Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/not-fast-u-restaurant-workers-seek-ban-surprise-100505711--finance.html

 

Well, if you're going to pay little-trained monkeys $15 an hour to ask if you want fries with that burger, you might as well go all-in and lock their schedules in two weeks ahead of time. Nothing says profits like forcing companies to keep employees on-site and on the clock when the customer traffic doesn't justify that much staff on a given day.

Posted

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/not-fast-u-restaurant-workers-seek-ban-surprise-100505711--finance.html

 

Well, if you're going to pay little-trained monkeys $15 an hour to ask if you want fries with that burger, you might as well go all-in and lock their schedules in two weeks ahead of time. Nothing says profits like forcing companies to keep employees on-site and on the clock when the customer traffic doesn't justify that much staff on a given day.

 

I don't think it'll come to that. They'll just automate the !@#$ out of those restaurants.

Posted (edited)

You honestly believe that the rating agencies would have assigned different ratings if they were regulated?

 

Hint, a big reason for the real estate run up were regulations and NGOs.

 

The ratings agencies were catastrophically wrong during the crisis, at least half of those mortgaged-backed debts that they rated as AAA were truly Junk. One of the big problems with the ratings agencies is the system in placed is riddled with conflicts of interest. We've talked about this ad nauseum over the past decade but these ratings agencies are compensated by the companies that they are rating, and during this time greed was one of the major players that led the individual investor, homeowners, Banks, ratings agencies you name it to make such poor decisions.

 

Deep down I think many people knew that the risks were severely understated, but everyone was making money. And if they weren't going to play along someone else would and very few people/companies had the fortitude to withstand the temptation of those big $$$$.

 

I certainly believe that regulations and US housing policy contributed to the crisis, but let's be real here this was something that was in the making for a number of years and there were many guilty parties including Wall Street

Edited by Magox
Posted

It already does. It's called FINRA. But for some reason the Obama administration got the oblivious DOL involved and it has really !@#$ed things up.

True dat, WRT securities trading. That area and its players are highly regulated.

 

 

The ratings agencies were catastrophically wrong during the crisis, at least half of those mortgaged-backed debts that they rated as AAA were truly Junk. One of the big problems with the ratings agencies is the system in placed is riddled with conflicts of interest. We've talked about this ad nauseum over the past decade but these ratings agencies are compensated by the companies that they are rating, and during this time greed was one of the major players that led the individual investor, homeowners, Banks, ratings agencies you name it to make such poor decisions.

 

Deep down I think many people knew that the risks were severely understated, but everyone was making money. And if they weren't going to play along someone else would and very few people/companies had the fortitude to withstand the temptation of those big $$$$.

 

I certainly believe that regulations and US housing policy contributed to the crisis, but let's be real here this was something that was in the making for a number of years and there were many guilty parties including Wall Street

Yes. The FannieMae, FreddyMac "backed" derivatives were an inappropriate creation that was little more than a Ponzi scheme. They never were backed by the full faith and credit of the US government, yet they were sold as though they were.

Posted

Yes. The FannieMae, FreddyMac "backed" derivatives were an inappropriate creation that was little more than a Ponzi scheme. They never were backed by the full faith and credit of the US government, yet they were sold as though they were.

 

More to the point: there was a constant weakening of standards for Fannie and Freddie intended to promote home ownership. It was less "Ponzi scheme" than it was "misuse of Fannie and Freddie by Congress for social engineering purposes."

 

Notably, GNMA didn't experience the same erosion of standards, and didn't suffer accordingly.

Posted

 

The ratings agencies were catastrophically wrong during the crisis, at least half of those mortgaged-backed debts that they rated as AAA were truly Junk. One of the big problems with the ratings agencies is the system in placed is riddled with conflicts of interest. We've talked about this ad nauseum over the past decade but these ratings agencies are compensated by the companies that they are rating, and during this time greed was one of the major players that led the individual investor, homeowners, Banks, ratings agencies you name it to make such poor decisions.

 

Deep down I think many people knew that the risks were severely understated, but everyone was making money. And if they weren't going to play along someone else would and very few people/companies had the fortitude to withstand the temptation of those big $$$$.

 

I certainly believe that regulations and US housing policy contributed to the crisis, but let's be real here this was something that was in the making for a number of years and there were many guilty parties including Wall Street

 

The regulators and GSEs never took full responsibility for their roles in the run up. If any private sector company committed a fraction of the financial fraud that was uncovered at Freddie & Fannie, people would be in jail. The regulators turned a blind eye to the malfeasance in the mortgage markets because the biggest abuses were at the local & state levels and that's what was padding the state budgets. It's too easy to blame the big originating banks and the rating agencies, because there's about a dozen of companies that you can point a finger to, instead of corralling the thousands of other players who had a bigger role.

Posted

 

The regulators and GSEs never took full responsibility for their roles in the run up. If any private sector company committed a fraction of the financial fraud that was uncovered at Freddie & Fannie, people would be in jail. The regulators turned a blind eye to the malfeasance in the mortgage markets because the biggest abuses were at the local & state levels and that's what was padding the state budgets. It's too easy to blame the big originating banks and the rating agencies, because there's about a dozen of companies that you can point a finger to, instead of corralling the thousands of other players who had a bigger role.

 

I don't disagree with that, my point was that the whole debacle didn't come from one or two sources like many people like to make it out to be, this was truly a perfect storm of events that occurred, a cocktail of corrosive forces led to this downturn.

Posted

 

Of course the industry is capable of self policing. The real question is what do you want the financial sector to do in an economy? Do you want it to be a utility taking deposits and making loans, or do you want it to be the engine behind real economic growth?

 

Read Dimon's diatribe from last week to get a better clue.

Let's just chuckle at the irony of Jamie Dimon calling for further deregulation of the banking industry...the same Jamie Dimon who if I'm not greatly mistaken begged the government (along with Blankfein) to intervene and put a temporary ban on shorts immediately following the crash.

 

It already does. It's called FINRA. But for some reason the Obama administration got the oblivious DOL involved and it has really !@#$ed things up.

Right. FINRA, the new NASD, which was chaired by Bernie Madoff.

 

But hey, blame Obama.

Posted

Let's just chuckle at the irony of Jamie Dimon calling for further deregulation of the banking industry...the same Jamie Dimon who if I'm not greatly mistaken begged the government (along with Blankfein) to intervene and put a temporary ban on shorts immediately following the crash.

 

 

They had a valid reason to worry about naked short sellers at the time, along with mark to market accounting and access to the discount window.

 

Of course you run away from the question of what you want the financial sector to do in a vibrant and growing economy.

Posted

Back on topic.

 

Robots Are Replacing Workers Where You Shop Wal-Mart and other large retailers, under pressure from Amazon, turn to technology to do workers’ rote tasks

 

Posted

 

We've had machines dispensing cash for decades now. It never occurred to anyone that machines will eventually be receiving and counting cash as well?

 

The real shock will be when the robots start doing middle-management jobs. That's coming soon(ish) too.

Posted

 

The real shock will be when the robots start doing middle-management jobs. That's coming soon(ish) too.

 

At least that will cut down on martini lunches and sexual harassment in the work place.

Posted

Uhh...

 

e0239e042285f5840a7b497c270d7933.jpg

 

:lol:

 

Right? Hasn't anyone watched Westworld? Robot fondling is going to be mandatory IMO.

 

:beer:

 

Well played, you guys. Well played.

Posted

We've had machines dispensing cash for decades now. It never occurred to anyone that machines will eventually be receiving and counting cash as well?

I won't be able to ogle the tellers boobs in the future ? Wtf.

×
×
  • Create New...