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Kelkyen Rants - about George W. Bush
Kelkyen
Member Posts: 45
As the duck that is George W. Bush heads off into lameness, I rant.
I saw another ad for the movie “W” and wondered if it is going to be more Hollywood masturbation. Looking up some info on the movie led me to some opinion forums dominated by Bush bashing. That led me to wonder, what did Bush really do wrong? What lead the USA into its current situation? Why are so many people against Bush, and the Republican party in general?
Now for me, everything seems to have gone wrong from 9-11-01. The economy went haywire from there. Gas went up, consumer spending dropped, the stock market started to get goofy.
Now what set the Muslim terrorists against us to cause 9-11? Their pre-cursors in Afghanistan were fighting the USSR, and they just wanted to be left alone. All we did was give them some guns, then we left them alone. So that isn’t it. So it has to be Israel, but that goes back many years before, and ties into the Muslim Brotherhood and later the excuse that US troops were on “holy ground” in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War.
Well, like it or not, US-Israel ties started with Truman, a Democrat. While the US is Israels top supporter, the US has kept them in check from time to time, been very critical of their actions, and tried over and over again to get peace deals between Israel and its Muslim neighbors. US troops on “holy soil” is more recent. I wonder how much of it was Osama being snubbed by the Saudis, when he offered to bring in his “holy warriors” to defend against Saddam? Kinda’ lame excuses to drive planes into buildings when you look at the big picture. Either way Bush had nothing to do with any of it. He was in office only a few months when 9-11 happened.
Now, Bush leading us into Afghanistan no one can fault. 9-11 was bullshit, and (despite the cheering in some places in Europe and the Middle East when we got a bloody nose) no one faulted us banging back.
Iraq is a Bush mistake. Bush said the reasons for invasion were WMD’s, and that Saddam was bad and had to go. While not often remembered chemical weapons were found, they were from before the first Gulf War, but they also found stuff to make more. The cost of US lives is always bad, but at less than 5000 so far it’s almost a joke to make that an excuse. The US lost more troops in some battles in the past. 800K kids in the US are reported missing each year, and no one gets all bent over that, but those 5000 troops are going to ruin us. Iraq casualties are listed as somewhere between 80K to 1.2 million, of course 99.9% of them are from their own people and the majority of them are Christians killed by Muslims. While the whole mess didn’t need to happen, the Middle East isn’t in collapse, Iraq has bad days but is getting better, so that didn’t bring us to where we are. You just wouldn’t think so based on the negative media coverage the last few years.
Gas. Well, in a nation of lead foots with road tanks what do you expect? Asia is waking up, and they want cars too. Well we don’t want to hurt the environment, so what gas we do have is going to cost more. It’s the fault of citizens and businesses. No one wants new refineries in their back yard, or any nuke plants, or LNG plants, and even now people are bitching about the noise of wind farms. Not the presidents fault.
The mortgage crisis is the fault of the citizens and businesses, not the President. Greed and stupidity. Overbuilding by developers, home owners buying outside their means, and banks loaning to those who couldn’t afford it. Congress, dominated by Democrats, relaxed some laws as well, but even then, it’s still the individual citizens and businesses fault.
The stock market is upside down because of both gas prices increasing overhead costs and reducing spending. The mortgage crisis made a kick in the pants to banks, and the market gets jumpy. Those damn citizen investors and businesses again. Nope, not the President’s fault.
The negativity. Oh woe is us. The US won’t be a superpower anymore. We’ll collapse like the USSR did. There will be no power, no work, and we’ll starve as riots destroy us. Where is this coming from? Oh yea, the media, and the citizens. Not the President.
So if the Iraq war is Bush’s only real bo-bo, what was the cost? Just over $500 billion in the last 5 years. That’s a lot of money. In 5 years it’s almost as much as we spent on Social Security pay-outs in 2007.
So with all the above, is Bush the worst president in history? How much negativity is due to the press and Hollywood ramming their opinions down the throats of Americans and the rest of the world every day? I will say that due to Iraq, Bush is a poor president. He made a bad call that he should have avoided. Some of his stumbling in front of the camera with words are cute, but except for English majors, we all make mistakes with language. Just because some talking heads and actors don’t like him, and have made it their mission to let us know their opinion, doesn’t mean you have to believe it.
Time is the only real judge. In maybe 100 years, when we are all dead, will George W. Bush be able to be judged properly in the light of history. I would be more interested in the historians views on the press of our era in 100 years. Until then, we’re all just talking out of our own ass.
Comments
Sorry, Charlie, but the mortgage crisis goes right back to GOP stupidity, in the form of deregulation.
All the "securitization" of mortgages, particularly sub-prime with incredibly loose lending rules set the stage for the crisis. Adult supervision of Wall Street and investment banking was intentionally removed in 1999, when important provisions of Glass-Stegall were eliminated in a bill pushed by Phill Gramm. Bush and Cheney did NOTHING to undo this mistake, which I must admit had the approval of Bill Clinton, our best Republican President since Eisenhower. Bush took this idiotic "hands off" attitude and appointed foxes like Paulson to guard the henhouse. Those who demonstrated competence by questioning the policies of the Dear Leader were shown the door.
The upcoming depression is a Bush/Republican depression. The GOP is done, ruined, and fracked for a generation at least. They're going to be in the wilderness as they were from 1932 to 1952. Randite economics DO NOT WORK, because, as James Madison pointed out, if people were angels there'd be no need of government. Markets, as Adam Smith knew and wrote about in The Wealth of Nations, must be fostered and guarded by government regulation to function optimally. They are not forces of nature. They are social constructs and must be tended to, not allowed to self destruct and create economic ruin in the process, which is what we're seeing right now.
You've overlooked Bush's other massive failures, like Katrina and the politicalization of FEMA. FEMA's incompetence in 1992 with Hurricane David helped Bill Clinton toss Poppy Bush out of office. Clinton put FEMA into the hands of professional emergency planners, and FEMA once again fuctioned as it was supposed to. Bush instantly turned it back into a haven for political hacks with not so much as an hour of experience in emergency management, and with Katrina we see the results. Heck, we see the results with Ike. Texas is still a mess, but the in the tank corporate media isn't reporting on it...they're too busy jumping up and down and screaming about William Ayers and ACORN.
Then there was the politicalization of the Justice Department, installing utter hack Abu Gonzales, punishing US Attorneys for faithfully executing their duties and installing incompetent political hacks with purely political agendas in their place.
Iraq was the mistake of the century only three years in, and the damage it's done to the US standing in the world is incalculable. The stupid warmongering git has destroyed our Army, diminishing its power and its influence as a trump card. The Russians LAUGH at us as they do what they want in Georgia, because our Army is broken, and the Russians know it.
Don't get me started on the idiotic tax cuts for the most greedy and unworthy in this society that had doubled the national debt in 8 years. Defeating the Germans and the Japanese was less expensive that Bush's rampant spending.
Then there's the entire secrecy state, the illegal monitoring of communications, the destruction of our nuclear proliferation intellgence structure.
Then there's how our naiton has been degraded by Bush and Cheney's fascination with torture and how this has damaged our standing in the world as well.
I could go on and on about how utterly incompetent, power hungry, greedy, and just plain WRONG everything that King Midas in Reverse (everything he touches turns to shit) George W. Bush is.
History will judge him harshly. He is indeed the worst. president. ever.
What amazes me is that people who claim to be in favor of fiscal responsiblity and smaller government worship the cretin. They're so wrapped up in their ideological blinders that label Obama a socialist or terrorist that they don't realize how badly duped they are, what chumps they've been taken for.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
Sorry, Charlie, the sub prime mortgage crisis has to do with big government, not deregulation. Deregulate good debt, no problem. Deregulate government sponsored bad debt. Big problem. Combine it with government easy money, bigger problem. Combine that with years of big government spending, bigger problem.
But keep on hating, it's what you're good at.
fishermage.blogspot.com
Bush's approval rating, pre-9/11 was at historical lows.
Bush-bashing is too easy, but it was not just Bush.
It was Republican-domination of our government that has led to:
I am going to stop at 10. I could go on and on and on.
I actually changed parties from the Republican control. I was able to see what they are really all about when they control EVERYTHING, and it is very, very ugly, irresponsible, corrupt, costly, and even deadly.
Sorry, Charlie, the sub prime mortgage crisis has to do with big government, not deregulation. Deregulate good debt, no problem. Deregulate government sponsored bad debt. Big problem. Combine it with government easy money, bigger problem. Combine that with years of big government spending, bigger problem.
But keep on hating, it's what you're good at.
Fishermage, I respect you in regard to SWG, but you are woefully ignorant and displaying the same ideological blinders as others in regard to the current financial/economic crisis.
Deregulation created the securitization mess that resulted in the housing bubble where hundreds of thousands of mortgages are no longer backed up by the value of the property that is security. Futhermore, the "securitization" of mortgages has created bad debt that cannot be properly valued. Time honored standards regarding this debt were tossed out the window in an orgy of greed by mortgage brokers and bankers. Due diligence and fiduciary responsiblity were forgotten as these unsupervised children scrambled to get their fees and dump the debt on someone else. All of this made possible by the trashing of regulations that were in place to prevent the very things that are happening right now.
BTW this was all perfectly predictable and was predicted years ago, but none of the warnings were heeded because the money was flowing and all these banker/broker "Masters of the Universe" types were swimming in hookers and booze and didn't give a rat's ass because no one was minding the store. Bush and Cheney were cutting back on enforcement budgets because regulation was so oppresive.
What all this has done is destroy the trust needed from one bank to another that debts will be repayed. That's why there's a credit crunch on. Trust is a very fragile thing.
Hell, McCain and Palin in their stump speeches wail about government getting in the way, and then in the next sentence demanding tighter government controls.
Eight years ago that asstard Randite Greenspan was warning that surpluses were a danger to the economy because they were reducing the National Debt! Bush fixed THAT problem!
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
Good post, overall, Siobabble. The Federal Reserve is the source of this mess because easy-money policies created a housing bubble where there was all this money that was exploited by households (housing crash) and financial markets (credit crash).
Briefly, which I failed to mention:
Bush is a BIG Government politician. And he is a BIG Business politician.
BIG Government + Big Business = Disaster
Edit: how these anti-regultation (to protect them, the taxpayers) Republicans handle the growth of government during the Republican-domination Era is interesting for me to see
Grow Government + Raise Enormous Debt = Disaster
All I can say Sio...Is lollerz.
You think that Laissez-faire created this mess? Give me a break. We were doing, and have always done, quite peachy when the government is uninvolved. When it starts prodding it's nose in, that's when things get screwed to hell.
It's what happened during the great depression, it's what is happening now.
If laissez-faire capitalism was actually allowed to live in this country we would be FAR FAR FAR, away from a depression right now.
Socialism is what caused it. Socialism is what's furthering the disease. Socialism is the disease.
If anyone is ignorant to that fact, they are blind and doing exactly what the government wants. Becoming one of the sheeple. Herding along, forever turning their backs on what could get them out of this slavery, because of pure 100% brainwashing.
It's beautiful really, a beautiful scheme of epic cartoonish evil genius proportions.
"The greatest trick the devil played on humanity in the 20th century was convincing them that he didn't exist." (Paraphrasing) C.S. Lewis
"If a mother can kill her own child, what is left before I kill you and you kill me?" -Mother Teresa when talking about abortion after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979
The Fed was trying to "fine tune" the situation but once you've got the prime rate BELOW the rate of inflation you've pretty much exhausted any influence you can hope to exert. The easy money policies didn't disciplin the markets, they just encouraged more wreckless, thoughtless greed. Couple this with CEOs who view everything in the short term and concentrate on plundering their own companies via stock options, and you've got trouble for sure.
Glass-Stegall was created in response to similar trends in the 1920's that resulted in the Great Depression. Those regulations MADE SENSE. The market MUST BE governed. It will destroy itself if you let it. When Marx wrote of this he was building on Adam Smith's observations.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
It is bad Republican policies + bad central planning (Federal Reserve) + socialism (bail-outs).
If they continue to bail-out, and buy bad debts to help wealthy people, you will see a Great Depression. The cost will be enormous to buy shit. And it will not work.
For inside info, I know banks right now are trying to pile-up bad debts to get bailed out. McCain and his twin Bush have even publicly talked about
DO NOT BAIL-OUT THE BANKS! IT WILL CRUSH THE ECONOMY FOR BANKS TO HAVE A BETTER BALANCE SHEET. AND IT WILL NOT RELEASE MORE CREDIT - THE FED IS POURING TRILLIONS (with a T) AS I WRITE THIS!
I look at this current crisis and Bush and McCain remind me why I changed parties.
Obama was talking about
He is like the only one who is not generating bad ideas for how to resolve the current crisis. Yes. The credit market had to be unfreezed, but the way the Federal Reserve + U.S. Treasury + U.S. Congress did was irresponsible, in haste, and has made the problem much worse than necessary.
The threat: we will crush the economy unless you bail us out. Bailed-out. Did not help. Credit is still not thawing out. So now what? THEY WANT A BIGGER BAIL-OUT. LOL.
The stupid, it burns!
Another poster who sounds like a Marxist insisting that you can't say communism is a failure because it hasn't really been tried.
I suggest that you laissez faire die hards go to this site: calculatedrisk.blogspot.com and get educated on what is really going on here. Lazy Fair got us into this mess. It can't get us out. Relying on laissez faire to get us out is the equivalent of hitting glare ice on the road and removing your hands from the steering wheel to "let the market decide" where your car will go. It's insane.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
The Fed was trying to "fine tune" the situation but once you've got the prime rate BELOW the rate of inflation you've pretty much exhausted any influence you can hope to exert. The easy money policies didn't disciplin the markets, they just encouraged more wreckless, thoughtless greed. Couple this with CEOs who view everything in the short term and concentrate on plundering their own companies via stock options, and you've got trouble for sure.
Glass-Stegall was created in response to similar trends in the 1920's that resulted in the Great Depression. Those regulations MADE SENSE. The market MUST BE governed. It will destroy itself if you let it. When Marx wrote of this he was building on Adam Smith's observations.
It is refreshing that someone gets it.
You are right about stock options, which is an attempt to align the Officers interests in the corporation with that of the shareholders.
Briefly, for others, a stock option allows an officer, or corporate employee, to purchase the company's stock at a future time, usually after ten years, for a specified price. If the option price (strike price) is 5 dollars and ten years later the stock is worth 50, you can see the potential gain. As some of you know, dividends and capital gains are taxed at 15%, currently.
I have analyzed central banking in Europe, here, the UK, and China. I have to say the Chinese clearly have their things together. The USA central planning is truly like a third world country. The UK and ECB are much, much better than the USA.
We really need more transparency and accountability in our central planning process.
The bankers are clicking their heals right now, "let's meet! Let's meet!" they are saying. They are all going to get together and "resolve" this crisis that resulted from poor central planning (and as I have explained in other posts: credit rating agencies, deregulation, etc.).
The IRONY is that there is now MORE socialism, for the wealthy, as a result and even MORE centralized planning; and now they want coordinated central planning. What if the Chinese Central Bank were coordinated with the USA's? My God, who would bail us out? Imagine if the Chinese did not peg their currency to the dollar? My God!!! Who would save the USA?
I made a post about borrowing money, now, from the Saudi royal family and other wealthy Persian Gulf countries to redevelop American infrastructure again. We can tax the heck out of employees, as we do, who have no tax shelters. Let's build America again. We are borrowing, now, to bail-out bad debt that is the result of greed, irresponsibility, and recklessness.
It is bad Republican policies + bad central planning (Federal Reserve) + socialism (bail-outs).
If they continue to bail-out, and buy bad debts to help wealthy people, you will see a Great Depression. The cost will be enormous to buy shit. And it will not work.
For inside info, I know banks right now are trying to pile-up bad debts to get bailed out. McCain and his twin Bush have even publicly talked about
DO NOT BAIL-OUT THE BANKS! IT WILL CRUSH THE ECONOMY FOR BANKS TO HAVE A BETTER BALANCE SHEET. AND IT WILL NOT RELEASE MORE CREDIT - THE FED IS POURING TRILLIONS (with a T) AS I WRITE THIS!
I look at this current crisis and Bush and McCain remind me why I changed parties.
Obama was talking about
He is like the only one who is not generating bad ideas for how to resolve the current crisis. Yes. The credit market had to be unfreezed, but the way the Federal Reserve + U.S. Treasury + U.S. Congress did was irresponsible, in haste, and has made the problem much worse than necessary.
The threat: we will crush the economy unless you bail us out. Bailed-out. Did not help. Credit is still not thawing out. So now what? THEY WANT A BIGGER BAIL-OUT. LOL.
Bad republican planning? It's the whole system. They're all in on it, that's the problem. They're all a bunch of twits who haven't a clue except the fastest way to screw over the american people.
And Obama, are you kidding me? He voted in favor of the first bail-out. The man is just a snake oil salesmen who knows how to talk, manipulate, and change his colors to chameleon like abilities.
You had your mind on the right track, until you started hoisting up Obama. The two people running are the devil and his brother.
Don't trust anyone with horns!
"The greatest trick the devil played on humanity in the 20th century was convincing them that he didn't exist." (Paraphrasing) C.S. Lewis
"If a mother can kill her own child, what is left before I kill you and you kill me?" -Mother Teresa when talking about abortion after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979
Cool, I sparked debate. Lets keep it civil between ourselves.
I'm not an economics expert, so I can easily be wrong on the economy. Considering all those banks in trouble now are run by econimics experts, who's to say they are right? I still think it comes down to the citizens and businesses greed. Not the gummit holding our hands. I can't afford payments on a half million dollar particle board house, so if a bank is dumb enough to mortgage me, who's the bigger idiot?
As for Bush and New Orleans, well, if your sea-side city is below sea level, and a dozen or so hurricanes roll through each year...you have to expect she's gunna get wet. I guess Bush can be blamed for not doing more faster, or maybe he can go back in time and get them to backfill the land before building. If Bush is to blame for not acting faster, who's to blame for all those idiots living in a drowning zone?
Like I said, I think Bush is a poor president. I also think the rough times we are facing are our own problems we created ourselves. You go back far enough you could link crap together and blame Washington or Lincoln for the current problems.
I do feel very strongly that the media has alot to answer for. Propaganda is powerful, and they control it. If whoever the next president is gets on their bad side, you can bet Bush will look like a saint and they will be the new village idiot.
I can debunk your argument with one simple question. If the current economic crisis is the result of Republican policies, why isn't the Democratic Congress holding investigative hearings and putting those responsible front and center for the whole country to see? Why, because its the democrats themselves who deserve the most blame for this mess. Henry Waxman is the king of congressional hearings. Every time a Republican sneezes, he convenes a hearing. He is notoriously silent on this one. In fact, under pressure, he finally gave in to demands to hold hearings on the Fanny Mae - Freddie Mac fiasco, but he has put no timetable on them and is obviously waiting until after the presidential election.
And two of the men most responsible, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, are hiding under their desks hoping this whole thing might blow over. Dodd, in particular, might find himself in real trouble by the time this is done.
The stupid, it burns!
Another poster who sounds like a Marxist insisting that you can't say communism is a failure because it hasn't really been tried.
I suggest that you laissez faire die hards go to this site: calculatedrisk.com and follow some links and get educated on what is really going on here. Lazy Fair got us into this mess. It can't get us out. Relying on laissez faire to get us out is the equivalent of hitting glare ice on the road and removing your hands from the steering wheel to "let the market decide" where your car will go. It's insane.
True Laissez faire has worked, everytime it's been implemented into a countries workings it has caused it's economy to boom into sky high limits. How do you think we became the worlds greatest superpower? Socialism? Give me a break. As soon as George "In disguise as a conservative" Bush started expanding the government in ways that would make any die hard socialist shed a tear of joy for the final destruction of capitalism.
Instead of trying to let the country fix itself out, the government intervenes and furthers it's socialist planning, bail-outs & buy-outs that will further weaken the economy and lead us into a non-returnable destructive course.
Socialism in its ideal is a belief that nobody ever really grows up, and always needs shepharding over. The irony is this though. The belief that one man cannot take care of one man, therefor one man must take care of one thousand men.
"The greatest trick the devil played on humanity in the 20th century was convincing them that he didn't exist." (Paraphrasing) C.S. Lewis
"If a mother can kill her own child, what is left before I kill you and you kill me?" -Mother Teresa when talking about abortion after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979
The stupid, it burns!
Another poster who sounds like a Marxist insisting that you can't say communism is a failure because it hasn't really been tried.
I suggest that you laissez faire die hards go to this site: calculatedrisk.com and follow some links and get educated on what is really going on here. Lazy Fair got us into this mess. It can't get us out. Relying on laissez faire to get us out is the equivalent of hitting glare ice on the road and removing your hands from the steering wheel to "let the market decide" where your car will go. It's insane.
True Laissez faire has worked, everytime it's been implemented into a countries workings it has caused it's economy to boom into sky high limits. How do you think we became the worlds greatest superpower? Socialism? Give me a break. As soon as George "In disguise as a conservative" Bush started expanding the government in ways that would make any die hard socialist shed a tear of joy for the final destruction of capitalism.
Instead of trying to let the country fix itself out, the government intervenes and furthers it's socialist planning, bail-outs & buy-outs that will further weaken the economy and lead us into a non-returnable destructive course.
Socialism in its ideal is a belief that nobody ever really grows up, and always needs shepharding over. The irony is this though. The belief that one man cannot take care of one man, therefor one man must take care of one thousand men.
The abject ignorance of history and economics I see on these boards is appalling.
When did the US become the world's greatest power?
WWII
Under FDR's New Deal.
When did the US enjoy its highest rate of economic growth?
The 1950's, when the marginal tax rate was 90%
All those New Deal regulations were still in place then.
All you laissez faire defenders have obviously not studied history, and have obviously never gotten beyond Econ 102 (Macro Econ) to the more advanced classes where you find that laissez faire seems to work really well in theory, but only if you ignore the details, and there are plenty of details. Wait, I take that back. I don't think you bothered with Macro Econ. You only took Micro Econ (basic supply and demand) without studying anything beyond that.
None of you apparently has ever read The Wealth of Nations, which is the world's most unread but often cited book the best I can tell. Adam Smith would dismiss you as naifs or fools.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
I take it you don't get CSPAN so you haven't seen the hearings over the last week? You didn't see the AIG guys fidgeting in their chairs in front of a bunch of Congressmen? Or Paulson and Bernake trying to explain why we should hand the Ferengi slime of Wall Street a blank check for $700 billion?
WTF is wrong with you people? Do you all get every last bit of news from the Mainstream Corporate Media which is far too busy ignoring Congress' actions and tracking what Sarah Palin did today? Do you get no news at all from any source other than Hannity, O'Reilly, Beck, and Limbaugh?
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
Sorry, Charlie, the sub prime mortgage crisis has to do with big government, not deregulation. Deregulate good debt, no problem. Deregulate government sponsored bad debt. Big problem. Combine it with government easy money, bigger problem. Combine that with years of big government spending, bigger problem.
But keep on hating, it's what you're good at.
Fishermage, I respect you in regard to SWG, but you are woefully ignorant and displaying the same ideological blinders as others in regard to the current financial/economic crisis.
Deregulation created the securitization mess that resulted in the housing bubble where hundreds of thousands of mortgages are no longer backed up by the value of the property that is security. Futhermore, the "securitization" of mortgages has created bad debt that cannot be properly valued. Time honored standards regarding this debt were tossed out the window in an orgy of greed by mortgage brokers and bankers. Due diligence and fiduciary responsiblity were forgotten as these unsupervised children scrambled to get their fees and dump the debt on someone else. All of this made possible by the trashing of regulations that were in place to prevent the very things that are happening right now.
BTW this was all perfectly predictable and was predicted years ago, but none of the warnings were heeded because the money was flowing and all these banker/broker "Masters of the Universe" types were swimming in hookers and booze and didn't give a rat's ass because no one was minding the store. Bush and Cheney were cutting back on enforcement budgets because regulation was so oppresive.
What all this has done is destroy the trust needed from one bank to another that debts will be repayed. That's why there's a credit crunch on. Trust is a very fragile thing.
Hell, McCain and Palin in their stump speeches wail about government getting in the way, and then in the next sentence demanding tighter government controls.
Eight years ago that asstard Randite Greenspan was warning that surpluses were a danger to the economy because they were reducing the National Debt! Bush fixed THAT problem!
Sorry, you are simply wrong and obviously can't see beyond your emotions and your hate. You simply have it all backwards.
fishermage.blogspot.com
Sorry, Charlie, the sub prime mortgage crisis has to do with big government, not deregulation. Deregulate good debt, no problem. Deregulate government sponsored bad debt. Big problem. Combine it with government easy money, bigger problem. Combine that with years of big government spending, bigger problem.
But keep on hating, it's what you're good at.
Fishermage, I respect you in regard to SWG, but you are woefully ignorant and displaying the same ideological blinders as others in regard to the current financial/economic crisis.
Deregulation created the securitization mess that resulted in the housing bubble where hundreds of thousands of mortgages are no longer backed up by the value of the property that is security. Futhermore, the "securitization" of mortgages has created bad debt that cannot be properly valued. Time honored standards regarding this debt were tossed out the window in an orgy of greed by mortgage brokers and bankers. Due diligence and fiduciary responsiblity were forgotten as these unsupervised children scrambled to get their fees and dump the debt on someone else. All of this made possible by the trashing of regulations that were in place to prevent the very things that are happening right now.
BTW this was all perfectly predictable and was predicted years ago, but none of the warnings were heeded because the money was flowing and all these banker/broker "Masters of the Universe" types were swimming in hookers and booze and didn't give a rat's ass because no one was minding the store. Bush and Cheney were cutting back on enforcement budgets because regulation was so oppresive.
What all this has done is destroy the trust needed from one bank to another that debts will be repayed. That's why there's a credit crunch on. Trust is a very fragile thing.
Hell, McCain and Palin in their stump speeches wail about government getting in the way, and then in the next sentence demanding tighter government controls.
Eight years ago that asstard Randite Greenspan was warning that surpluses were a danger to the economy because they were reducing the National Debt! Bush fixed THAT problem!
Sorry, you are simply wrong and obviously can't see beyond your emotions and your hate. You simply have it all backwards.
This is one of the most abject surrenders to one of my arguments I've ever seen, and I've been kicking around the Intertubes for 16 years.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
The stupid, it burns!
Another poster who sounds like a Marxist insisting that you can't say communism is a failure because it hasn't really been tried.
I suggest that you laissez faire die hards go to this site: calculatedrisk.com and follow some links and get educated on what is really going on here. Lazy Fair got us into this mess. It can't get us out. Relying on laissez faire to get us out is the equivalent of hitting glare ice on the road and removing your hands from the steering wheel to "let the market decide" where your car will go. It's insane.
True Laissez faire has worked, everytime it's been implemented into a countries workings it has caused it's economy to boom into sky high limits. How do you think we became the worlds greatest superpower? Socialism? Give me a break. As soon as George "In disguise as a conservative" Bush started expanding the government in ways that would make any die hard socialist shed a tear of joy for the final destruction of capitalism.
Instead of trying to let the country fix itself out, the government intervenes and furthers it's socialist planning, bail-outs & buy-outs that will further weaken the economy and lead us into a non-returnable destructive course.
Socialism in its ideal is a belief that nobody ever really grows up, and always needs shepharding over. The irony is this though. The belief that one man cannot take care of one man, therefor one man must take care of one thousand men.
The abject ignorance of history and economics I see on these boards is appalling.
When did the US become the world's greatest power?
WWII
Under FDR's New Deal.
When did the US enjoy its highest rate of economic growth?
The 1950's, when the marginal tax rate was 90%
All those New Deal regulations were still in place then.
All you laissez faire defenders have obviously not studied history, and have obviously never gotten beyond Econ 102 (Macro Econ) to the more advanced classes where you find that laissez faire seems to work really well in theory, but only if you ignore the details, and there are plenty of details. Wait, I take that back. I don't think you bothered with Macro Econ. You only took Micro Econ (basic supply and demand) without studying anything beyond that.
None of you apparently has ever read The Wealth of Nations, which is the world's most unread but often cited book the best I can tell. Adam Smith would dismiss you as naifs or fools.
The new deal didn't work. The war jumpstarted the economy. The fact is we were the MOST capitalist country on earth at the time; and we prospered. As the government has gotten bigger and bigger, and other countries have embraced markets, we have lost that. When those countries went more socialist, as with europe they suffered chronic unemployment. As they embraced markets again (not fully of course but to the extent that they have), they have propsered.
Meanwhile we have been rushing headfirst towards socialism, and failing. Now it has collapsed on us -- everything YOU stand for is what has failed us, but you are too full of hate and blinded by ideology to see it. There was no capitalism that failed; only capitalism that succeeded and competing socilaism that failed.
The people decided to vote themselves the treasury, and here we are -- in a world that you beliefs have made.
Now we can decide whether to allow freedom to get us out of it, or allow your beliefs to continue dragging us down.
fishermage.blogspot.com
Sorry, Charlie, the sub prime mortgage crisis has to do with big government, not deregulation. Deregulate good debt, no problem. Deregulate government sponsored bad debt. Big problem. Combine it with government easy money, bigger problem. Combine that with years of big government spending, bigger problem.
But keep on hating, it's what you're good at.
Fishermage, I respect you in regard to SWG, but you are woefully ignorant and displaying the same ideological blinders as others in regard to the current financial/economic crisis.
Deregulation created the securitization mess that resulted in the housing bubble where hundreds of thousands of mortgages are no longer backed up by the value of the property that is security. Futhermore, the "securitization" of mortgages has created bad debt that cannot be properly valued. Time honored standards regarding this debt were tossed out the window in an orgy of greed by mortgage brokers and bankers. Due diligence and fiduciary responsiblity were forgotten as these unsupervised children scrambled to get their fees and dump the debt on someone else. All of this made possible by the trashing of regulations that were in place to prevent the very things that are happening right now.
BTW this was all perfectly predictable and was predicted years ago, but none of the warnings were heeded because the money was flowing and all these banker/broker "Masters of the Universe" types were swimming in hookers and booze and didn't give a rat's ass because no one was minding the store. Bush and Cheney were cutting back on enforcement budgets because regulation was so oppresive.
What all this has done is destroy the trust needed from one bank to another that debts will be repayed. That's why there's a credit crunch on. Trust is a very fragile thing.
Hell, McCain and Palin in their stump speeches wail about government getting in the way, and then in the next sentence demanding tighter government controls.
Eight years ago that asstard Randite Greenspan was warning that surpluses were a danger to the economy because they were reducing the National Debt! Bush fixed THAT problem!
Sorry, you are simply wrong and obviously can't see beyond your emotions and your hate. You simply have it all backwards.
This is one of the most abject surrenders to one of my arguments I've ever seen, and I've been kicking around the Intertubes for 16 years.
Sure it is. Sorry, I've simply seen your weak arguments before and seen them been destroyed more times than I can count -- I have done it myself to you several times. NOW I am merely explaining WHY you simply continue with the same hate-filled rants. There is nothing new you have said that I haven't previously dealt with. Why go over it again?
fishermage.blogspot.com
Perhaps it is you who needs to open your eyes and look the truth squarely in the face. Your liberal bias is not going to save you on this one. The Democrats have their hands all over this mess. Whether or not they will succeed in burying the truth from the public, who knows. I hope not.
You can start here. This doesn't come from Hannity, O'Reilly, Limbaugh or Beck.
It can't be civil with Siobabble. It is not in his nature.
fishermage.blogspot.com
The stupid, it burns!
Another poster who sounds like a Marxist insisting that you can't say communism is a failure because it hasn't really been tried.
I suggest that you laissez faire die hards go to this site: calculatedrisk.com and follow some links and get educated on what is really going on here. Lazy Fair got us into this mess. It can't get us out. Relying on laissez faire to get us out is the equivalent of hitting glare ice on the road and removing your hands from the steering wheel to "let the market decide" where your car will go. It's insane.
True Laissez faire has worked, everytime it's been implemented into a countries workings it has caused it's economy to boom into sky high limits. How do you think we became the worlds greatest superpower? Socialism? Give me a break. As soon as George "In disguise as a conservative" Bush started expanding the government in ways that would make any die hard socialist shed a tear of joy for the final destruction of capitalism.
Instead of trying to let the country fix itself out, the government intervenes and furthers it's socialist planning, bail-outs & buy-outs that will further weaken the economy and lead us into a non-returnable destructive course.
Socialism in its ideal is a belief that nobody ever really grows up, and always needs shepharding over. The irony is this though. The belief that one man cannot take care of one man, therefor one man must take care of one thousand men.
The abject ignorance of history and economics I see on these boards is appalling.
When did the US become the world's greatest power?
WWII
Under FDR's New Deal.
When did the US enjoy its highest rate of economic growth?
The 1950's, when the marginal tax rate was 90%
All those New Deal regulations were still in place then.
All you laissez faire defenders have obviously not studied history, and have obviously never gotten beyond Econ 102 (Macro Econ) to the more advanced classes where you find that laissez faire seems to work really well in theory, but only if you ignore the details, and there are plenty of details. Wait, I take that back. I don't think you bothered with Macro Econ. You only took Micro Econ (basic supply and demand) without studying anything beyond that.
None of you apparently has ever read The Wealth of Nations, which is the world's most unread but often cited book the best I can tell. Adam Smith would dismiss you as naifs or fools.
FDR's new deals did next to nothing. It's amusing that you mention that, since they were shut down during World war II, and it was the industrial war machine that brought us out of the depression. FDR was an atrocious president that had more or less no hand in bringing our country out of the depression it faced.
And it's proof that you are truly delusional that you would bring Adam Smith and the Wealth of Nations up as a back up for your talking point. Adam Smith was a capitalist, in fact, he is praised as the forefather of modern laissez-faire economics.
You may prove that the wealth of nations is a truly obscure book, because apparantly you have not read it.
I am finished argueing against you though. You obviously have not a grasp of even the points you are talking about, and your ego and desire to believe that socialism has ever done this world any favor is so mis-lead that even you know it deep inside, which would explain your aggressive and snide tone.
Do yourself a favor, actually read the wealth of nations. It's a good and logical treatise on the values of free market enterprise.
"The greatest trick the devil played on humanity in the 20th century was convincing them that he didn't exist." (Paraphrasing) C.S. Lewis
"If a mother can kill her own child, what is left before I kill you and you kill me?" -Mother Teresa when talking about abortion after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979
The stupid, it burns!
Another poster who sounds like a Marxist insisting that you can't say communism is a failure because it hasn't really been tried.
I suggest that you laissez faire die hards go to this site: calculatedrisk.com and follow some links and get educated on what is really going on here. Lazy Fair got us into this mess. It can't get us out. Relying on laissez faire to get us out is the equivalent of hitting glare ice on the road and removing your hands from the steering wheel to "let the market decide" where your car will go. It's insane.
True Laissez faire has worked, everytime it's been implemented into a countries workings it has caused it's economy to boom into sky high limits. How do you think we became the worlds greatest superpower? Socialism? Give me a break. As soon as George "In disguise as a conservative" Bush started expanding the government in ways that would make any die hard socialist shed a tear of joy for the final destruction of capitalism.
Instead of trying to let the country fix itself out, the government intervenes and furthers it's socialist planning, bail-outs & buy-outs that will further weaken the economy and lead us into a non-returnable destructive course.
Socialism in its ideal is a belief that nobody ever really grows up, and always needs shepharding over. The irony is this though. The belief that one man cannot take care of one man, therefor one man must take care of one thousand men.
The abject ignorance of history and economics I see on these boards is appalling.
When did the US become the world's greatest power?
WWII
Under FDR's New Deal.
When did the US enjoy its highest rate of economic growth?
The 1950's, when the marginal tax rate was 90%
All those New Deal regulations were still in place then.
All you laissez faire defenders have obviously not studied history, and have obviously never gotten beyond Econ 102 (Macro Econ) to the more advanced classes where you find that laissez faire seems to work really well in theory, but only if you ignore the details, and there are plenty of details. Wait, I take that back. I don't think you bothered with Macro Econ. You only took Micro Econ (basic supply and demand) without studying anything beyond that.
None of you apparently has ever read The Wealth of Nations, which is the world's most unread but often cited book the best I can tell. Adam Smith would dismiss you as naifs or fools.
FDR's new deals did next to nothing. It's amusing that you mention that, since they were shut down during World war II, and it was the industrial war machine that brought us out of the depression. FDR was an atrocious president that had more or less no hand in bringing our country out of the depression it faced.
And it's proof that you are truly delusional that you would bring Adam Smith and the Wealth of Nations up as a back up for your talking point. Adam Smith was a capitalist, in fact, he is praised as the forefather of modern laissez-faire economics.
You may prove that the wealth of nations is a truly obscure book, because apparantly you have not read it.
I am finished argueing against you though. You obviously have not a grasp of even the points you are talking about, and your ego and desire to believe that socialism has ever done this world any favor is so mis-lead that even you know it deep inside, which would explain your aggressive and snide tone.
Do yourself a favor, actually read the wealth of nations. It's a good and logical treatise on the values of free market enterprise.
He just hates and rants; he really never argues for anything in the traditional way. He can't be civil -- just knows how to attack (well sort of -- he doesn't do it very well). he has a few things he has memorized and he spits them out with venom against all who disagree with him.
fishermage.blogspot.com
fishermage.blogspot.com/2008/09/decent-analysis.html
fishermage.blogspot.com/2008/09/good-ole-ron.html
fishermage.blogspot.com/2008/09/ibd-confirms-blame-clinton.html
fishermage.blogspot.com/2008/09/more-evidence-that-its-democrats-stupid.html
fishermage.blogspot.com/2008/10/evidence-keeps-mounting.html
These few articles I reference here are just the beginning. On the other side we have the Democrat talking points; and Mother Jones Magazine, and the Daily Kos.
Now granted, BOTH parties are partially responsible here; but the biggest culprits are Democrats. America's socialist chickens are coming home to roost -- those socialists are of the "right" and the "left," but there are more on the left.
The "deregulation" issue is the deregulation of corrupt socialist entities -- fannie mae, freddie mac, and the banks who securitized THEIR bad debts. It was the deregulation of socialism, not capitalism. None of this had anything capitalist about it at all. This was a predominantly socilialist system with a capitalist spine on easy money steroids.
fishermage.blogspot.com