deadendeavor said:

HippieChick8 said:

I heard the "official" unemployment rate is around 10% and the "unofficial" unemployment rate is close to 20%.  Isn't that bad enough to rethink capitalism?  Or do we need to have 50% out of work?  At what point do we say that capitalism just doesn't work?

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The economy will crash long before we reach 50% unemployment.  If it really is at 20% right now, we don't have long at all before we're going to be forced to take a different direction.  The sad thing is that most are going to wind up trying to "reform" the monetary system, with another gold standard or a no-debt type system.  If that happens, sooner or later we'll end up in the same spot because nothing in life can constantly expand.  There is no equation for such a system.  There must be contraction, so a no-debt system cannot work.  And even if it could, the incentive would always be to hoard, which doesn't solve any social problems whatever.

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ArmFromTheAbyss said:

zappaisgod said:

meams said:

I suppose.  But I don't think anyone who created any of the financial insturments that went awry in 2007 had any idea that their creations would cause such a mess.

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Oh no?  Why do you think they tried to get rid of them?  Then again, I can't blame them since the government forced them to make the bad loans in the first place.

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The community reinvestment act had absolutely nothing to do with the banks making bad loans. That's just a pathetic talking point for people who have no financial literacy.

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Quote:

The report alleges that ACORN, which stands for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, contributed to the risky lending that led to the financial collapse by intimidating banks into lowering mortgage lending standards, becoming one of the few entities to profit from the subsequent misery.

“ACORN used the threat of jeopardizing bank mergers and acquisitions to force banks into lending agreements with its housing division, allowing the group to reap profits from more than a billion dollars in loans to low-income neighborhoods, according to the report.

“Some of the largest banks and lenders in the country, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, CitiBank, provided ACORN Housing with a total of $39.9 million, along with address and bank account information of at-risk homeowners to provide free counseling services, but ACORN used the information to recruit the homeowners, bringing in $48 million a year for the group, the report says.”

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