Yep. 60% was in error. I meant 60 to 1. Thanks.

So the Republicans screw the middle class by allowing Wall Street to financially pummel Main Street and steal middle class wealth – while the Democrats screw us with programs like ObamaCare and high taxes that steals whatever wealth is left in the middle class and transfers it to all those living free off the gov. Like I said, the Democrats and the Republicans are teammates who wear different colored jerseys. The wealth that they extract from the middle class just goes to different extremes.

The only way to win at that game is to belong to one of the extremes – either live off the government or be a member of the super wealthy elite. If you get caught anywhere in the middle you become an indentured servant and a walking ATM.

*300 to 1

It’s my understanding that the Lehman Bros. meltdown happened because the gov allowed Lehman to leverage to the hilt, as high as 60%, and it was holding a ton of subprime securitized mortgage investments that it was unable to offload to the market.

60%?? That is not correct.

Wall Street investment banks were ALLOWED, by Congress, to leverage up. at 30-35 to 1. They were undercapitalized by trillions, and were a disaster waiting to happen. And that disaster happened in the 4th quarter of 2007.

Hedge funds and private equity firms are allowed to leverage as high as 300 to google Amaranth Advisors, MF Global and Long Term Capital Management, that is what “leverage” does

NTHEOC says: November 13, 2013 at 7:18 pm Lol!!! You chicken little doomers just keep at it with your ridiculous sky is falling mantra!!! California is BOOMING!!!

CA is BOOMING for TWO, and ONLY TWO, groups;
1) Tech workers
2) Public employee/trough feeders

For the other 90% of the state it is in dire straights.

Ulysses: That sounds like a great evening. Although I can get Jolson on YouTube: http://youtu.be/4F4yT0KAMyo

It’s my understanding that the Lehman Bros. meltdown happened because the gov allowed Lehman to leverage to the hilt, as high as 60%, and it was holding a ton of subprime securitized mortgage investments that it was unable to offload to the market. Both the Clinton and Bush administrations were responsible for it. Massive fraud occurred in the RE market. Subprime mortgage loans were being given to people who had no chance of paying them off. All of us saw examples of this in our neighborhoods when homes purchased a year earlier at inflated prices went into foreclosure. The government turned a blind eye as Wall Street looted Main Street – and then were rewarded by the government with trillion dollar bailouts. And not one of the financial crooks went to jail for it. And the bailouts continue to this day. QE is nothing more than more bailouts for the Too Big To Fails.

We already have a massive impoverished population in California. Despite this, the Califonia State legislature is promoting even more poverty by giving out Ca drivers licenses to illegal aliens and enacting the “Trust Act” which releases illegal aliens back into the community after they’ve served their jail time for non-violent felonies and misdemeanors. This is willfully tossing buckets of gasoline on a fire which is already out of control. We already have 12% of the nation’s population and 33% of the nation’s welfare recipients. The illegal aliens violating our immigration laws are 95% indigent. They have nothing but the shirts on their backs. And the more that come here the higher the poverty rates climb. And the more the public treasure gets drained with free health care, education and welfare in some cases. Don’t you see that? Why is everyone so blinded?

Actually, if the Fed had not “stimulated” the economy beginning after 9/11 when Greenspan and Bush panicked, either there never would have been a crash in 2007-08, or the crash would have been much smaller, and by now we would have been fully recovered from it.

Pumping fiat dollars into a system on life support can only continue for a limited time before the system flat lines. If you had an income of $27k a year and were spending $38k a year and had an outstanding debt of $170k how long would your financial ship stay afloat? Well, that’s exactly where we are as a nation. I know many of you don’t want to accept that. But it’s a fact. Call it doomer economics or whatever you want. But facts are facts. When reality rears it’s ugly head you’ll wake up and realize you’ve been conned.

The politicians know all this. But for political expedience your leaders are kicking the can down the road for as long as they can until they can’t anymore. Obama doesn’t care. He and his family are set for life regardless what happens to you.