What the main question here is, "when does a human become human and deserve protection?" This gets sticky.
No, it really isn't. If it doesn't have brain activity, it isn't eligable for protection. Period. End of story. Otherwise pulling the plug on someone in a persistent vegetative state would also be murder, and only retarded fundamentalists believe that (and that may include you for all I know).
Because he's apparently under the impression that women are paid for their aborted fetal tissue. Or something.
'course, many nations simply outlaw the sale of any human tissue (including blood), precisely because of the moral issues surrounding such transactions. Funny how that option doesn't seem to occur to the GP...
The problem some have this is that the fertilized eggs are put in a culture and manipulated to divide, thus becoming an embryo and no longer a "zygote".
And yet, it still doesn't have a functioning brain, so I fail to see where the problem is. An embryo is every bit as braindead as a car-crash victim on a respirator, and yet strangely enough, people have no trouble with the idea of pulling the plug on the latter, while it's somehow "murder" if the same is done to the former.
Of course, one might claim that the former has "potential" to be a living person, while the latter does not. But if that's the case, what difference does it make if the cell divides or not? If you subscribe to this view, the murder was performed when the fertilized egg wasn't allowed to implant in the uterine wall.
i would get right back at you by saying that destroying the demand is an effective tactic
And how, pray tell, do you plan to destroy demand? At best, this is a mental illness we're dealing with... so your plan is to, what, just arrest every child-porn-viewing pedophile out there? Sorry bub, but that just ain't gonna work. At least going after the supplies, the people *actually* harming children, is feasible. Going after the consumers of this dreck is just playing whack-a-mole.
On the bright side, it's a great excuse to increase law enforcement expenditures.
Ooooh, I see, deposing an impotent dictator, destroying the infrastructure of a sovereign nation, and killing untold numbers of it's citizens for dubious reasons was *just*. And that excuses lying because the American people are, evidentally, too fucking stupid to listen to reason and thus need guidance from a benevolent leader, even if that means misleading them.
Blah blah blah... your entire post is riddled with excuses that can only be said in hindsight (and most of them are so flimsy they'd blow apart in a light breeze). The fact is, *at the time*, there was no good reason to invade Iraq. And even if you don't buy that argument, *terrorism* was no good reason to invade Iraq, since they had no connection to 9/11... except, that's not how the administration sold it.
In short, they lied. You can attempt to justify it now, after the fact, but *at the time*, they lied. They lied, and now Americans are paying the price in lives, as well as in hard dollar figures (or have you not noticed that in the time Bush has been in office, the national debt has nearly *doubled*?).
And, just FYI, the disapproval at the time had nothing to do with jealousy. Christ, what are you, 12? Is that what your mommy told you when the big kids were bullying you?
How can that be true if the stuff about wearing blended fabrics is completely ignored, yet the stuff about gays is trumpeted as the Word of God?
I wish I knew.:)
All I'm saying is that it's (supposedly, I'm not expert here) both true that, 1) the OT contains moral guidance that is still relevant to a modern Christian, and 2) the OT laws no longer need to be followed to the letter.
'course, I'm sure you can find many a theologian who will wax philosophical about this exact topic if you give them the chance. And I'm sure there's plenty of material online which covers the topic, too.
So the Framm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act allowed commercial and investment banks to consolidate. So what?
Umm... precisely.
First, the integration of the sectors encouraged and allowed the creation of these complex derivative securities that everyone started buying, that created this bubble in the first place.
Second, the reason the housing collapse has been so completely devastating is because of the unprecedented level of integration between banking, investment, and insurance companies, which means "too big to fail" suddenly applies to far more institutions. Basically, GLBA allows the financial industry to put all their eggs in a few truly enormous baskets, and, well, you can see the consequences.
Infact it looks like "universal" bank JP Morgan Chase is about the rescue WaMu, something that would have been impossible before the FSMA.
ROFL, no offense, but that's an incredibly retarded justification, and I'm shocked the conservatives need to dig so deep into the bullshit just to justify the GLBA. Had that bill not been passed, *we might not have ever gotten to this point in the first place, and so JPM would never have had to consider buying WaMu*.
Honestly, that's a *terrible* excuse.
Now if you were talking about regulation that said "it is illegal to loan someone more than 80% of the value of their house", maybe, just maybe that would have cooled the housing bubble
No, I'm talking about enforcement of regulations on ratings agencies. I'm talking about enforcement of regulations to disallow the "innovation" that created those complex, uber-tranched, MBS-backed securities that were impossible to scrutinize effectively. I'm talking about enforcement of regulations to prevent predatory ARM, interesting-only, and negative-amortization loans. I'm talking about regulation to prevent the kind of massive financial integration that we've seen, and that has lead to such a devastating, chain-reaction collapse. Basically, common-sense rules in order to prevent this kind of house of cards from building up... in some cases, rules that had been in place since the Great Depression specifically to *prevent* this kind of thing from happening in the first place.
And your screed against affordable housing proponents is nothing but a conservative talking point and a diversion. Affordable housing can be achieved without a massive housing bubble.
Even if you do buy his claim that Fannie's share in subprime hit 20% by 2006 (I'd love to see the real numbers, here), that's only 20% of a truly massive market. How one can, with a straight face, blame the remaining 80% of bad loans on the GSEs is truly beyond me.
Sweet, broken link. That is: Financial Services Modernization Act, a bill which removed a variety of limits on the financial industry, and is considered by many to be one of the key components of the crisis we're experiencing today.
In other words, the government gave citizens' (future) money to the commercial banks by buying their debts and Fannie and Freddie effectively provided laundry services for the transaction?
Yup. It's called papering over the problem. They created it by deregulating and then doing nothing. Then when things started to go south, they started socializing the downside. Welcome to the Republican Party!
But it gets better! Now, they're just going to buy the bad assets outright! Why have Fannie and Freddie as middlemen when you can blow taxpayer money directly?
Fortunately, there are at least a few cooler, more calculated heads in congress that are pushing for accountability, stakes in the rescued companies, and golden parachute limits. No big surprise those ideas didn't come from the corrupt Bush administration, though.
The Financial Services Modernization Act, for one. No, this one ain't Bush's fault. Yes, he (and the rest of the government) is to blame for not doing something about it's consequences.
From Enron came SARBOX.
And yet, they didn't look to further regulating the financial industry, even though the signs of an imminent collapse were evident to many. And *that's* what I mean when I say they didn't learn from Enron: ie, leaving the free market to it's own devices (in this case, the financial services industry) is, generally speaking, not a great idea. But they'd rather do that, and then only after a truly spectacular failure, grudgingly pass reforms to limit the free market they claim to prostrate themselves before.
A true laissez faire capitalist doesn't think the government should bail out people who made financial mistakes.
Oh, I know, I was pointing out the hypocrisy of the situation. Bush, et al, call themselves free market champions until they fuck things up. Basically, they enjoy privatizing the profit and socializing the risk. It's really cronyism, but that doesn't sound as good to the base.
First, I don't think any sane person thinks the government is the "main blame" for the subprime crisis.
I say they are primarily at fault because they could've done something to curtail bad practices and didn't. Your example of the NRSRO is a perfect example of that (and on that topic, the fact that the SEC left them to their own devices means they were effectively unregulated, even if, technically, there was a regulatory body overseeing their activities).
Obviously they didn't directly cause the financial meltdown. But indirectly they did through inaction and/or incompetence. Once again, yes, CRA may have contributed, but if that's the case it was but a tiny contribution to a much larger problem, and so I think it's safe to say that, even in the absence of the CRA legislation (which, BTW, has been around since the 70s), the problem would've still existed.
Government also enhanced the housing bubble in general through mortgage interest deduction as well as zoning regulations.
Well, I buy that, but only to some extent. The mortgage interest deduction has been on the books since 1986... why, only now, 22 years later, would we see such a massive bubble and collapse? I can't say I know the history of zoning regulation changes, so I can't speak to those.
As such, I would contend that actual, recent legislation (specifically, de-regulation in the last 8-10 years) is a far more likely prime candidate.
Incidentally, I'd also argue that the extremely low interest rates over the past few years also haven't helped, as it encouraged larger mortgages while forcing investors to look for higher-return, (seemingly) low-risk options. Thanks, Greenspan!
You can blame Bush all you want, but lets also remember Democrats were pushing the GSEs to take on additional alt-A and subprime loans in the name of "affordable housing".
Except that, once again, they were barely involved in subprime until the market started falling apart (ie, they carried but a small fraction of those truly high-risk, low-quality loans). At least, that meshes with everything I've read. I assume you have evidence to the contrary?
Like all great disasters, there were lots of people and problems contributing to the problem.
Undoubtedly.
What we do know is that the 70,000 pages of new banking regulations published every year did not stop it.
Agreed. Why? Because the regulations that *were* in place to stop this problem were altered or eliminated, and regulations that could've stopped the problem were never created in the first place.
Pity no one learned from Enron. But, when you're a blind laissez faire capitalist, nothing will convince you... after all, regulation == communism (until you have to bail out your buddies)!!!
You WANT more government regulation and intervention in the markets? Because that's what you're asking for on these matters.
Damn fucking right I do. I want the government to hold S&P accountable when they claim that an MBS that contain tranches of subprime mortgages are AAA when they're so clearly not. I want the government to hold the banks responsible when they hand out predatory loans. These are *basic* things the government should have been doing to curtail the market forces that led to this situation. The fact that you don't understand that just says to me that you don't actually understand how the financial markets got to this place, and are instead intent upon parroting republicrat talking points.
The Bush administration actually TRIED to get certain reforms on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and was blocked by the leftists in the Senate.
And, once again, Fannie and Freddie reforms would've *done nothing* to solve this problem, as they largely weren't involved in the riskiest of lending practices that the current administration did nothing to prevent. At best they encouraged a secondary mortgage market that no one was interested in reigning in.
Basically, you're trying to blame Fannie and Freddie for these problems because then you can say Bush wasn't responsible. Problem is, you're wrong, Fannie and Freddie were not the prime movers in this situation, despite your assertions to the contrary.
But, way to go once again demonstrating that cognitive dissonance.
but to lay it at the feet of the Presidency when both houses of Congress were just as complicit in doing nothing or blocking certain reforms (as Dodd and Frank did) needs to be taken into consideration.
You mean the congress that, up to two years ago, was controlled by republicans who worked in lockstep with the president?
Sorry bub, but I damn well will lay this right at the feet of the executive.
Further, CRA only governs a certain class of federally insured banks. Problem is, half of the subprime loans came from mortgage companies with no CRA involvement at all. Another 25%-30% came from companies with very little CRA exposure. For those who left their abacus at home, that's 80% of the loans which were fully or largely outside CRA jurisdiction. More than that, the non-CRA mortgage firms made subprime loans at twice the rate of CRA-covered firms.
The reason bad loans were given out was because it made people a fuckton of money. The real failure was in the Bush administration not working to encourage investment opportunities outside the secondary mortgage market for the vast glut of credit that was around after the 2001 tech crash. Instead, they let the "invisible hand" work, and since real estate looked like a great way to make money, they threw their money in there. Suddenly banks saw a market for MBSs and began loaning like mad so they could resell the investments and make boatloads of cash. This drew new investors, which encouraged more bad loans, lather, rinse repeat. Throw in unregulated ratings agencies that were financially motivated to lie about risk, not to mention general risk obfuscation thanks to the structure of the instruments being sold, and you have a recipe for disaster.
All of this could've been fixed with some sensible regulation, but the government instead chose to sit back and ride the wave.
2) Fannie and Freddie largely largely avoided the subprime market until late 2007 when the market was failing and needed credit to keep it functioning, and they only stepped in when the government more or less told them to. So what the hell would regulating Fannie and Freddie have done to avoid the current problems? Nothing at all.
But I don't expect you to actually believe any of this. After all, cognitive dissonance is a powerful thing.
The best example of this is how people of both major parties continue to believe in government.
You mean government as a concept?
Well, see, there's this funny thing outside the United States called "The World". And in "The World" there are thousands of nation states. Funny enough, many of those nation states have working, functional governments that are able to represent their people and achieve positive goals. Thus, the fact that the US can't get it's act together is not evidence that government, itself, is a failure in concept, despite what so many small-government liberatians would have you believe. Rather, it just demonstrates that America has just managed to fuck yet another thing up, this time the very government that's responsible for running the country.
Then you hit the Gospels and Jesus says something along the lines of, "Okay, forget the earlier stuff about not eating monkeys or goats, just be nice to each other and we'll call that good enough." Which of course makes everything prior to that in the Bible totally irrelevant as moral handbooks go.
Except, of course, that Jesus explicitly said "I have not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets."
Now, that's not to say that the old laws are still in force. Rather, it means that the purpose and intent of those laws is still in effect, and so while the Old Testament laws are not necessarily in force verbatim, it does mean that the Old Testament is most definitely relevant as far as "moral handbooks" go.
Most people will do just about anything if they see or can expect some sort of personal gain.
Maybe there's just a correlation between people in sales and such sociopathic behaviours. Speaking as a software developer, I don't believe any of the people I work with would behave in such a disgusting manner.
Wow, what a crazy idea. If only they could have deployed this sooner! Pity the technology has only been available for far longer than bittorrent has been a problem...
Slashdot Mirror
What the main question here is, "when does a human become human and deserve protection?" This gets sticky.
No, it really isn't. If it doesn't have brain activity, it isn't eligable for protection. Period. End of story. Otherwise pulling the plug on someone in a persistent vegetative state would also be murder, and only retarded fundamentalists believe that (and that may include you for all I know).
It's really that simple.
Because he's apparently under the impression that women are paid for their aborted fetal tissue. Or something.
'course, many nations simply outlaw the sale of any human tissue (including blood), precisely because of the moral issues surrounding such transactions. Funny how that option doesn't seem to occur to the GP...
The problem some have this is that the fertilized eggs are put in a culture and manipulated to divide, thus becoming an embryo and no longer a "zygote".
And yet, it still doesn't have a functioning brain, so I fail to see where the problem is. An embryo is every bit as braindead as a car-crash victim on a respirator, and yet strangely enough, people have no trouble with the idea of pulling the plug on the latter, while it's somehow "murder" if the same is done to the former.
Of course, one might claim that the former has "potential" to be a living person, while the latter does not. But if that's the case, what difference does it make if the cell divides or not? If you subscribe to this view, the murder was performed when the fertilized egg wasn't allowed to implant in the uterine wall.
i would get right back at you by saying that destroying the demand is an effective tactic
And how, pray tell, do you plan to destroy demand? At best, this is a mental illness we're dealing with... so your plan is to, what, just arrest every child-porn-viewing pedophile out there? Sorry bub, but that just ain't gonna work. At least going after the supplies, the people *actually* harming children, is feasible. Going after the consumers of this dreck is just playing whack-a-mole.
On the bright side, it's a great excuse to increase law enforcement expenditures.
And you're never going to make a difference if you have nothing but contempt for the other side's beliefs and the honesty with which they hold them.
Oh, make no mistake. I have no contempt for their beliefs. What I have is contempt for their inconsistency.
Specifically: Unless you also violently disagree with in-vitro fertilization, you have absolutely no right to protest the use of fetal stem cells.
But it was a just cause
Ooooh, I see, deposing an impotent dictator, destroying the infrastructure of a sovereign nation, and killing untold numbers of it's citizens for dubious reasons was *just*. And that excuses lying because the American people are, evidentally, too fucking stupid to listen to reason and thus need guidance from a benevolent leader, even if that means misleading them.
If you say so.
Blah blah blah... your entire post is riddled with excuses that can only be said in hindsight (and most of them are so flimsy they'd blow apart in a light breeze). The fact is, *at the time*, there was no good reason to invade Iraq. And even if you don't buy that argument, *terrorism* was no good reason to invade Iraq, since they had no connection to 9/11... except, that's not how the administration sold it.
In short, they lied. You can attempt to justify it now, after the fact, but *at the time*, they lied. They lied, and now Americans are paying the price in lives, as well as in hard dollar figures (or have you not noticed that in the time Bush has been in office, the national debt has nearly *doubled*?).
And, just FYI, the disapproval at the time had nothing to do with jealousy. Christ, what are you, 12? Is that what your mommy told you when the big kids were bullying you?
How can that be true if the stuff about wearing blended fabrics is completely ignored, yet the stuff about gays is trumpeted as the Word of God?
I wish I knew. :)
All I'm saying is that it's (supposedly, I'm not expert here) both true that, 1) the OT contains moral guidance that is still relevant to a modern Christian, and 2) the OT laws no longer need to be followed to the letter.
'course, I'm sure you can find many a theologian who will wax philosophical about this exact topic if you give them the chance. And I'm sure there's plenty of material online which covers the topic, too.
So the Framm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act allowed commercial and investment banks to consolidate. So what?
Umm... precisely.
First, the integration of the sectors encouraged and allowed the creation of these complex derivative securities that everyone started buying, that created this bubble in the first place.
Second, the reason the housing collapse has been so completely devastating is because of the unprecedented level of integration between banking, investment, and insurance companies, which means "too big to fail" suddenly applies to far more institutions. Basically, GLBA allows the financial industry to put all their eggs in a few truly enormous baskets, and, well, you can see the consequences.
Infact it looks like "universal" bank JP Morgan Chase is about the rescue WaMu, something that would have been impossible before the FSMA.
ROFL, no offense, but that's an incredibly retarded justification, and I'm shocked the conservatives need to dig so deep into the bullshit just to justify the GLBA. Had that bill not been passed, *we might not have ever gotten to this point in the first place, and so JPM would never have had to consider buying WaMu*.
Honestly, that's a *terrible* excuse.
Now if you were talking about regulation that said "it is illegal to loan someone more than 80% of the value of their house", maybe, just maybe that would have cooled the housing bubble
No, I'm talking about enforcement of regulations on ratings agencies. I'm talking about enforcement of regulations to disallow the "innovation" that created those complex, uber-tranched, MBS-backed securities that were impossible to scrutinize effectively. I'm talking about enforcement of regulations to prevent predatory ARM, interesting-only, and negative-amortization loans. I'm talking about regulation to prevent the kind of massive financial integration that we've seen, and that has lead to such a devastating, chain-reaction collapse. Basically, common-sense rules in order to prevent this kind of house of cards from building up... in some cases, rules that had been in place since the Great Depression specifically to *prevent* this kind of thing from happening in the first place.
And your screed against affordable housing proponents is nothing but a conservative talking point and a diversion. Affordable housing can be achieved without a massive housing bubble.
Even if you do buy his claim that Fannie's share in subprime hit 20% by 2006 (I'd love to see the real numbers, here), that's only 20% of a truly massive market. How one can, with a straight face, blame the remaining 80% of bad loans on the GSEs is truly beyond me.
Sweet, broken link. That is: Financial Services Modernization Act, a bill which removed a variety of limits on the financial industry, and is considered by many to be one of the key components of the crisis we're experiencing today.
In other words, the government gave citizens' (future) money to the commercial banks by buying their debts and Fannie and Freddie effectively provided laundry services for the transaction?
Yup. It's called papering over the problem. They created it by deregulating and then doing nothing. Then when things started to go south, they started socializing the downside. Welcome to the Republican Party!
But it gets better! Now, they're just going to buy the bad assets outright! Why have Fannie and Freddie as middlemen when you can blow taxpayer money directly?
Fortunately, there are at least a few cooler, more calculated heads in congress that are pushing for accountability, stakes in the rescued companies, and golden parachute limits. No big surprise those ideas didn't come from the corrupt Bush administration, though.
Which regulations, specifically?
The Financial Services Modernization Act, for one. No, this one ain't Bush's fault. Yes, he (and the rest of the government) is to blame for not doing something about it's consequences.
From Enron came SARBOX.
And yet, they didn't look to further regulating the financial industry, even though the signs of an imminent collapse were evident to many. And *that's* what I mean when I say they didn't learn from Enron: ie, leaving the free market to it's own devices (in this case, the financial services industry) is, generally speaking, not a great idea. But they'd rather do that, and then only after a truly spectacular failure, grudgingly pass reforms to limit the free market they claim to prostrate themselves before.
A true laissez faire capitalist doesn't think the government should bail out people who made financial mistakes.
Oh, I know, I was pointing out the hypocrisy of the situation. Bush, et al, call themselves free market champions until they fuck things up. Basically, they enjoy privatizing the profit and socializing the risk. It's really cronyism, but that doesn't sound as good to the base.
First, I don't think any sane person thinks the government is the "main blame" for the subprime crisis.
I say they are primarily at fault because they could've done something to curtail bad practices and didn't. Your example of the NRSRO is a perfect example of that (and on that topic, the fact that the SEC left them to their own devices means they were effectively unregulated, even if, technically, there was a regulatory body overseeing their activities).
Obviously they didn't directly cause the financial meltdown. But indirectly they did through inaction and/or incompetence. Once again, yes, CRA may have contributed, but if that's the case it was but a tiny contribution to a much larger problem, and so I think it's safe to say that, even in the absence of the CRA legislation (which, BTW, has been around since the 70s), the problem would've still existed.
Government also enhanced the housing bubble in general through mortgage interest deduction as well as zoning regulations.
Well, I buy that, but only to some extent. The mortgage interest deduction has been on the books since 1986... why, only now, 22 years later, would we see such a massive bubble and collapse? I can't say I know the history of zoning regulation changes, so I can't speak to those.
As such, I would contend that actual, recent legislation (specifically, de-regulation in the last 8-10 years) is a far more likely prime candidate.
Incidentally, I'd also argue that the extremely low interest rates over the past few years also haven't helped, as it encouraged larger mortgages while forcing investors to look for higher-return, (seemingly) low-risk options. Thanks, Greenspan!
You can blame Bush all you want, but lets also remember Democrats were pushing the GSEs to take on additional alt-A and subprime loans in the name of "affordable housing".
Except that, once again, they were barely involved in subprime until the market started falling apart (ie, they carried but a small fraction of those truly high-risk, low-quality loans). At least, that meshes with everything I've read. I assume you have evidence to the contrary?
Like all great disasters, there were lots of people and problems contributing to the problem.
Undoubtedly.
What we do know is that the 70,000 pages of new banking regulations published every year did not stop it.
Agreed. Why? Because the regulations that *were* in place to stop this problem were altered or eliminated, and regulations that could've stopped the problem were never created in the first place.
Pity no one learned from Enron. But, when you're a blind laissez faire capitalist, nothing will convince you... after all, regulation == communism (until you have to bail out your buddies)!!!
You WANT more government regulation and intervention in the markets? Because that's what you're asking for on these matters.
Damn fucking right I do. I want the government to hold S&P accountable when they claim that an MBS that contain tranches of subprime mortgages are AAA when they're so clearly not. I want the government to hold the banks responsible when they hand out predatory loans. These are *basic* things the government should have been doing to curtail the market forces that led to this situation. The fact that you don't understand that just says to me that you don't actually understand how the financial markets got to this place, and are instead intent upon parroting republicrat talking points.
The Bush administration actually TRIED to get certain reforms on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and was blocked by the leftists in the Senate.
And, once again, Fannie and Freddie reforms would've *done nothing* to solve this problem, as they largely weren't involved in the riskiest of lending practices that the current administration did nothing to prevent. At best they encouraged a secondary mortgage market that no one was interested in reigning in.
Basically, you're trying to blame Fannie and Freddie for these problems because then you can say Bush wasn't responsible. Problem is, you're wrong, Fannie and Freddie were not the prime movers in this situation, despite your assertions to the contrary.
But, way to go once again demonstrating that cognitive dissonance.
but to lay it at the feet of the Presidency when both houses of Congress were just as complicit in doing nothing or blocking certain reforms (as Dodd and Frank did) needs to be taken into consideration.
You mean the congress that, up to two years ago, was controlled by republicans who worked in lockstep with the president?
Sorry bub, but I damn well will lay this right at the feet of the executive.
That said, the fact that the law wasn't designed with the situation in mind does not mean they can ignore it since there's no other law on the topic.
If it's a jury trial, they certainly can ignore the law if they choose.
Hmm... that's not right at all. Make that:
"Democracy, with the exception of American-style democracy, was the least worst form of government."
Stupid English and lack of proof reading... :)
After being a part of the American political process for the last 8 years I've seen how ideology has, time and again, trumped reason.
Then perhaps you should modify Churchill's quote as follows:
"Democracy was the least worst form of government, except for American-style democracy".
After all, there are many other democratic nations in the world that aren't nearly so screwed up as the US (in fact, I live in one).
"Facts" my ass. Here are some real, unbiased facts:
1) The CRA bill had virtually nothing to do with the current financial crisis. To quote:
The reason bad loans were given out was because it made people a fuckton of money. The real failure was in the Bush administration not working to encourage investment opportunities outside the secondary mortgage market for the vast glut of credit that was around after the 2001 tech crash. Instead, they let the "invisible hand" work, and since real estate looked like a great way to make money, they threw their money in there. Suddenly banks saw a market for MBSs and began loaning like mad so they could resell the investments and make boatloads of cash. This drew new investors, which encouraged more bad loans, lather, rinse repeat. Throw in unregulated ratings agencies that were financially motivated to lie about risk, not to mention general risk obfuscation thanks to the structure of the instruments being sold, and you have a recipe for disaster.
All of this could've been fixed with some sensible regulation, but the government instead chose to sit back and ride the wave.
2) Fannie and Freddie largely largely avoided the subprime market until late 2007 when the market was failing and needed credit to keep it functioning, and they only stepped in when the government more or less told them to. So what the hell would regulating Fannie and Freddie have done to avoid the current problems? Nothing at all.
But I don't expect you to actually believe any of this. After all, cognitive dissonance is a powerful thing.
The best example of this is how people of both major parties continue to believe in government.
You mean government as a concept?
Well, see, there's this funny thing outside the United States called "The World". And in "The World" there are thousands of nation states. Funny enough, many of those nation states have working, functional governments that are able to represent their people and achieve positive goals. Thus, the fact that the US can't get it's act together is not evidence that government, itself, is a failure in concept, despite what so many small-government liberatians would have you believe. Rather, it just demonstrates that America has just managed to fuck yet another thing up, this time the very government that's responsible for running the country.
Then you hit the Gospels and Jesus says something along the lines of, "Okay, forget the earlier stuff about not eating monkeys or goats, just be nice to each other and we'll call that good enough." Which of course makes everything prior to that in the Bible totally irrelevant as moral handbooks go.
Except, of course, that Jesus explicitly said "I have not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets."
Now, that's not to say that the old laws are still in force. Rather, it means that the purpose and intent of those laws is still in effect, and so while the Old Testament laws are not necessarily in force verbatim, it does mean that the Old Testament is most definitely relevant as far as "moral handbooks" go.
Most people will do just about anything if they see or can expect some sort of personal gain.
Maybe there's just a correlation between people in sales and such sociopathic behaviours. Speaking as a software developer, I don't believe any of the people I work with would behave in such a disgusting manner.
Wow, what a crazy idea. If only they could have deployed this sooner! Pity the technology has only been available for far longer than bittorrent has been a problem...
Better not tell that to car manufacturers, who have been working on multiple lines of technology more or less since the inception of the industry...
But other than that, I'm sure your blanket statement is universally true.