The most amusing thing to me about this Rick Santelli faux populist broker revolt is not his invocation of the Nixonian silent majority, but the utter lack of perspective it displays. Yes, there is a simmering discontent and anger out there, and clearly the Republicans are going to try to tap into it, but the problem for Santelli and his crowd is that the anger is not directed at the people who are losing their homes, but at the people Santelli spends every day rubbing shoulders with at the trendy Chicago restaurants the brokers go to these days.
The audacity of Santelli’s “revolt” is that a mere 75 billion is being spent to help struggling families repackage loans- a pittance in the terms of the gargantuan amount of money being thrown at the banks, the Wall Street wizards, and the rest of the rocket scientists who are the root of this problem. Case in point:
First, Arthur Santa-Maria called Bank of America to ask how to check the balance of his new unemployment benefits debit card. The bank charged him 50 cents.
He chose not to complain. That would have cost another 50 cents.
So he took out some of the money and then decided to pull out the rest. But that made two withdrawals on the same day, and that was $1.50.
For hundreds of thousands of workers losing their jobs during the recession, there’s a new twist to their financial pain: Even when they’re collecting unemployment benefits, they’re paying the bank just to get the money — or even to call customer service to complain about it.
Thirty states have struck such deals with banks that include Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp., JP Morgan Chase and US Bancorp, an Associated Press review of the agreements found. All the programs carry fees, and in several states the unemployed have no choice but to use the debit cards. Some banks even charge overdraft fees of up to $20 — even though they could decline charges for more than what’s on the card.
Santelli, who is kind of the CNBC version of a right-wing Cafferty, better be careful where he leads his mob with their chants of “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité,” because before he knows it, he could be looking down on the mob not as a leader but from his new position mounted at the end of a pike. Joe The Plumber isn’t big on nuance, and a broker wearing a thousand dollar suit is on the wrong end of the equation.
Rick Taylor
Perhaps I’ve been hasty in rejecting tarring and feathering as a solution; I’m beginning to think nothing less will give some of these guys a clue.
cosanostradamus
.
Boycott racist NY Post & dump Newscorp stock today.
CNBC sux, too, though. The media Right has got to go.
.
GSD
The same goes for Limbaugh, Beck and Hannity. My carpenter friend was picking up a business sign at a local shop and chatted up the owner who stated:
"Sean Hannity says we’re going to go from a recession to a depression to a revolution."
These multi-millionaire agitators might want to check their zip codes and see where ground zero for class revolts might be located.
They are playing with fire.
-GSD
sgwhiteinfla
We were talking about this at Swampland last night and I think Santelli better stay in the nice parts of town for awhile because everyday blue collar Americans aren’t buying his rant. Especially when he is probably making six figures to tell everyone that the economy and the stock market was fine all last year until the stock market crashed. Especially when the jobless report is now saying more than 5 million people are now unemployed. Especially with the foreclosure rate going up every month. There are a lot of people right now who are losing everything through no fault of their own who don’t think he should be on his pedestal calling them losers. He better hope he doesn’t look out his window of his high rise office pretty soon and see a mob coming with torches and pitchforks. If he wants to see some populous rage he just might get a chance to witness it first hand but not in the way he envisioned.
Dennis-SGMM
What’s the over/under, in hours, as to how soon Santelli addresses the Republican caucus?
DJShay
Brooks Bothers protest indeed. The only thing this does is solidify the fact that the Republicans seem to the be the party of the wealthy, always blaming the masses for downturns. It’s the dirty peasant’s fault. And they think a change in marketing is going to help them win over the very people they are dissing? Off the hook.
Punchy
This Santelli fuck was on NBC this morning, and I damn near woke the neighbors with my myriad swears and screaming. What a disingenuous fuck. He states all the Republican boilerplate about moral hazard, too much money, fucking the kids and grandkids’ debt situation, etc. Then at the end of the bit, when Lauer asks him what should be done, he claims there ought to be assistance to everyone, payers and deadbeats. Gov’t assistance.
So, for about 2.2 minutes, he rails against spending money on anyone for anything. Then, turns around and demands gov’t assistance for every homeowner. I about tossed the TV out the window.
At least the dude debating him had the cajones to say "When your neighbors go into foreclosure, it hurts the values of your houses, Rick". With the emphasis on the plural of house. Beautiful.
Montysano
The outrage among the citizenry just shows the scary efficiency of the corporate news/noise machine. Trillions for the bankers and Wall Street Boyz, and nary a peep from the Limbaugh/Hannity Brigade. $75B for aid to actual citizens and they’re weeping about TEOTWAWKI.
Palin/Santelli 2012!
Dennis-SGMM
@GSD:
It’s hard to imagine mobs carrying banners with the slogan "A Gulfstream in Every Hangar!"
timb
By Republican caucus, do you mean the know-nothings in Washington or their leaders on talk radio? ‘Cause he was getting wide play on Laura Ingraham and Michael Savage, already. If I’ve learned anything about Republicans lately is that they really are led by the half-wit caucus of Rush and Sean and Jonah.
By the way, why ARE these morons throwing a tantrum over borrowed money going to fellow citizens. First, they aren’t paying for it and second, there was nothing in that bill about a tax increase.
Wait ’til those Bush tax cuts sunset, baby. Then we’ll see the manicured manly-man brokers of CNBC have their maids bring their tea down to the Chicago River! Ooooh, such a protest.
Maybe they can start a new party called "The I got mine, now screw you" party?
timb
http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/cnbc_editor_the_people_are_rev.php
CJR’s Ryan Chittum compares Santelli’s incoherent rant to History of the World, Part One and does a damn fine job of it too.
PS Sean and Rush and folks WERE against the TARP bailout too. It was the same group of idiots who opposed the stimulus, plus a number of populist libs. Remember? Cantor and company sunk that bill the first time around and helped elect Barrack (I don’t think that was their intention!)
Zifnab
@GSD:
It depends on where the crazy catches on the fastest. The French Revolution had its far share of "friendly fire". And, if I remember my Animal Farm and my basic Soviet Revolutionary History, the rich don’t really get it as much as the "enemies of the state".
This is compounded by the fact that the wingnut wackos are all holed up in Oklahoma, Alabama, and the backwater Midwest while all the Wall Street mega-millionaires are on… well… Wall Street.
It’s a really long ride from Buttfuck, Mississippi to a rich folk lynching in D.C. And given its Rushbo and Mike "Weiner" Savage leading the charge of the dumb brigade, you’ll just as likely see the mob going after FEMA trailers.
zzyzx
I was listening to Rush this morning again and he was going on and on and on about how we need to be supernice to the rich because they pay taxes and how the rich are incredibly important and poor people are "losers"…
I can’t believe his audience has never turned on him.
Atanarjuat
If there’s one thing that can be reliably counted on, it’s leftist resentment of those who’ve done well for themselves without ANY government assistance.
Rick Santelli is simply telling it like it is, but because he’s not collecting USDA welfare cheese while dressed in Salvation Army garb, he is automatically the wrong messenger of this very simple, factual statement: those of us who’ve played by the rules, payed our mortgages on time, and didn’t buy more house than we can afford NOW must pay for those who were irresponsible home owners.
Bashing Santelli doesn’t change this stone cold truth.
-Country First.
linda
someone noted in comments at atrios that msnbc’s contessa brewer intro’d a segment calling out santelli for his ‘populist shot heard round the world’…
they have not a fucking clue.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@Zifnab:
Or stabbing themselves in the forehead with pitchforks and burning their own house down.
Tymannosourus
Commentors falling into Atanjaurat’s desperate ploy for attention in:
3
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2.
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Ailuridae
In fairness to Santelli he is not a banker, he is a trader. Trading firms, by and large weren’t getting bailouts and the ones that did, their trading branches were profitable as their lending losses in banking sank the company. He’s a douchebag as nearly every successful trader is but he’s likely received little direct financial benefit from any of the bailouts.
All that being said, hearing him in the background on Morning Joe, I am almost certain he is a von Mises/Austrian School nutter.
Dennis-SGMM
That’s just plain mean. Only the adherents of Sarah Palin will do that.
MattF
And resentment against those thieves and liars isn’t only for the poor. Middle class professionals– who paid their taxes, made regular contributions to their 401(k)’s and then got their pockets picked by scum in suits. It won’t be pretty.
joe from Lowell
The right-wingers have been trying to get the angry middle class to take it out on the poor, instead of the people who actually caused this disaster, since the first nonsense about Barney Frank and the Community Reinvestment Act hit the blogs.
I don’t think it’s going to work. All of their "socialism" yammering during the campaign didn’t work.
Spread the Wealth.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@Atanarjuat:
Rick Santelli is a water-carrier and asslicker for the Wall Street Boyz who drove us into this nightmare, and whose "bad behavior" has been rewarded so far to the tune of several $T large.
Ned R.
Well, that makes sense, he’s rich isn’t he?
zzyzx
This, btw, is one thing I saw on housing bubble blogs – a belief that any straying from the most thrifty behavior is a sin and must be punished. People seem to care more about punishing those who misjudged the housing market than keeping their own jobs. It’s weird.
@Ned R.: Yes but how long until his audience catches on? He’s made multiple comments lately that have gone on about his wealth. Once he was talking about how the recession wasn’t important because anyone can just find a job that they care about. Once he started a long rant about how private jets are wonderful and talked in great detail about the one that he owned and how we should stop bugging the heads of GM when we could just be firing assembly line workers…
joe from Lowell
No, zzyzx, "people" don’t think like that.
There is a choreographed effort among certain media elites to put out the word that the attitude you describe is common, but these are the same media elites who were telling us a week ago that the stimulus bill was unpopular, and the public was turning on Barack Obama.
Bob In Pacifica
A "populist shot heard ’round the world"? I’d settle for a populist shot heard across the stock exchange floor. Yeah, let’s get that revolution started.
Napoleon
NBC nightly news ran this story last night and presented it like it was some huge populist revolt. It so p—ed me off I nearly tossed something through the TV.
I hope every right wing talker says something like this every day between now and the midterms. I have to believe that they are turning off a good chunk of their listenership to the Republicans.
joe from Lowell
Dwight Eisenhower, while President, once preceded a comment with "Take the average American family, making $100,000 a year…" This was around the mid-to-late 50s.
Santelli is similarly out of touch, believing that he’s slumming it with regular folks when he asks traders on a floor of a stock exchange for their opinions.
zzyzx
@joe from Lowell: I read the rants and comments on housing blogs long before the downturn. I saw how some wished for a massive downturn even if it wiped them out so the people who were foolhardy would be taught a lesson.
It’s funny that this sort of judgment is supposed to be a flaw of leftists but it’s the conservatives who are doing it now.
liberal
Two points:
(1) "The audacity of Santelli’s “revolt” is that a mere 75 billion is being spent to help struggling families repackage loans…" That’s not really true. Uncle Sam is dumping hundreds of billions into Fannie and Freddie. I’m not saying that it’s all going into repackaging loans, but clearly it’s going into keeping rates low, and so on, which notionally helps people with mortgages.
(2) Money spent on keeping people out of foreclosure who have little or no equity in their homes is really money given to banks, because they stand to lose the most from foreclosure. This is something Barney Frank pretends not to understand, but (given his contributions from the financial sector) probably does.
JL
Barry at The Big Picture has a decent, although simplified, version of the credit crisis. Maybe Santelli’s name will come up on the UBS list.
Here’s the
It showed up in the preview.. where’d it go?
Dennis-SGMM
"A riot is an ugly thing. And I think it’s just about time we had one."
Inspector Kemp, "Young Frankenstein".
Svensker
I have no idea whether Mr. Santelli is an employee of a company that got TARP money or not — but I certainly didn’t hear him say a word about the billions of taxpayer dollars going to banks and brokers. But maybe he’s like my Wall Street friend who got his bonus this year courtesy of the taxpayer — he says he deserved his bonus because he’s part of the intellectual elite of this country, got an MBA and worked hard for his money, unlike the stupid auto workers who are only lazy leeches (I paraphrase only slightly).
Napoleon
Why would you say that? I am not going to spend time digging up a link but he is on record as explictly saying helping the borrower will "collaterally benefit" (his phrase) the banks unintentionally, but there is no way to help homeowners w/o collaterally benefiting banks.
liberal
@Atanarjuat:
(yawn)
Another right-winger who’s totally ignorant of economics.
The people who get the most government assistance are the wealthy, in the form of economic rents the government allows them to collect. Chief amongst these is land rent, which is a handout to landowners to the tune of 10–20% of GDP/yr. (That includes all "land" in the sense of classical economics, including mineral wealth, the E-M spectrum, etc.) Other rents include copyright and patent, which are also clearly government-granted monopolies.
Of course, you’re probably a Royal libertarian (viz, a crypto-feudalist), so you’re probably quite happy with that state of affairs.
Napoleon
Awesome Diane Rhemes (sp?) on her show is taking on the right wing wackout.
Bill
I watched him on the Today show this morning and it was pathetic.Even more disgusting was the spectacle of our millionare media club(Brian Williams,Matt Lauer,etc,.) manufacturing a "movement" behind this clown.
All that’s needed to discredit him is to review CNBCs record during the years leading up to this mess.You know when Santelli and all his boys in the exchange where gleefully cashing in and mocking the rare voices of caution that dared to utter a peep.
Mac G
In a gross display of pimping themselves, NBC led with this "story".
http://mediamatters.org/countyfair/200902190025
I am shocked that this woman thinks this is populism. I wish KO and Maddow would rip this greedy inconsiderate Dbag.
The Moar You Know
@zzyzx: To Limbaugh listeners, poor = black, ergo, they are not poor.
Simple, really, but hard to wrap your head around.
JL
@JL: The Big Picture
A short and simple story of the credit crisis
liberal
@Napoleon:
First, that’s backwards: the help is almost entirely to the banks, and only somewhat collaterally to the homeowners. So he’s still pretending.
Second, he goes on and on and on about helping homeowners, which is disproportionate to the actual facts that it’s primarily help for the banks.
Third, he gets financial contributions from the financial sector. Not as much as Dodd, for example, but still a good chunk of change IIRC.
jibeaux
This guy is full of genius. I don’t know what the rest of you are talking about. The internet referendum revolution to give cars to people who don’t drink water!
South of I-10
Okay, now I am really going to have to put my idea of a touring show of big bank execs in stocks into action. I am thinking of calling it Whistlestock.
JL
@jibeaux: Why don’t we vote on whether or not investment bankers and mortgage brokers belong in jail?
gypsy howell
The right-wing resentment he’s trying to stir up will probably work pretty well among a certain part of the population, ironically those who have been most hurt by the conmen and tricksters of Wall Street.
When Santelli says "those people" are getting a free handout from the government, we all know who he’s talking about. He’s not talking about YOU, white blue collar Joe, he’s talking about the shiftless lazy n***ers who got more government welfare in the form of subprime loans from Freddie and Fannie. It’s them lowlife blacks who are causing our problems, white middle class America! Get the rope!
Same as it always was. Turn the angry mob against the poorest and the least able to defend themselves, while you pick the mob’s pockets.
Has it ever NOT worked in this country?
Zifnab
@liberal:
And you’re a liberal fascist! *raspberry!*
Tymannosourus
I find that there is a very big gap between the number of people who have opinions on the recent legislation and the number of people who actually understand anything about it.
This isn’t much different than most other things in politics, I suppose, but the opinion-understanding gap just becomes more obvious with something this complicated.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
Yes, but as I understand the bargain (Faustian, or not), it boils down to this:
We get to keep our bank, and you get to keep your house and get equity.
Which is basically the bargain that every homeowner makes with every lender at every closing, is it not?
So, even though we can all agree that bankers are evil greedy bastards who are out to make themselves rich on our backs ….. what’s new about this except that the stakes now are somewhat higher?
gypsy howell
@The Moar You Know:
Exactly. They’re just temporarily down on their luck, mostly due to the government giving their hard-earned money to the n***ers.
jibeaux
@JL:
Eh, it’s expensive to put people in jail. I’d vote for ’em to have to carry my coffee, diet Cokes, beer, and vodka martinis. Also I would charge them $.50 for drinking it.
See, I don’t drink water, can I get my free car? And yes,
’54 Chevy will do nicely, thanks! I hope it has fins…
Comrade Dread
I prefer the head on pike idea.
But a revolution is unlikely. People are so conditioned to the way things are and to the State that they will have to be literally starving before they’re ready to strike out.
Aside from that, if there were even a hint of general disorder, I have little doubt that many police departments would deploy the military surplus vehicles and gun down a few DFHs as an example.
Zifnab
@gypsy howell:
Didn’t work too well last election. You can only run the same con so many times before some people start getting wise. There’s a reason Rushbo has less approval than your average GOoPer Congressman.
jrosen
I was wondering how long it would take before the mindless name-calling began. here we are.
gypsy howell
…. without ever stopping once to wonder why it is exactly the Cubans felt the need for a revolution in the first place. Yes, Rick, I imagine that one day, after living the high life, the entire Cuban population just got tired of living in their swanky mansions and decided to embrace communism instead.
Yeah. That’s probably exactly how it happened.
Dear Mr Santelli, have you never heard the tired old dictum "Those who forget (or in your case, apparently never knew) history are doomed to repeat it?"
timb
@Svensker: Getting an MBA means one is an "intellectual elite"? Dear lord, the first time one of them writes a book on something that is still meaningful half an hour later, will be the first time. MBA? Dear goodness, my J.D. makes an MBA look like a GED and I would never claim membership in "the intellectual elite."
Also, I know he’s your friend, but since when are intellectual elites EVER rewarded well? Rich people market products, they don’t invent. Rockefeller didn’t invent oil or the internal combustion engine. Bill Gates didn’t invent a computer. The other robber barons didn’t invent or create railroads, they got government to hand them land rights and made a killing.
Who are these people?
Conservatively Liberal
If you are interested in getting in on the Santelli Tea Party, just head on over here and sign up!
If Santelli thinks he is going speaking for everyone out there he needs to get out of his bubble. As John observed, his pals are getting money thrown at them as fast as the Fed can do it and the Democrats have to fight to get a paltry sum committed towards trying to undo the mess the bastards we are bailing out got us into. Yeah, they fuck everything up and want to blame the people who took out loans they couldn’t afford. No, the banks irresponsibly threw money at anyone they could get to sign a loan for the ridiculous terms they demanded, and then they rewarded themselves for their business acumen by paying themselves outrageous sums.
If the banks had been performing responsibly, people who should not have been given loans would not have been given them. Once people found out that the banks were handing out cash to anyone with a pulse, they lined up to get their share of the loot. People who are irresponsible with money should not be the final judge in determining if they should take a loan out, and that is what the bankers are trying to get us to believe. It’s all the fault of the poor who tricked the banks into loaning them money, right?
No. It is up to the banks to determine if someone is a good loan risk. They failed and in doing so they helped to create the mess we are in. Now they want a scapegoat and as usual the little guy gets it dumped on him, all to the wild cheers of the suits in the background.
jharp
As a counter to the fucking dick Santelli, watch the Mayor of Lansing Michigan tear the Fox News host a new asshole.
A real American hero.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-nLS6FJtSM&eurl=http://www.openleft.com/
gypsy howell
@Zifnab:
I sure hope you’re right. But the stupidity of the average American astounds me sometimes.
Tymannosourus
@zzyzx:
Spot. On. This is what they call the "just desserts" phenomenon in the criminal sentencing policy realm. Public opinion indicates that people generally don’t care as much about which crim. sentences work for the individual and for society (e.g., rehab programs, vocational training). Instead, they would rather have sentences that look something like revenge.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@jibeaux:
Not exactly.
georgia pig
In fairness to Santelli he is not a banker, he is a trader. Trading firms, by and large weren’t getting bailouts and the ones that did, their trading branches were profitable as their lending losses in banking sank the company. He’s a douchebag as nearly every successful trader is but he’s likely received little direct financial benefit from any of the bailouts.
You’re being too fair. Santelli no doubt benefitted handsomely from The Big Casino when it was running full-bore 24/7. Hell, CNBC is part and parcel of this horseshit, the obsession with markets, investments, etc. This is a common thread you see on sites like Shedlock, CR and even Ritholtz’s place (though not much from Barry). A bunch of market obsessives sitting online counting their money and offering up moral superiority over "a bunch of losers." My brother-in-law is one of them. 30 years sucking at the federal teat as a defense contractor doing shit of questionable social utility ( I should know, I used to do it myself). Gets to sit on his ass waiting around for a new program because he has a ticket (security clearance), affording him the time to trade stocks, get carried along by tsunami of a credit-bloated stock market and end up thinking he’s a genius and everyone else is an idiot. Endless bitching about paying income taxes and welfare from a guy who got his seed capital from Uncle Sam. I’m sure Santelli has had his share of write-off lunches and other corporate welfare. Fuck him.
liberal
@ThymeZoneThePlumber:
Really depends on the details, doesn’t it?
Some things might actually help the banks even if they say they don’t want the help. Maybe provisions forcing banks to accept a lower monthly payment that would be worth more than a foreclosure. (Though of course that depends.)
Overall, "what’s new" is the amount of money being handed to the banks, and the way it’s handed to them. (In calmer times, the usual way money is handed to banks is somewhat indirect: the granting of the right to create money out of thin air, lend it out, and make a profit on the rate spread.)
ThymeZoneThePlumber
I prefer thoughtful and nurturing name calling, but, I guess the mindless variety will have to do ……..
jibeaux
I feel seriously bad for the Cuban people. They seem like nice, peaceful people with good music and good food, and they don’t deserve to live under different versions of craptacular authoritarian governments for generations. Here’s to hope + change.
timb
@jibeaux:
Yeah, what happened to the (crony) capitalists in Cuba? Could you imagine longing to live in a society so desperately poor that the people actually shot the rich people’s retainers/soldiers and forced the rich people to move to mansions in Miami?
Is that what conservatism offers us, Santelli? The dream world of Bautista’s Cuba?!?
liberal
@Zifnab:
Depends on your metric. They’ve pretty much run the country into the ground, and yet they still got a solid majority of the non-Hispanic white vote.
ChrisB
@Svensker: Santelli is a devoted free market capitalist. He was against the bank bailout and continues to believe that the market should be allowed to work and that bad banks should be allowed to fail.
He’s said this countless times on CNBC, often between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m. Eastern time, if you want to verify.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
I agree with the second part. The first part ….. hmm.
BOA for 2007:
in millions:
Revenues 117,017.0 39.3
Profits 21,133.0 28.4
Assets 1,459,737.0 —
Stockholders’ Equity 135,272.0 —
Market Value 3/23/2007 231,174.0
A couple banks like this, and you are talking real money.
JL
I missed Santelli on the Today Show. Was he asked why there are million dollar homes facing foreclosure? Gee, if it were only the 14% sub-prime of Fannie and Freddie, we’d be in great shape. Look at the states and cities that have the highest rates of foreclosure.
rachel
Can’t happen. Everybody knows what happens to vampires when you cut their heads off: the bloodsuckers disintegrate.
SMN
This is my new favorite:
Bloomberg is dumpint $45 million to help laid-off Wall Streeters get retrained.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/18/news/economy/Bloomberg/index.htm?postversion=2009021818
liberal
@zzyzx:
"Not getting a huge taxpayer handout" == "punishment"?
As for "keeping [our] own jobs," a much better solution would be to seize insolvent banks, put them into receivership and repair them (wiping out shareholders and forcing bondholders to take a massive haircut), and also taking money thrown at desperate homeowners (who really don’t own anything, as they’re underwater), and instead use it to fund jobs (directly or indirectly).
ThymeZoneThePlumber
And don’t forget Castilian Spanish, which to my ear is the most beautiful language on earth.
jibeaux
@ThymeZoneThePlumber:
Mmm. There’s a reason he didn’t use ’57 Chevys, huh?
Still. I’ve had cars I would definitely swap for that one.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
Oh hell yeah, me too. More than several.
Can you say 1962 Lancer?
jibeaux
@ThymeZoneThePlumber:
I can say it, but I can’t see it. I am "FORBIDDEN!"
Is it because I’m a girl?
Lupin
I agree with Billmon that if we didn’t have a full-blown revolution in the 1930s, we won’t see one this time either.
The current system not only can’t be reformed, but will actively resist any attempt at reforming it. Obama will per force become our Gorbachev and I predict massive transformations in our economics system during the next 8 years.
Many good middle class people will get unfairly hurt. If you know Godzilla is coming to town, learning about earthquake preparedness is sensible — even if Jet Jaguar diverts the big lizard.
I suggest that we should stop worrying about Wall Street, and those who have a job should not assume they’ll have one in one or two years. I think it is more important to be concerned (on an individual basis) about food, shelter, transportation and security.
I’m not talking " Mad Max" but more like a return to a 1940s lifestyle with 21st century technology: revitalized downtowns, WalMarts replaced by smaller stores closer to their customers, localized agriculture, buses and bikes, etc.
I could be (and to some extent hope to be) wrong, but some preparedness never hurt anyone — especially when Godzilla is coming.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@jibeaux:
I dunno, try this one.
Jason F
Santelli at one point claims his mob of CME floor traders represents a cross-section of America. If you’ve ever met a CME floor trader, you know how far from the truth that is.
I do find some irony in the fact that most of his anti-bailout mob is still gainfully employed thanks to TARP.
liberal
@ThymeZoneThePlumber:
Just because the stockholders allowed the management to run the bank into the ground doesn’t mean that banks don’t get a sweet deal from guvmint.
Perry Como
Apologies to Cherry Poppin’ Daddies:
Who’s that yelling down in the pit?
It’s some traders that are full of shit
Guffaws and sneers and faux outrage
Blame it on the poor, that’s your way
Fat cats came to play
But they all fucked it up
You had best stay away
When the pushers come to shove
Brooks Brothers riot
Throw up your hands and jeer
Brooks Brothers riot
STFU before we string you up here
jibeaux
At least it seems to have those little vent windows. Those things were great. R.I.P., little vent windows.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@liberal: Totally.
When he said, "President Obama, are you listening?" my thought was, yeah, he’s listening, and he thinks you are the biggest asshole on television right now, and he hopes you keep this crap up so that real Americans can see how out of touch with reality you are.
If I am Barack, I loves me some adversaries like Santorinelli or whatever the flock his name is. I look at at the JTPs and the Palins and the Rush’s and the McPains and the Cantors, and I think, this is the best they can come at me with? Pfeh.
bayville
Interesting critique about this at CJR yesterday: http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/cnbc_editor_the_people_are_rev.php
The most interesting part of the story are the comments. It appears, the free market "silent majority" rubes are taking heed of Saint Santelli’s call.
Ailuridae
@georgia pig:
I was a trader (and do something most here would find even less savory now) and this is a real misconception of people outside of the finance world: that everyone in finance roughly do the same job. Broadly, a house or prop trader (one not taking positions for retail clients but making their own decisions) likely does better in a down market than an up market volatility being equal. I agree largely about CNBC and market obsessives; even the most libertarian oriented traders I knew called it "Bubblevision" for so many reasons.
And I have no interest beyond accuracy in defending Santelli. I think he’s an absolute ass but its highly unlikely that if he still trades he benefitted directly from any bailout money. Now an argument could be made that his ultimate employer CNBC and GE both benefitted handsomely from previous bailouts but that hasn’t been the point. This is getting long so I will keep it short: Trader Banker.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@liberal: You are right, but alas, unless we are going to have nationalized banks, I don’t see an alternative except to take wheelbarrows full of cash to their doors.
neff
I thought there was a more practical reason why people are looking to bail out homeowners, and that is that there would be some pretty hefty dislocation if millions more people are kicked out into the street in the middle of an economic crisis. Maybe it ain’t fair to those of us who didn’t take out big home loans (I can’t deny finding it kind of irritating) but what can you do.
Martin
Sure there is, seize the house and give it to the homeowner.
I’m not advocating for that, but if push comes to shove, we could do it.
Zifnab
@liberal: They got the majority of the non-Hispanic male white vote. Which is to say, they had a lock on a minority interest group. Democrats have a lock on the black vote to the tune of something like 92 to 8. Everyone’s got their niche.
Republicans continue to do well with the extremely wealthy. And, for some reason, the extremely wealthy have a lot of political clout in the United States. When your base is composed of multi-millionaires, you start with an inherent strategic advantage.
I’m not extremely worried. We’ve had our slumps here and there, but Americans are getting progressively better at this whole self-governing thing. Bush was the worst President in a generation or two, and yet we didn’t get Nixonian race riots. Our generation’s Vietnam is scheduled to end in half the time and with a significant reduction in casualties. Things could have been much worse, and we’re back on the right track again, even if it is a long road to recovery.
The trends are looking good, even if we’re starting in a tight spot.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@jibeaux: Yes, and for extra ventilation, you could tweak the flimsy frames around the door windows and create a downright breezy car. Those frames would actually flex right in your hand. Many parts of this car would actually come right off without tools. That was very convenient.
HRA
Rush only has call ins who agree with him. It’s probably the same for all the other talk radio conservative hosts.
I saw Santelli on MSNBC. I have to admit as someone who went through my own hell to pay the mortgage on my home I want to know who is getting bailed out. I don’t begrudge people who tried their best and got sucked up in a scheme by shysters. I do have a problem with understanding the one case I am aware of with a relative.
Together they make a very decent 6 figure salary. Their home is circa 1960s. They have been in bankrupcy twice in the past. Can it be wise to assume they never had a budget?
kay
I think we’re watching a battle over resources. Wall Street were disgruntled with Geithner not over the lack of specificity in his plan, but by the lack of specifics regarding what went to them. When he didn’t promise that to them, they pitched a fit.
Wall Street is waging a PR campaign to shift federal resources and energy their way, because the federal funding resource is the only game in town.
In other words, they’re pissed that TARP money is not going exclusively to them.
I suspect there will be more of this, this tug of war with a faux moralist veneer, between all sorts of interests.
Because it’s about money, and who gets it, and who "deserves" it, it’s going to get really ugly. It’s why I wanted stimulus money allocated to states to disperse for actual concrete aid. It takes individuals who need unemployment extension and food stamps out of the middle of the national battle of the titans.
jibeaux
@neff:
Santelli’s plan seems to be that we buy the mortgages and give the houses to people who carry the water rather than drink it. So the homeless people would just be the loser water-drinkers, and the meritorious but previously homeless water-carriers, would get houses!
Cain
@gypsy howell:
Wasn’t that what the last 8 years about? Repeating history ad nauseum. God we are a country of stupid fucks.
cain
Litlebritdifrnt
As mentioned earlier on, perhaps the riots will not come with pitch forks but with subpoenas?
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/df3eeb9c-feb7-11dd-b19a-000077b07658.html
Mmmmmm 52,000 tax dodgers, approximately 300 million per year in dodged taxes. Depending on how many years we are looking at that could pay down some of the recently spent money right there. Add on fines and penalties and "just pay your bill quietly and we won’t prosecute or publish your name in the paper" and things could be looking up.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
You are watching way too much of the Pangloss Channel.
Ailuridae
@neff:
The Obama administration is trying to put a "floor" in the housing market. So they are taking the next round of people who would likely be at risk but who have as of yet not missed a payment etc and trying to make a stand with government backing. They are trying to stop future foreclosures rather than help current foreclosure cases; its not the most compassionate solution and if there is appropriate pushback it should be coming from the left not right. This isn’t complicated (its actually a simple, elegant solution) but those in finance claiming to not understand the point are almost certainly being disingenuous.
Napoleon
@Martin:
I meant if you are spending money to help the homeowner refinance. Personally I like bankruptcy cram down, which is similar.
kay
I actually thought the bickering over resource allocation would be regional. Contemplating that was bad enough. I’m not thrilled that it’s apparently going to be fought on moral grounds. Ostensibly.
I should have know, though. Nothing like faux moral outrage to get people ginned up, and make them feel a little better.
Maybe we should just stick to numbers. There’s no beginning or end to "fair". It isn’t going to be fair. Big freaking shocker, huh?
BenA
@Martin:
Imagine the spending capital we could free up if we did that. ;-)
FourtyTwo
As a young professional in the SF Bay Area, me and my woman put off buying a home due to economic indicators in 2005.
In 2006, it looked like a bad decision.
In 2007, it looked smarter.
In 2008, I felt like a freaking genius.
In 2009, well, too early to tell…
JL
@HRA: Folks like that have been around for a long time. The credit crisis now affects us all because foreclosures bring down neighborhoods.
passerby
I watched the Santelli clip, it was pure theater. CNBC, like all other media, needs ratings. To get them, they engage in all manner of hair-on-fire stunts, no surprise there.
What stuck out about Santelli’s little one-act play, was that he conducted it while standing at the center of a Money Changers den. Surrounded by gamblers who are driven by greed, oblivious to how their actions are the root cause of the problems of laissez-faire capitalism, his exhortations exposed his mighty ignorance of the law of cause and effect.
As per usual, we cannot expect his media cohorts to call him on his antics because their goal is to drum up attention, not to engage in intelligent discourse and analysis.
I find that less and less am I willing to sit through their little alarmist theater. I think I’ll go out to the lobby for some Jujy Fruits. At least there, I may hook up with others who have grown tired of all the bullshit.
joe from Lowell
.
No kidding. The gay stages a populist rant, complete with some "everyman" ordinary folks saying they agree, FROM THE FLOOR OF A STOCK EXCHANGE! IN FEBRUARY 2009!
Are you KIDDING me? You’re kidding me, right? Nobody could be that tone-deaf.
joe from Lowell
Er, guy. The guy stages a populist rant.
Just a typo.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that!
Walker
@FourtyTwo:
It is always easy to tell, provided that you have an active rentals market (I know Seattle has the problem that there aren’t a lot of things to actually rent there that aren’t crap).
Look at the asking price. Look at what it would take to rent a comparable property. If the the asking price is over 16x annual rent, it is too high.
kay
@passerby:
I watched the Santelli clip, it was pure theater. CNBC, like all other media, needs ratings. To get them, they engage in all manner of hair-on-fire stunts, no surprise there.
Everyone is angry, because it sucks. What I can’t stand are claims of special, justified outrage when we’re really talking about a silly rant. Indulge, by all means, raging indiscriminate moralists, just don’t act like you’re adding anything helpful. 5 minutes of rant destroys serious discussion for the next 5 cycles. Hope it was worth it.
TenguPhule
Except that they are.
georgia pig
@: I think he’s an absolute ass but its highly unlikely that if he still trades he benefitted directly from any bailout money. Now an argument could be made that his ultimate employer CNBC and GE both benefitted handsomely from previous bailouts but that hasn’t been the point.
That’s not really the point I (ineptly) was trying to make. The bailout is almost irrelevent except to the degree that it shows how corrupt the system was before the fall. I don’t begrudge Santelli his living, hell, we all gotta eat. For all I know, he’s a good drinking buddy and is nice to his mother. It’s the faux moral outrage and endless lectures about "moral hazard" that make me want to puke. Everyone is compromised to some degree, including Santelli and his buddies at the CME, who benefitted from this bubble whether it was going up or down. Sure, he’ll come up with some plausible explanation as to the valuable service he provides to society, but we all know there’s always a degree of bullshit in that. Something about he who is without sin . . . I’m going to quit watching TV, because it seems to be 24/7 spokesmodels and harrumphing Lou Dobbs-types yammering about how Obama and Congress haven’t solved all of the world’s problems and delivered divine justice in 3 weeks.
kay
@georgia pig:
Exactly.
Jon H
If GE got access to TARP, would Santelli quit?
I don’t think so.
lr
Amen Kay. Actually the talking heads on CNBC this morning were pretty sensible in response to Santelli. One fellow said he thought one needs to be careful about tossing red meat to those who don’t understand the complexities of the situation as well as people like Santelli do.
Of course the only reason the discourse was sensible at all was because Kernan was blessedly off work this morning.
Svensker
@georgia pig:
Sing it, GP.
ksmiami
One more point too and I say this as a member of the smaller and smaller investor class: Many of the so called geniuses on Wall Street do not know fuck all what they are talking about and will tell a company to lay off 75% of its workers cause that will raise the stock price. Of course having a company that is completely undermanned kills creativity, productivity and soon puts you out of business, but really, the best thing to do is read Graham and Dodd and ignore the TV heads. They are insipid and want GROWTH ALWAYS, not value.
Ash Can
@georgia pig: Bingo. I’ll go on record myself as saying that I don’t begrudge the wealthy their dough. Money makes it easier to be an asshole in many ways, but it doesn’t guarantee it. Although I’ve never been a trader myself, I’ve had extensive experience with the trading business, enough to know that it’s not the cut-and-dried den of thieves that many people believe it is, and that, while it has its share of assholes, it also has its share of decent folks (most of whom don’t make the big bucks we hear about) who understand the boom-and-bust nature of the business and avoid conspicuous consumption as a result, knowing that the following months or even years could be pretty dry.
Having said this, though, Santelli and his buddies on the floor of the CME, unwittingly or not, set the gold turd standard for tone-deafness. Everybody bitches about taxes, and everybody’s protective of their paychecks, especially if they work hard (and trading can be grueling — no joke). Fine; they can bitch away. But being an ignorant asshole about it is something else. Santelli and the asshats cheering him deserve to be pilloried, and I’ll help in the effort. In fact, I’ll put extra effort into it, because Santelli’s grandstanding smears a lot of good people in that business who realize that they’re fortunate to still have jobs and homes themselves, and makes them look like assholes by association.
Oh, and PS: what Ailuridae said. All of it.
Comrade Darkness
Blaming sub-prime borrowers for the current mess is like blaming the canary for the poisonous gas in the mine. They were simply the most vulnerable element in the system so they revealed the systematic corruption first. Gutted regulation (Phil Gramm and co.) and absent enforcers (Bush firing half the staff at OTS, for example the SEC’s repeatedly cut budget, etc.) along with a idiotically low fed funds rate that encouraged leverage are the true causes of the problems we are facing. Anyone who tries to claim otherwise is a tool.
For the record, those still mindlessly spewing the subprime meme: Foreclosures now are predominately made up of middle and upper middle class and even ultra-wealthy borrowers. Take all the stupid things said about this mess and substitute "upper middle class" in instead of subprime: "They shouldn’t own they should only rent." "They are irresponsible with money." etc. Sound right?
kay
@lr:
I have a knee-jerk negative reaction to self-serving moralist rants, and I indulge in them when I’m angry like everyone else does. I do, however, recognize that they’re self-serving.
I have this sinking feeling we’re at some anger stage of dealing with reality, and we’re going to hear a lot of self-righteous huffing and puffing. Let me know when we get to the "fix this mess" part. I feel like I don’t have time to listen to all this scatter-shot angst. We all know it sucks.
Walker
@Ailuridae:
Exactly. And that is why it is doomed to fail. Housing prices are still too high for anyone to enter this market. Without promises of crazy appreciation, you have to go to the old metrics that people used to use before the 80s: price-to-rent or income-multiples. This floor is way to high for either of them.
Setting a floor now (even if it is possible) will do nothing more than repeat the errors of Japan. The housing market will remain frozen, as new buyers are either unwilling or unable to enter it. This in turn restricts job-related mobility, making it harder for the economy to get started again.
This is why cramdowns are always the better solution. Let the floor come naturally, but better distribute the costs of the resettling among the actors.
Comrade Darkness
Setting a floor now (even if it is possible) will do nothing more than repeat the errors of Japan.
I, personally, cannot see by what mechanism this will set a floor. Foreclosures will remain the driving force setting prices even if a few on the margin are ‘rescued’. So, despite this claim, I’m not worried about that.
The real recovery begins when we reach a real floor. The sooner the better, sad to say for those yet to get through that pain.
bayville
Hedge Fund managers around the world are hoisting a glass of chablis in honor of the Brave Santelli.
Ailuridae
@Walker:
Maybe the methods are not, as of yet, drastic enough but you can certainly establish an arbitrary floor on housing prices especially relative to larger economic numbers like GDP. FDR did it very well with much more drastic measures.
You presume that having a static home buying market temporarily is a bad thing; I reject this out of kind. Sure it kills the new home builder stock in counties like Will and McHenry which shouldn’t have had subdivisions but ultimately there was overbuilding. Either you plow houses down or you disincentivise (sp?) new home construction. This is doubly good because without a largely predatory housing market to lend to bankers will have to lend to other businesses to make money. And interest rates are still low and we have plenty of foreclosures – that seems to me the best way to return to an organic, non-artificial market, no?
As for the cramdowns, they are coming; its just going to be more graceful than in the past.
Susan
For the record, the federal government makes states offer at least one way to get unemployment benefits without paying any fees.
georgia pig
@Comrade Darkness: The real recovery begins when we reach a real floor.
Aye, there’s the rub. What is a "real floor"? If you go back to 2005, we thought "real" was 10% per year appreciation in stocks. The bubble can overshoot on the way down as much as it did on the way up and is inextricably caught up with social dynamics. I think Obama is less concerned about setting a floor for home prices so that growth can return than he is about preventing a destructive mass panic. Everyone can kvetch about Japan, but I’d rather live there than Zimbabwe. Sure, a bunch of yuks can go on cable TV and say "we need to do let people go bankrupt!", "we need to nationalize the banks!", etc. It cracks me up when I hear stuff along the lines of "why is Obama doing that, he must be stupid!" Obama doesn’t have the luxury of errant bullshitting, unlike the previous occupant. He says one wrong thing, and everyone heads to the exits. Obama’s plans are mostly palliative, because he knows he needs to buy time for people to chill the fuck out.
TheHatOnMyCat
Exactly. The bubbledwellers who watch CNBC might think it was cool and snarky, but Ma and Pa Kettle are going to think, WTF? Some guy in the belly of the financial beast is mocking efforts to help us homeowners … after what THEY did to us?
GET THE PITCHFORKS — OFF WITH THEIR HEADS.
The man is a fool on the order of Phil Gramm. And another reason why Dems are going to gain seats in 2010.
GuyFromOhio
@liberal:
Hey, I got an idea! Let’s just kick all those poor losers into the street with their children and belongings, shutter the houses, and let ’em fend for themselves! Who cares if it drives real estate into "free" territory and puts the final cap into the skull of the economy! That’ll teach those nasty banks a lesson!
Rep. Frank can pretend all he wants, fine by me. You put those people in the street and you will have a revolution.
poopsybythebay
@Jon H:
GE did get TARP funds–I’m sure he’ll leave tomorrow. HAHA
Maxwel
I think we’re approaching a time when people we see on TV or read in print are torn limb from limb by angry mobs.
Comrade Darkness
Oh, I agree. And that’s a tough enough job by itself. Obama claimed he was putting a floor on things, which was odd.
The real floor is the place where houses can be purchased without pumping monopoly money into the system a la Greenspan. If there are no mortgage-approvable buyers without no-doc "affordability" products than there is no market.
We’ve already robbed the future bigtime and now we have to pay it back, one way or another. Palliative measures to deal with the collateral damage from prices righting themselves is the least (and most) we can do. There are buyers waiting this out, ready to go, and they will help prevent an undershoot. If you follow Jim the Realtor, you can see them already jumping in.
Comrade Darkness
@poopsybythebay,
Do you have a link?
JenJen
@Perry Como: Me likey!
Personally, I’m bullish on guillotines!
PattyK
That was so cringe-inducing of NBC to present Santelli’s pumped-up "outrage" as "news" last night and this morning on the Today Show. Guys at NBC: Santelli is your own staffer (who just happened to notice how much mileage another NBC staffer Jim Cramer got out of his TV hissy-fit sometime ago) and looking at the opinions of your own staffers for a report on "public opinion" really is scraping the bottom of the barrel. So embarrassing. Anyway TV is supposed to be a cool medium, remember? Someone yelling his head off is a real turnoff, and I’m sure I was not the only one to rush to turn off Mr. Santelli .
JL
@georgia pig: Great comment.
JL
@georgia pig: Great comment.
JenJen
@ThymeZoneThePlumber: Gibbs just gave a most amusing presser, and of course "The Santelli Question" was a hot topic.
Gibbs response was spot-on. He said that Santelli didn’t understand the President’s proposal, and that maybe he should read it. He opined that cable TV talkers have a responsibility to know what they’re talking about before they go on rants. He invited Santelli to the White House to read it. And he said he’d even buy him a cup of coffee… decaf.
I’m positive the Obama White House is eating Santelli’s rant with a spoon. :-)
Wile E. Quixote
@attanut
Shut the fuck up you ignorant piece of right-wing filth. Yeah, I resent those people who bought more house than they could afford. Of course I also resent the irresponsible asshole mortgage brokers who loaned them the money and didn’t do any due diligence on checking to see whether or not these people could actually afford to pay these mortgages (And please, don’t talk about CRA and Barney Frank. That’s just right-wing code speak for "it’s the goddamned ni**ers and queers fault". 60 years ago you would have been blaming the Jews as well except that shit doesn’t work any more because if you try the JDL will show up and bust a cap in your chickenshit wingtard ass.). Then there are the irresponsible banks who made tons of money by taking these liar loans and bundled them together with other assets and sold them as A rated securities, even though they were total shit. Then of course there are the irresponsible rating agencies which said that all of these MBS that contained all of these shit loans were AAA rated and a good investment and who made tons of money for attaching their imprimatur to securities that were basically garbage. Then you have the bankers who took huge salaries and lavish bonuses for building up this house of cards. I also resent noisome sacks of sewage wrapped in human skin, you know, guys like you, who sit there and mindlessly repeat Rush Limpdick’s talking points about how it’s all the fault of those damned ni**ers and Barney Fag for getting us into this mess and ignoring the bankers, mortgage brokers, ratings agencieset al who didn’t play by the rules either, certainly not rules like "due diligence" and "good accounting practices".
The more I read posts such as yours the more I believe that people like you have some foul and horrible disease that’s rotting away your brains. Fortunately there’s a cure for what ails the likes of you. Pity it hasn’t been approved by the FDA.
Oh, and by the way, "it’s those of us who paid our mortgages on time", not "payed" you right-wing fuckwit.
Mike in NC
What a cretin. Rick the Trader better stop crowding out Joe the Plumber’s phony act before he gets a pipe wrench upside his head.
Mike in NC
Right-wing zombies don’t have functioning brains, so the point is moot. But the application of a nice .380 hollow-point to the temple would still be appropriate to put them down.
Jack
I can’t stand this Santelli…F…ck him and his crowd of idiots
Al Swearengen
Listen folks, get it right. The crisis was caused by the leveraging of mortgages, sometimes hundreds of times, by the same dipshit scumbags now trying to pin the blame on poor people.
The principle of noblesse oblige needs to be explained to these morons: "In exchange for we, the masses, not killing you rich assholes, you don’t rub your fucking assholishness in our faces, mkay?"
kay
@Al Swearengen:
Listen folks, get it right. The crisis was caused by the leveraging of mortgages, sometimes hundreds of times, by the same dipshit scumbags now trying to pin the blame on poor people.
They’re angry because the party’s over and they have to pay.
The Titans of Finance didn’t anticipate that the bill would have to be paid, and it was going to end up in front of the people who still have some money? Even I got that.
Mnemosyne
@neff:
Exactly. We’re not bailing people out because we feel sorry for them. We’re bailing people out because they’re dragging down the economy and, if we don’t, they’re going to drag the rest of us down with them. It’s goddamn self-preservation and it really annoys me that some people would rather "punish" people even if it means they’ll be punished as well.
Ed in NJ
I hate to break it to alot of people here, who seem to exist in a bubble, but there is alot of resentment on both sides of the aisle re: this mortgage issue. I just returned from a funeral, and this was THE topic of discussion at the repast.
Every one of my friends there, Republican and Democrat, felt resentment that there were people getting assistance on their mortgages while they struggle to pay theirs on time. This has the potential to blow up badly if the Dems don’t explain the purpose better. I tried to explain how this helps the banks as much as the homeowners, while also protecting the values of our own homes, and there is some understanding of that. But it doesn’t take all the sting away.
Should be an interesting debate.
Perry Como
Dow 6k. It will probably overshoot on the way down, but I think we’ll retrace to 1996 levels before there’s a bull market again.
B
As I told CNBC, if Santelli knows who the losers are, he must also know who the winners were in this economic catastrophe. The American taxpayer has the right to see the photos on CNBC of the winners in this mortgage scam. I assure you that it will be comprised of the same multi-millionaires who traipsed to capitol hill to insist that they were worthy of continued corporate welfare. And somebody needs to tell Santelli that suggesting that he and seven other middle-aged white men (those sitting behind him while he ranted) are representative of America is a bit off of the mark.
eyepaddle
@Wile E. Quixote
Ordinarily I’d say don’t feed the trolls, but damn! In this case I’ll make an exception.
kay
@Ed in NJ:
I hate to break it to alot of people here, who seem to exist in a bubble, but there is alot of resentment on both sides of the aisle re: this mortgage issue. I just returned from a funeral, and this was THE topic of discussion at the repast.
I’m aware of that Ed. I’ve just lost patience with it, is all.
Obama’s job is to fix this. It isn’t to come up with a fix that’s "fair". "Fair", while admirable, won’t work.
WereBear
"Fair" would be banks taking losses and retrenching.
Like that will happen.
Jason in SoCal
I agree, the problem is too huge for the taxpayer to solve. The banksters that helped to create this problem with stupidly ricky mortgage loans, MBSs securities backed by dangerous CDS wagers, need to be left to the free market forces. The government needs to focus on protecting the innocent citizens by backing the FDIC protection of deposits and improving access to funds through some government temp bank.
But as a renter in Southern California, I am incensed that this administration wants to use my hard earned tax money to subsidize the mortgages of greedy and/or ignorant people who bought homes they cannot afford. (Remember, they are subsidizing mortgages of employed people. So they are not saving the unlucky unemployed hit by the crisis, and they are way too late to save the poorest people duped into predatory loans as they were the very first ones foreclosed and kicked to the curb and are long gone.)
Homes in Southern California are still overpriced (Case-Shiller index is 176), and are not affordable (PMI affordability stands at 89). I didn’t buy at the peak of the bubble with those ridiculous liar’s loans, or interest-only loans, or dangerous ARMs. But the guy who did just that is going to get a retro-active discount on the price of his home using my money? (When in the free market did I ever get a chance to purchase the home at the new discounted price?)
They are using my money not only to reward the greedy or ignorant person who bought more house than they could reasonably afford, but they also are using my money to prop up these still overinflated prices and freeze me out of the housing market even longer.
And what is even worse, is that it will not improve the economy. It only rewards the imprudent, and the banksters who lent to the imprudent, but the $75B is not enough to handle this problem that at its core is at least a $500B problem (exacerbated into a multi-trillion problem thru securities and CDS gambling). Can someone justify this to me, using real numbers, real math?
TD
Santelli may not be the ideal messenger, but the message is solid. There are a lot of responsible people, of all political stripes, who are very unhappy about being asked to take the lumps for someone else’s mistakes (or system-gaming).
This is not a D vs R issue, or left vs right issue. This is a responsible vs irresponsible, government vs the governed, host vs parasite, ‘real’ people vs ‘elitist’ issue.
If the administration and D congress want to make this a political issue, which they seem to, then they have chosen a dangerous path.
kay
@Jason in SoCal:
Well, I can defend it, from my personal perspective. I bought a house I could afford 15 years ago. I live in the midwest. Property accrues value here slowly. I had banked equity, over 15 years. Nothing spectacular. The property appreciated.
The unemployment rate here is 11.2. We have 4 pages of foreclosure notices in the 20 page local paper. A modest brick ranch two doors from my house just sold at absolute auction for 71,000. I helped the people who lost it to foreclosure move in 4 years ago. They paid 109,000. That was a fair price. There have been 9 foreclosures in a three block area in the last year, and this is a middle class neighborhood.
I think you have to be careful using anecdotal and regional data. It’s a big country. We’re all going to take a hit. It’s tough, I’m, um, thrifty. I’m dealing.
tavella
If they are "struggling to pay theirs on time", they are in the very same bucket as those people: they brought more house than they could afford, or they bought into an exotic mortgage on the assumption that prices would always go up and they could refinance. They are drowning too, they are just higher up in the bucket and taking out their resentment on the people lower down.
Dave_No_Longer_Laughing
That’s a good point, neff. On the one hand, I don’t have a problem with helping people who, through perhaps no fault of their own. But I do have a problem with helping people whose own bad decisions put them in their sorry situations. Like a lot of people, I have a mortgage on a home I knew I could afford and don’t live dangerously. And like a lot of people, I’d sure like to feel like less of schmuck for paying my bills on time and living within my means.
Jason in SoCal
@kay: "The unemployment rate here is 11.2. We have 4 pages of foreclosure notices in the 20 page local paper. A modest brick ranch two doors from my house just sold at absolute auction for 71,000. I helped the people who lost it to foreclosure move in 4 years ago. They paid 109,000. That was a fair price. There have been 9 foreclosures in a three block area in the last year, and this is a middle class neighborhood.
I think you have to be careful using anecdotal and regional data. It’s a big country."…
Kay, I sympathize with the Midwest (I’m originally from Indiana and have family and friends all over there as well as Ohio & MI). But in the case you state, your neighbors bought that house four years ago, near the height of the housing bubble in the Midwest (Chicago, Minneapolis, Cleveland all peaked around June/July 2006). So they bought (if they bought March 2005) near the top of the bubble where C-S indices for Chicago for example were 150, Minn – 160).
Right now, home prices have fallen to sustainable levels in most the Midwest, but that region’s problems are not just bad mortgages. As you point out the problems are economic turndown (the used to be "Big" 3 in Detroit) and the weakening manufacturing base and the attendent unemployment. The Midwest needs help with its industry base and rampantly growing unemployment, not bad mortgage bailout.
I fully agree with helping those hit by unemployment or health non-insurance issues due the economic crisis. But BO’s plan will not address those losing homes due to unemployment. So lets not mix issues and cross streams and generalize like the bozo politicians…
I still remain steadfastly against bailing out people who bought more home than they can afford, especially at the expense of those of us who did not. It is the most unfair kind of wealth re-distribution except at the point of a gun.
Tim
I suppose what bothered me most about the rant I saw on CNBC by Santelli, was not that he did it, but he did it on the air, infront America, as if he spoke for CNBC. As if the 4 million or so people out of work since 2007, had nothing to do with the bail out. Who was he speaking for?
I have been gainfully unemployed for almost 5 months, and I personally hate it. Yet, a man who is gainfully employed stands on his soap box and preaches to people how have jobs. It’s not that i want him to feel compassion. Perhaps that would be too much to ask. Maybe a sense of perspective level headed thinking,instead of a sort of cheer leader for the well off.
And further, it was such an ambiguou statement to make. The housing market is a mess. Can we actually untwist those that lost their homes, through not fault of their own, but infact lost their jobs. And for those bought homes, knowing they could not keep up with the morgage, there is only one question. Do we know who they are? Is there a list? Does that all knowing conservetive prophet Santelli, know? That is why his statesments remain so incompetant.