So this guy stands in the midst of Wall Street and rants about having to bail out his neighbors who may have lost their jobs as a result of the same criminals on Wall Street who were just bailed out. Are you confused yet? I want my money back.


READ Dvorak’s take on this idiot.




  1. EvilPoliticians says:

    Most homeowner foreclosures are due to poor buying decisions. Don’t put all the blame on the lenders. You have to be responsible for yourself. And the frustration is why bailout those too stupid to get a loan they cannot pay.

    Of course with everything in a tailspin, there certainly will be an increase of foreclosures related to job loss.

  2. faxon says:

    I paid off my mortgage in full. Hey! Obama! Where the fuck is my check??? Dumbshit.

  3. sargasso says:

    Where are, The Dead Kennedys, when we need them?

  4. Thermo says:

    Finally, someone in the main stream liberal media is saying what the majority of Americans are thinking. Forget about Obama’s honeymoon period – I want a divorce.

  5. Winston says:

    Want to see the best explanation by far of what happened? This fascinating documentary makes a complex topic easy to understand and is, actually, very entertaining because it’s so amazing to learn that such an unbelievably stupid series of actions by everyone involved could have melded together into such a “perfect storm.” It’s getting a repeat showing by popular demand on Wednesday, 25 Feb:

    http://cnbc.com/id/29267863

  6. BernardMarx says:

    Accroding to this news piece http://bestreversemortgage.com/topics-for-seniors/more-foreclosures-are-due-to-job-losses/ (published last November about statistics from last June), job loss or loss of income were already counting for almost half of the foreclosures.

    I suspect that number has gone up. Add in all the people who were duped into buying more house than they should have by shady real estate people and/or mortgage lenders and it is probably more than half of all foreclosures.

    I don’t want to let the greedy people who were playing the system with ARMs and other creative mortgages off the hook, but I can appreciate a plan that can help those that have fallen on hard times or who got fooled.

    And I am very glad that I did not fall into the trap myself. Six years ago when I bought my condo, my mortgage lender was trying to push me into something that I felt was out of my range, and I resisted.

  7. Troublemaker says:

    If the American sheeple weren’t so damned spineless, this would be very, VERY easy to fix…

    JUST STOP PAYING TAXES!

  8. Troublemaker says:

    Some Complete and Utter MORON said

    Most homeowner foreclosures are due to poor buying decisions. Don’t put all the blame on the lenders. You have to be responsible for yourself. And the frustration is why bailout those too stupid to get a loan they cannot pay.

    The banks knew DAMNED well what they were doing. You used to have to jump through hoops to qualify for a loan. Then they begged, pleaded and lobbied for looser standards. Now they’re crying about it.

    Sorry, I have no sympathy whatsoever for them. Or for IDIOTS like you that blame the victims.

  9. Mr Diesel says:

    Typical idiot post.

    Yep, the banks knew what they were doing, exactly what the Community Reinvestment Act told them to do. Make loans to people that couldn’t afford to buy a house but no, the Liberals thought that everyone had some “right” to buy a house.

    I don’t blame the victims, I blame the Liberals who caused the shit in the first place.

  10. Mr Diesel says:

    The idiot post is #8

  11. Rakarich says:

    The first thing that needs to stop is the liberal vs. conservative chest thumping and finger pointing. The longer that continues… the more we’re fucked.

  12. Randin says:

    Too true, they fucked up as a whole and now we’re fucked. People need to stand up to their congressman and deal with this for a change instead of living a life of escapism.

  13. OvenMaster says:

    The banks are to blame for offering $hitty loans without verifying income or employment. The people who applied for these loans are to blame for either knowingly seeking them out or refusing to read before they sign. The real estate industry is to blame for artificially inflating home values. Consumers who treated their homes as ATMs are to blame for living beyond their means. The government is to blame for letting all these things be legal.

    Now the economy is collapsing and shafting the businesses and consumers and homeowners who played by all the rules. Once again, the good guys will have to pay for what the bad guys do. No wonder lots of people are pissed off. I got a mortgage from an actual bank and had an actual job with verifiable income. Now I have to help out shady idiots pay their mortgages, and bail out banks run by criminals? Where’s the government help for MY mortgage?

  14. Hugh Ripper says:

    C’mon the Republicans would have bailed out the rich just like the Democrats are doing.

    All this ‘onus is on the individual’ crap is playing right into the hands of the ‘divide and conquer’ corpocracy, who put a lot of pressure on people to act financially irresponsibly through advertising and crooked advice.

    There’s something disgusting about whinging brokers. It’s like they’re blaming the government for losing everything on a bad weekend in Vegas.

  15. Mr Diesel says:

    I point fingers where they deserve to be pointed. I just sold one of four properties after having made the payments on it for over 23 years and on time. Am I getting a bailout? Hell no. During that time I also lost my job and was hospitalized with surgery and health insurance. Paid all my bills and didn’t ask any phony Messiah for help either.

    I have no pity for people who bought McMansions they couldn’t afford.

    So Santelli’s rant is pretty much spot on except that I wouldn’t call the people losers.

  16. Mr Diesel says:

    #16 Should have said NO HEALTH insurance.

  17. EvilPoliticians says:

    #8 Troublemaker

    It’s called individual accountability. Because of the lack of it, Big Mommy Government is now going to step in a bailout the little children that signed mortgages they should have stayed away from. And Big Mommy Government will put in more bureaucracy to make sure the little children don’t get taken again by bad bank people/loan sharks.

    Welcome to adulthood. You must be the reason hair dryers come with the warning not to use in the shower. Saying not to get wet or use in the tub wasn’t enough.

  18. brian t says:

    Don’t forget that often, between the borrowers and the banks, you had mortgage brokers who feasted on the commissions, before passing the risk on to their pet banks. No wonder they pushed mortgages on their sub-prime customers: to them, it was all gain, no pain, until the whole shebang went tits-up.

  19. k.g. says:

    ITT: Typical canned Republican responses. If conservatives are so butt-hurt about bailouts they shouldn’t have got the ball rolling a year ago with their loser president. Obama hasn’t spent what Bush did in TARP, or his previous bailouts throughout 2008. It’s so typically Republican to try to focus people’s anger from the guy who walked away with billions of dollars he didn’t earn and focus it on that black guy down the street who, damn it, doesn’t deserve to live in this neighborhood. And quite frankly, it’s cowardice on your part to use your neighbors as scapegoats when so many high above you have such dirty hands.

    Cue your “big government”, ACORN, Pelosi, blah blah blah blah you lost.

  20. Rick Cain says:

    This would be hilarious if not just plain sad.
    Santelli is fed up and wants a boston tea party, made up of stock traders who are the reason why we are in this mess to begin with!

    Where was Santelli when Dubya was bailing out rich bankers and not worrying about them giving out bonuses and multimillion dollar wages out of taxpayer funds?

    So now Obama proposes a much smaller bailout of homeowners and Santelli pops a cork!

    So let me get this straight….lenders who are wealthy banks full of MBA’s, PHd’s handed out loans to people with careless disregard for good lending standards and the HOMEOWNER is to blame???

    If a drunken sailor handed you all his money, then the next day wanted it back because he’s broke, would you give it back?

    Most homeowners did the right thing, they paid their mortgages, they took it up the butt when their ARM’s doubled, so they got 2nd jobs, they talked to their banks, they did everything they could to keep their homes.

    On the flip side, the Wall Street rich took the mortgages, sliced/diced them, resold them and made scads of money, not caring at all whether they were creating a bubble by overinflating the prices of home values, stock values. So when they bubble burst they cried to the government and wanted to suck the taxpayer money teat.

    Santelli is a moron, and anybody who agrees with his rant is one too.

  21. bobbo says:

    I blame the rating agencies. Everyone acted the way “they are supposed to” except for them:

    1. Buyers: in an “always goes up” market, lie or do anything else you can to get a house and ride the market to your golden years.

    2. Banks: make money any way you can. The best of all positions is to be a middle man skimming from the profit stream.

    3. Investment Houses: same as banks. Find an idiot that will pay a margin over what it cost you to “put together” a vehicle, take down BILLIONS in profit, and you have your golden years in your 30’s.

    4. Congress: whore yourself out to anyone with a vote or a buck and keep a happy face on it.

    5. Media: report what can’t be avoided but focus on human interest. Nothing that “might” happen a year from now is relevant except what some celebrity might do.

    6. Rating Agencies: supposed to evaluate the risk factors of various investments. Any investment based on “a market that will ALWAYS go up” should be downgraded, not AAA+++. They should all be in jail==really.

  22. Sam says:

    The real idiots are people who think in soundbites and debate by flinging them at one another as if scoring more points than the opponent is going to make the problem go away.

    This is a complex issue with complex causes. Blaming any one bill, person, or institution is just the easy way out. Fixing the problem is going to involve doing things we don’t like. Yeah, some people who don’t deserve help are going to get help, but that’s certainly better than going down in flames with a smug sense of righteousness.

  23. Troublemaker says:

    To all the MORONS responding here…

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25465130

    Countrywide whistleblower reports ‘liar loans’

    Former regional manager sues mortgage company for wrongful termination

    By Lisa Myers, NBC News Senior Investigative Correspondent
    Amna Nawaz, NBC Producer
    updated 12:05 p.m. PT, Tues., July. 1, 2008

    HOUSTON – Amid multiple federal investigations into potential wrongdoing at Countrywide, a former regional manager now says he tried to sound the alarm about improper conduct, and was ignored.

    Mark Zachary, who’d been in the mortgage business for 12 years when he took a job at Countrywide in August 2006 as a regional vice president in Houston, says he found a corporate culture of shady, possibly illegal practices.

    “You see some of the things that were going on and you just know that it’s not right, ” he said in an exclusive interview with NBC News. “It was, what do we do to get one more deal done. It doesn’t matter how you get there, just how do you get one more deal done.”

    In a series of internal documents over the next nine months, Zachary says he repeatedly warned superiors about questionable practices:

    -Inflating home appraisals—so buyers could borrow enough to cover closing costs…but end up owing more than the house was worth.

    -Flipping loans—moving an unqualified buyer from a conventional loan to one that doesnt require documentation, knowing they couldn’t afford it.

    -Coaching borrowers—to overstate, even double, their income to qualify.

    [snip]

    Were these practices the work of a couple of bad apples?

    “No, not at all,” says Zachary. “It comes down, I think from the very top that you get a loan done at any cost.”

    Zachary said these practices ultimately misled investors—about the safety and value of these loans, and hurt borrowers—who were put in loans they couldn’t afford to repay.

  24. homehive says:

    Your posters who are upset about the Liberal/Conservative fuss in his columns don’t understand John Dvorak’s reason for including so many of these kind of posts. I’ve been reading his columns since the late 1980’s. Back in the day, John could stir up huge reader interest/ire just by stating a preference for a Microsoft or Apple word-processor application. This was great for his business and his reputation. Now all his old tech fans, (like myself) have reached middle-age and have cooler tempers and different interests, so these political postings are a reliable means of driving up website traffic. He’s competing against (the excellent) Boingboing.net. From a sound business point of view, the last thing that John Dvorak needs is for the Lions to lay down with the Lambs (Democrats and Republicans).

    In confusion there is profit! – Tony Curtis in OPERATION PETTICOAT

  25. Troublemaker says:

    EvilPoliticians said, on February 21st, 2009 at 3:02 pm

    #8 Troublemaker

    It’s called individual accountability. Because of the lack of it, Big Mommy Government is now going to step in a bailout the little children that signed mortgages they should have stayed away from. And Big Mommy Government will put in more bureaucracy to make sure the little children don’t get taken again by bad bank people/loan sharks.

    You have to ask yourself one question. Why would banks INTENTIONALLY put their business in jeopardy by writing bad loans? It’s normally not in their interest to do so. There used to be a time when you had to jump through hoops to get a loan. What changed?

  26. Dallas says:

    #23 I agree with you. However, the urge to pounce on those that allowed the situation to happen and then have the gall to complain about the way out, is well, irresistible.
    I’m in that space.

  27. jammer4876 says:

    #14

    You’re correct, except for this one statement: “The government is to blame for letting all these things be legal. ”

    Correctly put, “the government is to blame for making it illegal not to make stupid loans.” Lenders–and they were voracious creeps, too–were forced to do it by CRA.

  28. EvilPoliticians says:

    #26 – Troublemaker

    Greed. They too should pay the price for looking only the short term, self centered interests abusing power and wasting away the trust and investments so many people made with them. Lock ’em up and throw away the key for their crimes.

  29. brm says:

    #22 bobbo:

    Surprisingly, I find myself mostly agreeing with you.


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