theater of the absurd and my concerns (for what it is worth)
monday morning: john mc cain takes credit for passage of the economic bail out bill.
monday morning: willard (mitt) romney says on national television, that if it wasn't for john mccain's leadership, the bill would have failed and if you want to see what real leadership looks like, then all you have to do is look at john mc cain and how he got this bill through congress.
monday afternoon: bill fails when republicans vote against it.
monday afternoon: john mc cain blames senator obama for bill's failure and then says this is no time for "blame game."
monday afternoon: rep. cantor (r) says that they (repubs) were going to vote for it but were offended when nancy pelosi made a speech saying it was george bush's economic policies that got us here.
monday afternoon: barney frank (d) says if the republicans will give him the names of the supposed 12 who switched their vote, he will go and speak to them in nice way.
so, what we have is a republican party who has no leader:
john mc cain could not bring them together.
george bush could not bring them together.
the whip (republican leader of the house) could not bring them together.
what kind of "leadership" is it, when your own party won't follow you.
NONE of the arizona house republicans voted for the bill. that is how highly they think of john ("i made this happen") mc cain.
theater of the absurd.
understand something here: i am still not sure if this bail out bill is a good idea! i think congress needs to spend more time listening to economists from the entire spectrum of political philosophy. i think they need to address the bigger problem of jobs before they bail out wall street and the banks. i think more regulations must be put on "wall street" so that this does not happen again. BUT i am not any kind of expert and there are good people on both sides of the aisle in washington who say that we MUST do this and do it now and maybe, just maybe, they do know what they are talking about. our market dropped 777 points today, the biggest POINT (but not percentage) drop in HISTORY. world wide markets are tanking as well, so maybe, just maybe, they are right.
however there are several problems that are not being addressed and these problems affect each and every one of us who are not millionaires.
a. we, as a people, are in debt up to our eyebrows and they are saying we need this bailout so we can borrow more money. hmmmm
b. they say that housing prices must "stabilize" so homes will start selling. yeah well, housing prices are still artificially high thanks to the sub-prime mortgages, which led to the incredible and incredibly stupid run up in prices from 02-06. MOST HOMES ARE SOLD TO MIDDLE CLASS PEOPLE BECAUSE THERE ARE MORE MIDDLE CLASS PEOPLE THAN ANY OTHER GROUP. WAGES HAVE NOT GONE UP IN THE PAST 8 YEARS, SO WHEN YOU RAISE PRICES BEYOND WHAT THE MIDDLE CLASS CAN AFFORD, THEN THERE IS NO WAY THAT THEY CAN BUY. duh. home prices do not need to stabilize, they need to COME DOWN SOME MORE. duh. hmmmm.
c. we have lost 600,000 jobs this year and millions overall since bush came into office. if there are fewer middle class jobs, then there are fewer middle class people to buy all these homes. since most middle class people are now afraid for their jobs, they are holding back from making big financial expenditures. EVERY DAY, WE ARE LOSING MORE JOBS, SO WHO IS GOING TO BUY THESE STILL OVER-PRICED HOMES?
d. if we put all this money into wall street, it means we have "printed" more money, which leads to higher inflation and if inflation takes off (and it is already much higher than washington admits), then how are people going to be able to afford to buy things?
e. what is obama's plan to get us out of this mess? what is mc cain's plan to get us out of this mess? NEITHER OF THEM HAVE PUT FORTH A COHERENT PLAN. THIS IS NOT LEADERSHIP AND BROTHERS AND SISTERS, WE NEED SOME LEADERS RIGHT NOW. maybe more than at any other time since world war II.
i am obviously a person of the left, but more than that i am an american and a middle class american at that. i worry about our country and it is OUR country, it is not a republican country nor a democratic country. we have millions unemployed and millions losing or who have already lost their homes. our financial markets are in shambles, inflation is rising, international markets are in shambles and no one has a coherent plan to get us out of what is obviously a very grim situation. if a republican comes up with a good plan, then i am for it. if a democrat comes up with a good plan, then i am for it... and I SURE HOPE EVERYONE IN AMERICA FEELS THE SAME WAY.
it is a mess that was caused, in part, by the deregulation policies of the republican party and there is no way they can weasel out of that but democrats have some guilt too because they did not fight nearly hard enough to stop the deregulation and did not try hard enough to bring their concerns to the american people. but and this is a big BUT: it doesn't really matter at this very minute whose fault it was; the problem is here and it is here now and we MUST do something and we must do it NOW. and the key word in the above sentence is WE.
that's all for tonight. peace to us all.
monday morning: willard (mitt) romney says on national television, that if it wasn't for john mccain's leadership, the bill would have failed and if you want to see what real leadership looks like, then all you have to do is look at john mc cain and how he got this bill through congress.
monday afternoon: bill fails when republicans vote against it.
monday afternoon: john mc cain blames senator obama for bill's failure and then says this is no time for "blame game."
monday afternoon: rep. cantor (r) says that they (repubs) were going to vote for it but were offended when nancy pelosi made a speech saying it was george bush's economic policies that got us here.
monday afternoon: barney frank (d) says if the republicans will give him the names of the supposed 12 who switched their vote, he will go and speak to them in nice way.
so, what we have is a republican party who has no leader:
john mc cain could not bring them together.
george bush could not bring them together.
the whip (republican leader of the house) could not bring them together.
what kind of "leadership" is it, when your own party won't follow you.
NONE of the arizona house republicans voted for the bill. that is how highly they think of john ("i made this happen") mc cain.
theater of the absurd.
understand something here: i am still not sure if this bail out bill is a good idea! i think congress needs to spend more time listening to economists from the entire spectrum of political philosophy. i think they need to address the bigger problem of jobs before they bail out wall street and the banks. i think more regulations must be put on "wall street" so that this does not happen again. BUT i am not any kind of expert and there are good people on both sides of the aisle in washington who say that we MUST do this and do it now and maybe, just maybe, they do know what they are talking about. our market dropped 777 points today, the biggest POINT (but not percentage) drop in HISTORY. world wide markets are tanking as well, so maybe, just maybe, they are right.
however there are several problems that are not being addressed and these problems affect each and every one of us who are not millionaires.
a. we, as a people, are in debt up to our eyebrows and they are saying we need this bailout so we can borrow more money. hmmmm
b. they say that housing prices must "stabilize" so homes will start selling. yeah well, housing prices are still artificially high thanks to the sub-prime mortgages, which led to the incredible and incredibly stupid run up in prices from 02-06. MOST HOMES ARE SOLD TO MIDDLE CLASS PEOPLE BECAUSE THERE ARE MORE MIDDLE CLASS PEOPLE THAN ANY OTHER GROUP. WAGES HAVE NOT GONE UP IN THE PAST 8 YEARS, SO WHEN YOU RAISE PRICES BEYOND WHAT THE MIDDLE CLASS CAN AFFORD, THEN THERE IS NO WAY THAT THEY CAN BUY. duh. home prices do not need to stabilize, they need to COME DOWN SOME MORE. duh. hmmmm.
c. we have lost 600,000 jobs this year and millions overall since bush came into office. if there are fewer middle class jobs, then there are fewer middle class people to buy all these homes. since most middle class people are now afraid for their jobs, they are holding back from making big financial expenditures. EVERY DAY, WE ARE LOSING MORE JOBS, SO WHO IS GOING TO BUY THESE STILL OVER-PRICED HOMES?
d. if we put all this money into wall street, it means we have "printed" more money, which leads to higher inflation and if inflation takes off (and it is already much higher than washington admits), then how are people going to be able to afford to buy things?
e. what is obama's plan to get us out of this mess? what is mc cain's plan to get us out of this mess? NEITHER OF THEM HAVE PUT FORTH A COHERENT PLAN. THIS IS NOT LEADERSHIP AND BROTHERS AND SISTERS, WE NEED SOME LEADERS RIGHT NOW. maybe more than at any other time since world war II.
i am obviously a person of the left, but more than that i am an american and a middle class american at that. i worry about our country and it is OUR country, it is not a republican country nor a democratic country. we have millions unemployed and millions losing or who have already lost their homes. our financial markets are in shambles, inflation is rising, international markets are in shambles and no one has a coherent plan to get us out of what is obviously a very grim situation. if a republican comes up with a good plan, then i am for it. if a democrat comes up with a good plan, then i am for it... and I SURE HOPE EVERYONE IN AMERICA FEELS THE SAME WAY.
it is a mess that was caused, in part, by the deregulation policies of the republican party and there is no way they can weasel out of that but democrats have some guilt too because they did not fight nearly hard enough to stop the deregulation and did not try hard enough to bring their concerns to the american people. but and this is a big BUT: it doesn't really matter at this very minute whose fault it was; the problem is here and it is here now and we MUST do something and we must do it NOW. and the key word in the above sentence is WE.
that's all for tonight. peace to us all.
posted by Ron Shock | 9:02 PM
9 Comments:
Ron I think you make some excellent points. I was thinking about the politicians who are trying to come up with a solution and I wonder how many of them really understand what the situation is. I am sure that they are simply taking the information that is being fed to them and trying to work with it.
It seems to me that these same politicians need to be advised by a group of economic experts made up of heavy hitters from all facets of the financial world so that there is a more balanced view of the picture and consequences.
The other thing that I feel very strongly about is the fact that we need to get the US currency backed by a precious metal again. And since we are in a position to have to make radical changes it seems this is the perfect time to do it instead of continuing down the fiat currency road.
As far as the job situation is concerned I don't know if that is necessarily tied to the fact that Bush was president. I think it is more that we are in a cycle of change where we have moved from an industrial age country to an information age country. The result of this is that we have a fairly large segment of the population that are unable to make the shift due to lack of training and or ability. These people are either out of work or else they are now having to turn to the service sector for employment and jobs like that pay less.
In the meantime while we have been pouring money into Homeland security, the military, etc. other countries have been educating their people so now you have large numbers of people in India and China now able to fill a lot of the information age jobs. The result is US countries are outsourcing many jobs to those countries because it keeps their overhead down,etc.
Here are some things that I feel have to be done:
1. Repair the infra structure of this country (levies, roads, bridges) which would create jobs for people.
2. Redirect the money from defense and pursuit of terrorism to education and retraining of our people.
3. Put in place needed regulations for the financial sector.
4. Return currency to gold standard.
5. Put in place health insurance for all with an option to obtain coverage privately.
We can not be a healthy participant in the world if we don't take care of our country and our people first. You can only do for others what you can do for yourself.
I don't think there is a one shot bill to fix this but I do think that it is an exciting time because the potential for massive positive change is very real and present.
Ron, can you possibly stop yourself from continually blaming Republicans for everything? Is that possible.
The root cause of this is the housing loan issue. Billions of dollars in loans where givent to people who could not pay them back. They did this under the guise that 'everyone should be able to own a home'. Well, no they shouldn't.
This was affirmative action in action. This was class warefare, saying that not only the rich should be able to own houses. So should african-americans, so should illegal immigrants, so should just about anyone who wants to. I'm not saying african-americans or the poor should own homes. I'm saying no one, regardless of race or class should be able to own a home they can't pay for.
Barney Frank and Chris Dodd were leading the charge on this 'housing for everyone' deal. And now they act incensed that we have a problem? They were a huge part of the problem.
I'm not excusing Republicans, they are to blame too but the democrats are every bit to blame as much as anyone.
I believe Pelosi never wanted this to pass. She wanted to have votes for it, but wanted this to be a Republican passed bill. She wanted to hang this bill around the necks of Republicans knowing full well that America was against this bill. But when the Republicans saw all the Democrats voting against it, they didn't play along and the bill failed.
A bill will pass but the urgency isn't as great and cool heads - Republican heads have prevailed.
And the market is back up over 450 points as I write this.
Try to put your emotions aside and look at facts.
Ron, you ignorant slut.
(smile...you know it's funny)
Once again it's time to take your ass back to school. We're going to have to go all the way back to Economics 101. While you have a valid point with CEOs making gazillions of dollars and running away with the money, you have no clue how we got here. You blame the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that had virtually nothing to do with this mess. Plus, that act was passed in the Senate 90-8-1 and in the House 362-57-15 and was and signed into law by Bill Clinton. It was damn near unanimous in both houses.
If you get your (dis)information from the left, with sites like moveon.org and dailyKOS, you would think that the big evil Bush administration is responsible for all of this mess. Not so.
(Disclaimer: I don't like the guy all that much either but let's be fair shall we?)
We start in 1977 with a thing called the Community Reinvestment Act. This is a law that requires banks and savings and loan associations to offer credit throughout their entire market area. The act prohibits financial institutions from targeting only wealthier neighborhoods with their services, a practice known as "redlining." The purpose of the CRA is to provide credit, including home ownership opportunities, to under-served populations, and commercial loans to small businesses. The Act was passed in 1977 and has been subjected to important regulatory revisions since then.
Important revisions like this one:
In early 1993 President Bill Clinton ordered new regulations for the CRA which would increase access to mortgage credit for inner city and distressed rural communities. The new rules went into effect on January 31, 1995 and featured: requiring strictly numerical assessments to get a satisfactory CRA rating; using federal home-loan data broken down by neighborhood, income group, and race; encouraging community groups to complain when banks were not loaning enough to specified neighborhood, income group, and race; allowing community groups that marketed loans to targeted groups to collect a fee from the banks.
The new rules, during a time when many banks were merging and needed to pass the CRA review process to do so, substantially increased the number and aggregate amount of loans to low and moderate income borrowers for home loans, some of which were "risky mortgages". Banks set up CRA departments, a CRA consultant industry was created and new financial-services firms helped banks invest in packaged portfolios of CRA loans to ensure compliance. The number of CRA mortgage loans increased by 39 percent between 1993 and 1998, while other loans increased by only 17 percent.
Starting to get the picture?
Bush actually tried to fix it. In 2002 there was an inter-agency review of the effectiveness of the 1995 regulatory changes to the Community Reinvestment Act and new proposals were considered.The FDIC, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency put new regulations into effect September of 2005. The regulations were opposed by a contingent of Democrats.
In fact, Bush, McCain, and Greenspan were all warning of this in 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2006. Legislation for reform and oversight of Fannie-Freddie was proposed and was blocked every time, on party line votes, by the Democrats.
If you don't believe that, then watch this video and hear Barney Frank say it himself on camera.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgctSIL8Lhs
You might want to watch this one as well. Time Warner had the original pulled for "music violations" if that tells you how damning it is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZVw3no2A4
OK. Jane....back to you.
Well said J.T.... You won't find that info on CNN.
Oversight of Fannie and Freddie was blocked everytime by the Democrats. Hmmm, I wonder why. Could it be because Chris Dodd and Barack Obama first and second on the list of donation from those organizations? And now Chris Dodd is part of this bailout. Something smell funny.
Gee Ron, can't wait to hear how you spin this to be George Bush and John McCain's fault. But I'm sure you'll find a way.
Joe and JT...who did what and why is beside the point. It doesn't matter who caused this. Everyone, including me and you, has contributed in some way. How...by buying things we can't afford, by hearing what we want to hear, by not voting, by not taking responsibility for our actions, by sticking our heads in the sand, etc.
Quit acting like this is a pissing contest and put your minds to coming up with some answers to get us out of this. I'd be interested in hearing your solutions instead of your criticisms and attempts at one upmanship.
Heather, have you actually read any of Ron's posts. Literally every one of them blames either Bush or McCain or the Republicans in general for nearly all of the ills in the world.
Knowing the cause is the only way to a solution. The cause is squarely on the democrats.
Why don't we hear about the scandal with Fannie and Freddie? A scandal much larger and every bit as criminal as Enron? Why? Because it points almost entirely at Democrats.
Don't take my word for it. Don't take Ron's word for it - look into it for yourself.
As for solutions. Take a step back. Believe about half of what the Republicans tell you and about 1/10 of what the liberals say and listen to economists that don't have an agenda.
I'm not going to pretend to be smart enough or arrogant enough to have an easy solution to this problem, but I can tell you it much deeper than just the past couple year "of the Bush Administration" as Pelosi wants you to believe.
gee, what post are you guys referring to? not the one here. what you are doing is not answering or responding to any of the questions or comments in this post of mine. what you are doing is blogging on my time. write your own blogs and be sure and give me the address. if you are going to post...stick to the subject matter on the one i posted!
yeah, it all the democrats fault; you must be shitting me or you are delusional. bush is just unlucky. we have the worst attack on american soil by outsiders since pearl harbor, we start a war with a country that had never done anything to us, we have a inept federal response to katrina (you're doing a great job, brownie) and now the worst financial crisis since the great depression and all on bush's watch and for the first 6 years with a republican majority in both houses and you say it is the democrat's fault? and george is just unlucky. and sarah palin is a mental giant. and you are not partisan. and the moon is made out of green cheeze and isn't it a little crowded down here in the rabbit hole.
I can’t believe so many people are being taken in by Obama’s doubletalk! Most of the time I can’t even understand what he is trying to say. Yes, he uses fancy words and links them all together, but the meaning is usually very vague. And then people mistake this for eloquence.
This simply reflects the lack of critical thinking skills in our society. Clearly, Obama is trying to cover up the fact that he really doesn’t have many good ideas, which is why he keeps piling on the excessive verbiage. Good grief! In ages past even the country bumpkins knew not to trust a snake-oil salesman. Now Obama is banking on Americans being unable to tell the difference.
The Katrina response was bumbled by liberals. Local disasters are first to be handled by local government. The mayor and governor bear most of that blame and you say how inept they are. You want to see incompetence, look to New Orleans and the liberal leadership.
Bush was in office for a couple month before we were attacked on 911. Clinton was there for 8 years and did nothing, yet you want to blame it all on Bush.
So when the economy is still in the tank if B. Hussein wins the election, it will all he his fault right? Nope, anything that goes wrong during B. Hussein's reign will be blamed on Bush. Funny how that works out isn't it?
Post a Comment
<< Home