Defaulting banks - where will it stop?

[David Guyatt]

Consumers did not buy houses they knew they couldn't afford, they were sold those houses and the mortgage that came with them. That sales job was performed by people who by your own admission knew that the mortgage was never going to be paid under the original terms on its face - that doing so was a mathematical impossibility.

Blame the innocent in other words. We see this game in all sectors of life. Drug addicts are to blame for the importation of drugs - not the drug barons and elite who reap immense profits from selling misery and living hell.

It makes me sick to see this line of reasoning. But not unexpected, I think.

[David Guyatt]

I know for fact that the Old Lady has stepped in and begun the first round of "quantitive easing" - which pre Orwellian "Double Speak" we all knew by the simpler and more descriptive term "printing money".

[Mark Stapleton]

Consumers did not buy houses they knew they couldn't afford, they were sold those houses and the mortgage that came with them. That sales job was performed by people who by your own admission knew that the mortgage was never going to be paid under the original terms on its face - that doing so was a mathematical impossibility.

Blame the innocent in other words. We see this game in all sectors of life. Drug addicts are to blame for the importation of drugs - not the drug barons and elite who reap immense profits from selling misery and living hell.

It makes me sick to see this line of reasoning.

Me too. These paragons of free market capitalism can't be allowed to rewrite history but they'll try, aided by a complicit MSM who are only too keen to ignore the failure of the so-called ratings agencies, and the usurious shackles placed on the bulk of mortgagees.

Over here in the land of floods and fires we have an obnoxious Sydney radio broadcaster called Alan Jones who is trying to pin the blame on the public and their "reckless credit binge". He seems to be in favor of bank bailouts but rails against handouts to the (<$100K p.a.) public.

So we have the Eastern European banks rumoured to be on the brink and the disastrous numbers in the Hughes article posted by Peter in post #236 painting an equally grim picture for the major US banks. Then there's the blind panic of almost every other European country and 100,000 people demonstrating in Ireland last week.

Man the lifeboats folks, it's every consumer for himself--and forget about all that women and children first crap. Actually, I think the Titanic sank while trying to break records too. Funny that.

[David Guyatt]

The problem I suppose Mark, is that to tell it as it really is unwraps the big lie. And that cannot be allowed to happen.

[Mark Stapleton]

The problem I suppose Mark, is that to tell it as it really is unwraps the big lie. And that cannot be allowed to happen.

Ha! We'll kick it out of 'em.


There's going to be changes. Sadly, lots of lives will be lost but that's a normal byproduct of change.

[David Guyatt]

Btw Mark, have you been reading our Big Tobacco thread.

It's posted in the DPF as a public service.

It's really worth careful scrutiny because it throws up interesting facts that show how research into one area often opens up for scrutiny other areas which, in turn, lead to still further unexpected revelations, that, in turn, explain soooo much.

When we first stumbled across it here we couldn't believe my eyes and had to do some digging to be sure that 2 + 2 really did add up to 4. It does.

If you haven't already you can read it HERE

[Mark Stapleton]

Btw Mark, have you been reading our Big Tobacco thread.

It's posted in the DPF as a public service.

It's really worth careful scrutiny because it throws up interesting facts that show how research into one area often opens up for scrutiny other areas which, in turn, lead to still further unexpected revelations, that, in turn, explain soooo much.

When we first stumbled across it here we couldn't believe my eyes and had to do some digging to be sure that 2 + 2 really did add up to 4. It does.

If you haven't already you can read it HERE

As they used to say on the Rowan and Martin show (yes, I'm that old).........very inter..estink.

[Magda Hassan]

Over here in the land of floods and fires we have an obnoxious Sydney radio broadcaster called Alan Jones who is trying to pin the blame on the public and their "reckless credit binge". He seems to be in favor of bank bailouts but rails against handouts to the (<$100K p.a.) public.

It wasn't even a hand out to the public. It was a hand out to the retail sector. The idea was that with all the loot handed out just before Christmas it would all end up in the shops. Looking at the figure Rudd read out in parliament to day that's just what happened. All the cheap mortages and the first home owners grant and rent assasstance for social security beneficiaries all that is for the real estate and property development and construction industry. If the government were interested in housing people they would have public housing.

[Mark Stapleton]

Over here in the land of floods and fires we have an obnoxious Sydney radio broadcaster called Alan Jones who is trying to pin the blame on the public and their "reckless credit binge". He seems to be in favor of bank bailouts but rails against handouts to the (<$100K p.a.) public.

It wasn't even a hand out to the public. It was a hand out to the retail sector. The idea was that with all the loot handed out just before Christmas it would all end up in the shops. Looking at the figure Rudd read out in parliament to day that's just what happened. All the cheap mortages and the first home owners grant and rent assasstance for social security beneficiaries all that is for the real estate and property development and construction industry. If the government were interested in housing people they would have public housing.

Yes indeed. It is designed to stimulate the retail sector. And I agree with your other comments--the FHOG is designed to help the property sector as is the massive immigration level. They are hoping high immigration levels will prop up real estate values on the demand side. Sadly, the only thing being propped up are the ridiculously high rental rates in Sydney and the other urban centres.

But that's OK for them--many of the politicians have investment properties and are happy to see high rental rates.

(end of brief thread hijack)

[Jan Klimkowski]

Spooky Ambrose Evans-Pritchard suggests that Germany is in big trouble. NB this is very geopolitical for AE-P & his buddies....

The cost of bankruptcy protection on German debt has reached an all-time high on spill-over from the financial crisis in Eastern Europe and mounting concerns about the stability of Germany's banking system.


By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 7:59PM GMT 24 Feb 2009

Credit default swaps measuring risk on five-year sovereign debt touched 90 basis points on Tuesday and looks poised to rise above French debt for the first time.

The spike follows a warning by Deutsche Bank that Germany’s economy will contract by 5pc this year as industrial exports collapse at the fastest pace since the Great Depression.

Norbert Walter, the bank’s chief economist, said there was a risk of an even deeper slump if the economy fails to stabilize by the summer. “A bigger contraction can’t be ruled out,” he said.

The state governments of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein agreed on €3bn (£2.7bn) cash rescue on Tuesday for Landesbank HSH Nordbank, the world’s top source of finance for shipping, raising the public stake to 80pc. The bank has already drawn on a €10bn guarantee from the government’s bail-out fund Soffin. HSH lost €2.8bn last year, mostly on credit instruments and fall-out from the Lehman debacle.

“Of course these costs will weigh on the budget. We had no choice,” said Peter Harry Carstensen, the premier of Schleswig Holstein. He denied press reports that his own state was facing bankruptcy.

There are eleven state-owned Landesbanken in Germany and most are in trouble. While their mission is to boost regional industry and finance the family Mittelstand firms, they strayed disastrously into almost every form of leveraged excess through off-books `conduits’, many based in Dublin.

“The entire Landesbanken system is rotten,” said Hans Redeker, currency chief at BNP Paribas.”Credit will collapse if they are allowed to fail so they have to be recapitalized. But it is not just the banks in trouble: Germany’s entire export structure has been hit drastically.”

“German CDS spreads are going massively higher. German bank exposure to Eastern Europe, although less than Austria, is still very high. The markets have started to price in a de facto bail-out of Eastern Europe and they think that Germany that will have to pay the bill,” he said.

The rating agency Standard & Poor’s said in a report on Tuesday that the region was “shuddering to a halt”, with a number of countries were “crumbling under the weight of high foreign currency debt.” It is unclear whether they can roll over debts as Western banks retreat to their home market.

S&P said foreign debt is 115pc of GDP in Estonia, 103pc in Bulgaria, 93pc in Hungary, all far above danger level. “All the ingredients of a major crisis are in place,” said Jean-Michel Six, the group’s Europe economist.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/econo...mbles.html