The overhead for the company in keeping track of who paid what and who got paid back what probably wouldn't be worth it... it'd take forever to pay all of the personnel before you could start giving customers money back.
I still think it's only part of the blame. The people who signed loans they couldn't afford were greedy and stupid, but so were the banks that lied about the level of risk in their mortgage backed securities, as were Fannie and Freddie for buying way more risky mortgages than was wise. By only assigning part blame, I'm not saying that the people who signed loans they couldn't afford were right, just that there are others that need to be blamed as well.
I didn't specifically state the CRA. The CRA wasn't a problem for years. It wasn't until our government during the time of the Clinton administration got involved with the CRA and CRA-related things. From your own quote:
Pressured by the Clinton administration, lenders in 1999 began to relax the credit requirements for minorities and others whose incomes, credit ratings and savings were too low to qualify for conventional loans.
Now, I'm not trying to sling mud against either party. BOTH have gotten us into the trouble we're in now. Clinton just happened to be president while this trouble started.
I agree that the Golden Parachute Club is ridiculous. And for AIG to take that trip, just shoving it in our faces. I think that the execs that take the bailout money should not get their massive severance or salary. My understanding is that the bill that passed at least attempts to limit that. I won't claim to know what the solution is (I've wondered what would happen if we did just let it all come crashing down), but I certainly am not in favor of setting up a system where you get to keep it if you win and get bailed out if you lose.
I don't think the government should have forced banks to make loans they were pretty sure would fail. Part of that is my belief in limited government; part of that is that it contributed to the housing bubble and all bubbles have to burst.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should never have bought those bad mortgages in droves like they did. Having a flippant attitude of we'll buy up the mortgages and if they fail, well, we'll just get more money from the government was utterly and completely irresponsible.
The banks shouldn't have lied about the risk of the mortgage backed securities. I can't fault them too much for selling off the bad mortgages to Fannie and Freddie. They are a business and their job is to maximize profits. Having the person who made the loan having no interest in if the loan failed or not was stupid for the economy, but that's more or Freddie and Fannie buying the bad mortgages. But you're right, the banks do deserve some of the blame for lying about the securities.
Finally, having bought a house about 10 months ago, I know first hand that there is a lot of paperwork to go through. My wife and I knew what kind of loan we wanted and had done our homework to know what we could afford before we started looking at houses. While it's not popular in an election year to blame the constituency, personal responsibility comes into play. Yes, the people who signed for loans they couldn't afford bear some of the blame as well.
My point is that people are looking for the one "bad guy" to blame. Pointing fingers at one part of the problem while ignoring the rest won't get us out of this mess.
Don't forget that it wasn't just the mortgage brokers, but the government requiring banks to loan to people who normally wouldn't qualify for a loan and couldn't afford to pay it back.
I have found evidence to support my belief in God and would argue that there are many proofs of God from many different angles (logical, philosophical, historical, even scientific), but have been around Slashdot long enough to know that any debate on the evidence of God can quickly turn into a flame war and, at best, leads to no conclusion at all.:)
Didn't know it in quite that way (my physics and astronomy training is limited to basic jr high and high school and briefly covered in one college class), but the basic idea, yes. Still, for lack of better terms, I had to choose something and beginning works as well as anything else, if not better, given that we tend to think of time as linear.
Thanks for filling in the gaps with a more technical description.:)
E.g., there's a rainbow outside. It wasn't "created" by anything. It's just the interaction between a bunch of droplets of water, and the sunlight coming in at the right angle. Both are quite random things, and it seems funny to ascribe the power of creation to them. It's an ephemereal phenomenon.
Maybe created is the wrong word in this sense, but caused would certainly work. The sunlight and water droplets "reacted" causing the rainbow.
. Said perceptions and intuition were made to work at small distances, over limited times, and generally with small numbers. There are phenomena which happen too fast or too slow or over too large distances, to bear any relevance to how the mammal brain evolved to deal with or to even resemble anything that your first hand experience includes.
Which explains why my brain feels like a jumbled mess when I think about things like this too late at night.:)
It is an interesting point. From what I've seen / heard, it's more that "I want it for free" and "everyone else is doing it" than "this makes sense". I do think that the media industry has painted itself into a corner, but I don't think they're completely to blame. That being said, mass suing your customers isn't a very smart PR decision.
Interesting thoughts... One could argue that most P2P services have you automatically share the file once you've downloaded it and that by doing that, you are distributing which is against copyright. In a sense, it would be like taping a song off of the radio and then broadcasting it on a radio station yourself. Most, if not all, of the people who have been sued have been those sharing files, not those just downloading.
Actually, my B covers both your B and C. If the universe hasn't always existed, then it was created by someone (God) or something. I agree B and C are different. Heck, even the option that God created the universe has multiple different sub-options. My point was to show that either the universe has always existed or something or someone came before that (and maybe before that, etc.). Eventually you get to something or someone that existed in infinity past / the "beginning".
I agree that just because we have no explanation for something doesn't mean 'God did it'. On the flip side, it doesn't mean that God didn't do it. It just means we have no explanation for it.
I tried to not argue for or against the existence of God, just lay out the options. Personally, I believe in God, but I try to not let my belief be a blind belief. Instead I look for proof.
As for the problematic sentence, yes and no. When we talk about someone or something in infinity past / the "beginning" we're really talking about someone or something that is outside of time. If nothing created the universe, then the universe has existed since the beginning and as such would have "always existed". If the universe was created by something or someone, then that someone or something exists outside of time and thus "always existed". At least part of it comes down to semantics because how do you define that which happens outside of time? That which created the universe comes "before" only because we tend to think of time as linearly.
To be complete, I guess the one option that I haven't presented is that someone or something existed outside of time and ceased to be at the creation of the universe or sometime after.
On the flip side, assuming there is no such thing as god, where did the universe come from? If an acceptable answer for where the universe came from is that it always existed, then why is that not an acceptable answer to where did god come from?
Basically, the creation of the universe comes down to two cases. Either it always existed (and by always existed, I'm including the theory that it expands and contracts, collapses on itself, and starts again) OR something / someone created it. Ultimately you have to have someone/something that always existed.
I don't advocate that we don't pay for improvements. Instead, I believe that the money I earn is my money and that whenever the government spends money, it is my (and yours and everyone else's) money. In my opinion, that means they need to be responsible with it instead of spending it on things like bridges to nowhere. So, yes, we obviously should invest in our country by investing in infrastructure, defense, etc. On the other hand, the government shouldn't take more money than they need and, quite frankly, they waste enough of money so yes, I would like to see taxes lower. I'd also like to see fiscal responsibility. What I don't think we should do is just keep taxing anyone/everyone because government can't seem to realize what is important and what isn't. Giving the government billions of more dollars isn't going to help. They'll just waste it and want more.
The other issue with raising taxes on the rich are that they're the ones that can afford to move. Living in California, we've seen what high taxes have done... businesses and people are moving from California to Arizona and Nevada where it is cheaper to be in business and live. That means less jobs for us which means less of a tax base. By lowering taxes, we'd encourage more people and businesses to be in our state which would increase our tax base and bring in more money.
We're actually better off not taxing the rich as much and just having a flat tax. The higher taxes are, the lower our GDP is and it's been found that the amount of tax money we bring in is directly related to our GDP. Check out http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121124460502305693.html
Have you ever tried C? I'm thankful I have good health insurance, but I know someone who doesn't have health insurance. Sure, the hospital will give you a payment plan and sure, some places have a "cash discount" policy, but try explaining to the health care employee that you are self-pay and need to know the costs beforehand so you can budget / make sure you have the money. They don't know them, that's a different department and then they want your non-existent insurance card because it's part of the process.
Offtopic, but I can't seem to find out enough about this from my local electronics stores. I have a non-HD TV with no cable, satellite, or rabbit ears. We've opted for DVDs instead. With the switch to HD-TV signals, I registered and received my coupons. I realize that with the converter, I still need to have some kind of antenna. I recently saw the Philips MANT310 at my local Walmart (can't find a link to just the product, so I'll post the Radio Shack link: http://www.radioshack.com/sm-philips-mant310-indoor-amplified-vhf-uhf-fm-tv-antenna--pi-2455308.html).
My question is, since this receives HD-TV signals, do I still need the converter box for my non-HD TV? Would there be a benefit to getting the converter box?
Thanks.
If you don't want to process the mail, why not do donotreply@donotreply.companydomain.com? This way it doesn't come to you, but also doesn't go to someone else.
We had someone from the state of Connecticut come into my college Political Science class a number of years ago. She was praising electronic voting machines. When it came time for Q&A, I said, "We have the most accurate voting machines available (mechanical lever), why would we switch to electronic voting?" She paused and did a reversal saying, "I would love to keep using the same machines, but nobody makes them anymore." So, that may be the issue for New York as well. Then again, if there's someone who wants to buy the lever machines and especially if it's a government entity, I'm sure there's someone out there that would make them.
Slashdot Mirror
Do they make something like this for the BlackBerry?
The overhead for the company in keeping track of who paid what and who got paid back what probably wouldn't be worth it... it'd take forever to pay all of the personnel before you could start giving customers money back.
I still think it's only part of the blame. The people who signed loans they couldn't afford were greedy and stupid, but so were the banks that lied about the level of risk in their mortgage backed securities, as were Fannie and Freddie for buying way more risky mortgages than was wise. By only assigning part blame, I'm not saying that the people who signed loans they couldn't afford were right, just that there are others that need to be blamed as well.
Now, I'm not trying to sling mud against either party. BOTH have gotten us into the trouble we're in now. Clinton just happened to be president while this trouble started.
I think there's plenty of blame to go around... see my post at http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=991171&cid=25323837
Sure... The one I read (admittedly partisan): http://ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=306370789279709 The one I skimmed enough of to see that it backs me up: http://www.nypost.com/seven/02052008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/the_real_scandal_243911.htm?page=0
I agree that the Golden Parachute Club is ridiculous. And for AIG to take that trip, just shoving it in our faces. I think that the execs that take the bailout money should not get their massive severance or salary. My understanding is that the bill that passed at least attempts to limit that. I won't claim to know what the solution is (I've wondered what would happen if we did just let it all come crashing down), but I certainly am not in favor of setting up a system where you get to keep it if you win and get bailed out if you lose.
I think there's plenty of blame to go around....
I don't think the government should have forced banks to make loans they were pretty sure would fail. Part of that is my belief in limited government; part of that is that it contributed to the housing bubble and all bubbles have to burst.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should never have bought those bad mortgages in droves like they did. Having a flippant attitude of we'll buy up the mortgages and if they fail, well, we'll just get more money from the government was utterly and completely irresponsible.
The banks shouldn't have lied about the risk of the mortgage backed securities. I can't fault them too much for selling off the bad mortgages to Fannie and Freddie. They are a business and their job is to maximize profits. Having the person who made the loan having no interest in if the loan failed or not was stupid for the economy, but that's more or Freddie and Fannie buying the bad mortgages. But you're right, the banks do deserve some of the blame for lying about the securities.
Finally, having bought a house about 10 months ago, I know first hand that there is a lot of paperwork to go through. My wife and I knew what kind of loan we wanted and had done our homework to know what we could afford before we started looking at houses. While it's not popular in an election year to blame the constituency, personal responsibility comes into play. Yes, the people who signed for loans they couldn't afford bear some of the blame as well.
My point is that people are looking for the one "bad guy" to blame. Pointing fingers at one part of the problem while ignoring the rest won't get us out of this mess.
Don't forget that it wasn't just the mortgage brokers, but the government requiring banks to loan to people who normally wouldn't qualify for a loan and couldn't afford to pay it back.
I have found evidence to support my belief in God and would argue that there are many proofs of God from many different angles (logical, philosophical, historical, even scientific), but have been around Slashdot long enough to know that any debate on the evidence of God can quickly turn into a flame war and, at best, leads to no conclusion at all. :)
Didn't know it in quite that way (my physics and astronomy training is limited to basic jr high and high school and briefly covered in one college class), but the basic idea, yes. Still, for lack of better terms, I had to choose something and beginning works as well as anything else, if not better, given that we tend to think of time as linear. Thanks for filling in the gaps with a more technical description. :)
E.g., there's a rainbow outside. It wasn't "created" by anything. It's just the interaction between a bunch of droplets of water, and the sunlight coming in at the right angle. Both are quite random things, and it seems funny to ascribe the power of creation to them. It's an ephemereal phenomenon.
Maybe created is the wrong word in this sense, but caused would certainly work. The sunlight and water droplets "reacted" causing the rainbow.
. Said perceptions and intuition were made to work at small distances, over limited times, and generally with small numbers. There are phenomena which happen too fast or too slow or over too large distances, to bear any relevance to how the mammal brain evolved to deal with or to even resemble anything that your first hand experience includes.
Which explains why my brain feels like a jumbled mess when I think about things like this too late at night. :)
It is an interesting point. From what I've seen / heard, it's more that "I want it for free" and "everyone else is doing it" than "this makes sense". I do think that the media industry has painted itself into a corner, but I don't think they're completely to blame. That being said, mass suing your customers isn't a very smart PR decision.
Interesting thoughts... One could argue that most P2P services have you automatically share the file once you've downloaded it and that by doing that, you are distributing which is against copyright. In a sense, it would be like taping a song off of the radio and then broadcasting it on a radio station yourself. Most, if not all, of the people who have been sued have been those sharing files, not those just downloading.
And anything before that singularity would be "infinite" in that it exists or existed outside of time. Either something or someone.
Actually, my B covers both your B and C. If the universe hasn't always existed, then it was created by someone (God) or something. I agree B and C are different. Heck, even the option that God created the universe has multiple different sub-options. My point was to show that either the universe has always existed or something or someone came before that (and maybe before that, etc.). Eventually you get to something or someone that existed in infinity past / the "beginning".
I agree that just because we have no explanation for something doesn't mean 'God did it'. On the flip side, it doesn't mean that God didn't do it. It just means we have no explanation for it.
I tried to not argue for or against the existence of God, just lay out the options. Personally, I believe in God, but I try to not let my belief be a blind belief. Instead I look for proof.
As for the problematic sentence, yes and no. When we talk about someone or something in infinity past / the "beginning" we're really talking about someone or something that is outside of time. If nothing created the universe, then the universe has existed since the beginning and as such would have "always existed". If the universe was created by something or someone, then that someone or something exists outside of time and thus "always existed". At least part of it comes down to semantics because how do you define that which happens outside of time? That which created the universe comes "before" only because we tend to think of time as linearly.
To be complete, I guess the one option that I haven't presented is that someone or something existed outside of time and ceased to be at the creation of the universe or sometime after.
On the flip side, assuming there is no such thing as god, where did the universe come from? If an acceptable answer for where the universe came from is that it always existed, then why is that not an acceptable answer to where did god come from? Basically, the creation of the universe comes down to two cases. Either it always existed (and by always existed, I'm including the theory that it expands and contracts, collapses on itself, and starts again) OR something / someone created it. Ultimately you have to have someone/something that always existed.
I don't advocate that we don't pay for improvements. Instead, I believe that the money I earn is my money and that whenever the government spends money, it is my (and yours and everyone else's) money. In my opinion, that means they need to be responsible with it instead of spending it on things like bridges to nowhere. So, yes, we obviously should invest in our country by investing in infrastructure, defense, etc. On the other hand, the government shouldn't take more money than they need and, quite frankly, they waste enough of money so yes, I would like to see taxes lower. I'd also like to see fiscal responsibility. What I don't think we should do is just keep taxing anyone/everyone because government can't seem to realize what is important and what isn't. Giving the government billions of more dollars isn't going to help. They'll just waste it and want more. The other issue with raising taxes on the rich are that they're the ones that can afford to move. Living in California, we've seen what high taxes have done... businesses and people are moving from California to Arizona and Nevada where it is cheaper to be in business and live. That means less jobs for us which means less of a tax base. By lowering taxes, we'd encourage more people and businesses to be in our state which would increase our tax base and bring in more money.
We're actually better off not taxing the rich as much and just having a flat tax. The higher taxes are, the lower our GDP is and it's been found that the amount of tax money we bring in is directly related to our GDP. Check out http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121124460502305693.html
Have you ever tried C? I'm thankful I have good health insurance, but I know someone who doesn't have health insurance. Sure, the hospital will give you a payment plan and sure, some places have a "cash discount" policy, but try explaining to the health care employee that you are self-pay and need to know the costs beforehand so you can budget / make sure you have the money. They don't know them, that's a different department and then they want your non-existent insurance card because it's part of the process.
Thanks so much!
Offtopic, but I can't seem to find out enough about this from my local electronics stores. I have a non-HD TV with no cable, satellite, or rabbit ears. We've opted for DVDs instead. With the switch to HD-TV signals, I registered and received my coupons. I realize that with the converter, I still need to have some kind of antenna. I recently saw the Philips MANT310 at my local Walmart (can't find a link to just the product, so I'll post the Radio Shack link: http://www.radioshack.com/sm-philips-mant310-indoor-amplified-vhf-uhf-fm-tv-antenna--pi-2455308.html). My question is, since this receives HD-TV signals, do I still need the converter box for my non-HD TV? Would there be a benefit to getting the converter box? Thanks.
If you don't want to process the mail, why not do donotreply@donotreply.companydomain.com? This way it doesn't come to you, but also doesn't go to someone else.
good reply. Thanks for posting this. Wish I had mod points to mod you up.
We had someone from the state of Connecticut come into my college Political Science class a number of years ago. She was praising electronic voting machines. When it came time for Q&A, I said, "We have the most accurate voting machines available (mechanical lever), why would we switch to electronic voting?" She paused and did a reversal saying, "I would love to keep using the same machines, but nobody makes them anymore." So, that may be the issue for New York as well. Then again, if there's someone who wants to buy the lever machines and especially if it's a government entity, I'm sure there's someone out there that would make them.