popa_bar_abba

Nu, nu. So I’ll make heter iska on all of them.

Also, the more I understand about the bailouts, the differently I feel about them.

The banks were not failing only because the mortgages were going down in value. Even if half the mortgages in the RMBS market had defaulted, the losses would only have been about 3.5b. Merril Lynch lost about 20b in the 4th quarter of 2008.

The market was spiraling on itself, but it was just panic–not actual decline in value.

Meanwhile, the banks were forced by regulation to deleverage, and they were doing that by dumping assets which further exacerbated the problem. They really should have done that by raising more capital, but, for complicated reasons, it didn’t make sense for the banks’ equity holders to do that. The bailouts forced them to deleverage by raising capital.

And I suppose you could securitize loans in judaism.

You can make non-recourse loans in halacha, so that would be a ?? ??? ?? ????? ??? ???. So suppose you have 100,000 non-recourse home loans, you could pool them together (you don’t really need a special purpose vehicle), and then put the cash flows into tranches (so that the top tranche is entitled to the first money that comes in, then the second tranche gets when the first one is paid off, etc), and sell off the rights to the cash flows ????? ?????.

(You might imagine the senior ones will be highly rated AAA since there is little chance that the top ones won’t at least be paid off. Then, you could take the middle ones, and resecuritize them, by pooling them with middle ones from other pools, and again separate those into tranches, and those top ones would also be AAA rated, and you might call that a Collateralized Debt Obligation, if you want.)

And that, my friends, is the simplest explanation of RMBS (Residential Mortgage Backed Securities) you have ever read.

In secular law, the borrower can declare bankruptcy to get out of the loan completely. There is no parallel in Judaism.

There is actually a slight parallel in ?????? ???? ???, see CM 97.

Charlie: Nice to see you back. I see you commenting sometimes on crosscurrents, but I don’t like to comment there because they are so obsessive about anonymous posting, and there is no way I’m posting under my real name anywhere. I’ve got a career to worry about.

Are you crazy? You know they can’t handle that stuff. They’ll get scared away!

I take mice over bugs any day.

In fact, there are mice in mien hoiz, but no bugs. I think the mice must be scaring away the bugs. http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/mice-in-mein-hoiz

Avi: I suppose you thought I hadn’t looked it up, and seeing it would convince me.

yichusdik:

I don’t agree with your analysis, but that is not really the point I am trying to make. The point I was making is that you certainly cannot just point at the Rambam without at least making your assumptions explicit. It’s being dishonest.

Don’t change the topic. We’re discussing whether the Rambam proves that it is a chiyuv to join the Israeli army.

popa, that question you asked Avi K gets in to another area – Rambam’s and other’s discussion of what constitutes a milchemes mitzvah, what constitutes a milchemes reshus, and what a milchemes chovah, as it is described in the rishonim

No, there are far more important preliminary questions before that: What is a melech? What is a jewish state?

I don’t know whether there is a mitzva or not to be in the army. But I do know that citing that particular Rambam for it, without at least explicitly assuming the other premises, is some good blazing am haaratzus, of the kind I’ve come to expect.

This guy would have us fighting with the hellenists against mattisyahu and call it a mitzva.

Kanoi, do you have others put on tefillin, daven, etc. for you so as not to be mavatel Tora? What about all those who are registered in yeshivot and kolelim but are not exactly learning every second?

No, no, don’t change the topic. We’re still waiting for you to explain how the Rambam holds that you have to be a soldier in the Israeli army.

How do you know machir was born while yaakov was alive?

His motivations for donating a sefer torah were not really the main point of your argument, and was not really much of an attack either.

And I don’t think you did call anyone a rasha. Although, now that you mention it, I would be happy to do that for you (Weiss is a rasha, weiss is a rasha, weiss is a rasha).

You did call him a publicity whore. I have no idea if he is or isn’t, so if you say you don’t have information that he is, then I applaud you for apologizing.

If you don’t want to bump the other thread, you can just tell us what was incorrect on this thread.

Don’t drei yourself a kup. I wasn’t the one who brought it up. Zdad brought it up, evidently having no idea of the law here. I didn’t twist anything.

That’s why this is also the answer to the riddle of “how do we know Avrohom Avinu was not a Brisker?”

Other answers include that edited

What did the Charedi population in the US do when there was a draft?

I’ll teach you something about debating. You shouldn’t ask a question unless you know the answer.

The American government, like most civilized societies, exempts people learning in yeshiva to be a rabbi from the draft.

Cleaning for pesach is a good idea, and you can pick up some cash doing that.

But, you will not be able to get a real “on-the-books” part time job during the year, on a student visa.

Eretz Yisroel is not the chilonim’s home. Eretz Yisroel is the home of the Bnei Torah and the chilonim are the guests.

No. Eretz Yisroel is the home of EVERY Jew. So for you to make such a statement is the height of arrogance.

Well, I don’t mean to agree with avhaben. But, to push back a bit, the Torah does say that Eretz Yisroel “vomits” people who do certain aveiros. Which is what happened to the people who lived there before us, and to us.

So you would be pretty justified in saying that Eretz Yisroel is the home of the shomrei torah u’mitzvos.

The lie is that the article DOES NOT SAY that they want to BAN ALL WOMEN!

And you come on here, and say that you read the article, agreeing with the OP. And you continue even after I corrected the misunderstanding.

So I ask you: Just who are you trying to fool?

The payroll tax is not officially a tax since it is officially considered a premium towards social security, which is officially not a government program but is a type of insurance annuity

It shares all the characteristics of a tax, and none of the characteristics of an annuity.

You don’t choose to pay it, and you don’t get back what you put in. They take based on a percentage of income, and they give you whatever they decide to give.

You may call that whatever you want, if we are playing semantic games. You may even call it a klurg, if we are playing Dr. Seuss games. But I’m playing the English game, so I’ll call it a tax.

That’s ridiculous. Nobody wants to ban all women from the kosel.