[DruulEmpire]

By the by, Hiram, here in the States there's a particular crisis right now involving forms of federal mortgage aid known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Given that both there and here in the States, "fanny" can mean "posterior," you may appreciate the odd phrasing of the headline "Bush tells Congress to boost Fannie."

[Hiram]

Quote:
DruulEmpire said:
We've got NASDAQ, Standard and Poor, and I'm sure others.

Isn't NASDAQ tech stocks mainly?  

S&P is a rating agency isn't it?  Not the same as a stock index.

Edit: I got the S&P bit wrong I think.

[Hiram]

Quote:
DruulEmpire said:
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Yeah we’re fully up to speed with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac here in Europe.  
Aren’t they both named after acronyms?   Do you know what they are?

Edit:

FANNIE MAE Federal National Mortgage Association
FREDDIE MAC Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation

[DruulEmpire]

Argh ... maybe I should just hand all this over to you outright ...

[mastert]

The S&P is an index of stocks which the analysts generally use as a measuring stick to rate their performance.




What an absolute disgrace our Congress and President are for even mentioning a bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at the taxpayers expense. What happened to free enterprise? Meanwhile the CEOs will still get their bonuses while we get footed the bill. Most people who have these subprime mortgages KNEW they couldn't afford the payments but went ahead and bought anyway. I have no sympathy for them.

[Hiram]

Quote:
mastert said:What an absolute disgrace our Congress and President are for even mentioning a bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at the taxpayers expense.

I agree with you.  Unfortunately I don’t think The Fed had much of a choice. If both had failed it would have been disabling for the US economy.  

A very similar thing has happened in the UK.  A sub-prime bank was going to go under due to being unable to source funding.  The UK tax payer has now underwritten the bank, basically nationalizing it.

[Bonkers]

Quote:
Hiram said:

Quote:
mastert said:What an absolute disgrace our Congress and President are for even mentioning a bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at the taxpayers expense.

I agree with you.  Unfortunately I don’t think The Fed had much of a choice. If both had failed it would have been disabling for the US economy.  

A very similar thing has happened in the UK.  A sub-prime bank was going to go under due to being unable to source funding.  The UK tax payer has now underwritten the bank, basically nationalizing it.

I agree with you Totally, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac affects millions of Home owers that will be at risk of losing their Houses and Businesses, which can start a chain reaction affect to the economy
Bonkers

[pedonbio]

Quote:
mastert said:

What an absolute disgrace our Congress and President are for even mentioning a bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at the taxpayers expense. What happened to free enterprise? Meanwhile the CEOs will still get their bonuses while we get footed the bill. Most people who have these subprime mortgages KNEW they couldn't afford the payments but went ahead and bought anyway. I have no sympathy for them.

Just a small correction, mastert. Most of what I'm hearing from Congress is that this is one monumentally stupid proposal. When Bush talked about it today, he said he wanted an open line of credit to a bunch of managers who have totally fucked up their work so far.

Bush announced that this wasn't "nationalization" because the same stockholders --his cronies-- would still own it. Public losses, private profits.

[DruulEmpire]

Maybe I simply need to go about this a little differently.

11111 may be still be useful -- not as an absolute floor, but as a median of fluctuation.  A floor breaks for a minute or two and I panic, but maybe as a median of fluctuation it's strong after all.

So for right now I'll see if the Dow remains in a range of 10801 (11111 minus 310) to 11399 (11111 plus 288) ...

[ElmerFudd]

Quote:
pedonbio said:

Quote:
mastert said:

What an absolute disgrace our Congress and President are for even mentioning a bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at the taxpayers expense. What happened to free enterprise? Meanwhile the CEOs will still get their bonuses while we get footed the bill. Most people who have these subprime mortgages KNEW they couldn't afford the payments but went ahead and bought anyway. I have no sympathy for them.

Just a small correction, mastert. Most of what I'm hearing from Congress is that this is one monumentally stupid proposal. When Bush talked about it today, he said he wanted an open line of credit to a bunch of managers who have totally fucked up their work so far.

Bush announced that this wasn't "nationalization" because the same stockholders --his cronies-- would still own it. Public losses, private profits.

I heard a proposal that was kind of interesting on this.  Any company that uses the U.S. as its insurer cannot pay its CEO more than the salary of the President of the U.S. until it pays back all of the monies, and must sell 5% of its stock to the insurer (U.S.) in order to qualify.  And there must be input from the U.S. on use of the funds, since the U.S. becomes a part owner.

[pedonbio]

Yes;; there are some pretty reasonable proposals floating around Congress. That limit on CEO pay sounds good standing by itsellf.

[Q_BE]

Quote:
pedonbio said:
Yes;; there are some pretty reasonable proposals floating around Congress. That limit on CEO pay sounds good standing by itsellf.

Would you want someone telling YOU that you're not worth the salary a company paid to hire you?

If the government gets to mandate earning potential, bye-bye USA...

Q-"Unfathomable"-BE

[mastert]

It used to be that CEOs salary was only 10-20x more than the average worker. Now it's anywhere from 100-1000x times more than the average worker. The thief over at exxon makes over $100M per year (including stock options) while the guy working distiller tanks probably makes $35,000/year. The guy before him got a half a billion dollar golden parachute! I wouldn't know what to do with $100M. These fat cats still earn bonuses and get golden parachutes even when the company is failing miserable, while they lay off 500 people. (See Enron, Countrywide Financial, Bear Stearns, etc.) If the CEO doesn't get his bonus and is a little more responsible, he could take a pay cut and keep a good fraction of his workers. When the average worker asks for a modest pay raise the CEO will then say, "Oh, well we don't have the money right now" It happened at the last company I was at. It's a small company and the people in production asked for a small pay raise ($0.50/hr) to at least to get to 2 figures per hour. The people who ran the company said we don't have the money, yet had enough to give themsselves a $5K/yr raise and a new car allowance (BMWs and Jaguars). And then they had no idea why the morale of the people in the company was in the toilet. It's called being a good corporate citizen. Now in order to keep these sky high salaries, they're cutting back on pensions, even minimal ones so that people who have been there for 30-40 years can live out their days. It's getting so out of control, there was a superintendent of a poor school district in my neck of the woods that was given $500,000 just to retire! All this while the school continues to fail all testing standards. A public school for the love of god!!! The president of the liberal arts college I attended gave herself a $50,000/yr raise. Where did it come from, she slashed all funding of 6 collegiate sports which total, ironically, $50,000/yr, then has the gall to say that she needed a cost of living raise (she lived in the univerity mansion and had a personal limo and driver).

No this doesn't mean I'm a socialist where everybody deserves everything handed to them, the CEOs should make more than the average worker. But the disparity is attrocious. While the CEO can foot the dinner bill for an entire town or county on his daily salary, the average worker is barely able to feed his family on his daily salary.

[ElmerFudd]

Quote:
Q_BE said:

Quote:
pedonbio said:
Yes;; there are some pretty reasonable proposals floating around Congress. That limit on CEO pay sounds good standing by itsellf.

Would you want someone telling YOU that you're not worth the salary a company paid to hire you?

If the government gets to mandate earning potential, bye-bye USA...

Q-"Unfathomable"-BE

Actually, the way the rules are rigged, the people with a perfect right to tell the CEO that very thing never get a chance.

And if they don't like the fact that the stockholders don't think their CEO is worth 1,000 times the average worker's pay, I say suck it up you whiner.

[Bonkers]

Quote:
mastert said:
It used to be that CEOs salary was only 10-20x more than the average worker. Now it's anywhere from 100-1000x times more than the average worker. The thief over at exxon makes over $100M per year (including stock options) while the guy working distiller tanks probably makes $35,000/year. The guy before him got a half a billion dollar golden parachute! I wouldn't know what to do with $100M. These fat cats still earn bonuses and get golden parachutes even when the company is failing miserable, while they lay off 500 people. (See Enron, Countrywide Financial, Bear Stearns, etc.) If the CEO doesn't get his bonus and is a little more responsible, he could take a pay cut and keep a good fraction of his workers. When the average worker asks for a modest pay raise the CEO will then say, "Oh, well we don't have the money right now" It happened at the last company I was at. It's a small company and the people in production asked for a small pay raise ($0.50/hr) to at least to get to 2 figures per hour. The people who ran the company said we don't have the money, yet had enough to give themsselves a $5K/yr raise and a new car allowance (BMWs and Jaguars). And then they had no idea why the morale of the people in the company was in the toilet. It's called being a good corporate citizen. Now in order to keep these sky high salaries, they're cutting back on pensions, even minimal ones so that people who have been there for 30-40 years can live out their days. It's getting so out of control, there was a superintendent of a poor school district in my neck of the woods that was given $500,000 just to retire! All this while the school continues to fail all testing standards. A public school for the love of god!!!

No this doesn't mean I'm a socialist where everybody deserves everything handed to them, the CEOs should make more than the average worker. But the disparity is attrocious. While the CEO can foot the dinner bill for an entire town or county on his daily salary, the average worker is barely able to feed his family on his daily salary.

The answer to your question is just pour Greed. It's just human nature, because it's in the blood of no matter what level of class you’re in, to the richest to the poorest to be greedy, jealous of your fellow man.
Human wants more, even if they don’t need it. Human sees he or she made a dollar more then the last person. So the next guy wants two dollars and so on. It can be one dollar or millions, and jealously and greed will overtake the commonsense of content.
I saw with my own eyes on jobs, Senior workers refuse to turn down any overtime to junior workers, because it’s killing them to see them make the money. Even if they don’t want to or their spouse’s threat to leave them or their bodies tries telling them to knock it off, before it kills them.
So all these CEO cutthroats’ Cock su*kers are no better then the worker pushing a broom in their companies, who cutthroat their fellow worker to make a buck . . .  because it’s human nature, the fit of fittest, The strong will overtake the meek  
Bonkers