• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

GOP likely to urge Obama officials not to shred documents

Dittohead not! said:
It's a little bit like that birth certificate that the birthers keep yammering on about, isn't it?
Click to expand...


Birthers are an overblown group as far as numbers go. Kind of like those who think Bush and Cheney were behind 9/11, or should be jailed. I would hope that these people find some kind of help.

j-mac
 
j-mac said:
Birthers are an overblown group as far as numbers go. Kind of like those who think Bush and Cheney were behind 9/11, or should be jailed. I would hope that these people find some kind of help.

j-mac
Click to expand...

Correct. There aren't many birthers, nor many 9/11 conspiracy theorists out there. It's just that they make a lot of noise compared to their numbers.
 
obvious Child said:
Hell, I'll even do this for you Ditto.

Subprime mortgage crisis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



That is less than 1% of our economy.
Click to expand...

Your original statement was:


Housing in the US is less then 1% of the economy. Tell me how less then 1% of the economy caused this mess.
Click to expand...

Now, that has changed to:

Subprime mortgages amounted to $35 billion (5% of total originations) in 1994,[75] 9% in 1996,[76] $160 billion (13%) in 1999,[75] and $600 billion (20%) in 2006.
That is less than 1% of our economy.
Click to expand...

$600 Billion is nearly as much as we spend on the military. It is more than any one year's deficit before the crash. Are you really going to say that a liability that went from $35 billion in '94 to $600 B in '06 couldn't have caused the crash in '08? I wonder how much that was in '08? I'm willing to bet that the amount didn't go down.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Your original statement was:

Now, that has changed to:
Click to expand...

In the context of the CRA, subprime was the subject. Sure I could have specified it better? Yes. And I should know better then to assume users here will bother to read the actual discussion rather then just jumping in to the discussion completely blind to what the context is.

$600 Billion is nearly as much as we spend on the military. It is more than any one year's deficit before the crash. Are you really going to say that a liability that went from $35 billion in '94 to $600 B in '06 couldn't have caused the crash in '08?
Click to expand...

Come again? just a liability? No. No. No. Mortgages by themselves represent both an asset and a liability. And when you do securitization, they gain even more levels of assets and liabities. And yes, I am arguing that it could not have caused the crash by itself. If the WHOLE subprime went down, that would have caused some real damage but hardly enough to take down the entire banking sector which has trillions upon trillions of assets at any one time. Mere reserve requirements are large enough to cover the deficits. The total US mortgage market is roughly $14.2 trillion. And not all subprime went bad. Only a sizable fraction, so the total isolated effect was minor. The bigger problem was coupling it with the over use of leverage in the commercial sector and the fraudlent securitization of the mortgages. What happens when large banks buy hundreds of billions of securitized subprime with leverage and those securities go bad? They suddenly have a huge gaping hole on their balance sheet (and cash flow statement) with liabilities they took out to buy those loans. If we did not securitize them, or at least did it honestly, I seriously doubt we'd have this problem. Canada has subprime loans as well. What they didn't do we leverage everything else up to their eyes. And their banking sector never had the problems our's did. Harper is very against the global bank tax as Canada's banking system was responsible and conservatve. Unlike their southern neighbor.

I wonder how much that was in '08? I'm willing to bet that the amount didn't go down.
Click to expand...

Compared to the rest of the market, not material.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom