Senate passes 800 billion dollar stimulus without 1 member readind the actual bill!!!

[02dodgeram 10+ year member]

also the dems won't touch the fairness doctrin with a 50 foot pole main reason if conservitive radio does it then TV will have to as well so that means CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC and PBS would have to fire about 50% of their news team/writters and hire conservitives...same way with news papers.

Not entirely true for most of the regular channels. They're MOSTLY fair. The problem is that most of what conservatives say doesn't have any sort of honest logic behind it. I highly doubt a federal regulator would go after ABC, NBC, or CBS as they currently operate. And PBS? Seriously? You're going to rip on poor old Jim Lehrer? Did a picture of him hugging a tree in a speedo pop up on the internet or something?

MSNBC and FOX would have to fire everyone. They play it 4 of "my guys" and one of the "other guys" tucked into a crappy time slot, but their all on one side or the other. CNN would lose a couple, NBC MIGHT have to make a few cuts, but ABC and CBS are virtually in the clear based on my analysis. The Sunday morning shows are perfectly fairness doctrine compliant, and the evening news is just full of a bunch of fluff pieces with nearly no investigative journalism. Katie Couric asking what newspapers Sarah Palin reads is not in any way shape or form a biased question. In fact I'd say it's about as softball as it gets, and wouldn't even have made the air if Palin wasn't such an airhead. The best way to become compliant with it is to simply not have anyone with a declared side. Both sides represented passes mustard too I THINK.

In general though I agree. It's not very likely to get through congress, let alone to the president.

 

[audiolife 5,000+ posts]

I'd make a distinction between "this" government and "that government". It's interesting that you can read my points and get something totally different than my meaning. I figured I wrote enough to get the point across.
Jimmy Carter isn't to blame for half of the stuff he gets pilled on him. The main culprit that led to hard times during Jimmy Carter was the Iran/Iraq war shooting oil prices up through the roof and creating false scarcity. It's virtually the same way this more recent problem started dominoing. The good news is that oil prices have come down recently, exactly when we need it the most, but it's going back up soon. Another great reason to invest in alternative energy and battery technology as soon as possible.

Pelosi will fight anything that goes after democrats, just like Boehner would fight for any republican. It's politics and every member you lose hurts your cause. They make a calculation about whether the damage done to the party is worth saving one member. Both sides will do it on a case by case basis.

You're trying to invalidate my points with emoticons and attacks, without addressing anything with logic. Again, I'd say that I'm not trying to personally attack you, but your logic on these particular points you've brought up.

If you're a democrat, who's your political hero? From your statement "typical left wing cocksmack..as a democrat it is easy as hell to sniff out. There will be democrats losing their seats as well over this crap and not by an election." I find it pretty hard to figure your political stance out. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

It doesn't matter how many photoshops of obama's head on an infamous person's body I see. It's not debating logical points. If you carry things out to their final conclusion, you'll get to a point where what he's doing starts to make sense. Now as Joe "footinthemouth" Biden just said a little while ago, there's still a chance that this doesn't work. We're just starting to slow down the dominos, and if we let something big go bankrupt, they'll start falling again. CEOs making tons of money and corporate junkets are perfect examples of unrestrained capitolism. Even sports have salary caps. That's total socialism. Joe's problem is he's way to honest and doesn't elaborate on his statements ENOUGH. My advice to him would be to either drop some of the blatant honesty or talk even faster so the news channels don't chop it up into sound bites. He was my first pick in the primaries, but I'm glad it worked out like it did.

Dood Bush was whack that congress was whack, Obama is whack and this congress is WhAcKo. There is nothing logical you can say to back up any of that bull shat. You hear about how well Obama speaks? LOL you can inspire people to do things but when he breaks the country, inspiration won't amount to the crap he spews. NOTHING he talks about is specific enough for you to come to any conclusion. So far all I get from him is he can throw a hell of a cocktail party:laugh://content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/rolleyes.gif.c1fef805e9d1464d377451cd5bc18bfb.gif OH and he sends chills up Chris Mathews leg! Jimmy Carter was also terrible Ted Kennedy tried to run against an incumbent president from his own party...Bush didn't even have that.

No child left behind was a joke that dems place on Bush but as a democrat who wrote the fooking bill? I will give you a hint Bush latched onto it as an act of working across the aisle. Gets pretty old being in the party that claims no responsability to a **** thing. Since you are an avid watcher of CSPAN I take it you watched the Fannie Mae regulatory hearings in 2004?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs&feature=PlayList&p=A6CF3798E225FA58&index=0&playnext=1 //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif they ****ed the regulator:wow: interesting huh? That is a little more than just sitting back they BLAMED the regulator and they claimed none of this mess was a real issue. Funny huh? It was an issue and "Mr I had a boyfriend on the board of Fannie Mae during the time before he deemed it necessary to regulate it" Barney Frank. In 2007 he regulated the mess and claimed to fix it....//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif even up to less than 2 months before it crashed he said it was in good enough shape to survive.//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wow.gif.23d729408e9177caa2a0ed6a2ba6588e.gif

 

[audiolife 5,000+ posts]

Not entirely true for most of the regular channels. They're MOSTLY fair. The problem is that most of what conservatives say doesn't have any sort of honest logic behind it. I highly doubt a federal regulator would go after ABC, NBC, or CBS as they currently operate. And PBS? Seriously? You're going to rip on poor old Jim Lehrer? Did a picture of him hugging a tree in a speedo pop up on the internet or something?
MSNBC and FOX would have to fire everyone. They play it 4 of "my guys" and one of the "other guys" tucked into a crappy time slot, but their all on one side or the other. CNN would lose a couple, NBC MIGHT have to make a few cuts, but ABC and CBS are virtually in the clear based on my analysis. The Sunday morning shows are perfectly fairness doctrine compliant, and the evening news is just full of a bunch of fluff pieces with nearly no investigative journalism. Katie Couric asking what newspapers Sarah Palin reads is not in any way shape or form a biased question. In fact I'd say it's about as softball as it gets, and wouldn't even have made the air if Palin wasn't such an airhead. The best way to become compliant with it is to simply not have anyone with a declared side. Both sides represented passes mustard too I THINK.

In general though I agree. It's not very likely to get through congress, let alone to the president.

BS All 3 major networks +cnn+msnbc called to arms to stop Palin not 2 hours after she was selected. They quoted some douche bag blogger saying Palin banned books from libraries and a whole bunch of other crap that wasn't true. Reason they "quoted" a blogger was to take away from responsability for what they were going to say..thing is typically a good old fashioned journalist would CHECK their sources before they opened their mouths.//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif you are a left wing nut job.....plain and simple PBS is very liberal the simple fact you can't see what leans liberal and what doesn't proves it. Out of all the free tv out there PBS is the most liberal. Liberals think anything negitive towards a democrat is biased..hence the reasons they do not talk about Barney Frank's lover or ever bring up Chris Dodd's sweetheart loans that he has failed to show the courts.//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif

 

[audiolife 5,000+ posts]

Do not say that "this way was needed to get over conservatism" either. Bush and congress were not conservative and they were not centralists..between the two C words Conservative and Centralist which one do you think I fall more in line with? Here is a hint I think it is best to stay in the middle then pick parts of both parties to get something that actually works rather than a party wish list.

 

[02dodgeram 10+ year member]

I didn't see one fact based point in any of those 3 posts. Slandering Barney Frank's personal life doesn't have any bearing on his record or intelligence. A big point I've been getting at is that government is much more complicated than you'd make it out to be, and there aren't any outright bad guys.

PBS might be smart, but smart doesn't automatically equal liberal (yet?), and just because the right says something is liberal, doesn't make it so.

The news was completely not at fault for the Palin rollout. They did all kinds of research on the top 3 picks. McCain is the one that picked someone out of right field that nobody knew about. The news had to jump on a dead cold story, much like the first details about a train wreck are sketchy. And you cannot pin what liberal bloggers write on the major network news channels. They find the story and talk about it. They've put up plenty of things from Matt Drudge and Rush Limbaugh too. Insert....whatever you actually call yourself.... everywhere you put liberal and it's just a blanket smear.

I guess logic has become a liberal bastion.

Oh, and Bush was a conservative through and through. The problem he ran into is exactly what was wrong with Reagan. The problem with what they propose is cutting programs and regulatory bodies inevitably creates messes that have to be cleaned up for twice what it would have cost just to regulate. Both of the most conservative presidents we've ever had left office with an extra 4 trillion+ dollars in national debt when "putting this on our children and grandchildren" is the common battlecry. Complete hypocrasy. And apparently the two most conservative presidents in our history weren't conservative enough for the right.

 

[02dodgeram 10+ year member]

Liberals think anything negitive towards a democrat is biased

Pot and kettle.

What's your political affiliation again?

Who's your favorite modern political figure? I'm not asking you to claim everything they did or anything, I just want to know what you consider the "good guys".

 

[02dodgeram 10+ year member]

.between the two C words Conservative and Centralist which one do you think I fall more in line with? Here is a hint I think it is best to stay in the middle then pick parts of both parties to get something that actually works rather than a party wish list.

So, whats a good idea the left has? It's all fun and stuff to call yourself a centrist, but be honest. If you fight on behalf of one side against the other, you belong to that side. It's not a bad thing, and you should be proud of your politics. There's nothing necessarily better about the center either. It's become a buzz word for idealogues. Compromise is great when it's necessary, but if it's not, then it's not. I fall under liberal much more than I fall under conservative, but I still take it point by point. I don't call myself a centrist on hardly any issue.

Clinton might own NAFTA, but the idea of free trade is a republican plank. Clinton was a centrist.

 

[audiolife 5,000+ posts]

funny I have not seen anything but left wing propaganda listed by you..interesting isn't it.

Ahhh common sense doesn't kick in at anytime with you does it? Our politics is far left now isn't it? So why would I fight to go farther left???

Show me how Bush was truely a conservitive please. If you look up past political jargons on here I think you will see me pulling for Kerry over Bush LOL. As for Clinton, he became a centrist he didn't start off being a centrist. He didn't have too as Dems had congress in his first term. He raised taxes 30 days into his first term and really was not to successful until he lowered capital gains taxes. Clinton is more or less my favorite president but that is not based on him as a whole. More or less based on he was smart enough to realize things needed to get done and got them done well he did. People want to point fingers and say this or that is another presidents fault. Thing is the president only holds term for 8 years. The new president and congress need to watch the loose ends which is why when a new president takes over he must take ownership, if not he really has nothing.

I think free trade is a good idea but on a more level playing field would be much better....

Also try looking up when deregulation happened and then who tried to reregulate. I shown you a link where the left was bashing the regulator, and it is obvious the dems didn't want anything regulated until it was on just THEIR terms. That wasted a lot of money probably more than a few full years national budgets no? Course you wouldn't be mad about that now would you?No reason to be right? LOL

 

[02dodgeram 10+ year member]

funny I have not seen anything but left wing propaganda listed by you..interesting isn't it. Ahhh common sense doesn't kick in at anytime with you does it? Our politics is far left now isn't it? So why would I fight to go farther left???

Show me how Bush was truely a conservitive please. If you look up past political jargons on here I think you will see me pulling for Kerry over Bush LOL. As for Clinton, he became a centrist he didn't start off being a centrist. He didn't have too as Dems had congress in his first term. He raised taxes 30 days into his first term and really was not to successful until he lowered capital gains taxes. Clinton is more or less my favorite president but that is not based on him as a whole. More or less based on he was smart enough to realize things needed to get done and got them done well he did. People want to point fingers and say this or that is another presidents fault. Thing is the president only holds term for 8 years. The new president and congress need to watch the loose ends which is why when a new president takes over he must take ownership, if not he really has nothing.

I think free trade is a good idea but on a more level playing field would be much better....

Things are much more complicated than what common sense will allow. Common sense says CEOs shouldn't make tons of money. BUT, if you do something about it, you mess up the salary structure of everyone else and it gets called socialism. Common Sense says that paying taxes is a bad thing, BUT without taxes we don't get to drive on roads or call 911 when something bad happens to us. Our politics is not far left YET. It's moving to the left, but it hasn't even gotten started yet. Think of it like a sliding scale from 1 to 100. In the last 8 years, we've moved up to the 75-80 line. Now we need to move it back to the left to get us back to that healthy 50 center mark, and preferrably to me more like 40.

"The new president and congress need to watch the loose ends which is why when a new president takes over he must take ownership" is my MAIN criticism of the last 8 years. All of the financial meltdown, 9/11, the wars, bridge collapses, Katrina, etc. could have been prevented if we'd done our due dilligence instead of taking the laissez faire approach to government where they say "the government IS the problem" to everything.

 

[audiolife 5,000+ posts]

Things are much more complicated than what common sense will allow. Common sense says CEOs shouldn't make tons of money. BUT, if you do something about it, you mess up the salary structure of everyone else and it gets called socialism. Common Sense says that paying taxes is a bad thing, BUT without taxes we don't get to drive on roads or call 911 when something bad happens to us. Our politics is not far left YET. It's moving to the left, but it hasn't even gotten started yet. Think of it like a sliding scale from 1 to 100. In the last 8 years, we've moved up to the 75-80 line. Now we need to move it back to the left to get us back to that healthy 50 center mark, and preferrably to me more like 40.
"The new president and congress need to watch the loose ends which is why when a new president takes over he must take ownership" is my MAIN criticism of the last 8 years. All of the financial meltdown, 9/11, the wars, bridge collapses, Katrina, etc. could have been prevented if we'd done our due dilligence instead of taking the laissez faire approach to government where they say "the government IS the problem" to everything.

LOL umm yeah...Funny part is a few of the worst CEO's that were busted helped or worked with WHICH party after they left their CEO position? Who was on banking commitees in congress for 14 +++ years and turned their backs to the whole situation? Katrina? A bridge? Hey can I blame Obama and government for the past few jet crashes too? I mean come on now someone had to slip up. LOL

More left wing demonizing:laugh:

 

[02dodgeram 10+ year member]

LOL umm yeah...Funny part is a few of the worst CEO's that were busted helped or worked with WHICH party after they left their CEO position? Who was on banking commitees in congress for 14 +++ years and turned their backs to the whole situation? Katrina? A bridge? Hey can I blame Obama and government for the past few jet crashes too? I mean come on now someone had to slip up. LOLMore left wing demonizing:laugh:

...and republicans are the party of big business. I'm not saying that democrats are perfect by any stretch. I just believe that their ideas are better ideas than republicans.

Obama can't be blamed for jet crashes caused by ice. But, the government can share some blame for not fixing the levies in Louisiana or fixing federal interstate bridges. If there was some sort of government oversight problem involved in the plane crashes, I'd say fix it too.

I'm not demonizing them. I'm saying that something should be done about it. I don't hold republicans 100% responsible for the enron, worldcom crap from the early 2000s, although I'm sure they held some bits and pieces of the responsibility considering they wrote the administration's energy policy. I do fully support investigating halliburton, blackwater, KBR, and all those other pieces of crap board members that are killing our own troops with negligence while receiving no-bid contracts. Nothing against the workers at KBR or halliburton. The money is good and they risk their lives every bit as much as our troops are in Iraq. I've got 5 members of my immediate and secondary family currently serving overseas, and 2 that have already gotten out for good. That's neither here nor there in the scheme of our current situations. I'm just saying it to head off a "you don't support our troops" argument.

 

[audiolife 5,000+ posts]

...and republicans are the party of big business. I'm not saying that democrats are perfect by any stretch. I just believe that their ideas are better ideas than republicans.
Obama can't be blamed for jet crashes caused by ice. But, the government can share some blame for not fixing the levies in Louisiana or fixing federal interstate bridges. If there was some sort of government oversight problem involved in the plane crashes, I'd say fix it too.

I'm not demonizing them. I'm saying that something should be done about it. I don't hold republicans 100% responsible for the enron, worldcom crap from the early 2000s, although I'm sure they held some bits and pieces of the responsibility considering they wrote the administration's energy policy. I do fully support investigating halliburton, blackwater, KBR, and all those other pieces of crap board members that are killing our own troops with negligence while receiving no-bid contracts. Nothing against the workers at KBR or halliburton. The money is good and they risk their lives every bit as much as our troops are in Iraq. I've got 5 members of my immediate and secondary family currently serving overseas, and 2 that have already gotten out for good. That's neither here nor there in the scheme of our current situations. I'm just saying it to head off a "you don't support our troops" argument.

Air safety is not a governmental issue?//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif Car safety is so why not jets? There are no democratic officials in Louisiana or Minnesota who can share the blame in those disasters? What about Freddie and Fannie? What about Country Wide? What about GE? Those are not big businesses? Aren't Warren Buffet and Bill Gates Obama supporters?? There is no such thing as the limo riding democrat?

Is what Franklin Raines did a cog into what happened in housing?//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif You guys kill me. Responsability is not a Democratic thing. They vote they help shape things in government reguardless of who is in power. To them though if they don't hold a majority they REALLY do not take responsability to how they voted. Hell even when they are in power they still try to place blame on the other side. The simple fact they wanted poor people to get homes they could not afford is a laugh but noone wants to talk about that. Bankrupting people, banks and maybe even our country is not that bad is it?//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif

 

[02dodgeram 10+ year member]

Air safety is not a governmental issue?//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif Car safety is so why not jets? There are no democratic officials in Louisiana or Minnesota who can share the blame in those disasters? What about Freddie and Fannie? What about Country Wide? What about GE? Those are not big businesses? Aren't Warren Buffet and Bill Gates Obama supporters?? There is no such thing as the limo riding democrat?Is what Franklin Raines did a cog into what happened in housing?//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif You guys kill me. Responsability is not a Democratic thing. They vote they help shape things in government reguardless of who is in power. To them though if they don't hold a majority they REALLY do not take responsability to how they voted. Hell even when they are in power they still try to place blame on the other side. The simple fact they wanted poor people to get homes they could not afford is a laugh but noone wants to talk about that. Bankrupting people, banks and maybe even our country is not that bad is it?//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif

Air safety is definitely a government issue. What do you propose the FAA does about ice on the wings on arrival at the destination. If we can build us an in-air deicing machine, I'm all for it. There are democratic officials in Louisiana and Minnesota. It's not their job to ensure the federal levies and highways are properly maintained, although I know they petition for repairs all the time. The money comes from the federal government for federal construction projects and it wasn't there.

"What about Freddie and Fannie? What about Country Wide? What about GE? Those are not big businesses?" Those are large companies, but don't constitute Big Business (the proper noun form). Our current economics climate has so many people to blame in small amounts that it's not even funny. My mother worked for a second tier auto finance company and looking back, it's very easy to see where this problem started.

The government didn't regulate derivatives. Bad for them, and deregulation in the last 10 years has been a bad thing, regardless of who is to blame for it. It's the Laissez Faire philosophy that's caused those problems, and I'm against that regardless of the color of tie the person wears. Right now it seems like conservatives are yelling about government intervention alot more than liberals.

The CEOs of finance companies got together with stock traders and created these huge bulk chunks of public debt and packaged tiny slices of each house and car into various assets. Stock traders didn't know what they were getting, and saw these things as pre-diversified portolios (spreading out the risk among tons of different loans). Loaning institutions were making tons of money off these things and ramped up irresponsible lending, thinking that even if 5% defaulted on loans, they'd still turn a profit and it wouldn't damage anything too significantly. Then the memo went out to middle management that the powers that be wanted more loans and were paying based on performance. Middle management took it to the floor of credit checkers and loan officers and told them to start finding reasons to qualify people, rather than looking for reasons to deny people and handed out $50 gift cards to Chilis to the top producers (anecdotal story at this level). Since they were mortgages and car loans, they were rated AAA by the credit agencies, which up until now were a solid investment for Wall Street historically. It's no one person in that chain's fault. They all just did what capitolist do. It's only when you put it all together that the problems arose. CEOs didn't know they were issuing loans for 30% bad mortgages, because that went down to the ground level. The ground level didn't know that CEOs didn't want that many bad loans. They just wanted to get that $50 Chili's gift card, and a $1 an hour pay raise.

I don't blame Bush or congress for that situation, except to say that if we'd looked at derivatives earlier, we could have avoided some of those days when the Dow dropped 777 points. We'd still be in a recession. That's just another domino of a bigger problem we've been dealing with for over a year. We've been favoring tax cuts for corporations and free trade for too long, and the middle class has been having itself eaten away at by foreign competiters. A smart economist would have seen that happening ever since 9/11 in the raw data. An economics minded administration would have corrected that path at least 2 years ago.

There are limo riding democrats, but not as many as republicans. All in all, that's beside the point, and I don't want you to dwell on that. It will bog you down from understanding the real issues and how to solve them. We do need an upper class, and in fact an upper and lower class are the result of capiltolism. If everyone were equal, we'd be socialists through and through.

"They vote they help shape things in government reguardless of who is in power. To them though if they don't hold a majority they REALLY do not take responsability to how they voted. " Agreed totally. I was rather upset by the democratic leadership in the past 2 years. They should have pushed back harder on alot of issues. Instead, in my opinion, they let conservative ideology run wild for too long with the purpose of letting things go bad so we'd have the big gains in 2008 in congress. Shame on them, but republicans play politics just as much.

"The simple fact they wanted poor people to get homes they could not afford is a laugh but noone wants to talk about that. Bankrupting people, banks and maybe even our country is not that bad is it?" Do you have something against people getting homes? I already went into the loaning practices of the last 5 years or so to explain how all that worked, but neither party has more blame than the other on that. 2006 is when the catalytic bad loans really ramped up into high gear. My mom was a funder when it was happening. The idea of poor people getting homes is really hard to attack. Nobody MADE anybody give out these bad loans. It was just the way things progressed in a capitolistic environment. One hand didn't know what the other was doing. Bankrupting people, banks and maybe even our country is aweful. How dare you even say such a thing. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

I'm all for personal responsibility, but things are just more complicated than that when you're talking about our current financial problems. It was a systemic failure, like when a car's 150k mile engine throws a rod. Small things all came together to add up to a catastrophic failure.

Thanks for keeping this going by the way. I've got nothing to do at work today, and it's helping me stay occupied.

 

[audiolife 5,000+ posts]

Air safety is definitely a government issue. What do you propose the FAA does about ice on the wings on arrival at the destination. If we can build us an in-air deicing machine, I'm all for it. There are democratic officials in Louisiana and Minnesota. It's not their job to ensure the federal levies and highways are properly maintained, although I know they petition for repairs all the time. The money comes from the federal government for federal construction projects and it wasn't there.

"What about Freddie and Fannie? What about Country Wide? What about GE? Those are not big businesses?" Those are large companies, but don't constitute Big Business (the proper noun form). Our current economics climate has so many people to blame in small amounts that it's not even funny. My mother worked for a second tier auto finance company and looking back, it's very easy to see where this problem started.

The government didn't regulate derivatives. Bad for them, and deregulation in the last 10 years has been a bad thing, regardless of who is to blame for it. It's the Laissez Faire philosophy that's caused those problems, and I'm against that regardless of the color of tie the person wears. Right now it seems like conservatives are yelling about government intervention alot more than liberals.

The CEOs of finance companies got together with stock traders and created these huge bulk chunks of public debt and packaged tiny slices of each house and car into various assets. Stock traders didn't know what they were getting, and saw these things as pre-diversified portolios (spreading out the risk among tons of different loans). Loaning institutions were making tons of money off these things and ramped up irresponsible lending, thinking that even if 5% defaulted on loans, they'd still turn a profit and it wouldn't damage anything too significantly. Then the memo went out to middle management that the powers that be wanted more loans and were paying based on performance. Middle management took it to the floor of credit checkers and loan officers and told them to start finding reasons to qualify people, rather than looking for reasons to deny people and handed out $50 gift cards to Chilis to the top producers (anecdotal story at this level). Since they were mortgages and car loans, they were rated AAA by the credit agencies, which up until now were a solid investment for Wall Street historically. It's no one person in that chain's fault. They all just did what capitolist do. It's only when you put it all together that the problems arose. CEOs didn't know they were issuing loans for 30% bad mortgages, because that went down to the ground level. The ground level didn't know that CEOs didn't want that many bad loans. They just wanted to get that $50 Chili's gift card, and a $1 an hour pay raise.

I don't blame Bush or congress for that situation, except to say that if we'd looked at derivatives earlier, we could have avoided some of those days when the Dow dropped 777 points. We'd still be in a recession. That's just another domino of a bigger problem we've been dealing with for over a year. We've been favoring tax cuts for corporations and free trade for too long, and the middle class has been having itself eaten away at by foreign competiters. A smart economist would have seen that happening ever since 9/11 in the raw data. An economics minded administration would have corrected that path at least 2 years ago.

There are limo riding democrats, but not as many as republicans. All in all, that's beside the point, and I don't want you to dwell on that. It will bog you down from understanding the real issues and how to solve them. We do need an upper class, and in fact an upper and lower class are the result of capiltolism. If everyone were equal, we'd be socialists through and through.

"They vote they help shape things in government reguardless of who is in power. To them though if they don't hold a majority they REALLY do not take responsability to how they voted. " Agreed totally. I was rather upset by the democratic leadership in the past 2 years. They should have pushed back harder on alot of issues. Instead, in my opinion, they let conservative ideology run wild for too long with the purpose of letting things go bad so we'd have the big gains in 2008 in congress. Shame on them, but republicans play politics just as much.

"The simple fact they wanted poor people to get homes they could not afford is a laugh but noone wants to talk about that. Bankrupting people, banks and maybe even our country is not that bad is it?" Do you have something against people getting homes? I already went into the loaning practices of the last 5 years or so to explain how all that worked, but neither party has more blame than the other on that. 2006 is when the catalytic bad loans really ramped up into high gear. My mom was a funder when it was happening. The idea of poor people getting homes is really hard to attack. Nobody MADE anybody give out these bad loans. It was just the way things progressed in a capitolistic environment. One hand didn't know what the other was doing. Bankrupting people, banks and maybe even our country is aweful. How dare you even say such a thing. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

I'm all for personal responsibility, but things are just more complicated than that when you're talking about our current financial problems. It was a systemic failure, like when a car's 150k mile engine throws a rod. Small things all came together to add up to a catastrophic failure.

Thanks for keeping this going by the way. I've got nothing to do at work today, and it's helping me stay occupied.

If they can't afford it why should they get it? I want a $200K sports car but I can't afford it so does that mean I should be able to get one? I mean seriously there is nothing wrong with living within your means, contrary to popular belief there is nothing wrong with living in a trailer. If there is something wrong with my thought process where are the people living at now that they lost their homes? Are they now better for it?//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif When the country is this farked up the basics are broken and all you try to do is complicate issues and then say the government can fix it? They can't even get Social Security right or even a budget:laugh: Common sense please? And you REALLY need to go back and look at your CSPAN because there is a ton of democrats going against the regulators in power from 2001-2006 and were against any farther regulations again to not put that into context is rather stupid.

 

[02dodgeram 10+ year member]

If they can't afford it why should they get it? I want a $200K sports car but I can't afford it so does that mean I should be able to get one? I mean seriously there is nothing wrong with living within your means, contrary to popular belief there is nothing wrong with living in a trailer. If there is something wrong with my thought process where are the people living at now that they lost their homes? Are they now better for it?//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif

If they can't afford it, they shouldn't have gotten it. Why that happened has been covered in the above post. Did you read every word in your mortgage when you signed it (if you own your place of residence)? Did you read every word in your car loan? I'm sure a small percentage of these defaulting loans were people being personally irresponsible, but just generally speaking, who do you trust more? A used car salesman or a person buying a car? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

The rest of the quoted section is either a correct assertion or not relevent. I'm a responsible person. My fico score is above 750. The baby boomer generation was handed a time when credit was exploding and nobody knew the morals or pitfalls of credit cards. I truly believe that by and large Gen Y has learned something from that, or are at least aware of the problems they are getting themselves into with credit cards. I had a high school math teacher back in 1998 that used credit card interest for nearly every word problem she gave us. It's not the end of people being irresponsible with credit, but the lessons are now well documented.

When the country is this farked up the basics are broken and all you try to do is complicate issues and then say the government can fix it? They can't even get Social Security right or even a budget:laugh: Common sense please? And you REALLY need to go back and look at your CSPAN because there is a ton of democrats going against the regulators in power from 2001-2006 and were against any farther regulations again to not put that into context is rather stupid.

I'm not complicating issues. The issues are complicated. And yes, the government is only institution with the ability to correct this problem. It's Macroeconomics 101. When business investment, household buying power, employment, and imports/exports are all tanking, the government is the only entity capable of ceasing the downward spiral. The macroeconomy is a feedback loop, and right now we're on a drastically negative feedback cycle. Without someone with the paddles to stand over it and yell "CLEAR!" the industrial heart of America will stop beating.

They can't get social security right because old people vote, and like I said, rule number 1 in politics is don't get voted out. Something will happen to social security in the next 20 years. Either it will be drastically cut back (or abolished entirely), or it will simply run out of money and the monthly checks will stop showing up in mailboxes. Both parties have done bad with social security, but I'd just say that republicans had all three legislative branches of government for 6 years and nothing happened. Clinton's goal was to run a surplus for the forseeable future and use that money to replenish the coffers of social security for the baby boomers. Say what people might about presidential BJs, Clinton did good with the economy.

I've already discussed common sense, and how much it doesn't make sense on these big complicated issues. And again, I'm not standing up for anyone that pushed for deregulation in the 2000s, D or R. Rs are pushing for it still if you watch the interviews on the cable shows.