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What if the Ferengi were in charge of our Economy?

What if the Ferengi were in charge of our Economy?

We actually tried that in the United States. It was called The Bush Years, during which time he and a republican congress caused the current financial meltdown. The result was that the opposing party was voted in to clean up the mess.

 
No one in in the upper echelons of the economy thinks the decisions they make are for its worse. The difference is that with Ferengi in charge, when the shit really hits the fan, there are only few still rich afterwords, and they have no incentive to risk anything for the overwhelming majority [read: you] left destitute.
 
Weren't they supposed to be a bit of a joke? The comedic foil? Something 24thC humans had advanced beyond and laughed at?
 
That'd be something to see....Quark in charge of the Stock Exchange.....he'd be in heaven or hell...whatever he'd call it....LOL
 
I doubt the Ferengi would loan a fantastic amount of tax-payer money to a major corperation, demand the money back, make a second loan of tax-payer money to the same corperation, let the corperation pay-off the first loan using the second loan and then let the corperation declare in nation wide commercials that they "paid off" their tax-payer loans.

That would be just be too science fiction.
 
^I wonder if they would give a $20 million retirement package to their CEO so he could run for vice-president, especially knowing he would start a war then hire his old company to rebuild the country, thereby creating massive profits for Hal- er- Ferenginar.
 
^I wonder if they would give a $20 million retirement package to their CEO so he could run for vice-president, especially knowing he would start a war then hire his old company to rebuild the country, thereby creating massive profits for Hal- er- Ferenginar.

I imagine they wouldn't have a problem with it. Business is business.
 
^I wonder if they would give a $20 million retirement package to their CEO so he could run for vice-president, especially knowing he would start a war then hire his old company to rebuild the country, thereby creating massive profits for Hal- er- Ferenginar.

I imagine they wouldn't have a problem with it. Business is business.

Well...unless it's their tax dollars bailing out that company that they can't let fail or they'd feel it a dozen different ways. Or would a Ferengi be able to see the ramifications of such a thing - I don't know I know what "too big to fail" really means.

Or unless they have shares in a company competing with that company that wants its CEO to run for vice-president. Or unless it's their kid soldiering off to die for either CEO's $20 million.

Enlightened self-interest has many faces; I'd wager including one with rather large earlobes.

Hey, there's no Ferengi emoticon. I think this one :shifty: could be Ferengi-ified, like this one :techman: was en-Bolian-ed :bolian:.
 
^^^ US Government compelling banks to meet quotas of home loans to high-risk people (Community Reinvestment Act) is what got the economy into this mess.

Issuing mortgages to large numbers of people with low and unsteady incomes (many of whom had no real chance of repaying them), combined with the Federal Reserve System pumping up the money supply so as to drive interest rates down to artificially low levels, made home ownership and housing construction looked like really great investments. Without government interference interest rates would have remained at market levels, the housing bubble would not have grown to the enormous size it did.

The government, both parties, loved that home ownership was increasing, especially among minority voting groups, however when the Fed stopped (about 2006) expanding the money supply and interest rates began rising, many borrowers found that they couldn't afford to keep the homes they had been lured into buying and many builders found that the housing projects they had started couldn't be completed because demand had died.

President Bush tried to shut the whole thing down, but he didn't have the political capital in both houses of Congress to do it, it was likely too late anyway. Banks had insured their loans through the big insurance companies, when the loans began to fail in large numbers the insurance companies were looking at collapse, this lead to the first of Bush's big bailout outs

Institutions that had invested in mortgage-backed securities discovered that their portfolios were nearly worthless. Firms collapsed and the stock market plunged.

The US Government still hasn't gotten out of the mortgage market, repealing the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (and the 1938 Federal National Mortgage Association), or abolishing the Federal Reserve.
 
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^^^ US Government compelling banks to meet quotas of home loans to high-risk people (Community Reinvestment Act) is what got the economy into this mess.

Issuing mortgages to large numbers of people with low and unsteady incomes (many of whom had no real chance of repaying them), combined with the Federal Reserve System pumped up the money supply so as to drive interest rates down to artificially low levels, made home ownership and housing construction looked like really great investments. Without government interference interest rates would have remained at market levels, the housing bubble would not have grown to the enormous size it did.

The government, both parties, loved that home ownership was increasing, especially among minority voting groups, however when the Fed stopped (about 2006) expanding the money supply and interest rates began rising, many borrowers found that they couldn't afford to keep the homes they had been lured into buying and many builders found that the housing projects they had started couldn't be completed because demand had died.

President Bush tried to shut the whole thing down, but he didn't have the political capital in both houses of Congress to do it, it was likely too late anyway. Banks had insured their loans through the big insurance companies, when the loans began to fail in large numbers the insurance companies were looking at collapse, this lead to the first of Bush's big bailout outs

Institutions that had invested in mortgage-backed securities discovered that their portfolios were nearly worthless. Firms collapsed and the stock market plunged.

The Government still hasn't gotten out of the mortgage market, repealing the Community Reinvestment Act (and the 1938 Federal National Mortgage Association), or abolishing the Federal Reserve.

E.G.: Ruthless profiteering.

:shifty::shifty::shifty:
 
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