<p>People are running from dorm to dorm in a victory parade. They are drunkenly happy and screaming their brains out.</p>
<p>Me too.....car horns honking outside and people running down the streets.</p>
<p>My son just called--he put his cell phone on "speaker phone mode"--held it up to the crowd that formed outside of the dorms--all I could hear was screaming, horns, whistles, etc. He said that the cops were on their way to check up on the crowds. What an exciting time to be a college kid!</p>
<p>Ours is surprisingly quiet. I haven't heard anyone yell yet.</p>
<p>Nope, it was really quiet here.</p>
<p>It was loud here for about 10 minutes or so. Right now my roommate and I are getting a kick out of the "live feed" on Facebook and seeing people's comments in the "status"</p>
<p>It's quieted down now but will probably pick up again in a little bit. It seems noise is only made on this floor at 11PM or later..</p>
<p>an exciting time to be a college kid who is going to have less jobs to choose from in the next 2-10 years thanks to future economic policy...</p>
<p>But hey, with all that welfare obama is promising, who needs a job anyway....</p>
<p>There was a huge mob outside my dorm chanting "Obama". It was surreal.</p>
<p>What'd I miss? I was in the shower.</p>
<p>j/k.</p>
<p>Haha, yeah people blasted music on their cars and stood on top and danced. Down at the patio there was a large crowd for a few minutes, they were probably crowd surfing or something.</p>
<p>
[quote]
an exciting time to be a college kid who is going to have less jobs to choose from in the next 2-10 years thanks to future economic policy...
[/quote]
Yeah, its such a shame. Too bad we couldn't elect McCain so we could expand the tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% who've increased their ownership of the total assets of this country from 8% to over 20%; they'll be hurting without those cuts :( We would have continued the hands-off regulatory policies McCain enthusiastically endorses, because we've all seen how well they've been working for the financial industry. And as a kicker maybe we would have finally been able to finish Bush's plan to get rid of social security and replace it with private savings accounts; isn't a shame those retirees getting monthly checks didn't intead have their entire future riding on the stock market? Yeah, sad indeed ...</p>
<p>We had fireworks too =P</p>
<p>
[quote]
Too bad we couldn't elect McCain so we could expand the tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% who've increased their ownership of the total assets of this country from 8% to over 20%; they'll be hurting without those cuts
[/quote]
</p>
<p>nope, they won't be hurting. But they won't be making as many jobs for those that are hurting.</p>
<p>
[quote]
We would have continued the hands-off regulatory policies McCain enthusiastically endorses, because we've all seen how well they've been working for the financial industry.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>clearly you do not understand the cause of what just happened. Financial organizations (read: banks) were pushed and pushed and pushed to make poor financial decisions (read: lending to people who had no hope of paying back the loan) because the government would help them out if things went bad (read: fannie/freddie would buy the dangerous loans). If there was no government backing (read: fannie/freddie) for these irresponsible decisions, the irresponsible decisions wouldn't have been made.</p>
<p>
[quote]
And as a kicker maybe we would have finally been able to finish Bush's plan to get rid of social security and replace it with private savings accounts; isn't a shame those retirees getting monthly checks didn't intead have their entire future riding on the stock market? Yeah, sad indeed ...
[/quote]
</p>
<p>see, social security worked well when there were lots of workers for each retired person. When there are more retired people for each worker, it doesn't work so well.</p>
<p>What is wrong with personal retirement financing? Then you are responsible for your own money... just like you are for all the rest of the money in your lifetime. When you have enough money saved to last you, then you can retire. Until then, you keep working.</p>
<p>I live right on Union Square. It's 1:30AM and I still hear people screaming.</p>
<p>soccerguy-I believe he was being facetious.</p>
<p>
[quote]
clearly you do not understand the cause of what just happened. Financial organizations (read: banks) were pushed and pushed and pushed to make poor financial decisions (read: lending to people who had no hope of paying back the loan) because the government would help them out if things went bad (read: fannie/freddie would buy the dangerous loans). If there was no government backing (read: fannie/freddie) for these irresponsible decisions, the irresponsible decisions wouldn't have been made.
[/quote]
Funny you should think that, because 75% of all the sub-prime loans were made by the private banks and not Freddie/Fannie. And for several years the percentage was higher than that; Fannie and Freddie only got into the sub-prime near the end because they were losing so much market share to the banks that were packaging sub-prime loans. The private banks made those loans because they had no plans of keeping them; they were flipping them to suckers out there. </p>
<p>And you don't have to take my word for it. Take Alan Greenspan's. In testimony before congress last month it is reported
[quote]
"Without the excess demand from securitizers, subprime mortgage originations -- undeniably the original source of crisis -- would have been far smaller and defaults, accordingly, far fewer," he said.</p>
<p>Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder's equity -- myself especially -- are in a state of shocked disbelief," said Greenspan, who stepped down from the Fed in 2006.</p>
<p>The former Fed chair said that a securitization system that stimulated appetite for loans made to borrowers with spotty credit histories, was at the heart of the breakdown of credit markets.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Nothing there about Freddie/Fannie being at the heart of the problem. Pray tell, naive right-wing apologist, who were those securitizers and who were they selling to? Hint: not Fannie and Freddie.</p>
<p>When you get your economic news from Fox, you're not really going to understand the world and you'll say foolish things (as in any post by soccerguy)</p>
<p>Not just my dorm...my entire campus exploded. It was awesome.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
nope, they won't be hurting. But they won't be making as many jobs for those that are hurting.</p>
<p>clearly you do not understand the cause of what just happened. Financial organizations (read: banks) were pushed and pushed and pushed to make poor financial decisions (read: lending to people who had no hope of paying back the loan) because the government would help them out if things went bad (read: fannie/freddie would buy the dangerous loans). If there was no government backing (read: fannie/freddie) for these irresponsible decisions, the irresponsible decisions wouldn't have been made.</p>
<p>see, social security worked well when there were lots of workers for each retired person. When there are more retired people for each worker, it doesn't work so well.</p>
<p>What is wrong with personal retirement financing? Then you are responsible for your own money... just like you are for all the rest of the money in your lifetime. When you have enough money saved to last you, then you can retire. Until then, you keep working.
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>How would McCain's hands off policies help anyway? More jobs are being outsourced to foreign countries, so even if Americans are buying more, the money isn't going to Americans. It's going to India. It's going to China. And this is directly because of American corporations looking to cut costs because American labor is "too expensive". Right. As if there's a price on making the country work.</p>
<p>And I'd love to see the "it's all up to you! don't look at us!" policies of the Bush administration and more so the Republican Party explain the idiocy of letting banks even start subprime lending. I'm sure that poor people can get better jobs in a jiffy to pay back the higher interest rates near the end of the loan, because climbing up the job ladder in companies is so easy. All it did was give people a sense of hope and a taste of the American dream before crushing them. Essentially, banks knew fully well that whoever bought a subprime mortgage wouldn't be able to pay them back. People were suckered into them. Oh, how American.</p>
<p>There is absolutely nothing wrong with being responsible for your own money. There is, however, something wrong with not wanting to help the less fortunate. You may have made your money, but as you get richer, it "hurts" less to pay more tax dollars. This is a country built upon unity. Everybody is proud to be an American, but it doesn't seem like Americans like other Americans. It seems like claims of socialism are simply used to shield their own greed. Individualism can only go so far.</p>
<p>I live in a republican area, but we have a victory area on campus which we usually go to after football victories, but tonight it was Victory for Obama! It was awesome! People drove by and honked and we cheered and it was amazing.
We had some people come by and say "f--- Obama" and give us the finger and stuff, but F--- THEM MAN. NOTHING WILL MAKE THIS NIGHT BAD. </p>
<p>Also, having some intense lulz at people's facebook statuses. Except one girl who I gave a serious effing piece of my mind after she "was praying for a presidential assassination." I told her straight up that she was rude and a terrible person and ought to be f--king ashamed of herself. She defriended me but I don't want to be friends with someone like that anyway.</p>
<p>
[quote]
soccerguy blurts out: Financial organizations (read: banks) were pushed and pushed and pushed to make poor financial decisions (read: lending to people who had no hope of paying back the loan) because the government would help them out if things went bad (read: fannie/freddie would buy the dangerous loans).
[/quote]
Oh, and another thing. If you're going to invent economic history, at least go to the trouble of making it remotely plausible. From your account above, you seem to harbor the belief that banks could sell their loans to Freddie/Fannie "if things went bad". So you don't even know the basics of how Freddie/Fannie worked!! Not that it would bother you, I suppose.</p>
<p>In fact, Freddie/Fannie buy loans after issuance. Their role was to return the money to the banks so that instead of having their capital tied up for 30 years while the loan was repaid, they would get it back and could make another loan. They buy the loans, period, not "if things went bad" like a gov't sponsored insurance company.</p>
<p>About the only thing soccerguy left out of his account that the right wing believes is that in the end its the fault of minorities. See, the gov't (they claim) was pushing banks to make bad loans they didn't want to make so minorities could qualify for them. Or is that saved for your follow-up post?</p>