US Election Day!

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US Election Day!

Postby Mathieu Benoit » Tue Nov 06, 2012 3:39 pm

So according to some, this election was never a tight race at all...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13510_3-57545543-21/can-nate-silver-and-friends-nail-their-presidential-predictions/

Here's hoping!
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Re: US Election Day!

Postby macrae11 » Tue Nov 06, 2012 4:32 pm

There would be far less money to be made if it was a shoo in.

The Iowa Electronics Market, where people bet real money on world events, has consistently had Obama in the lead for the last few months. Obama certainly hasn't been the ideal president but I'm terrified to think of what kind of hole Romney could turn the states into. Quite possibly a large smoking one teeming with nuclear radiation.
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Re: US Election Day!

Postby Malcolm Boyce » Tue Nov 06, 2012 4:41 pm

macrae11 wrote:...I'm terrified to think of what kind of hole Romney could turn the states into. Quite possibly a large smoking one teeming with nuclear radiation.
With Canada as it's BFF, right next door... :-|
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Re: US Election Day!

Postby macrae11 » Tue Nov 06, 2012 4:46 pm

Gotta love that Gulf Stream!
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Re: US Election Day!

Postby Mathieu Benoit » Tue Nov 06, 2012 4:50 pm

I'm still hoping for the return of Bill Clinton. They should have let him be president until he died, and gave him all the interns he could seduce.
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Re: US Election Day!

Postby macrae11 » Tue Nov 06, 2012 4:53 pm

I thought you'd have a special place in your...er...heart for Clinton. You may still get your wish in 2016.
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Re: US Election Day!

Postby Mathieu Benoit » Tue Nov 06, 2012 5:19 pm

macrae11 wrote:I thought you'd have a special place in your...er...heart for Clinton. You may still get your wish in 2016.


Say whatever you want about him, but he presided over the longest economic expansion in US history during peacetime. Mmmmm... Clintonomics.
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Re: US Election Day!

Postby macrae11 » Tue Nov 06, 2012 5:33 pm

Presidents get far more credit and blame for the economic circumstances that they happen to preside over than they should.
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Re: US Election Day!

Postby Mathieu Benoit » Tue Nov 06, 2012 5:38 pm

macrae11 wrote:Presidents get far more credit and blame for the economic circumstances that they happen to preside over than they should.


Well someone had to keep Greenspan in line... :lol:
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Re: US Election Day!

Postby macrae11 » Tue Nov 06, 2012 5:51 pm

True enough, but Greenspan's policies work just fine as long as you're in an era of economic growth.
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Re: US Election Day!

Postby Mathieu Benoit » Tue Nov 06, 2012 5:54 pm

macrae11 wrote:True enough, but Greenspan's policies work just fine as long as you're in an era of economic growth.


So what stopped that growth then?
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Re: US Election Day!

Postby macrae11 » Tue Nov 06, 2012 6:03 pm

In short, normal economic cycles. And I shouldn't say his policies work in periods of growth, they just don't get the attention because things are going well. The boom really should have ended in the early 2000's after the tech bubble burst, which Greenspan helped create. Instead he favored pedal to the metal economic policies of fueling growth with cheap credit. So instead of a relatively smooth economic downturn as would have been expected like in the 70's we get the monstrosity that happened in 2008 which we're still feeling the effects of now. Greenspan recanted many of his beliefs after the crash but he had already handed the reins of the stampeding horses over to Bernake, and we know how that's been going.
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Re: US Election Day!

Postby macrae11 » Wed Nov 07, 2012 8:12 am

Way to not screw things up America.
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Re: US Election Day!

Postby Mathieu Benoit » Wed Nov 07, 2012 10:39 am

macrae11 wrote:Way to not screw things up America.



Nate Silver totally called it.
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Re: US Election Day!

Postby Mathieu Benoit » Wed Nov 07, 2012 10:46 am

macrae11 wrote:In short, normal economic cycles. And I shouldn't say his policies work in periods of growth, they just don't get the attention because things are going well. The boom really should have ended in the early 2000's after the tech bubble burst, which Greenspan helped create. Instead he favored pedal to the metal economic policies of fueling growth with cheap credit. So instead of a relatively smooth economic downturn as would have been expected like in the 70's we get the monstrosity that happened in 2008 which we're still feeling the effects of now. Greenspan recanted many of his beliefs after the crash but he had already handed the reins of the stampeding horses over to Bernake, and we know how that's been going.


"Go for it, take adjustable mortgage rates. The rates are based on the the interest rates that I set, and they're super low right now! Just 1%! You can totally afford 1%! Buy that big house you always wanted! Don't worry I got your back!"

*starts cranking up the interest rate*

"Well... I never said adjustable rates were good. I said fixed rates were good. Don't you people know which one of my speeches to pay attention to? Bunch of idiots. screw you guys, I'm retiring."
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Re: US Election Day!

Postby macrae11 » Wed Nov 07, 2012 11:17 am

Mathieu Benoit wrote:
macrae11 wrote:In short, normal economic cycles. And I shouldn't say his policies work in periods of growth, they just don't get the attention because things are going well. The boom really should have ended in the early 2000's after the tech bubble burst, which Greenspan helped create. Instead he favored pedal to the metal economic policies of fueling growth with cheap credit. So instead of a relatively smooth economic downturn as would have been expected like in the 70's we get the monstrosity that happened in 2008 which we're still feeling the effects of now. Greenspan recanted many of his beliefs after the crash but he had already handed the reins of the stampeding horses over to Bernake, and we know how that's been going.


"Go for it, take adjustable mortgage rates. The rates are based on the the interest rates that I set, and they're super low right now! Just 1%! You can totally afford 1%! Buy that big house you always wanted! Don't worry I got your back!"

*starts cranking up the interest rate*

"Well... I never said adjustable rates were good. I said fixed rates were good. Don't you people know which one of my speeches to pay attention to? Bunch of idiots. screw you guys, I'm retiring."


Well that's one take. :-P Historically adjustable rates have typically been the best route to go. It's only been in the last 5-7 years that fixed is clear and away the best choice.
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Re: US Election Day!

Postby Mathieu Benoit » Wed Nov 07, 2012 12:14 pm

macrae11 wrote:Well that's one take. :-P Historically adjustable rates have typically been the best route to go. It's only been in the last 5-7 years that fixed is clear and away the best choice.


I'm paraphrasing, but that was one of the factors. The dot-com crash kinda forced the fed to drop the rate to begin with I suppose... but when you combine sucha low rate with people pushing subprime lending. Well, whatdya expect?

Of course it wasn't the only factor by a long shot, the lack of regulation over lending policies was the biggest thing. Sure one can argue that the people should never have gotten in over their heads, but you can't trust the consumer to smart enough to make the right choices when they are having their "banking professional" telling them that it's a good idea. There were just so many questionable workarounds to allow homeowners to get homes that they could never really afford.

Housing bubbles pop, it's what they do. The reason this one became such a big deal was because so many homeowners were foreclosed (because they should never have gotten the loan to begin with.) When the banks tried to recoup their cost they couldn't since the market values dropped and the loans were way overleveraged. This isn't normally a problem for the banks if the home owners keep making payments. But when the banks foreclose and try to get their money back on a $250K house that they have $400K tied into, well things get interesting.

Again there are a number of factors, but if subprime lending didn't get so out of hand the shift from growth to recession would have been much less of an issue.

But like you said, much of it has little to do with presidents.
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Re: US Election Day!

Postby Mathieu Benoit » Wed Nov 07, 2012 1:02 pm

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Re: US Election Day!

Postby macrae11 » Wed Nov 07, 2012 1:03 pm

That was the start. But the real kicker and what brought the whole mother down was that they took those mortgages, repackaged them, fraudlently got the regulators to paint them with AAA bond rated status, sold them to everybody and then took out insurance on them failing. If it hadn't been for these steps it would have hurt a lot of home owners, banks, real estate agents etc. But with this repackaging they managed to infect the entire economy from bond funds, mutual funds, pension funds, insurance companies etc. Essentially spreading the infection from what could have been relatively localized, to blowing it up enough to bring the world to the brink.

This is why, while the Canadian housing bubble that's getting close to being ready to pop will hurt a lot of homeowners and banks, I don't think it will have the same economic repercussions throughout the entire economy.
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Re: US Election Day!

Postby macrae11 » Wed Nov 07, 2012 1:05 pm


Indeed. Him and Ted Nugent just need to go away and have babies somewhere.
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Re: US Election Day!

Postby macrae11 » Wed Nov 07, 2012 1:10 pm

I highly recommend watching Inside Job. Very good overall synopsis of what went down.
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Re: US Election Day!

Postby Mathieu Benoit » Wed Nov 07, 2012 1:21 pm

macrae11 wrote:That was the start. But the real kicker and what brought the whole mother down was that they took those mortgages, repackaged them, fraudlently got the regulators to paint them with AAA bond rated status, sold them to everybody and then took out insurance on them failing. If it hadn't been for these steps it would have hurt a lot of home owners, banks, real estate agents etc. But with this repackaging they managed to infect the entire economy from bond funds, mutual funds, pension funds, insurance companies etc. Essentially spreading the infection from what could have been relatively localized, to blowing it up enough to bring the world to the brink.


It's absolutely brilliant if you think about it.


macrae11 wrote:I highly recommend watching Inside Job. Very good overall synopsis of what went down.


Is it a documentary? I'd love to find something to help break it down a bit because Joline and I love this kind of stuff, but she doesn't really have a foundation as to what happened and I could use some deeper insight myself.
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Re: US Election Day!

Postby Mathieu Benoit » Wed Nov 07, 2012 1:52 pm

Speaking of things to watch... Have you watched House of Numbers: Anatomy of an Epidemic or Collapse? Joline and I have been on a documentary kick lately.
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Re: US Election Day!

Postby macrae11 » Wed Nov 07, 2012 1:53 pm

Mathieu Benoit wrote:
macrae11 wrote:That was the start. But the real kicker and what brought the whole mother down was that they took those mortgages, repackaged them, fraudlently got the regulators to paint them with AAA bond rated status, sold them to everybody and then took out insurance on them failing. If it hadn't been for these steps it would have hurt a lot of home owners, banks, real estate agents etc. But with this repackaging they managed to infect the entire economy from bond funds, mutual funds, pension funds, insurance companies etc. Essentially spreading the infection from what could have been relatively localized, to blowing it up enough to bring the world to the brink.


It's absolutely brilliant if you think about it.


Brilliant and sadistic. They weren't the genius' they thought they were because most of them didn't forsee it blowing up like it did.
Mathieu Benoit wrote:
macrae11 wrote:I highly recommend watching Inside Job. Very good overall synopsis of what went down.


Is it a documentary? I'd love to find something to help break it down a bit because Joline and I love this kind of stuff, but she doesn't really have a foundation as to what happened and I could use some deeper insight myself.


Yup. I got it off iTunes
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Re: US Election Day!

Postby Mathieu Benoit » Wed Nov 07, 2012 2:05 pm

macrae11 wrote:Brilliant and sadistic. They weren't the genius' they thought they were because most of them didn't forsee it blowing up like it did.



Okay... Clever may be a better word. Either way I find the whole thing absolutely fascinating.
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