>>The great thing with SPECULATORS in a capitalist market, they work counter-cyclical, buying when the chicken littles are selling and selling when the chicken littles are buying.<<

Thanks Col, I was looking for a definition for "PARASITE".

Bronwyn,

It is interesting to note that when actually offered the evidence regarding the directions given to the GSE's by Government, you have nothing to say.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac owned or guaranteed HALF of Americas twelve trillion dollar mortgage market. Thats $6,000,000,000,000.

So lets just stop this pretense that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are irrelvant. They are the HEART of the problem. That is a fact.

You clearly have done no research on this issue if you don't even know about the names. FaNie MAy is the FNMA Federal National Mortgage Association. Freddie MaC is the FHLMC, Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation.

Whats the matter? Cat got your tongue?

Chris Shaw,

Insightful Chris, I wonder what other problems you could solve for us, using your barn animal analogies.

I've got a good one for you. Life under socialist governments is like living in a pigpen, sh1t everywhere and no way to get out.

Clever huh?

Fractelle “>>The great thing with SPECULATORS in a capitalist market, they work counter-cyclical, buying when the chicken littles are selling and selling when the chicken littles are buying.<<

Thanks Col, I was looking for a definition for "PARASITE".”

I knew you or one of the other “follies” would jump on that, I was having a side bet on who would be first.

The point of being a speculator in a bear market is

By accepting the risk on falling stocks the speculator stops the slide and “stabilizes the market, to the benefit of all.”

Likewise, in a bull market

The speculator watches the price and decides when to sell, satisfying the buying demand and leveling the spike, again he “stabilizes the market, to the benefit of all.”

However, your small mind, unable to comprehend the notion of "risk" or "opportunity", immediately grasps on rant of the ignorant, calling the speculator names and decrying his well earned reward, a reward which you will never see because people like you lack

1 the insight to understand how markets really work
2 the bottle to do anything about it

I suggest you pack up your ignorance and leave the “market” to those who have real understanding, instead of evidencing your small minded bigotry of things beyond your comprehension.

PaulL and the other thing with Fannie May and Freddie Mac is, they are nothing new in USA.
They have been around for decades.
Freddie Mac 1970 and
Fannie Mae 1968 (in its present form although originally incorporated in 1938.)

Nice pigpen analogy,

very apt for the "socialist swill". : - )

Good call by Chris - long overdue to read some reminder about how silly the free-market cultists really are; now that the crash exposes their massive fraud, they're working overtime on chanting their old mantras and abusing infidels like ourselves.

The misnomer "Free Market" was always a vague and inconsistently defined anarchist Shangri-La promoted by imperialist misanthropes. There is nothing "free" about it: it is in practice both very expensive if not prohibitive for any entry by the overwhelming majority of the planet's population.

Everyday, simple commercial scenarios prove repeatedly the term's fraudulent quality. A large corporation threatens a retail chain with removing some of its distribution via the chain unless the said chain stops selling a competitor's product. Of course, that competitor's product is superior and sells very well, until it meets the "corrective" and "stabilizing" market force of extortionate, free-market brutalism. Typically, as a rule of thumb, the monetarist god of capital is a weapon used by the dull, mediocre and greedy against the bright, innovative and fair-minded. Speculation by the likes of Soros (who worked for Eichmann as a kid and expresses no remorse) merely carries such free-market brutality out of the warehouse and into the bourse.

The imperialist nature of the free-market shysters and psychopaths probably explains why they get knighthoods, or at least pant and lick in an effort after such pompous and primitive titles.

Bronwyn

This is going to stun you and I guanrantee you'll jump in with an automatic denial.

Fanny Mae is an arm of the Democrat Party.
It was able to lend money to poor and disadvantaged who were unable to repay because the Democrat Party in 1998 ensured the strengthening and the passage through the Congress of The Community Reinvestment Act and the abolition of The Steagall-Glass Act.

The CRA resulted in huge defaults when interest rates went up, the repayment of principle 'kicked in' in these low start loans and house values fell.

The repeal of the Glass-Syragall Act allowed Fannie Mae to sell these mortgages. ie liquify their liability and continue creating much more toxicity.

Up until 6 months ago the Democrats were chanpioning the financial stability and the wonderful benefits it was bringing to the poor in America.

Now they are running from the stinking mess like a mob of paniced emus... and blaming everyone but themselves to boot.

And of course once those laws were changed of course the greedy bastards in the banks and on Wall Street did exactly jumped at the chance to make easy money and the same. Just as any reasonable person would expect them to behave.

Now share some of the real terror.
I saw Rudd today giving a speech at the Press Club. In it he said his rescue of $10 Billion would cushion the impending recession. He also said it was based on the debt in the US of approx 1.4 tillion (14,000 Billion, forget the naughts they are meaningless).

Guess What? He's wrong the estimate of damage from Fannie Mae's stupidities is $7 Trillion. His underestimation is massive. Forget his recession we are in for a depression. And just have a guess at what your property including retirement super will be worth in the next five or six years.
Throwing $10 billion at it is like building a sandbag bank in an endeavour to hold back a tsunami.

Now just to get this straight: while greed did spur the melt-down it was the socialists and their cockeyed ideas that set in train this entirely avoidable disaster.

We were bloody stupid to allow them to meddle in and change the fundament principles of our capitalist system. ie to loan money to people who could not repay.

Are all you stupid dogooders happy now?