Here's what I, as a conservative, support. FISA may reach a bit too far:
1. National security is the realm of the Commander-in-Chief - NOT congress...
Actually, that's not conservative. That's supporting a strong federal government centered on a single individual and his cabinet-- which is more of a fascist stance. American Conservatism traditionally supports a stronger voice of the people and less influence by the executive.
2. International terrorism is primarily a military - NOT LAW ENFORCEMENT - matter. Its roots are in a conflict against governments and people as a whole, not against individuals, thus putting it in the realm of the military.
That's incorrect. It's roots are philosophical and religious. They don't like what we allow our corporations and governments to do around the world. They see us as immoral and an affront to their beliefs. If we were to change, they would hate us less. Thus, it's not a military issue... it's a lifestyle issue.
3. Communications of internationals, like it or not, are NOT covered by the US Constitution.
Ok. Cool. But what about one American to another American within American borders?
All this being said, we DON'T need to be listening to people who aren't on watch lists and the like.
Not exact enough. Watch lists can have anyone added to them. You could be on a watch list, seen as a charismatic and dedicated individual that can easily gain the support of your peers for whatever goal you deem sufficient. That makes you a danger. We should watch you.
However, the military needs to do its job with as few roadblocks as possible.
Roadblocks are bad when we know the enemy. However, they are good when we don't. They protect the innocent... which is what we're supposed to be doing, right?
We also need to protect US citizens' rights as guaranteed by the Constitution when they are not - nor intending to commit - acts of terrorism (or crimes, for that matter).
The rights of everyone within our borders need to be protected whether or not they have been accused of misconduct. If you read the Bill of Rights, you'll see that the majority of the document is written in, not only distrust of, but understanding of central governments in that they are severely flawed and often get "the wrong guy".
I'll be the first to tell you that I hate my cell phone. When I got to undergrad, everyone was getting one. We knew it would be a part of life. I resisted until my 4th year and still made sure that it was a bare-bones phone-- a brick by modern standards. No internet, no special ringtones, nothing that would potentially add additional cost to my life.
When I entered the work force after graduation, everyone wanted to give their cell numbers to their various supervisors. I didn't. When asked by my supervisor why I didn't, I told him:
1) You don't pay for my minutes 2) You don't pay me for taking calls and doing work before 8am nor after 5pm 3) I don't like phones, let alone cell phones.
He and I had a very humorous conversation until I asked him why *he* gave his cell number to *his* supervisor. "It just streamlines everything. It's less work," he responded.
"Less work" I retort. "Tell me, without a cell phone, how much work would you do in the car on the way to and from work? How much work would you do at lunch? How much work would you do traveling from point-A and point-B on the job?"
"I wouldn't get any work done. That's the problem," he insisted.
"No, you're missing something... you said cell phones help you do less work. However, you do work in all that time where, prior to cell phones, you did no work. The drive to work was relaxing. On the drive home, you could think about home, not the office. You could relax at lunch. You're commuting from one meeting to another during the day so you're already working for the company/school -- so how are you doing less work when you're working when you shouldn't?"
He paused, opened his mouth, closed it again, and breathed.
I start again, "... and do you pay for your phone and minutes? Or does the company/school?"
"Well it's my phone. I pay for it," he says.
"And who uses it more: you for your life or the company/school through you as its employee?"
He smiles as if empowered. "You're right. If I'm working off the clock, the very least the company/school could do is pay for this phone or another and the minutes."
"Now you're talking. Of course, you could even record the minutes you work in your off time and claim them as time put in. Remember, the company/school only works in 15-minute increments so, round up where necessary," I say with a grin.
Afterward: A month later, the company/school ended its policy of requesting (requiring) employees give up their cell numbers. If they needed you to be on call, they'd buy you a cell phone and subscription. The people didn't get paid for their time on the phone, but it was a start.
After-Afterward: I still don't give my cell number out to anyone but Human Resources. Those guys are rabid bulldogs about privacy and will only call me in an emergency or if there's something wrong with my paycheck.
Incorrect. One must learn how to do things the original way or they will be doomed to fall when they do not have their crutch.
Also, your parallel is flawed. It's not that we should be hunting and gathering, but we should be taught that drinking still water is dangerous and what poison ivy looked like.
I concur. I'm a techy, I'm a geek, but I'm also an educator and my experience (and the experience of others) says that computers are not needed in the classroom.
I would much rather read poor penmanship and misspellings than allow students the opportunity to cheat by using a computer or the internet as a crutch.
Would we allow students to use calculators in elementary school?
*They* don't want it *now*, but that does not imply that they, or the people near them, may want it now or in the future.
My cycnic-meter tells me that this survey is going to be used to keep prices high in under-wired areas by suggesting that there's not enough demand to expand operations.
If there's affordable access, peoples' habits and preference change.
Turn the tables and assert that Viacom has been using illegal legal and accounting practices to fund their extortion and other money-making schemes over the years.
Please hand over all your legal records and accounting books back to the creation of the corporation so that we may prove our case.
Wouldn't this imply that we not only have the right to keep and bear *firearms* but also brass knuckles, telescopic batons, large knives, swords, blackjacks, etc.
I mean, they *are* less-deadly and with an exception of the "telescopic baton" all existed during revolutionary America.
To be fair, there's no reason to arrest someone unless there's reason to believe s/he may have been involved in a crime.
Or is thinking about it bad enough?
I'm an honest person, don't own a gun, but am far from "defenseless".
I'm happy that this has been settled, but now it's time to put even more pressure on state and local governments to mandate genuinely precautionary measures to prevent the theft of firearms and the misuse of firearms.
You know... like mandatory firearm care, use, and storage education. Maybe a law requiring someone reporting the theft of a firearm within 72 hours of noticing it is gone.
The right to have an abortion is declared by (wo)man independent of the obstruction by the American government.
The right to own a firearm is declared by (wo)man independent of the obstruction by the American government.
We declare our own rights. They are not bestowed upon us from any higher power or even the federal government. In fact, our rights are statements of restriction of the government... not gifts therefrom.
But you didn't do all the math, as most people who throw out the "but you only work 9 months out of the year" argument.
Factor in unpaid overtime: (10-15 hours per week) Factor in supplies coming from the teacher's budget: (~$100 a month) Taxes: ~30% for a single person, no kids
Do all that, and then look at the year-round take-home (or even the 9-month take-home) pay of a new teacher. Then consider rent/mortgage, gas, utilities, food, and (if you're crazy enough) a child!
Then consider that all those teachers are clamoring any form of summer income possible come June. Your otherwise "lucrative" summer opportunities are destroyed by the supply of teachers. I live in a pretty well off city and the teachers HERE do tutoring for $8/hour (taxed, of course) during the summer whenever possible. These tutoring centers won't even look at you unless you have teaching credentials because the supply is so high during the summer.
So if your argument is as it seems, you may need to finish the math and then respond. Let me know if
And it's even more than just hiring more teachers and attracting more teachers with better wages. We're talking *serious* changes.
In California, a newly credentialed teacher starts @ about $32,000 per year. Also, a teacher's workload consists of getting to school at least a half hour before school starts, staying the whole school day, staying usually an hour or so after school (more if you want to tutor), and then working from home to grade work and prepare for the next day. All that and then there's parent conferences, parent calls, and potentially PTA meetings. It's more than 40 hours a week with high pressure, very little thanks, high accountability, low/no funding (teachers will often find themselves paying for their students' school supplies out of pocket), and low monetary compensation.
And that's only AFTER you've been hired as a teacher. To get hired you have to pay for undergrad (and obviously do well), pay for/complete the necessary entrance exams (GRE, CSET, CBEST in California), get accepted into, pay for, and complete a 1-2 year (full-time) credentialing program, and then start the job hunt... finding someone who will hire a fresh, new teacher FULL TIME.
What needs to happen is a paradigm shift in our way of thinking about education. We need to, as a whole, agree that the *only* way to progress as a people is through education. Once that's done...
There needs to be (1) funding for new teachers, (2) increased pay and benefits for teachers, and (3) a system to streamline the process of becoming a teacher-- from saying "I want to teach" to "I'm hired, teaching, and have the money necessary to teach well while not having to dig into my own pockets."
Until all 3 of the above are accomplished, we will not see any genuine, long-term improvement in the varied educational systems. No amount of money can do well without a strong system and no system is of any use without funding.
Chief Justice Roberts, in somewhat milder tones, said the decision represented "overreaching" that was "particularly egregious" and left the court open to "charges of judicial activism." The decision, he said, "is not really about the detainees at all, but about control of federal policy regarding enemy combatants." The public will "lose a bit more control over the conduct of this nation's foreign policy to unelected, politically unaccountable judges," he added.
If he intended to say what you interpret, he would have said just that. He would have said, "It is not the place of the judicial branch to define foreign policy." But he didn't, he purposely dropped the term "judicial activism" and asserted that the nation's foreign policy has been and is bfurther being controlled by an "unelected, politically unaccountable" group of people. He is, without question, planting seeds of doubt in the concept of Judicial Protection. Just *wait* for the "talking points" from all the pundits. They will be harping on the "unelected, politically unaccountable" statement.
Moreover, this isn't a situation of foreign policy. If it were foreign policy, the detainees would be protected by the Geneva Convention. But they're not and they're on American-run soil. Thus, it is a domestic matter.
The public will "lose a bit more control over the conduct of this nation's foreign policy to unelected, politically unaccountable judges," he added.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, aren't Judges supposed to be insulated and protected from the political system by (1) not being held accountable for untainted, but bad, decisions (2) not be part of the election process since that would mean that they would then rule in whatever way would best protect their jobs?
How in the WORLD would a chief justice of the supreme court not understand that?
The only way to teach others to be skeptical is to give reasons for skepticism. With middle school students (experience teaching algebra/pre-algebra), I would start off easy:
Me: What's the square root of ?
Students: *Silence*
Me: Thought so. The answer is "flower".
Students: *laughter*
Me: What? Something wrong?
Student: Ya, "flower" is not a number.
Me: And?
Student: A square root needs to be a number.
Me: Does it?
Student: YA! Duhhh!
Me: Prove it. Show me how multiplying two flowers doesn't make .
It's humorous, but I threw silly things like that in all the time. Answers the students knew couldn't be right. That gave them the courage to call me out when they thought I was wrong. I then required more of them:
Me: is the correct answer to
Students: How do you know?
Me: I just know. I'm the teacher.
Students: Ya, but you lie sometimes.
Me: I do. So what do you do when you think I'm lying?
Student: We show you why we think you're lying.
Me: So show me.
Student: *walks up to the board and does the math*
In this situation, it doesn't matter whether or not the student is right in her/his distrust, but that s/he was willing to check my work.
This is a tactic I use to teach and ingrain skepticism in every class I've ever taught.
The real problem wasn't a matter of creating artificial need (Realtors have been trying to do that for decades, "no one is making more land", "prices always go up", etc)
Realtors have been trying to do that forever, but banks and bank loans had always been the temperance. Banks were reluctant to loan to anyone who couldn't directly back their home with income. But since mortgage companies weren't banks and since their loans were backed by CDOs (no risk to them on defaults), they had nothing to lose and everything to gain from fees!
I disagree. There had to be an intent to create artificial need or else there would not have been enough debt to bundle up and sell. It was, indeed, predatory lending-- just get the mortgage signed and pass it on. NEXT!
*some* lenders significantly relaxed their underwriting standards in order to get people into houses.
And *some* dot coms went IPO and *some* Savings and Loans were corrupt. One can't blame an entire industry, but you cannot deny intent in those that were involved nor that those that the effect of that dishonesty
Those who were pushing the products lost their shirts because they weren't the investors, they were employees- who get just as screwed as all the late investors. The difference between, say, the savings and loan scandal and the mortgage scandal is that those who made the money weren't the sellers. Make no mistake, history will show massive amounts of law-breaking, dishonesty, and cheating thus making it a scandal.
You see, the "smart guys" hired people to be "mortgage agents" and suggest, imply, or downright lie to their potential home-buyers that they would be able to turn around and sell their homes on sub-prime loans before the prohibitive interest rates kicked in. They told them that they could "invest" in just about any home, live there for a year, sell the home (to someone else doing the same thing), make a profit, and be closer to actually affording a real home backed by real bank money. If you can remember, *everyone* was saying that the value of property *can only go up*.
(The easy access loans and the quick turn-over combined to make artificial demand thus increasing the price of homes.)
Now, those who were pushing the mortgages in person or on the phone were simple employees making massive commissions on each lock-in. Whether or not they knew that they were feeding an industry bubble doesn't matter -- but their mortgage company owners knew. THEY didn't lose their shirts.
That's just one facet, though. That's just the ground floor. For the most part, banks and hard money were not backing the loans. Instead the debt was balled up and sectioned off and sold as a couple forms of bonds to a good variety investors who were told that they were highly reliable and would pay off very well. The debt bunches were sold and resold and resold (each reseller making money off the transaction). Of course, as you can tell by the foreclosures, the debt was extremely high risk. Those who were suckered into buying homes whose prices had inflated miles past their actual value are now stuck paying off more debt than the home is worth with insane interest prices. Or foreclose.
Those who invested in the packaged debt then found out exactly what was backing their investments and found out that they, too, got suckered.
'80s - Savings and Loans - Brokered Deposits, Linked Financing -- Please See "Michael Milkin" '90s - Dot Com Bubble - Artificial inflation of stock price/company value. Pump and dump. '00s - Housing/Mortgage/Junk Bonds - Buy up homes, hold them, sell them higher. Turn over, turn over, turn over. Create artificial "need", supply mortgages backed by investment bonds instead of hard money, etc. Sell those bonds based on high-risk loans as "smart investments".
The same "entrepreneurs" get away with it every time. The late adopters get there bit, but aren't smart enough to get out.
And then John Q. Public is told (after all the initial investors are ready to entrap them all) that such investments are "sure-fire" and the value will "only go up".
It's not even a question of "How do were prevent this from happening again?" but "What will the next 'big thing' be?"
Slashdot Mirror
It's not stolen, it's not pirated... it's an "Unlicensed Copy". Nothing more, nothing less.
Here's what I, as a conservative, support. FISA may reach a bit too far:
1. National security is the realm of the Commander-in-Chief - NOT congress...
Actually, that's not conservative. That's supporting a strong federal government centered on a single individual and his cabinet-- which is more of a fascist stance. American Conservatism traditionally supports a stronger voice of the people and less influence by the executive.
2. International terrorism is primarily a military - NOT LAW ENFORCEMENT - matter. Its roots are in a conflict against governments and people as a whole, not against individuals, thus putting it in the realm of the military.
That's incorrect. It's roots are philosophical and religious. They don't like what we allow our corporations and governments to do around the world. They see us as immoral and an affront to their beliefs. If we were to change, they would hate us less. Thus, it's not a military issue... it's a lifestyle issue.
3. Communications of internationals, like it or not, are NOT covered by the US Constitution.
Ok. Cool. But what about one American to another American within American borders?
All this being said, we DON'T need to be listening to people who aren't on watch lists and the like.
Not exact enough. Watch lists can have anyone added to them. You could be on a watch list, seen as a charismatic and dedicated individual that can easily gain the support of your peers for whatever goal you deem sufficient. That makes you a danger. We should watch you.
However, the military needs to do its job with as few roadblocks as possible.
Roadblocks are bad when we know the enemy. However, they are good when we don't. They protect the innocent... which is what we're supposed to be doing, right?
We also need to protect US citizens' rights as guaranteed by the Constitution when they are not - nor intending to commit - acts of terrorism (or crimes, for that matter).
The rights of everyone within our borders need to be protected whether or not they have been accused of misconduct. If you read the Bill of Rights, you'll see that the majority of the document is written in, not only distrust of, but understanding of central governments in that they are severely flawed and often get "the wrong guy".
I'll be the first to tell you that I hate my cell phone. When I got to undergrad, everyone was getting one. We knew it would be a part of life. I resisted until my 4th year and still made sure that it was a bare-bones phone-- a brick by modern standards. No internet, no special ringtones, nothing that would potentially add additional cost to my life.
When I entered the work force after graduation, everyone wanted to give their cell numbers to their various supervisors. I didn't. When asked by my supervisor why I didn't, I told him:
1) You don't pay for my minutes
2) You don't pay me for taking calls and doing work before 8am nor after 5pm
3) I don't like phones, let alone cell phones.
He and I had a very humorous conversation until I asked him why *he* gave his cell number to *his* supervisor. "It just streamlines everything. It's less work," he responded.
"Less work" I retort. "Tell me, without a cell phone, how much work would you do in the car on the way to and from work? How much work would you do at lunch? How much work would you do traveling from point-A and point-B on the job?"
"I wouldn't get any work done. That's the problem," he insisted.
"No, you're missing something... you said cell phones help you do less work. However, you do work in all that time where, prior to cell phones, you did no work. The drive to work was relaxing. On the drive home, you could think about home, not the office. You could relax at lunch. You're commuting from one meeting to another during the day so you're already working for the company/school -- so how are you doing less work when you're working when you shouldn't?"
He paused, opened his mouth, closed it again, and breathed.
I start again, "... and do you pay for your phone and minutes? Or does the company/school?"
"Well it's my phone. I pay for it," he says.
"And who uses it more: you for your life or the company/school through you as its employee?"
He smiles as if empowered. "You're right. If I'm working off the clock, the very least the company/school could do is pay for this phone or another and the minutes."
"Now you're talking. Of course, you could even record the minutes you work in your off time and claim them as time put in. Remember, the company/school only works in 15-minute increments so, round up where necessary," I say with a grin.
Afterward: A month later, the company/school ended its policy of requesting (requiring) employees give up their cell numbers. If they needed you to be on call, they'd buy you a cell phone and subscription. The people didn't get paid for their time on the phone, but it was a start.
After-Afterward: I still don't give my cell number out to anyone but Human Resources. Those guys are rabid bulldogs about privacy and will only call me in an emergency or if there's something wrong with my paycheck.
The guy creates a photon counter out of a little diode and you're still making fun of your moderators?
Bad form.
Incorrect. One must learn how to do things the original way or they will be doomed to fall when they do not have their crutch.
Also, your parallel is flawed. It's not that we should be hunting and gathering, but we should be taught that drinking still water is dangerous and what poison ivy looked like.
I concur. I'm a techy, I'm a geek, but I'm also an educator and my experience (and the experience of others) says that computers are not needed in the classroom.
I would much rather read poor penmanship and misspellings than allow students the opportunity to cheat by using a computer or the internet as a crutch.
Would we allow students to use calculators in elementary school?
*They* don't want it *now*, but that does not imply that they, or the people near them, may want it now or in the future.
My cycnic-meter tells me that this survey is going to be used to keep prices high in under-wired areas by suggesting that there's not enough demand to expand operations.
If there's affordable access, peoples' habits and preference change.
Turn the tables and assert that Viacom has been using illegal legal and accounting practices to fund their extortion and other money-making schemes over the years.
Please hand over all your legal records and accounting books back to the creation of the corporation so that we may prove our case.
So very true. So what's that say about the education and capability of our body politic?
Any policy is only as good as the people enforcing them.
See: US Constitution, Antitrust Law, the Tax Code
Wouldn't this imply that we not only have the right to keep and bear *firearms* but also brass knuckles, telescopic batons, large knives, swords, blackjacks, etc.
I mean, they *are* less-deadly and with an exception of the "telescopic baton" all existed during revolutionary America.
To be fair, there's no reason to arrest someone unless there's reason to believe s/he may have been involved in a crime. Or is thinking about it bad enough?
I'm an honest person, don't own a gun, but am far from "defenseless".
I'm happy that this has been settled, but now it's time to put even more pressure on state and local governments to mandate genuinely precautionary measures to prevent the theft of firearms and the misuse of firearms.
You know... like mandatory firearm care, use, and storage education. Maybe a law requiring someone reporting the theft of a firearm within 72 hours of noticing it is gone.
The right to have an abortion is declared by (wo)man independent of the obstruction by the American government.
The right to own a firearm is declared by (wo)man independent of the obstruction by the American government.
We declare our own rights. They are not bestowed upon us from any higher power or even the federal government. In fact, our rights are statements of restriction of the government... not gifts therefrom.
But you didn't do all the math, as most people who throw out the "but you only work 9 months out of the year" argument.
Factor in unpaid overtime: (10-15 hours per week)
Factor in supplies coming from the teacher's budget: (~$100 a month)
Taxes: ~30% for a single person, no kids
Do all that, and then look at the year-round take-home (or even the 9-month take-home) pay of a new teacher. Then consider rent/mortgage, gas, utilities, food, and (if you're crazy enough) a child!
Then consider that all those teachers are clamoring any form of summer income possible come June. Your otherwise "lucrative" summer opportunities are destroyed by the supply of teachers. I live in a pretty well off city and the teachers HERE do tutoring for $8/hour (taxed, of course) during the summer whenever possible. These tutoring centers won't even look at you unless you have teaching credentials because the supply is so high during the summer.
So if your argument is as it seems, you may need to finish the math and then respond. Let me know if
And it's even more than just hiring more teachers and attracting more teachers with better wages. We're talking *serious* changes.
In California, a newly credentialed teacher starts @ about $32,000 per year. Also, a teacher's workload consists of getting to school at least a half hour before school starts, staying the whole school day, staying usually an hour or so after school (more if you want to tutor), and then working from home to grade work and prepare for the next day. All that and then there's parent conferences, parent calls, and potentially PTA meetings. It's more than 40 hours a week with high pressure, very little thanks, high accountability, low/no funding (teachers will often find themselves paying for their students' school supplies out of pocket), and low monetary compensation.
And that's only AFTER you've been hired as a teacher. To get hired you have to pay for undergrad (and obviously do well), pay for/complete the necessary entrance exams (GRE, CSET, CBEST in California), get accepted into, pay for, and complete a 1-2 year (full-time) credentialing program, and then start the job hunt... finding someone who will hire a fresh, new teacher FULL TIME.
What needs to happen is a paradigm shift in our way of thinking about education. We need to, as a whole, agree that the *only* way to progress as a people is through education. Once that's done...
There needs to be (1) funding for new teachers, (2) increased pay and benefits for teachers, and (3) a system to streamline the process of becoming a teacher-- from saying "I want to teach" to "I'm hired, teaching, and have the money necessary to teach well while not having to dig into my own pockets."
Until all 3 of the above are accomplished, we will not see any genuine, long-term improvement in the varied educational systems. No amount of money can do well without a strong system and no system is of any use without funding.
See! Not only did you get +1 to your skepticism, but you also completed an exercise in algebraic substitution. =)
The full paragraph from the article:
Chief Justice Roberts, in somewhat milder tones, said the decision represented "overreaching" that was "particularly egregious" and left the court open to "charges of judicial activism." The decision, he said, "is not really about the detainees at all, but about control of federal policy regarding enemy combatants." The public will "lose a bit more control over the conduct of this nation's foreign policy to unelected, politically unaccountable judges," he added.
If he intended to say what you interpret, he would have said just that. He would have said, "It is not the place of the judicial branch to define foreign policy." But he didn't, he purposely dropped the term "judicial activism" and asserted that the nation's foreign policy has been and is bfurther being controlled by an "unelected, politically unaccountable" group of people. He is, without question, planting seeds of doubt in the concept of Judicial Protection. Just *wait* for the "talking points" from all the pundits. They will be harping on the "unelected, politically unaccountable" statement.
Moreover, this isn't a situation of foreign policy. If it were foreign policy, the detainees would be protected by the Geneva Convention. But they're not and they're on American-run soil. Thus, it is a domestic matter.
The public will "lose a bit more control over the conduct of this nation's foreign policy to unelected, politically unaccountable judges," he added.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, aren't Judges supposed to be insulated and protected from the political system by (1) not being held accountable for untainted, but bad, decisions (2) not be part of the election process since that would mean that they would then rule in whatever way would best protect their jobs?
How in the WORLD would a chief justice of the supreme court not understand that?
My advice is to lie. A lot. Yes, I'm serious.
The only way to teach others to be skeptical is to give reasons for skepticism. With middle school students (experience teaching algebra/pre-algebra), I would start off easy:
Me: What's the square root of ?
Students: *Silence*
Me: Thought so. The answer is "flower".
Students: *laughter*
Me: What? Something wrong?
Student: Ya, "flower" is not a number.
Me: And?
Student: A square root needs to be a number.
Me: Does it?
Student: YA! Duhhh!
Me: Prove it. Show me how multiplying two flowers doesn't make .
It's humorous, but I threw silly things like that in all the time. Answers the students knew couldn't be right. That gave them the courage to call me out when they thought I was wrong. I then required more of them:
Me: is the correct answer to Students: How do you know?
Me: I just know. I'm the teacher.
Students: Ya, but you lie sometimes.
Me: I do. So what do you do when you think I'm lying?
Student: We show you why we think you're lying. Me: So show me.
Student: *walks up to the board and does the math*
In this situation, it doesn't matter whether or not the student is right in her/his distrust, but that s/he was willing to check my work.
This is a tactic I use to teach and ingrain skepticism in every class I've ever taught.
Corruption. It's unquestionable. It was a scam from the *second* someone said "hey, let's bundle this debt up and sell it."
Realtors have been trying to do that forever, but banks and bank loans had always been the temperance. Banks were reluctant to loan to anyone who couldn't directly back their home with income. But since mortgage companies weren't banks and since their loans were backed by CDOs (no risk to them on defaults), they had nothing to lose and everything to gain from fees!
I disagree. There had to be an intent to create artificial need or else there would not have been enough debt to bundle up and sell. It was, indeed, predatory lending-- just get the mortgage signed and pass it on. NEXT!
*some* lenders significantly relaxed their underwriting standards in order to get people into houses.
And *some* dot coms went IPO and *some* Savings and Loans were corrupt. One can't blame an entire industry, but you cannot deny intent in those that were involved nor that those that the effect of that dishonesty
Those who were pushing the products lost their shirts because they weren't the investors, they were employees- who get just as screwed as all the late investors. The difference between, say, the savings and loan scandal and the mortgage scandal is that those who made the money weren't the sellers. Make no mistake, history will show massive amounts of law-breaking, dishonesty, and cheating thus making it a scandal.
You see, the "smart guys" hired people to be "mortgage agents" and suggest, imply, or downright lie to their potential home-buyers that they would be able to turn around and sell their homes on sub-prime loans before the prohibitive interest rates kicked in. They told them that they could "invest" in just about any home, live there for a year, sell the home (to someone else doing the same thing), make a profit, and be closer to actually affording a real home backed by real bank money. If you can remember, *everyone* was saying that the value of property *can only go up*.
(The easy access loans and the quick turn-over combined to make artificial demand thus increasing the price of homes.)
Now, those who were pushing the mortgages in person or on the phone were simple employees making massive commissions on each lock-in. Whether or not they knew that they were feeding an industry bubble doesn't matter -- but their mortgage company owners knew. THEY didn't lose their shirts.
That's just one facet, though. That's just the ground floor. For the most part, banks and hard money were not backing the loans. Instead the debt was balled up and sectioned off and sold as a couple forms of bonds to a good variety investors who were told that they were highly reliable and would pay off very well. The debt bunches were sold and resold and resold (each reseller making money off the transaction). Of course, as you can tell by the foreclosures, the debt was extremely high risk. Those who were suckered into buying homes whose prices had inflated miles past their actual value are now stuck paying off more debt than the home is worth with insane interest prices. Or foreclose.
Those who invested in the packaged debt then found out exactly what was backing their investments and found out that they, too, got suckered.
Now, how is this not what I said?
Further explanation, but just nearly as succinct:
'80s - Savings and Loans - Brokered Deposits, Linked Financing -- Please See "Michael Milkin"
'90s - Dot Com Bubble - Artificial inflation of stock price/company value. Pump and dump.
'00s - Housing/Mortgage/Junk Bonds - Buy up homes, hold them, sell them higher. Turn over, turn over, turn over. Create artificial "need", supply mortgages backed by investment bonds instead of hard money, etc. Sell those bonds based on high-risk loans as "smart investments".
It's one scam after another.
'80s - Savings and Loan, Junk Bonds
'90s - Dot Coms
'00s - Housing/Mortgages/More Junk Bonds
The same "entrepreneurs" get away with it every time. The late adopters get there bit, but aren't smart enough to get out.
And then John Q. Public is told (after all the initial investors are ready to entrap them all) that such investments are "sure-fire" and the value will "only go up".
It's not even a question of "How do were prevent this from happening again?" but "What will the next 'big thing' be?"