Really Hate to Post this DP

[toppop52]

Don87, first things first. STOP BEING A CONDESCENDING SOB! Good, now we can talk like normal people.
Before you assume, know what assuming make can you look like. I'm a conservative, don't like bailouts, etc..., My dad was a union man, worked for Ford until he died at the Norfolk assy. Plant.
Blaming GM for poor management is correct, but blaming them for your mother's poor financial decision is pure poo poo, though. Everyone that buys stock is rolling the dice, snake eyes are as likely as 7.
Unions helped break these companies and the greed of the companies to keep building what was selling and avoid standing on principle contributed to the downfall. But to give your business to an Asian company that took advantage of our government's lack of enforcement of trade laws that allowed them to dump both cars and steel on our market at a loss with support of their own government in order to build market share and destroy our steel industry and bring serious damage to our manufacturing base, well that's just criminal!
So before you anoint yourself Mr. High And Mighty, learn a little history.

 

[Martian]

Don87, first things first. STOP BEING A CONDESCENDING SOB! Good, now we can talk like normal people.
Before you assume, know what assuming make can you look like. I'm a conservative, don't like bailouts, etc..., My dad was a union man, worked for Ford until he died at the Norfolk assy. Plant.
Blaming GM for poor management is correct, but blaming them for your mother's poor financial decision is pure poo poo, though. Everyone that buys stock is rolling the dice, snake eyes are as likely as 7.
Unions helped break these companies and the greed of the companies to keep building what was selling and avoid standing on principle contributed to the downfall. But to give your business to an Asian company that took advantage of our government's lack of enforcement of trade laws that allowed them to dump both cars and steel on our market at a loss with support of their own government in order to build market share and destroy our steel industry and bring serious damage to our manufacturing base, well that's just criminal!
So before you anoint yourself Mr. High And Mighty, learn a little history.

Whoa here. Never recalled blaming my mom poor financial decisions for any of this, my mom had looked at the way gm was going and actually reinvested the stock given to her by the company elsewhere. Never recalled saying the unions where a bad thing. Never recalled saying that I'd agreed with the bail out and the path it took gm. Second, speaking of history, one of the original unionizations occurred at one of Andrew Carnegie's steel mills in Pennsylvania. Before he was sure to not hire union workers and make them sign that they wouldnt. He bought a mill that was mainly unionized. Tried to make cuts that didn't appease the people. They striked, Carnegie locked them out, started to rebel so he sent a private militia where they were the militia suffered its first defeat in history. All seemed good for the unions until the government told them they had no power. The government took the rights out of the people's hands. If they had let private industry run its course we could have peaceful negotiation. But now we have an nba lockout over of we get 1 million or 1.2 million. I feel unions serve their place. I don't feel that government needs to mico manage them as they have.

 

[yooper1]

Whoa here. Never recalled blaming my mom poor financial decisions for any of this, my mom had looked at the way gm was going and actually reinvested the stock given to her by the company elsewhere. Never recalled saying the unions where a bad thing. Never recalled saying that I'd agreed with the bail out and the path it took gm. Second, speaking of history, one of the original unionizations occurred at one of Andrew Carnegie's steel mills in Pennsylvania. Before he was sure to not hire union workers and make them sign that they wouldnt. He bought a mill that was mainly unionized. Tried to make cuts that didn't appease the people. They striked, Carnegie locked them out, started to rebel so he sent a private militia where they were the militia suffered its first defeat in history. All seemed good for the unions until the government told them they had no power. The government took the rights out of the people's hands. If they had let private industry run its course we could have peaceful negotiation. But now we have an nba lockout over of we get 1 million or 1.2 million. I feel unions serve their place. I don't feel that government needs to mico manage them as they have.

His reply was to Don87, not you

 

[Don87]

Don87, first things first. STOP BEING A CONDESCENDING SOB! Good, now we can talk like normal people.
Before you assume, know what assuming make can you look like. I'm a conservative, don't like bailouts, etc..., My dad was a union man, worked for Ford until he died at the Norfolk assy. Plant.
Blaming GM for poor management is correct, but blaming them for your mother's poor financial decision is pure poo poo, though. Everyone that buys stock is rolling the dice, snake eyes are as likely as 7.
Unions helped break these companies and the greed of the companies to keep building what was selling and avoid standing on principle contributed to the downfall. But to give your business to an Asian company that took advantage of our government's lack of enforcement of trade laws that allowed them to dump both cars and steel on our market at a loss with support of their own government in order to build market share and destroy our steel industry and bring serious damage to our manufacturing base, well that's just criminal!
So before you anoint yourself Mr. High And Mighty, learn a little history.

You've apparently confused my post with several others on here, so until you can carry on a cohesive conversation, there isn't anything anyone can do for you.

May help you to actually quote the post you are referring to in the future so you can keep yourself focused.

With the way you got all confused, typing this responce, I can understand your line of non-thinking.

 

[toppop52]

Sorry for the confusion, I was reading it on my iPhone while in a dark room without my glasses, however, when the info is assigned to the correct parties, I stand by what I said.

Unions helped break these companies and the greed of the companies to keep building what was selling and avoid standing on principle contributed to the downfall. But to give your business to an Asian company that took advantage of our government's lack of enforcement of trade laws that allowed them to dump both cars and steel on our market at a loss with support of their own government in order to build market share and destroy our steel industry and bring serious damage to our manufacturing base, well that's just criminal!

 

[jeffsw6]

Please. Don't hold back with your opinion or insight.

I joined this forum to talk about trucks and tools so I am trying to stick to that, but ..

My problem is not gm or the union but this government that is trying to do way to much and failing at everything where if it where in the hands of the people they could bargain, they bailout would've either never happened or a bank would've taken the risk and won big.

Banks took too much risk and then were forced to pull back lending too suddenly for our economy to keep working. That is why even healthy businesses could not borrow money in 2008. If not for government intervention, I think it is likely that there would be no Chevrolet trucks coming off the line now. If banks wanted to take on the risk they had plenty of opportunity to do so, wouldn't you agree?

In my opinion, our economic problems have been created by one basic fact: the more risk a bank can take, the more money it has the potential to earn; but since banks are now able to risk depositors' money (that's you and me and our normal accounts, not just wealthy investors with a zillion dollars in the bank) if a bank risks too much and goes over the edge, depositors can be wiped out (if not for the FDIC and other similar programs, and extraordinary intervention by the Fed.)

If you were a bank, you would save as little money as possible "just in case," because every dollar you don't invest in something that earns you more money is a dollar that isn't working. They don't think of it as a cushion, they think of it as idle dollars they should be lending out to whoever wants to pay them interest. So if you had $10k in case your business slowed down, you needed to repair some equipment, you got injured, etc. that would be $10k you could otherwise spend on tools, equipment, whatever, to grow your business, whether your business is landscaping, a farm, trucking, or whatever.

A bank can't easily just decide to be more conservative than its peers, having a bigger cushion and taking on slightly less risk, because of two factors. First, that bank then earns less money, pays out less interest to depositors (and has less deposits) and has its investors screaming for new management. Second, even if one bank takes on less risk, macro-economic, systemic risk built up by companies like Countrywide, AIG, GMAC, etc. harmed the whole system to such an extent that even the more conservative banks were in trouble once things started to slow down even a little.

As long as the only way to run a bank is to take the maximum risk possible, well, banks are going to do that. Depositors are always going to want to put their money into the interest-bearing accounts that pay the most interest, so the deposits will naturally always go toward the banks that take on more risk.

This is actually why it is illegal to pay interest on regular checking accounts, except as you may know, in the 90s, banks all started getting around that law by making checking accounts into different sub-accounts for regulatory purposes (your money in your checking is not really all in one account if you write more than 6 checks in a month) and government regulations didn't move to stop it because regulating banks is somehow unpopular in congress.

Now to understand just how much systemic risk there is, even the most conservative banks took a hit when banks started failing. How? The FDIC had to spend billions upon billions to replace lost depositors' money when banks started going under. The FDIC didn't actually have enough money to do that. How did they get it? They raised the rates that all banks pay for FDIC protection of depositors' accounts and made all banks pay in advance the raised rate going forward several years. Basically, they said, okay, your whole banking industry is screwed up, and even if your bank made all the safe bets, you still have to pay for the risks everyone else took.

Please. Don't hold back with your opinion or insight.

So I really do not mean to go off ranting about how the banking system is fatally flawed and our government is doing a terrible job of regulating it, I meant to point out that this is a very complex issue that is larger than GM.

The more I learn the more I learn that I don't know.

I do know that my next truck will be whatever truck suits my needs for a price I can afford. This is most likely GM or Ford but if Toyota had a good product for my needs I would certainly consider them. I think Nissan is a really good value in cargo vans right now, for example; and if I was going to buy a brand new cargo van it would probably be that one, not an E350 or the Chevy.

Again just my $0.02.

 

[Don87]

Sorry for the confusion, I was reading it on my iPhone while in a dark room without my glasses, however, when the info is assigned to the correct parties, I stand by what I said.

And you still only know half of what you think you know.

I don't care if your entire family worked for Ford, GM or Chrysler. It has zero bearing on the discussion at hand, or on the topic as a whole.

I started a business once, it didn't take off..........I got no government bailout.

GM was bailed out by us taxpayers, then the stock was recently sold for a major loss.......Another taxpayer bailout for a failed business model.

This is twice I've had to type this because of your inability to understand what is typed.

I suggest that you find some light, get your glasses..........and get a device that you are capable of using so you can correctly respond to posts.

If you want to look at 1920's history......be my guest......as it has no bearing in 2011. Catch up with the rest of the world.

 

[Don87]

I joined this forum to talk about trucks and tools so I am trying to stick to that, but ..


Banks took too much risk and then were forced to pull back lending too suddenly for our economy to keep working. That is why even healthy businesses could not borrow money in 2008. If not for government intervention, I think it is likely that there would be no Chevrolet trucks coming off the line now. If banks wanted to take on the risk they had plenty of opportunity to do so, wouldn't you agree?

In my opinion, our economic problems have been created by one basic fact: the more risk a bank can take, the more money it has the potential to earn; but since banks are now able to risk depositors' money (that's you and me and our normal accounts, not just wealthy investors with a zillion dollars in the bank) if a bank risks too much and goes over the edge, depositors can be wiped out (if not for the FDIC and other similar programs, and extraordinary intervention by the Fed.)

If you were a bank, you would save as little money as possible "just in case," because every dollar you don't invest in something that earns you more money is a dollar that isn't working. They don't think of it as a cushion, they think of it as idle dollars they should be lending out to whoever wants to pay them interest. So if you had $10k in case your business slowed down, you needed to repair some equipment, you got injured, etc. that would be $10k you could otherwise spend on tools, equipment, whatever, to grow your business, whether your business is landscaping, a farm, trucking, or whatever.

A bank can't easily just decide to be more conservative than its peers, having a bigger cushion and taking on slightly less risk, because of two factors. First, that bank then earns less money, pays out less interest to depositors (and has less deposits) and has its investors screaming for new management. Second, even if one bank takes on less risk, macro-economic, systemic risk built up by companies like Countrywide, AIG, GMAC, etc. harmed the whole system to such an extent that even the more conservative banks were in trouble once things started to slow down even a little.

As long as the only way to run a bank is to take the maximum risk possible, well, banks are going to do that. Depositors are always going to want to put their money into the interest-bearing accounts that pay the most interest, so the deposits will naturally always go toward the banks that take on more risk.

This is actually why it is illegal to pay interest on regular checking accounts, except as you may know, in the 90s, banks all started getting around that law by making checking accounts into different sub-accounts for regulatory purposes (your money in your checking is not really all in one account if you write more than 6 checks in a month) and government regulations didn't move to stop it because regulating banks is somehow unpopular in congress.

Now to understand just how much systemic risk there is, even the most conservative banks took a hit when banks started failing. How? The FDIC had to spend billions upon billions to replace lost depositors' money when banks started going under. The FDIC didn't actually have enough money to do that. How did they get it? They raised the rates that all banks pay for FDIC protection of depositors' accounts and made all banks pay in advance the raised rate going forward several years. Basically, they said, okay, your whole banking industry is screwed up, and even if your bank made all the safe bets, you still have to pay for the risks everyone else took.


So I really do not mean to go off ranting about how the banking system is fatally flawed and our government is doing a terrible job of regulating it, I meant to point out that this is a very complex issue that is larger than GM.

The more I learn the more I learn that I don't know.

I do know that my next truck will be whatever truck suits my needs for a price I can afford. This is most likely GM or Ford but if Toyota had a good product for my needs I would certainly consider them. I think Nissan is a really good value in cargo vans right now, for example; and if I was going to buy a brand new cargo van it would probably be that one, not an E350 or the Chevy.

Again just my $0.02.

You forgot to add in the 'Community Redevelopement Act', or maybe you are unaware of it.(I would bet on the latter)

Most people are totally unaware of it, and are also unaware that the Community Redevelopement Act is what caused the financial melt down in our country.

The "risk taking" you speak of was forced on the banking institution as a whole, by the government, under the Community Redevelopement Act.

 

[timswi]

You forgot to add in the 'Community Redevelopement Act', or maybe you are unaware of it.(I would bet on the latter)

Most people are totally unaware of it, and are also unaware that the Community Redevelopement Act is what caused the financial melt down in our country.

The "risk taking" you speak of was forced on the banking institution as a whole, by the government, under the Community Redevelopement Act.

Don, I'd probably replace the word forced with heavily encouraged...CRA was a factor, but the ability for a few bad actors to dump their known risk on an unregulated and non-understood CDO/MBS etc market caused most of this.

The banks that balance-sheeted their loans and didn't securitize everything where much more cautious of their risk. These institutions escaped the crisis mostly unscathed. There were many more of the good actors than the bad ones...Unfortunately, the few bad ones were exponential in size.

 

[two_bit_score]

You forgot to add in the 'Community Redevelopement Act', or maybe you are unaware of it.(I would bet on the latter)

Most people are totally unaware of it, and are also unaware that the Community Redevelopement Act is what caused the financial melt down in our country.

The "risk taking" you speak of was forced on the banking institution as a whole, by the government, under the Community Redevelopement Act.

>>>The same Federal banking agencies that are responsible for supervising depository institutions are also the agencies that conduct examinations for CRA compliance.[10] These agencies are the Federal Reserve System (FRB), the FDIC, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS). In 1981, to help achieve the goals of the CRA, each of the Federal Reserve banks established a Community Affairs Office to work with banking institutions and the public in identifying credit needs within the community and ways to address those needs.[6]<<<

Signed into law by President Jimmy Carter October 1977. Should be repealed immediately.