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How the World has Changed Since 2008 Financial Crisis

posted by martyb on Friday March 30 2018, @07:36AM   
from the change-is-not-necessarily-for-the-good dept.

edIII writes:

10 Years Since The 2008 Financial Crisis

The financial crisis and the massive federal response reshaped the world we live in. Though the economy is in one of its longest expansions and stock indexes have hit new highs, many people across the political spectrum complain that the recovery is uneven and the markets' gains aren't fairly distributed. The Wall Street Journal takes a look at some of the most eventful aspects of the response and how we got to where we are today.

America lost a lot of strength and stability, there were no consequences for the most egregious offenders, and those involved are now part of the regulatory capture in the financial markets.

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Original Submission

• Re:Expectations of Fairies and Rainbows. Re:Expectations of Fairies and Rainbows. (Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Friday March 30 2018, @08:17PM (1 child)

  by khallow (3766) on Friday March 30 2018, @08:17PM (#660515) Journal

  If I make you a promise, a contract on paper, with a face value of X - and then turn around 5 years later and claim "surprise, X really = X/5, but it's all legal because Carter and Clinton made me do it," that's fraud, a punishable offense.

  You never did state what was supposed to be fraudulent about this. Promises aren't iron law. If I can't pay you because I'm bankrupt, that's bankruptcy not fraud. You have to show that I made that initial promise in bad faith (or illegally hiding my problems, like cooking the books), not merely that things didn't work out.

  Just saying "past returns are no guarantee of future performance, caveat emptor" isn't the end of all liability in investment counseling; if it is - we should claw back all the fees ever paid to investment analysts and advisers, because they are literally worthless.

  Ever wonder why such useless boiler plate shows up so often? It's a bit of government theater. Everyone has to put that crap in their prospectus because government of the time wanted to appear to care about protecting ill-informed investors.
  
  Buyer beware is the vast majority of fraud and bad investment protection. You have to be pretty bad at money before a second party will be better at protecting your investment than you will.

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• Re:Expectations of Fairies and Rainbows. (Score: 4, Insightful) by Adamsjas on Friday March 30 2018, @09:55PM

  by Adamsjas (4507) on Friday March 30 2018, @09:55PM (#660551)

  Exactly.

  These so called promise of which the GP rants, never existed. The promise was always backed by the forfeiture of an asset (a house) if payment wasn't made.

  Hundreds of thousands of houses were forfeited when these loans failed, became unpaid and noncollectable.
  Rather than sell those foreclosed houses on, at lower prices, the banks sat on them (for up to two years) because federal bail out law made that the most profitable way to proceed.

  Meanwhile the ex-homeowner was in the street, or bidding up the rental market.

  Government mandated loan programs caused the problem, and government bailout recovery programs made it last longer.
  These government programs put millions in the street and living under bridges.

  Some banks died. Many more deserved to die. https://www.fivecentnickel.com/bank-failure-rates/ [fivecentnickel.com]
  Some people think the 2008 crash was all the bank's fault. Those people are simply wrong on the facts.

  Parent