i agree with the conservatives on this one...
there was a headline in today's las vegas review journal that said, "housing rescue plan under fire from conservatives" and i must admit they have a good point. senator tom coburn (r-okla.) said he was against the bill because it would "reward stupidity on the part of people who bought homes they couldn't afford." i think the majority of the sub prime loans went to people who were greedy and stupid. i think they didn't buy the home and believe that their income was going to go up so much that they could afford payments twice as high as the original but because they thought they could sell the home for a profit before the payments went up. that makes them stupid AND greedy which is a sure fire formula for failure. stupid because they thought housing would keep increasing by double digits yearly and greedy because they thought they would make a lot of money by selling and then stupid again because they didn't factor in that they would then have to either buy or rent another home and if prices were still going up at that rate then their "profits" would be lost because of the higher price they would then have to pay for their new place and then greedy again because they thought they could do this ad infintium which is, of course, stupid. plus, many of these houses are owned by "investors" who didn't live in the home but thought they could flip it quick.
the banks and mortgage companies were stupid and greedy as well. there is no possible way that the banks thought these people would be able to afford the new and much higher payments because many, if not most, of them had shaky credit to start with. the banks thought that the buyers would be able to sell the home before the payments went up which makes them stupid and greedy for the very same reasons as the buyers were stupid and greedy.
so now, the stupid and greedy buyers and the stupid and greedy lenders and the stupid and greedy real estate people want the rest of us to bail them out from their stupidity and greed.
no thanks.
if we are going to bail out some homeowners may i suggest NEW ORLEANS. just a thought.
now joe, my probably republican poster, has said that i overstated the inflation rate and that we were not suffering "historically high" rates of inflation. well gee, let's look. gas up 181% in 7 years for a 25.9% per year increase, housing up, even counting the recent turndown, 160% in 7 years for 22.9% per year increase, heating oil and electricity up about the same. in the last year, pork has gone up 50 cents a pound, beef is up 20%, a five gallon jug of canola that used to cost 15 dollars in now 40 dollars, a 50 pound bag of flour jumped from 7 dollars to 23 dollars. not only that but if you own a cafe not only do you pay these prices you must also pay a fuel surcharge of between 5-9 dollars on all deliveries.
a survey done by the NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS found that for the first time in 25 years, small business owners said INFLATION was their single biggest concern.
gosh, joe, think of all those brain washed business owners; they just don't realize how well bush's policies are working. and those poor misguided souls who think they are paying over 4 dollars per gallon when you know that it has not gone up; it is just an illusion.
the unemployment rate went up in may higher than any time since 1986 when, incidently, a republican was in the white house. (as i have pointed out before republicans historically bring on debt and recessions because they keep trying to convince people that trickle down is not the same as being pissed upon ... but it is.)
job growth lowest in 15 years. job losses last month...49,000. i will pass the word on to them, joe, that this is all the democrats fault they have been secretly running the government the past 7 and half years.
small businesses are the centerpiece of the american economy and they are being hammered right now. ah, but the oil companies and the insurance companies are doing quite well. we gave tax breaks to the oil companies under bush...have they passed that savings on to us? uhhhh, no.
john mc cain flipped flopped again. he used to be against drilling off shore but now he is for it. we will never know just really where senator mc cain stands on anything, other than war, of course, because he keeps changing his positions depending on which way the wind blows or the religious right tells him what his position should be. (see roe v. wade, gay rights, bush tax cuts, etc etc etc)
the lakers really went into the tank against the celtics; they looked beaten, bruised, confused and afraid. soft? as a feather pillow.
the banks and mortgage companies were stupid and greedy as well. there is no possible way that the banks thought these people would be able to afford the new and much higher payments because many, if not most, of them had shaky credit to start with. the banks thought that the buyers would be able to sell the home before the payments went up which makes them stupid and greedy for the very same reasons as the buyers were stupid and greedy.
so now, the stupid and greedy buyers and the stupid and greedy lenders and the stupid and greedy real estate people want the rest of us to bail them out from their stupidity and greed.
no thanks.
if we are going to bail out some homeowners may i suggest NEW ORLEANS. just a thought.
now joe, my probably republican poster, has said that i overstated the inflation rate and that we were not suffering "historically high" rates of inflation. well gee, let's look. gas up 181% in 7 years for a 25.9% per year increase, housing up, even counting the recent turndown, 160% in 7 years for 22.9% per year increase, heating oil and electricity up about the same. in the last year, pork has gone up 50 cents a pound, beef is up 20%, a five gallon jug of canola that used to cost 15 dollars in now 40 dollars, a 50 pound bag of flour jumped from 7 dollars to 23 dollars. not only that but if you own a cafe not only do you pay these prices you must also pay a fuel surcharge of between 5-9 dollars on all deliveries.
a survey done by the NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS found that for the first time in 25 years, small business owners said INFLATION was their single biggest concern.
gosh, joe, think of all those brain washed business owners; they just don't realize how well bush's policies are working. and those poor misguided souls who think they are paying over 4 dollars per gallon when you know that it has not gone up; it is just an illusion.
the unemployment rate went up in may higher than any time since 1986 when, incidently, a republican was in the white house. (as i have pointed out before republicans historically bring on debt and recessions because they keep trying to convince people that trickle down is not the same as being pissed upon ... but it is.)
job growth lowest in 15 years. job losses last month...49,000. i will pass the word on to them, joe, that this is all the democrats fault they have been secretly running the government the past 7 and half years.
small businesses are the centerpiece of the american economy and they are being hammered right now. ah, but the oil companies and the insurance companies are doing quite well. we gave tax breaks to the oil companies under bush...have they passed that savings on to us? uhhhh, no.
john mc cain flipped flopped again. he used to be against drilling off shore but now he is for it. we will never know just really where senator mc cain stands on anything, other than war, of course, because he keeps changing his positions depending on which way the wind blows or the religious right tells him what his position should be. (see roe v. wade, gay rights, bush tax cuts, etc etc etc)
the lakers really went into the tank against the celtics; they looked beaten, bruised, confused and afraid. soft? as a feather pillow.
posted by Ron Shock | 9:14 AM
7 Comments:
Well Ron, I am a Republican for the most part. I know that isn't a shock (no pun intended) but I'm not the right wing extremist you might think. But enough about me.
During the past year or so (since the liberals took control) many things have gone wrong. No question. But is it fair to judge the entire Bush administration based largely on the very recent past? I don't think so.
Compare the Misery Index - the Unemployment rate + the Inflation Rate - during the Clinton and Bush years and you will find they are very close to the same.
The inflation rate under Clinton averaged 2.59%. For Bush it has been 2.69%. It was 9.73 under Carter.
The unemployment rate under Clinton averaged 5.20%. Under Bush it has been 5.19%.
If you insist on just pulling out the worst year of a presidency vs. using the average of the term, then Clinton's worst year was 6.91% compared with Bush's worst year of 5.99%. It isn't fair to use the year of 2008 since the year obviously isn't over yet.
As for your beef, pork, and food prices jumping - you want to blame Bush for that too? Well, I think the environmentalist can take a huge chunk of the blame for that, don't you? By pushing ethanol as the fuel of the future, we are using 33% of our corn crop as a fuel to replace 3% of our oil usage. It takes 1700 gallons of water to produce one gallon of ethanol. As a result of the ravenous need for corn, many other crops are not being replaced with corn, which leads to higher prices across the board. And instead of using corn for grain to feed livestock, it is going into our fuel tanks. Higher grain prices, higher beef and pork prices. I'm not dismissing GWBs role in this but I find it a bit disingenuous to attempt to lay all of this blame at his feet when the liberal House and Senate are pushing this extremely hard.
You talk about cherry picking evidence for the war in Iraq yet you are doing the same thing with your stats in your recent post. I just don't think it's fair to use unemployment rate in May as some sort of benchmark to rate the entire 7 plus years of the Bush administration.
Although I absolutely do not support a mortgage industry bailout, I don't think most of the problems were greed. In some cases, it was "with housing prices going up, if we don't buy now, we will never be able to".
Have you read the recent story of the lawmakers who called the head of Countrywide, and got special deals on their mortgages, and now there's a bill to bail Countrywide out? But that's not special treatment...
Hey Ron,
Take a few minutes and read this article by Ed Wallace. You'll have a better understanding of what's really going on with the so-called "oil crisis" when you're done.
And it will probably knock your socks off.
Part one:
http://www.star-telegram.com/ed_wallace/story/651928.html
Part two:
http://www.star-telegram.com/ed_wallace/story/659081.html
I'm real interested to see what you'll think after reading this.
sevensteen,
i think you are wrong for the most part and i stick by my "stupid and greedy" theory; however, a large number (but nowhere near a majority nor the other two) of sub prime buyers fit into your catagory. even then, they should have realized that their income was not going up enough to make the payments which fits under the "stupid" heading.
granted some good people are going to lose their homes due to circumstances beyond their control but we can't bail out the whole mess regardless.
jt.
i pulled the first article up and have read most of it and my blood is boiling. tomorrow when i am more awake and alert i am going to read both. looks like we are being fucked again and the fucking gang is quite large.
Most telling about the posts between Joe and Ron is that Joe would have thrown Ron out of the country for expressing his views, and Ron wouldn’t even kick Joe off his blog. This exactly expresses the core difference between what is termed a modern conservative and a liberal. I make the modern distinction for my use of the word ‘conservative’ because, though Joe uses the word ‘liberal’ as a pejorative, traditionally the word ‘liberal’ has few such negative connotations.
With regard to your first point, yes, of course you aren’t running for president. Obviously, you can’t. You’re a convicted felon.
Regarding your second point, you admit you’re not exactly big on family values, given your own marital history. But then where do you come off criticizing anyone else’s marital history? By doing so, you become just another hypocrite, like those preachers who rant about the sins of others and are then caught using drugs or soliciting prostitutes.
You say you encourage intellectual discussion, but most of your political comments about John McCain consist of little more than denigrating personal attacks.
Like I told you, if you choose to throw stones, don’t be surprised if some of them get tossed back at you.
A. Everybody is open to criticize who they wish and for whatever they wish.
B. Ron's criticism of McCain is that McCain is trumpeting his values when he's demonstrated a lack of them.
That's a huge difference than if Ron were engaging in a personal war with McCain. Then you'd be right to call him out.
As it is, it's flatly wrong to twist and manipulate what Ron -- or anyone -- says about McCain's personal hypocrisy because this is about McCain.
If you want to make it about anyone else -- Ron or anybody -- then you're missing the point, twisting and manipulating the conversation, and generally just making a random, unsolicited personal attack.
...
I've been divorced. And I'm telling you that John McCain is a hypocrite, a liar and has a documented history of womanizing, and therefore he should not trumpet his family values.
THAT'S TRUE whether I've been divorced or not. ... And THAT'S TRUE whether Ron has been ridden more than Seattle Slew or if Ron were the freaking Pope. It does not change one thing about McCain.
Not one.
I'm sure you'll twist and manipulate this into something it's not, too, so have at it.
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