Debunking Money - The Way the World Really Works

[Rock]

Ponzi economics is generally very straightforward and easy to explain. You increase your investor base early by giving relatively large rates of return to create a buzz. The buzz quickly stimulates new demand - growth in new investors and investment funds accelerate for awhile. The rapid growth in new investment funds make it easy to create the illusion of high returns as most investors do not wanna redeem and cash-out and the rest can be fictionally created on paper. A high percentage of the liquidity is siphoned off by the principals. It often doesn't get discovered until some sort of catalyst leads to a rapid increase in redemptions.

Madoff pulled his scheme off for decades cus bulk of investors wanted to stay-in given the handsome paper returns their statements showed. So the occasional cash-outs were easy to cover. But 2009 market crash created widespread panic and hugh macro liquidations across the board. Only then was it discovered that there was not enough assets to cover the liabilities and his funds had to file for bankruptcy. The balance balance sheets were fraudulent.

To make it even simpler:

1. You launch a hedge fund in year 1

2. Take in 100 investors who each put in 100K for a total of 10 mn.

3. You send out statements at end of year 1 telling investors they each made 20% or 20K. But actually, you only made 2% investing in long-term treasuries. You've created an asset shortfall of 2 mn plus approx 200 K expenses for setting-up and running fund less 200 K return on Treasuries less 2%/20% fees typical for hedge fund (200 K + 400 K = 600 K) => 1.4 mn asset shortfall.

4. 5 of them cash-out cus they need money. But other 95 stay in cus they're so happy with the hi return and are optimistic that it can be repeated. You are a good talker after all lol. So from your 10 mn in cash, you just need to pay-out 500 K. Your real investable funds are 9.5 mn less 1.4 mn shortfall = 8.1 mn (no worries yet).

5. Most of the investors, whether they cashed-out or stayed in, tell their friends about how well your fund did! A new crop of interested investors emerge and you are able to raise an additional 10 mn! So now you have 10 mn + 8.1 mn = 18.1 mn in your hands vs. paper liabilities of 21.4 mn. But nobody knows this but you! Hedge funds have very low transparency and are virtually unregulated. So you decide to buy a boat, go on roadshows to drum up even more money, and the party continues until one day...

Can anyone approach the above level of specifics on how these large scale ponzi economics work? Or do your really understand it! It's easy to get excited and join the hype bandwagon. But who actually knows what their talking about. Find that person or persons and have them kindly explain clearly and simply how the scheme works.

Not sure what exactly you are asking, but take your classic housing bubble.
1. Banks create money out of thin air and lend it to house buyers at cheap rates.
2. People start buying houses for higher prices, not because they think they are worth more, but because they think they can sell them for more than what they paid.
3. This expectation becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as people use the bank-created cheap money to buy houses for ever more inflated prices. This in turn attracts more buyers and so on.
4. Eventually the banks run out of people to lend money to. Since the value of any ponzi scheme is maintained by new money coming in, this causes housing prices to crash, leaving the last buyers holding the bag.
5. The banks then foreclose on them and end up owning the houses themselves. Generally they then sell the houses to corporations and rich tossers at cheap rates. Hence the whole thing is a ponzi scheme where the rich confiscate wealth from the middle class, with a few opportunists making gains along the way. A similar mechanism was used to confiscate family farms for large agricorps in the 80s.

If you want specific figures for any given episode of this then they are likely to be matters of public record and I assume you can look them up as well as anyone.

Look at my first post. My dad was a principal in a bank start-up and no money was created out of thin air in that case as far as we can see. The banks funds came from shareholder capital and deposits. Yes there was a housing bubble created in the years leading up to 2009 driven by exceptionally low interest rates, easy credit, and a repackaging of loans which were misleadingly sold as higher quality than they actually were. The scam I can see is that taxpayers were forced to bail out certain big banks for their mistakes. But the claims being made here in this thread (which I'm not necessarily denying) are much more extensive than that.

I'm asking HOW do banks create money out of thin air (your point number 1 above)? Public records? Of what? That doesn't answer anything lol. You guys who are making these claims should understand what you're talking about.

[Cornfed]

I'm asking HOW do banks create money out of thin air

This is really econ 101 here. Consider the situation where you deposit $10k in cash in a bank and I then take out a loan for $10k. You don't then get a letter stating that your $10k is temporarily unavailable due to me borrowing it, as you would have in centuries past. Both of us now have the right to use $10k of funds in the bank to purchase stuff, so it follows that $10k has been added to the system. Now lets suppose that I buy a car with the $10k I have borrowed. The car dealer is likely to put the money in his bank account (and for the sake of simplicity lets say it is the same bank). The bank neither knows nor cares that this is the money I have just borrowed. They will treat it like any other deposit and lend it out to other people, thus creating more money, and soon that money will find its way back into the banking system, where it will be used to create more money and so on.

The extent to which the banks can inflate the money supply is dictated by the reserves of cash they are required to keep in their vaults to pay out depositors. For example, it they are required to keep a 10% reserve, mathematical reasoning tells us that they could inflate approximately 10 times. In fact their reserves tend to be less that that. In modern Western economies 95% + of money has no other representation than entries on bank computers. The tiny fraction of notes and coins is simply a portable convenience. Like I say, this creation of money, called "the multiplier effect", is well covered in most modern economic textbooks. This creating of money as interest-bearing debt has a number of damaging implications that may not at first be apparent and is properly the subject for a book.

[momopi]

If anyone is actually interested in reading about the previous housing bubble, I recommend this book:


We spent several years debating on this topic over at Irvine Housing Blog, and this book is partly the result of those years. Anyways, the "bubble" in OC actually started around 1998 onwards. If you had purchased a condo in 1998, you could have sold it for double the price in 2001-2002. The interest rate back then wasn't low either. You can look it up on historical interest rate data. I had purchased investment properties in 1999-2002 and recall interest rates in the ~7% range.

Anyways, condo prices doubled from 1998 - 2001/2002 then doubled again by 2005-2006. This means if you had bought a $100,000 condo in 1998, it'd be worth $200,000 in 2001/2002, and $400,000 at peak in 2005/2006. Buying properties in 2002 was slightly less difficult than today, with multiple bids on the property by noon.

The housing bubble was created when lenders lowered their lending requirements and gave no doc loans to anyone who's breathing. We can sit here and point fingers at banks and government all day, or blame some ill-conceived government policy of trying to get folks in lower income brackets into their starter homes. But ultimately it's the individual buyer's responsibility when they choose to buy what they cannot afford, or use their home equity like an ATM machine.

[Cornfed]

But ultimately it's the individual buyer's responsibility when they choose to buy what they cannot afford, or use their home equity like an ATM machine.

Most pre-conceived scams rely on certain negative attributes of their targets, but this doesn't normally prevent the criminals from being thrown in jail. Often there is no way you can really avoid the scams. A lot of the supposed irresponsible buyers would have had to pay extortionate rents as a result of the situation and so figured they may as well take the risk of buying and at least stand a chance of reaping some reward. The only solution to the problem would be for everyone to get together and all agree to not participate in the scam as the banksters intend. However, in large groups of people this is unlikely to happen. In general the banksters are using their influence to place people in situations where they get screwed over for behaving like humans behave when placed in those situations. Blaming humans for behaving like humans will not solve the problem. Deposing the ZOG/bankster criminal occupation is what would solve the problem.

[Rock]

The housing bubble was created when lenders lowered their lending requirements and gave no doc loans to anyone who's breathing. We can sit here and point fingers at banks and government all day, or blame some ill-conceived government policy of trying to get folks in lower income brackets into their starter homes. But ultimately it's the individual buyer's responsibility when they choose to buy what they cannot afford, or use their home equity like an ATM machine.

Damn straight! The banks messed-up by not doing proper due diligence. Perhaps they had too much confidence in the underlying collateral since it only seemed to go quickly up in value. And the borrowers were of the same mind-set. When the party ended, banks got stuck with inadequate collateral to cover the value of the loans and borrowers/home-buyers were stuck with homes often worth less on the market than the money they had borrowed. They got stuck declining or negative equity when they had assumed they would make money. If they couldn't make up the shortfall, then they were in line to have their homes re-possessed and rightly so.

Add to all that, some banks repackaged the so-called sub-prime loans and sold them as high interest rate securities which Rating Agencies such as Moodys and Fitch issued top ratings on. Hmm, if a security is paying upwards of 7% in a very low interest rate environment and the largest US rating agencies, the ones we've been taught to trust, are giving them ratings of A or above, wouldn't you be tempted? Oh and don't forget AIGs credit default swps and obligations which lost most of their value after SHTF and should have brought down the firm. But it didn't!

Here's where I see the scam. US taxpayers were forced to bail-out AIG and several other banks and financial institutions for their mistakes. Many of the home-buyers who lost out cried that the government should bail them out. Ditto for execs at the financial institutions involved who buy the way get packages worth at least 10 of millions of US$ per year no matter how bad the screw-up. But IMO, the only party who should be crying foul are the taxpayers. Screw the rest. Let the home-buyers go bankrupt, institutions fail, and claw-back those ridiculous sums of money paid to all the execs and high-level players responsible including those at the rating agencies.

[Rock]

I'm asking HOW do banks create money out of thin air

This is really econ 101 here. Consider the situation where you deposit $10k in cash in a bank and I then take out a loan for $10k. You don't then get a letter stating that your $10k is temporarily unavailable due to me borrowing it, as you would have in centuries past. Both of us now have the right to use $10k of funds in the bank to purchase stuff, so it follows that $10k has been added to the system. Now lets suppose that I buy a car with the $10k I have borrowed. The car dealer is likely to put the money in his bank account (and for the sake of simplicity lets say it is the same bank). The bank neither knows nor cares that this is the money I have just borrowed. They will treat it like any other deposit and lend it out to other people, thus creating more money, and soon that money will find its way back into the banking system, where it will be used to create more money and so on.

The extent to which the banks can inflate the money supply is dictated by the reserves of cash they are required to keep in their vaults to pay out depositors. For example, it they are required to keep a 10% reserve, mathematical reasoning tells us that they could inflate approximately 10 times. In fact their reserves tend to be less that that. In modern Western economies 95% + of money has no other representation than entries on bank computers. The tiny fraction of notes and coins is simply a portable convenience. Like I say, this creation of money, called "the multiplier effect", is well covered in most modern economic textbooks. This creating of money as interest-bearing debt has a number of damaging implications that may not at first be apparent and is properly the subject for a book.

Well, I see that as leverage, not as creating money out of thin air. If instead you were using condos, not money, no new condos would have been created out of thing air. For example, 1,000 condo owners decide to give temporary control of their condos to a broker. Broker pays them a monthly fee for use of these condos and in turns rents them out for a higher fee to other parties to make spread. Borrowing parties use the condos to sublet to third parties for even a higher rate to make a profit. Some of these third parties sublet individual rooms in each condo for an additional profit. Such a system intensifies use of each condo so that they don't sit vacant. This analogy is a partial model. I have not completed it.

Whether fractional reserve system creates a more or less or varied economy relative to scrapping it is debatable. For starters, you can complete my analogy above and perhaps compare and contrast. If you get into the nuts and bolts of the arguments, I'm afraid you will find that most people making sensationalist claims about money being created out of thin air don't really understand what they are talking about.

[momopi]

A lot of the supposed irresponsible buyers would have had to pay extortionate rents as a result of the situation and so figured they may as well take the risk of buying and at least stand a chance of reaping some reward.

No. During RE bubbles rent do not increase as much. The largest rent increases occur after the bubble busts. That's when the rent vs own ratio swings in favor of buying. I have been a landlord for about 15 years.

Blaming humans for behaving like humans will not solve the problem.

If you lied on a no-doc loan to buy a house that you cannot afford, then use the home equity like an ATM machine, it's your fault.

[Winston]

Hey Winston that was one of my funniest post and somebody took it down, yes his presentation is good and the info in the 6 part series is very informative even if it is old but I was just making a joke and somebody must have gotten offended

You say this is a very libertarian open minded site, just realize a joke when you see one please.

If you can put the post back up just as a joking critique I would appreciate it. It was meant to be funny and in this day and age where a group of people are taking the world over with mind control and a accounting gimmick we need all the laughs we can get. Sorry if you thought I was serious but I was joking.

I don't know what you're referring to. I didn't remove any post. PM Zboy1 and ask him about it. Was your post racist or something? Where did you post it?

[Winston]

I wanna understand the mechanics of this. But I watched first 6 minutes and was already lost. How exactly does the gov. give money to the banks so they start with a big chunk of free assets?

My dad was part of a group which started a commercial bank from scratch. They invested a bunch of capital, opened up for taking deposits, and made loans. The capital was their equity, deposits their liabilities, and loans their assets. Most of profit made from the spread - lending rate less deposit rate plus interest earned on reserves. Just how did they get any free month from the government?

I'm not necessarily denying this. But please, someone explain the exact mechanics - not just a bunch of black-box hocus pocus!

Good question. I was wondering the same thing. A lot of people and authors in the conspiracy movement simply tout these banking conspiracy schemes like religious tenets without showing any evidence.

However, I don't think the conspiracy refers to small commercial banks like the one your dad started. It's referring to the Fed loading money at interest to the US government and the big major banks like Chase and B of A.

Even credible scholars like Edward G. Griffin have written a book on this called "The Creature From Jekyll Island". It's supposed to be the best one. Glenn Beck on Fox even did a special report about this, just before he was fired for it. You can see it on YouTube.

If you want a step by step explanation for it, see the popular internet film "Zeitgeist Addendum". It's the sequel to the first one that I showed you. There are many documentaries about it on YouTube too.

I'm also skeptical of this whole Federal Reserve conspiracy thing, which claims that:

- Every US dollar in circulation in the US economy is created by debt and is owed.
- The Fed prints money out of thin air backed by nothing, called "fiat money".
- The banking elite owns America and the US government by controlling its money supply and funding the government itself.
- The Federal government gets ALL its money from the Federal Reserve and international bankers, which is loaned at interest and can NEVER be repaid. The government does not print money and owes everything to the Fed.
- All the taxes you pay goes to pay the interest on the national debt, not to any domestic public services.

The reasons I'm skeptical about all this are:

- If all this were true, then wouldn't there be millions of whistleblowers talking about it from government and finance? It seems too black and white cartoonish.
- Also, wouldn't the leaders of other countries be exposing America for it? Why hasn't Putin talked about it on Russian news or the leaders of the Middle Eastern countries brought it up? Why isn't the whole world talking about it? How come its only talked about in conspiracy circles and alternative media?
- Wouldn't such a ponzi scheme have collapsed a long time ago? How could it have gone on since 1913?
- How can the banksters loan the government all its money at interest, which can never be repaid? What a stupid system. The people who own the banks must be a lot smarter than that.
- If all the trillions of national debt is owed to the banksters, then why don't they just cancel out some of it to help the economy? Why do they let the national debt keep growing forever? Can't they just cancel or write off some of it? What would they have to lose by writing off the national debt, since the money doesn't exist anyway and they have unlimited money?
- If the banksters could print unlimited money and had unlimited wealth, then why would they care about getting richer? Why would they start wars for profit? Wouldn't that be like adding ice to Antarctica? Why would they need any money at all if they are creating all of it?
- Why continue to tax the American public, if you already have unlimited money and can print it anytime? What's the point of the IRS or the income tax amendment?
- Why does one have to qualify for a loan from a bank, if the bank issues money it doesn't have out of thin air under "fractional reserve banking"? Why doesn't it just give everyone a loan and not ask it to be paid back, since the bank has nothing to lose when it distributes money out of nothing by typing it into a computer?
- Why don't the banksters give every American citizen a million dollars? The banksters that create money out of thin air would have nothing to lose right?
- Why doesn't Congress just do whatever it wants, since money is no object and can be printed out of thin air?
- Why would the Federal government allow the banksters to control the entire money supply and issue all currency in the first place? Why would they allow the banksters to own the government itself?

So you see, this theory doesn't make much sense. I'd like to see some evidence for it. What's the basis of it? Conspiracy people tout this like they are religious truths. But what's the evidence and basis for it? Does Ron Paul believe in this?

Even Momopi does not deny that the fiat money system exists. He even says that most countries use the same system. But either way, how do you explain the above?

[Winston]

Rock,
Maybe these videos will shed light on your questions? They are easy to follow. This first one is animated too. Let me know if they answer your questions.

The American Dream - How the Federal Reserve steals your money



Here's the Fox special that Glenn Beck did on it before he was fired. (Probably for doing this special?)

[Cornfed]

Well, I see that as leverage, not as creating money out of thin air.

How you see it is completely wrong. Consider that if a normal person did what banks do - representing numbers on his computer as legal tender - he would be arrested for trading while insolvent and fraud. Why don't you think bankers should be held to the same standard and make an honest living like the rest of us? You really would need to read around the issue to make sense of it.

[Cornfed]

Blaming humans for behaving like humans will not solve the problem.

If you lied on a no-doc loan to buy a house that you cannot afford, then use the home equity like an ATM machine, it's your fault.

If senior banksters set up the situation knowing that they were manipulating people into lying on loan applications and intending to accept what they knew to be lies as genuine then it is mostly their fault and a crime - called "control fraud". Bob Black, who helped secure 1000 felony convictions over the S&L debacle, says the 2008 collapse was basically the same thing on a larger scale, and the only reason the banksters weren't jailed in this case is that they are now running the show. You seem to want to blame powerless peons in the street for everything while absolving the big shots at the top for their crimes, like a good house monkey.

[Rock]

I wanna understand the mechanics of this. But I watched first 6 minutes and was already lost. How exactly does the gov. give money to the banks so they start with a big chunk of free assets?

My dad was part of a group which started a commercial bank from scratch. They invested a bunch of capital, opened up for taking deposits, and made loans. The capital was their equity, deposits their liabilities, and loans their assets. Most of profit made from the spread - lending rate less deposit rate plus interest earned on reserves. Just how did they get any free month from the government?

I'm not necessarily denying this. But please, someone explain the exact mechanics - not just a bunch of black-box hocus pocus!

Good question. I was wondering the same thing. A lot of people and authors in the conspiracy movement simply tout these banking conspiracy schemes like religious tenets without showing any evidence.

However, I don't think the conspiracy refers to small commercial banks like the one your dad started. It's referring to the Fed loading money at interest to the US government and the big major banks like Chase and B of A.

Even credible scholars like Edward G. Griffin have written a book on this called "The Creature From Jekyll Island". It's supposed to be the best one. Glenn Beck on Fox even did a special report about this, just before he was fired for it. You can see it on YouTube.

If you want a step by step explanation for it, see the popular internet film "Zeitgeist Addendum". It's the sequel to the first one that I showed you. There are many documentaries about it on YouTube too.

I'm also skeptical of this whole Federal Reserve conspiracy thing, which claims that:

- Every US dollar in circulation in the US economy is created by debt and is owed.
- The Fed prints money out of thin air backed by nothing, called "fiat money".
- The banking elite owns America and the US government by controlling its money supply and funding the government itself.
- The Federal government gets ALL its money from the Federal Reserve and international bankers, which is loaned at interest and can NEVER be repaid. The government does not print money and owes everything to the Fed.
- All the taxes you pay goes to pay the interest on the national debt, not to any domestic public services.

The reasons I'm skeptical about all this are:

- If all this were true, then wouldn't there be millions of whistleblowers talking about it from government and finance? It seems too black and white cartoonish.
- Also, wouldn't the leaders of other countries be exposing America for it? Why hasn't Putin talked about it on Russian news or the leaders of the Middle Eastern countries brought it up? Why isn't the whole world talking about it? How come its only talked about in conspiracy circles and alternative media?
- Wouldn't such a ponzi scheme have collapsed a long time ago? How could it have gone on since 1913?
- How can the banksters loan the government all its money at interest, which can never be repaid? What a stupid system. The people who own the banks must be a lot smarter than that.
- If all the trillions of national debt is owed to the banksters, then why don't they just cancel out some of it to help the economy? Why do they let the national debt keep growing forever? Can't they just cancel or write off some of it? What would they have to lose by writing off the national debt, since the money doesn't exist anyway and they have unlimited money?
- If the banksters could print unlimited money and had unlimited wealth, then why would they care about getting richer? Why would they start wars for profit? Wouldn't that be like adding ice to Antarctica? Why would they need any money at all if they are creating all of it?
- Why continue to tax the American public, if you already have unlimited money and can print it anytime? What's the point of the IRS or the income tax amendment?
- Why does one have to qualify for a loan from a bank, if the bank issues money it doesn't have out of thin air under "fractional reserve banking"? Why doesn't it just give everyone a loan and not ask it to be paid back, since the bank has nothing to lose when it distributes money out of nothing by typing it into a computer?
- Why don't the banksters give every American citizen a million dollars? The banksters that create money out of thin air would have nothing to lose right?
- Why doesn't Congress just do whatever it wants, since money is no object and can be printed out of thin air?
- Why would the Federal government allow the banksters to control the entire money supply and issue all currency in the first place? Why would they allow the banksters to own the government itself?

So you see, this theory doesn't make much sense. I'd like to see some evidence for it. What's the basis of it? Conspiracy people tout this like they are religious truths. But what's the evidence and basis for it? Does Ron Paul believe in this?

Even Momopi does not deny that the fiat money system exists. He even says that most countries use the same system. But either way, how do you explain the above?

1. Of course Momopi is not going to deny fiat money system exists in most if not all countries today. It's a well know and undisputed fact. The real issue is whether or not there is an alternative system which would be more economically beneficial to the majority of people. I don't think there is an easy answer to that one.

2. I watched your two short vids even tho I'm no fan of Glen Beck lol. They provided some food for thought and this is what immediately came to my mind after I finished them (following points below with issues debundled).

3. In many if not most countries, the central bank has certain key roles such some of which may be - printing money, buying and selling government debt securities, setting certain key interest rates - basically trying to manage the economy (esp. maximizing employment while keeping inflation levels in check) by controlling the money. In theory at least, the government belongs to the whole population and is acting as an agent on their behalf.

4. As for printing money from thin air, yes central banks can and may do this at times. But since the central bank is ultimately owned by the public, it should not matter. A barter system is impractical and inefficient. Even in some prisons, people start to use things such as cigarettes as de-facto currency to grease the wheels of the internal 'jail economy'. So paper money takes on this role. Now the value of money is largely driven by supply and demand, similar to gold, land, housing, commodities, and most other tangible items. So whenever the central bank prints money or purchases debt securities assuming an open market system, it expands the money supply which in effect lowers its value (increased supply combined with constant demand). But that's ok in most ways. Because wages and prices will adjust accordingly. It only causes a problem for you if you have substantial savings in cash or cash equivalents. Therefore, in any country with a central bank which increases money supply on a secular long-term trend basis, it behooves you to invest your savings in hard assets (inflation hedges) such as real estate, farmland, etc. Then you should be fine if things work according to theory at least lol. Of course if you have a situation where central bank is outta control (eg Zimbabwe) and inflation is in triple digits or higher, your frictional costs are prohibitively high as you need to constantly adjust prices, and rush to buy things before prices rise anymore. Anyway, the merits of fiat money vs. something completely backed by a hard asset of limited or very slowly growing supply (such as gold) is very debatable and not easy to resolve.

5. For me, the obvious problem with the USA is that the central bank function is effectively owned by private parties, not the government as in other countries. Moreover, it may not be clear who these private parties even are. Most central banks by nature have monopoly power. It is generally accepted that private businesses should never by monopolies. Because competition is what keeps private businesses efficient and in theory forces them to provide best possible service to customers. Moreover, IMO, certain functions and industries should not be privatized at all but rather run by the government. Monetary policy is certainly one of them.

6. About taxes. IMO, they should be only levied and used to pay the government to serve the whole population. Some of the key roles I see for various levels of government are money and interest rates, police protection and a justice system, national security, medical care, much public infrastructure development and admin, and perhaps admin of utilities, etc. We should have full transparency as to where our tax dollars go and we should certainly never have to pay a dime in interest to some private central bank or to bail out private corporations which made unfortunate business decisions.

7. At the end of the day, giving a restricted group of private parties free reign over the central bank function is like giving them a free hand to transfer vast amounts of a population's wealth from the greater public into their own hands. No wonder the richest 0.1% in the USA have seen their share of country's total net worth rise so dramatically in the last few decades. Perhaps a a major crisis might be an ultimately healthy way to shake things up. Just consider what happened to their income and net asset share of richest 0.1% after 1929 crash. It took like 80 years to reach former level. But that's pretty much where were at now!

[Moretorque]

Hey Winston that was one of my funniest post and somebody took it down, yes his presentation is good and the info in the 6 part series is very informative even if it is old but I was just making a joke and somebody must have gotten offended

You say this is a very libertarian open minded site, just realize a joke when you see one please.

If you can put the post back up just as a joking critique I would appreciate it. It was meant to be funny and in this day and age where a group of people are taking the world over with mind control and a accounting gimmick we need all the laughs we can get. Sorry if you thought I was serious but I was joking.

I don't know what you're referring to. I didn't remove any post. PM Zboy1 and ask him about it. Was your post racist or something? Where did you post it?

I made a post referring to how you used films that were several years old and not current. Just stating that Asians are usually the best informed but you were behind the times on this one as a joke and somebody took it down.

[momopi]

Blaming humans for behaving like humans will not solve the problem.

If you lied on a no-doc loan to buy a house that you cannot afford, then use the home equity like an ATM machine, it's your fault.

If senior banksters set up the situation knowing that they were manipulating people into lying on loan applications and intending to accept what they knew to be lies as genuine then it is mostly their fault and a crime - called "control fraud". Bob Black, who helped secure 1000 felony convictions over the S&L debacle, says the 2008 collapse was basically the same thing on a larger scale, and the only reason the banksters weren't jailed in this case is that they are now running the show. You seem to want to blame powerless peons in the street for everything while absolving the big shots at the top for their crimes, like a good house monkey.

When a borrower choose to commit mortgage fraud by falsifying loan documents, it's his/her fault. Blaming anyone else does not change this.