicans and Democrats combined.
The reason it is different now? The borrowing rate is damn close to zero!! And it has been at that low level since the George W. era. They can't lower it anymore.
That is why credit is still tight, why the economic recovery has been as slow as it has, and why the Quan ative Easing has not been more inflationary than it has been to date.
I am actually happy that the debt reduction in households and companies is occurring. It wouldn't be happening if people were able to borrow more. It is only happening because the Fed has shot every arrow in its quiver and 'happily' there aren't any more 'easy credit' arrows.
This is really little to do with politics, but no one in either party wants to believe that...so they won't.
no, the 1% don't spend 100% of their income, while the VAST majority of the 99% do.
boutons
yeah, right of course. govt borrows money by selling bonds.
the dollars aren't devalued unless their is inflation, and there isn't any inflation worth talking about now, just as Krugman et al predicted, proving yet again the deficit/inflation hawks to be wrong.
This is a problem, why?
Except the Fed hasn't "created" a new trillion dollars. As explained here. http://articles.businessinsider.com/...y-reserves-qe2
This is truly a superb explanation. And it says it quite clearly. Thank you.
Sorry Scott, I thought you were smarter than that. My mistake.
Comparing our situation to China is hardly relevant.
They have a huge population bubble working through the pipeline and can afford and actually need to expand their currency.
Saying "well they can do it, why can't we?" is definitely an apples and oranges comparison. Plus, your source is old. So 2011. Ask him now if he is still comfortable with the Fed infinitely printing money.
With the corps sitting on $2T cash, that's $$ that aren't in circulation.
deficit hawks can GF themselves. the priority now, short term, is to get 8% down to 4% unemployment. even there, as today's report shows, middle class earners dropped a lot more than lower class earners, ie, good job are gone. The VRWC/UCA war on employees is being won and will continue indefinitely.
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