The Big Apple mag takes a shot at purveyors of “balefully misguided progressive discourse,” i.e. me and a few others who cheered the GameStop rally. A note in reply
Matt- stay strong. Fuck the phony bullshit elitists and their cute little MFA essays. Stay close to the real people on the street. That’s where real life exists.
As I read this something occurred to me. Maybe the Covid hysteria would have been less had the government NOT intervened. So many people have been hypnotized by stimulus and clickbait crack because that very stimulus allowed that to happen.
I’m still appalled by the fact my grandchildren’s tax dollars will be servicing debt we issued to prop up Carnival cruise lines, who basically uses serfs as their staff and registers there ships in far flung spots around the globe to avoid American labor laws. American Airlines is another one that should’ve been allowed to die. It all disgusts me. The truly poor haven’t been helped as is evidenced by the homelessness epidemic in many major cities.
This morning I walked around in a building on a lake in Southern Oklahoma that was built by the WPA and CCC back in the 30s. Almost 100 years old and these things are still standing - to me a testament to what true government “aid” should look like. These jack wagons in DC keep printing money to keep the oligarchy rich and the lobbyists keep feeding them more dough, and the cycle continues.
Instead our tax dollars go to help a few kids get wealthy, a few billionaires to have a few less billions, and will still leave us morally and spiritually bankrupt...and about the same as we were before economically. What a farce!
Spot on! I recounted my own story on the other Game Stop post, so I'll just say here that the part about the shame was very, very real. I was 40+ years old when we defaulted on our mortgage. Prior to that, we had platinum credit. And our mortgage was not an ARM- didn't matter- the value of our home depreciated about 45%. It was beyond embarrassing not to be able to pay our bills, and even friends and family insinuated or said outright that we homeowners were to blame. And yes, unlike this past year where people have been able to dip into their retirement accounts without a tax penalty, we paid the hefty penalty as we drained our accounts to try to stay afloat. There was also no moratorium on evictions or foreclosures. I know there are many readers of this blog who (rightly) criticize Democrats for their many failures during the 2008 crisis. I remember also, though, a Mitt Romney statement that was roughly, "Don't fight the foreclosure on your home. Let the VCs come in and buy up the properties." Democrats are very weak on these matters, for sure, but Republicans will also leave you high and dry with not so much as a "by your leave."
Some one got adjusted out of their house? Or adjusted THEMSELVES out of their house? A shark sold someone a mortgage loan they can’t afford? Who borrows tens of thousands of dollars without a lawyer to review things, especially when they know what they don’t know?
Now don’t get me wrong. There were plenty of crooks in the housing bubble on Wall Street and in the mortgage brokering business. They should all be in jail. On the other hand, there were loads of people who knowingly took out liar loans and they should be in jail too. You never hear that though. Every borrower was a victim. Not true. It took two to tango. Three in this case - greedy Wall Street bankers, deceptive and dishonest brokers and lying or stupid borrowers.
None should be let off the hook and none should be pitied.
On point with this article, the financial and political elites have no clue how much average Americans of all backgrounds were affected by the 2008 crash, and now it's happening again and worse for millions of people during the pandemic. Your line about bailing out banks, but letting restaurants fail, captures perfectly the orientation elites have: top-down, and themselves first.
Once again, you are "dead on" Matt. I am a small town lawyer in Central Florida. The grief, mayhem, disaster and insults I have seen heaped on the hapless (former) Middle Class by the banksters, mortgage brokers, mortgage companies, crooked appraisers, and many others over the past ten years makes me want to cry. All this was aided and abetted by our so-called "representatives" in Congress. I could go on for hours, with stories such as you have related, and worse. But to what end? Nobody is punished, nobody goes to jail, a few laughable fines are handed out and no wrongdoing admitted. May I remind all that, while the Mortgage Bankers Association in Washington, DC was scolding and whining about immoral homeowners who just walked away from mortgages they could no longer afford to pay in the 2007-2009 subprime mortgage meltdown, the Mortgage bankers Association proceeded to do just that with respect to the financing on its newly completed taj mahal headquarters in DC. Such hypocrites. Oh, and by the way, all the same things are happening all over again, even as I write this.
New York magazine is a rag for yuppies, and yes they still exist. The only thing they are good at is gauging the sentiment of a small set east of 9th Ave.
Putting on progressive clothing is one of the silliest gambits I've ever seen establishmentarians pull. And if you needed any more evidence that the Democrats are now the party of the establishment and Wall Street, it was the portrayal of WSB as a Trumpist movement.
What a terrific pair of articles. I know now about the situation from 30 minutes of testing this Substack then a week of looking at financial pubs and sites. There's a reckoning underway. Americans are a savvy and brave and reckless bunch, and even if you don't believe in the deep state, the actions of the entrenched are really pissing people off. The sandwich shop analogy was spot on, and we all eat sandwiches.
Great reply, Matt. The mainstream media is just plain terrified. They have children in private schools, mortgages on their houses in Montclair and Pelham Manor - and perhaps are even more terrified for their egos. What if they don't get invited to the correct parties? They all know (even if the don't admit it to themselves) they could be the next one cancelled for wrong-think. So their defense is to scramble around and try to be on the winning side. Welcome to totalitarianism.
In 2007 I got out of the stock market. I told my brokers, "Only triple A rated treasuries ands munis for me." One day my New York bankers put me into their AAA rate MBS at face value and then devalued them to basically 0. I was broke. The Gov't stepped in and settle the legal battles at less that 1c on the dollar. Multiple my case by millions of investors, pension funds and savers. Under Reagan 1200 bankers went to jail for the S&L crises. 0 under Obama.
So I did another startup, built it up, sold out, and went into rental housing for a retirement business. Then Covid, and the eviction moratorium. All my tenants lost their jobs but we worked it out after a few months. We worked together. Only two simply refused to pay rent any more -- the two who didn't lose their jobs, they eventually moved out, moved in friends, in one case to use the house as a dog kennel, completely trashing it. I was helpless to do anything. The rent moratoriums started in April. They won't end until next September... In NYC a third of tenants are behind. 20 million households in America. There is a piper yet to be paid.
All of this because of lockdowns that even the WHO now says were ineffective.
There is a lot of anger out there from conservatives like me, from small business people, and from people like my tenants. We don't give a fuck what pronoun you want to be called by but we do care about fairness. We are tired of playing by the rules, working hard, being successful and having it all stolen.
Of course, a huge role in this crime against population has St. Obama and his equally disgusting Wall Streeter Eric Holder. The general population is still not aware about the extent of Obama's "Hope and Change" fraud
-- from "Banks are too big to fail",
-- to the scam of the century -- Russia-gate hoax that still continues with the lying team back in power
-- to Venezuela as an existential threat to the US “Venezuela is fundamental threat to USA” -- declared Obama formally initiating regime change.
What despicable Obama and DNC+GOP oligarchs meant is -- “Socialism is a threat to capitalism”… hence imperial War-party endless wars -- against “godless” Bolivia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Syria, Cuba, Libya, China…..
Wars are immensely profitable for leaders and donors of both wings of the US War Party.
US "99%" population is to milked, controlled, keep silent by censorship and distracted by "gay and abortion wars"...
Excellent piece. Last line is the best of the rest. The situation is increasingly explosive. Forty percent of Americans believe the election was stolen, no forum for a review of the evidence to settle the matter, heightened and reckless rhetoric, the constitution is in tatters, it all leads towards extreme outcomes, which may be Biden's ultimate purpose: 1. kinetic outcome will enrich one of his primary funders (private security contractors) while 2. eliminating his political enemies.
Ultimately, people are frightened and totally disenfranchised. What follows the end of politics as day follows night? Keep up the good work.
Matt- stay strong. Fuck the phony bullshit elitists and their cute little MFA essays. Stay close to the real people on the street. That’s where real life exists.
As I read this something occurred to me. Maybe the Covid hysteria would have been less had the government NOT intervened. So many people have been hypnotized by stimulus and clickbait crack because that very stimulus allowed that to happen.
I’m still appalled by the fact my grandchildren’s tax dollars will be servicing debt we issued to prop up Carnival cruise lines, who basically uses serfs as their staff and registers there ships in far flung spots around the globe to avoid American labor laws. American Airlines is another one that should’ve been allowed to die. It all disgusts me. The truly poor haven’t been helped as is evidenced by the homelessness epidemic in many major cities.
This morning I walked around in a building on a lake in Southern Oklahoma that was built by the WPA and CCC back in the 30s. Almost 100 years old and these things are still standing - to me a testament to what true government “aid” should look like. These jack wagons in DC keep printing money to keep the oligarchy rich and the lobbyists keep feeding them more dough, and the cycle continues.
Instead our tax dollars go to help a few kids get wealthy, a few billionaires to have a few less billions, and will still leave us morally and spiritually bankrupt...and about the same as we were before economically. What a farce!
Matt, keep up the great work. You are a true journalist. I hope you make a fortune while the rest of the media propagandists go broke. Best wishes.
“There’s a lot of anger out there, and it will jump at chances to express itself.”
Brother- you don’t know how much of an understatement this is!
Spot on! I recounted my own story on the other Game Stop post, so I'll just say here that the part about the shame was very, very real. I was 40+ years old when we defaulted on our mortgage. Prior to that, we had platinum credit. And our mortgage was not an ARM- didn't matter- the value of our home depreciated about 45%. It was beyond embarrassing not to be able to pay our bills, and even friends and family insinuated or said outright that we homeowners were to blame. And yes, unlike this past year where people have been able to dip into their retirement accounts without a tax penalty, we paid the hefty penalty as we drained our accounts to try to stay afloat. There was also no moratorium on evictions or foreclosures. I know there are many readers of this blog who (rightly) criticize Democrats for their many failures during the 2008 crisis. I remember also, though, a Mitt Romney statement that was roughly, "Don't fight the foreclosure on your home. Let the VCs come in and buy up the properties." Democrats are very weak on these matters, for sure, but Republicans will also leave you high and dry with not so much as a "by your leave."
Some one got adjusted out of their house? Or adjusted THEMSELVES out of their house? A shark sold someone a mortgage loan they can’t afford? Who borrows tens of thousands of dollars without a lawyer to review things, especially when they know what they don’t know?
Now don’t get me wrong. There were plenty of crooks in the housing bubble on Wall Street and in the mortgage brokering business. They should all be in jail. On the other hand, there were loads of people who knowingly took out liar loans and they should be in jail too. You never hear that though. Every borrower was a victim. Not true. It took two to tango. Three in this case - greedy Wall Street bankers, deceptive and dishonest brokers and lying or stupid borrowers.
None should be let off the hook and none should be pitied.
On point with this article, the financial and political elites have no clue how much average Americans of all backgrounds were affected by the 2008 crash, and now it's happening again and worse for millions of people during the pandemic. Your line about bailing out banks, but letting restaurants fail, captures perfectly the orientation elites have: top-down, and themselves first.
Something about this article made me finally start sending you money.
Once again, you are "dead on" Matt. I am a small town lawyer in Central Florida. The grief, mayhem, disaster and insults I have seen heaped on the hapless (former) Middle Class by the banksters, mortgage brokers, mortgage companies, crooked appraisers, and many others over the past ten years makes me want to cry. All this was aided and abetted by our so-called "representatives" in Congress. I could go on for hours, with stories such as you have related, and worse. But to what end? Nobody is punished, nobody goes to jail, a few laughable fines are handed out and no wrongdoing admitted. May I remind all that, while the Mortgage Bankers Association in Washington, DC was scolding and whining about immoral homeowners who just walked away from mortgages they could no longer afford to pay in the 2007-2009 subprime mortgage meltdown, the Mortgage bankers Association proceeded to do just that with respect to the financing on its newly completed taj mahal headquarters in DC. Such hypocrites. Oh, and by the way, all the same things are happening all over again, even as I write this.
New York magazine is a rag for yuppies, and yes they still exist. The only thing they are good at is gauging the sentiment of a small set east of 9th Ave.
Putting on progressive clothing is one of the silliest gambits I've ever seen establishmentarians pull. And if you needed any more evidence that the Democrats are now the party of the establishment and Wall Street, it was the portrayal of WSB as a Trumpist movement.
It's a big club and we're not in it...
What a terrific pair of articles. I know now about the situation from 30 minutes of testing this Substack then a week of looking at financial pubs and sites. There's a reckoning underway. Americans are a savvy and brave and reckless bunch, and even if you don't believe in the deep state, the actions of the entrenched are really pissing people off. The sandwich shop analogy was spot on, and we all eat sandwiches.
Great reply, Matt. The mainstream media is just plain terrified. They have children in private schools, mortgages on their houses in Montclair and Pelham Manor - and perhaps are even more terrified for their egos. What if they don't get invited to the correct parties? They all know (even if the don't admit it to themselves) they could be the next one cancelled for wrong-think. So their defense is to scramble around and try to be on the winning side. Welcome to totalitarianism.
In 2007 I got out of the stock market. I told my brokers, "Only triple A rated treasuries ands munis for me." One day my New York bankers put me into their AAA rate MBS at face value and then devalued them to basically 0. I was broke. The Gov't stepped in and settle the legal battles at less that 1c on the dollar. Multiple my case by millions of investors, pension funds and savers. Under Reagan 1200 bankers went to jail for the S&L crises. 0 under Obama.
So I did another startup, built it up, sold out, and went into rental housing for a retirement business. Then Covid, and the eviction moratorium. All my tenants lost their jobs but we worked it out after a few months. We worked together. Only two simply refused to pay rent any more -- the two who didn't lose their jobs, they eventually moved out, moved in friends, in one case to use the house as a dog kennel, completely trashing it. I was helpless to do anything. The rent moratoriums started in April. They won't end until next September... In NYC a third of tenants are behind. 20 million households in America. There is a piper yet to be paid.
All of this because of lockdowns that even the WHO now says were ineffective.
There is a lot of anger out there from conservatives like me, from small business people, and from people like my tenants. We don't give a fuck what pronoun you want to be called by but we do care about fairness. We are tired of playing by the rules, working hard, being successful and having it all stolen.
Someone will put these coalitions together.
Of course, a huge role in this crime against population has St. Obama and his equally disgusting Wall Streeter Eric Holder. The general population is still not aware about the extent of Obama's "Hope and Change" fraud
-- from "Banks are too big to fail",
-- to the scam of the century -- Russia-gate hoax that still continues with the lying team back in power
-- to Venezuela as an existential threat to the US “Venezuela is fundamental threat to USA” -- declared Obama formally initiating regime change.
What despicable Obama and DNC+GOP oligarchs meant is -- “Socialism is a threat to capitalism”… hence imperial War-party endless wars -- against “godless” Bolivia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Syria, Cuba, Libya, China…..
Wars are immensely profitable for leaders and donors of both wings of the US War Party.
US "99%" population is to milked, controlled, keep silent by censorship and distracted by "gay and abortion wars"...
Bravo Matt for your decades of work !!!
Excellent piece. Last line is the best of the rest. The situation is increasingly explosive. Forty percent of Americans believe the election was stolen, no forum for a review of the evidence to settle the matter, heightened and reckless rhetoric, the constitution is in tatters, it all leads towards extreme outcomes, which may be Biden's ultimate purpose: 1. kinetic outcome will enrich one of his primary funders (private security contractors) while 2. eliminating his political enemies.
Ultimately, people are frightened and totally disenfranchised. What follows the end of politics as day follows night? Keep up the good work.