Do You Think That Banks Are Crooks?

[thaiturkey]

The point is they could have built the plant in any country so why here ? They already compete with Boeing so if they build someplace with low wages and less regulation wont they be able to sell for less ?
Their parent company has manufacturers here. But why here ?

To circumvent the protectionist policies of the US, Denn. You don't keep up, do you?

Perhaps also they have found a cheap labour market or one that doesn't have good employee protection legislation. They aren't the first European company to employ foreign labour in its own country.

Let me give you another example to help. Ford assembles cars, pickups and suv's in Thailand. They can sell them cheaper here than if they imported them because labour costs are lower and the import duties and taxes are punitive for vehicles.

Airbus intends to sell more planes to American operators, to the detriment of Boeing.

 

[hemet dennis]

Eventually because they are up against companies operating with a lot more freedoms and huge economic advantages, they will become non-competative and either fold or move out of the US

So you think they're making a bad business decision ?

To circumvent the protectionist policies of the US, Denn. You don't keep up, do you?

Perhaps also they have found a cheap labour market or one that doesn't have good employee protection legislation. They aren't the first European company to employ foreign labour in its own country.

So you think they will import workers ?
What protectionist policies that you say do you have something to show or we just take your word ?

 

[ivan3]

Betting on RMBS derivatives (synthetics/CDS - etc.), and betting on the bets, did nothing to produce a single legitimate job or add to the actual productive economy. Instead, between 2007 and Mar. of 2009, owing to the effects of RMBS and related products meltdown, the `value' held/invested by U.S. citizens, in aggregate, plummeted by 11.9 trillion dollars (don't know the current figure -ongoing reassessments- but I'm wagering it hasn't been adjusted downward). I'd think that the total cost of destruction tagged to hurricane Andrew (adjusted dollars) would probably be close to 100 billion (Katrina was ~65 billion). Thinking about the collapse this way? Like being hit, all at once, by 119 Hurricane Andrews with an entirely different pattern of wastage and woe. Of, course, 119 hurricanes, striking simultaneously, would still be only a natural disaster. Don't think there wasn't plenty of warning of the developing `weather'. By late 2004 nearly everyone who could qualify for the fixed rate loans were long gone. 80% of the soon to be written Ninja/nodocs were penned by completely unregulated originators. Had the game stopped right there (originators holding the loans), there would have been a slow down in the market, but no crash of the entire financial system. The FBI, that year, issued a warning regarding the increasing amount of mortgage fraud. It made the MSM, briefly. They even made up a poster (pdf). It was suggested that it be hung in the windows of the originators and be included with the applications for the borrower (anyone remember seeing one?). http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/white_collar/mortgage-fraud/mortgagefraudwarning.pdf/view (2005 FBI summary: http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/fcs_report2005/fcs_2005#MORTGAGE FRAUD ) Of course, by that time, Lehman, for one, had already been running their Alt-A mortgage mill (Aurora), out in Colorado for three years (alt-a's are great to package up with far worse paper to get that Triple A rating). They were `very good friends' with many underwriters, as well. The year before (2003) the last `ownership society' direct fed infusion into the flood was signed by President Bush: http://www.hud.gov/offices/cpd/affordablehousing/programs/home/addi/ .Freddie & Fannie were falling behind (feed the stockholders!) and got serious about digging an ever deeper hole for themselves (more on that in a moment -- we're still adding money into that monster). Now, the unregulated, unscrupulous originators found plenty of ignorant or even complicit marks to nick. But the real money for these `hot tar gypsies' was in selling the loans to the investment banks. (I'll refer to the resulting `paper' created as Asset Backed Securities - ABS). The ABS would consist of multiple tranches mortgages of varied value. Loan tapes (the actual info on individual loans comprising the ABS) would be supplied to the rating agency along with the proposal for the ABS. The three main rating agencies pretty much acted as unregulated regulators (set the value of the resulting security - kinda like setting libor) worse yet, if your agency wouldn't rate the ABS `triple A', the investment bank would throw the business to one of your two other competitors and that wouldn't do ('fudge the algorithm, charlie!' the stuff is gold, not lead!). At this point the concentrated essence of ick is sold to your aunt May's pension fund (can only buy sure thing triple A). Following the crisis, Fitch, the smallest of the three rating agencies, performed some `forensics' on actual loan tapes. The finding? `shot through with fraud'. Soon, organizations like Goldman, started to create `bets on bets' paper (have no ownership of any underlying asset - just betting on whether the `bet' will pay off or not). They eventually paid a $500 million fine for creating a security for a client (knowing it would fail - and were nicely paid off on their paper when it did - just one of many examples - check out this Senate Hearing for specifics and foul language: http://www.c-span.org/Events/Senate-Hearing-on-Goldman-Sachs-amp-the-Financial-Crisis/17758/ -first panel ). So much of this paper (are the chickens dead? or alive?) was written/sold/resold/repackaged/moved again, ad nauseum, that when Lehman fell, all others took the vapors so hard (who has what chickens???) that they closed themselves in their executive suites and refused to come out and do business until Hank Paulson/Congress/Central banks around the world and yes, you and me, `the little guys', lured them out. - `poor darlings' , right? Just keep in mind that this was no `Black Swan', i.e., `we didn't see it coming! This is evidenced by Goldman, and then the other investment banks, unloading as much of the potentially toxic `risks' off onto AIG (and others) almost a year before the storm hit. Credit default swaps (insurance on ABS, for which you don't have to have cash on hand to pay off), in a `perfect' market environment (no greedy humans) should have NO effect on the economy. As of this date no clearinghouse or other transparent means of accessing, for oversight, the OTC derivatives market is in place, nor are the originators of said derivatives required to post collateral (4 yrs later). The most recent House proposed budget denies any increase in IT/Pers. budgets for those congressionally funded bank reg. agencies that are responsible for oversight (what there could be of it). I'm thinking that the financial services sector is using the bail out funds to hire even more lobbyists. Which brings me to Freddie/Fannie: Below quote is from the written testimony of Kyle Bass, for the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (former trader at Bear Stearns who tried to warn his former employers, they gave the info a pass and we bailed them out): http://fcic-static.law.stanford.edu/cdn_media/fcic-testimony/2010-0113-Bass.pdf The actual hearing is very enlightening: FCIC Market Participants: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/291292-2 Members of both parties pretty much treated these GSE's as a slush fund (some of the actors and amounts): http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/09/update-fannie-mae-and-freddie.html Countrywide (one of the worst subprime originators) also took a more direct approach (current ethics investigation - but it's old news: http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18563_162-5202115.html ) Where's Jack Webb when you need him

 

[hemet dennis]

Do you know what airline operates the most airbus planes ?

 

[thaiturkey]

So you think they're making a bad business decision ?
So you think they will import workers ?
What protectionist policies that you say do you have something to show or we just take your word ?

No, out of work locals, I would think.

 

[hemet dennis]

Quote: So you think they will import workers ?
What protectionist policies that you say do you have something to show or we just take your word ?

So you have nothing to show. Well they could have built in Canada or Mexico and payed no duty to import to the U.S. and Mexico would be lower wages.
And U.S. Airways has the largest fleet of Airbus planes. So they seem to already be competing with Boeing.

 

[Stephanie739]

They also have been allowed to manipulate the currency trade rate.

lol That's the way the politicians like to say, China beat us at our own economic game, now what?

 

[Stephanie739]

The jobs are in China and India. But they are also here. Don't blame the people with money for creating jobs in other countries we have our government to blame.

I am not against outsourcing. I often speak in favor of globalization. I would be furious if the government tried to force companies to stay within the United States if doing business elsewhere makes better sense. I do place blame where I see it due, the unscrupulous business people who twist and manipulate decent laws and harm our country while doing so.

I think the United States should look at the Apple business model in China and learn from it. These industrial/factory housing complexes make good business sense. Of course our labor laws makes such business set ups all but impossible in the United States. It is time to revisit our labor laws.

 

[Stephanie739]

Ivan pointed out the splitting and reselling of mortgages. Bad loans were cut and spliced with good loans in order to produce A ratings (theory - prevent the tracing of originators) and sold over and over. Cut and splice. Cut cut cut...splice here, there...

 

[Stephanie739]

Where did manufacturing go? China, Mexico - places where big business can pay slave wages to people in poverty rather than a living wage here. Pretty soon this is what our whole country will look like: http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1882089_1850974,00.html with big business selling us goods manufactured in countries other than our own and our only jobs left service jobs if things keep going the way they are.

Labor laws need work. The United States can't compete on a global scale unless we adjust our business models (Apple in China, but with decency)
Basic living essentials (room and board) with spending money need to be provided in exchange for factory work.