US Financial Quagmire Bringing Out the Scammers

coondoggie contributes this snippet from NetworkWorld: "You could probably see this one coming. With all of the confusion and money involved you knew there would be cyber-vultures out there looking to cash in. Well the Federal Trade Commission today issued a warning that indeed such increased phishing activities are taking place. Specifically the FTC said it was urging user caution regarding e-mails that look as if they come from a financial institution that recently acquired a consumer's bank, savings and loan, or mortgage. In many case such emails are only looking to obtain personal information — account numbers, passwords, Social Security numbers — to run up bills or commit other crimes in a consumer's name, the FTC stated."

Comments

*illegal* scammers

[Anonymous Coward]

As apposed to the mortgage brokers, sub prime lenders, financial institutions,ceos that got us into this mess and will walk away loaded and scott free.

But what about the real scam?

[gillbates]

That allows investment bankers to pawn off responsibility for their misdeeds on the American public?

So I'm supposed to pay an additional $10k in taxes to finance the bad decisions of those who foreclosed on middle class Americans? And if I have to pay it over time (as Congress proposed), I'll end up paying even more (because Congress will borrow money to finance the bailout).

I would say that I've got that money in my 401k, but I doubt it's worth anything now.

I've got a better idea. Start printing money. Yes, devalue the currency to the point where I can settle my mortgage for a few hours worth of work. If bank CEOs can get bonuses for shafting even the Americans who were smart enough to avoid bad lending practices, we should be able to just print the money to pay off our debts.

Re:But what about the real scam?

[PunkOfLinux]

Yeah, but then your retirement becomes essentially worthless...

It's wrong that we're paying for their mistakes, and we will be paying for that for YEARS to come.

This is not capitalism - by influencing the market (especially so heavily) and giving money to institutions just because they're 'a huge part of the economy' we gave up capitalism. These people fucked up - by the tenets of capitalism, if they can't survive this on their own, LET THEM FAIL. Oh, boo hoo, a tough few years. Better than going even further into debt just to bail out a few rich pricks who made the mistake of doing things where the benefits were far outweighed by the costs and potential risks.

Re:But what about the real scam?

[Maudib]

The bailout isn't a bailout. The bankers who screwed up are for the most part being wiped out, along with the investors. Please see AIG, LEH and BS stock prices and you will see that the company owners and the company employees are being entirely wiped out. The "bailout" is preventing the guys who screwed up and are wiped out from wiping out everyone else. Its about liquidity and fear. Good companies are being destroyed due to too much fear and too little liquidity. It isn't a lie when the Fed says that most of what will be bought with the $700 million will be good or profitable. So the feds loose a couple hundred mil on this. Several trillions are being wiped out every week in the stock market.

Re:But what about the real scam?

[Maudib]

While things are certainly going to be bad you have badly misread what is happening.

(1) The liquidity crisis is actually preventing inflation and there is a good chance that we could even witness some deflation if things don't change. Economic downturns are not necessarily couple with inflation, in fact we could even see deflation during this recession.

(2) Treasuries (U.S. Debt) have become even more valuable. Yields are almost effectively zero while prices are sky high. This is because everyone is so afraid of the markets that they are running to pick up the safest instrument available: U.S. debt. You really think China or anyone else will dump treasuries? Where would they put the money? Europe? China? Russia? Europe is as screwed as we are while Russia and China are even worse.

(3) The U.S. Dollar has actually been gaining value lately, likely due to point #2.

(4) "Buy land, seeds, guns and ammo cause Darwin is going to come knocking for the slow and trusting. Real assets are the only hard currency left." This is a nonsensical point. In order for "Real Assets" to trump cash it is likely that we would need a total failure in the rule of law, at which point having bought land or seeds would be meaningless as anyone with a gun would simply take them. Logic points to a couple years of slow or negative growth, not the collapse of society. I bet you spent Y2K in a basement.

You can have your land and seeds, I am going to start accumulating value stocks at all time lows.

Bringing out Scammers??

[arthurpaliden]

Hell, it was started by scamers, they wore three piece suits but they were still scammers.