How Tze 浩知

Our banking sector serves as the "blood supply" for our capitalist economic system, maintains media mogul and real-estate billionaire Mort Zuckerman. And it's true: Banks take risks funding Silicon Valley startups and other businesses, making our economy one of the most innovative and vibrant in the world. Most of them do help us. But sadly, a lot Wall Street seems to have turned this idea on its head. All those complex, repackaged mortgage-backed securities, for example, didn't raise a penny to build a single factory. And they weren't all about getting people into homes either. Some of the instruments they were trading were little more than wagers on whether someone else's mortgage would ever be paid. So when you now hear bankers and their lobbyists roll out the old blood-supply excuse to resist tougher regulation, don't buy it. If better regulation removes the pure gambling and makes our financial system safer, we're all better off -- even if it mean...

"There's no question we made money in these transactions," said a Paulson spokesman in a statement. "However, all our dealings were through arms-length transactions with experienced counterparties who had opposing views based on all available information at the time. We were straightforward in our dislike of these securities but the vast majority of people in the market thought we were dead wrong and openly and aggressively purchased the securities we were selling." Some of the people whose mortgages underpinned Paulson's wager were themselves taking a gamble -- that U.S. housing prices would continue to march upward, making it possible for them to eventually pay off loans they couldn't afford. In early 2007, Paulson's company was identifying different bonds from across the country that it wanted to place bets against. Paolo Pellegrini, Paulson's right-hand man, began working with Goldman trader Fabrice Tourre to choose bonds for the Abacus portf...

Big lie No. 4: We get paid like rock stars, but we're worth it When I ask companies why U.S. CEOs get such huge pay compared with their counterparts elsewhere in the world, the answer is invariably the same: We need to pay that much to attract the best performers. But the mortgage meltdown has proved that to be a big lie. Paying CEOs well didn't keep these banks safe. It's not just the CEOs, of course. Huge pay trickled down through the executive ranks to traders, all of whom who seem to have been too busy chasing short-term profits to focus on (or care about) the long-term risks. It's a case study in what the advocates have told me for years is wrong with the way executives get paid. http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/CompanyFocus/5-lies-the-big-banks-keep-telling-us.aspx?page=3

There's a little truth in each excuse, but none is completely honest. Big lie No. 1: No one could have known Consider this scenario: You work at the top of a key bank on Wall Street. You hire the smartest guys from the best schools. You get paid big bucks to know your business better than anyone else. And warning signs are everywhere. When it goes bad, can you really say you didn't know? Yet time and again, we've heard something similar to this from top bankers. With the crisis looming, the bank had placed big bets against, or shorted, the mortgage-backed securities it was selling to customers, a maneuver Angelides says is akin to "selling a car with faulty brakes and then buying an insurance policy on the buyer of those cars." relaxed lending standards and a speculative housing market bubble are dangerous. In September 2004, the FBI publicly warned that a potential epidemic of rampant mortgage fraud could cause "the next S&L crisis," referring to th...

They're raiding 401(k)s, falling behind on monthly payments and even going without medical care in efforts to keep afloat financially , the AARP warns. woes that are forcing homeowners into foreclosure, choking spending on nondiscretionary goods and driving up credit card bills may claim another group of victims in the coming years: broke baby boomers. http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/RetirementandWills/CreateaPlan/WillYoungestBoomersGoBroke.aspx What a horrible incident that is happening..... and now seems more clear what they state in the book "Why We Want You To Be Rich": " so you could be part of the solutions, not part of the problems. "