How Worried Should You Be?

I second the comment made by OLDFOOL. We need to put aside some of our outdated beliefs and move our thoughts ahead and accept a more practical means of governing.

I second everything OLDFOOL mentioned. We need a new approach in life that requires common sense, not outdated beliefs that do not work for most Americans.

First, STOP 'FAST TRACK' trade agreements which profit individual corporations and hurt the American People.
Second, DUMP the CROOKS on Wall Street. Tough bargaining for profit only, and put some of them in JAIL.
Third, GET OFF OIL DEPENDENCE. Whatever it takes.
Fourth, TRASH THE DEMOCRATIC AND REPUBLICAN PARTIES. WE THE PEOPLE DESERVE BETTER.
Fifth, Leave IRAQ as soon as possible, while not immediately, within one to two years. MAKE THEM FIGHT and take RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR GOD DAMN COUNTRY. WE can still supply them and not abandon them as we did with the unfortunate VIETNAMESE whom we deserted.
Sixth, demand and GET functional immigration and don't tolerate anything less.
Seventh, legalize MJ, cocaine, heroin, etc., and control it as the British do.
Eighth, get prison inmates paroled and into working jobs
Ninth, make education a national priority with minimal standards for all schools, not poor vs rich districts
Tenth, Beware of military entanglement in Afghanistan with large numbers of troops and equipment
Eleventh, or else just dig a hole and die.

I agree with article that AIG life insurance policyholders shouldn't panic. Really, those units are solvent. If one panics and rushes to another policy, it may not be advantageous. If you do feel you need to change policies, take you time and find a <a href=???http://www.reliaquote.com???>term life insurance</a> that is from a reputable firm with a strong balance sheet that is not exposed to US mortgage paper.

As a public high school teacher, the current state of our public institutions reflect our values as a society, from my point of view. (I make $26,000 a year.) We are bailing out these failing institutions with taxpayer dollars while the state of our public school system continues to decline. Good teachers are being laid off and class sizes are growing. No child left behind is a law that requires improvements without the promised funding to implement these improvements. And our schools are listed as "failing schools" because of unrealistic goals that are never supported or funded by the federal government in the first place. What is left in our public schools is often a stressed out skeleton staff that does not have the ability to properly educate our students, which we would hope will lead us someday to more effective ways of running this country.

Meanwhile, these corporate lobbyists have effectively secured deregulation and what they consider "optimal" conditions for their financial success (deregulation). And a few well-connected people have lined their pockets with enormous amounts of other peoples' money.

This sort of short-term gain at the expense of long-term growth way of thinking have really infected our entire way of running our society.

Unfortunately middle and lower class young people (the MAJORITY) of our future do not have the money or the resources to hire corporate lobbyists. Their teachers and their schools have very limited resources. And there is little to NO organized efforts to effectively support the reform and progress to lead our public schools to educate and prepare our future. In every other developed and developing country we compare our students' progress with, there is a clear and dedicated effort to improve, fund, and prioritize education. In America, we are starving our schools while bailing out reckless fat cats who've thrived on greed. Is this the American Way? Or have we lost our way?

Hopefully (as we say in school) we will learn from all of this and use it to improve, grow, and succeed.

Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac, Bear Sterns, Lehman Brothers, AIG and the rest of the failed institutions have failed primarily because of former Senator Phil Gramm. The Gramm-Leach-Biley Act stripped away the regulations separating banking from investment companies, insurance companies and mortgage guaranty companies. Those regulations were added after the Great Depression when it became obvious that allowing banks to be in bed with the stock market was a sure way to rig the system to collapse, as it did in 1929.

Lo an behold, a few years after the regulations were removed, the sh!t has hit the fan, and the inter-related investment, insurance, mortgage and banking industries are now starting to collapse, and guess what, you, the taxpayer will have to pay to clean it up.

Phil Gramm is the Senator who brought you the "Enron Loophole" that de-regulated futures trading, causing the prices of oil, gas and food to spiral out of control.

Senator Phil Gramm was McCain's top economic advisor until recently, when he was forced to step down after he said that there is no problem with our economy other than a "mental recession" on the part of a "nation of whiners." Phil Gramm is the man who McCain said he wants to name Secretary of the Treasury if he becomes President. You have to believe John McCain when he says that he knows little about the economy -- so little that he doesn't even know who to choose as an advisor.

Barack Obama addressed the Enron Loophole, futures trading, short-selling and Wall Street de-regulation months ago in his economic position papers, which are available on his website. Obama has been saying all along that he is going to put in strict regulations and clean up Wall Street.

McCain just started saying that he favors regulation in the past couple of weeks. How is it that McCain is going to put in new regulations, when he plans to appoint Phil Gramm, the man who authored the de-regulation, as Secretary of the Treasury? McCain says he would fire Christopher Cox, the SEC Chairman, to solve the problem. However, the problem is caused by lack of regulations on the legislative level, regulations that were removed before Cox was appointed. The SEC can only enforce regulations that actually exist, so making a scapegoat of Cox solves nothing. I would suggest that McCain is guilty of saying what's politically expedient, that he does not actually intend to regulate the banking industry. McCain knows that most Americans are unaware of the details.

I am a middle-aged white conservative Republican who loves America. I am voting for Barack Obama.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15050.html
http://www.newsweek.com/id/145011/page/1
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/6007788.html
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A01E0D81038F934A25752C0A9649C8B63
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/stateupdates/gG5Rzb

In a few weeks we will make a choice that will decide our future.
I follow a economist named bob proctor who has called the top and bottom of every market crash since the 70s correctly.
He perfectly predicted the current real estate market meltdown ,and the picture he paints about what will happen in the next couple years
Is terrifying. He thinks it could get worse then the great depression.
Banks in the US are going under one after the other. Country wide the largest morgage bank in the world
Bear Stearns and Lehman brothers , and Merrill Lynch which are 3 out of the top 5 wall street firms.
And now Fanny and Freddy which hold 50 percent of the home loans in the United States.
The goverment took them over because they are essentially bankrupt.
If they didn't the entire financially system would virtually shut down, the stock market would crash
And we would suffer beyond what any of us have seen before
The future of these companies will fall into the hands of our next president
Lehman, Merill Lynch, and Bear Sterns have survived for over 150 years and survived even the great depression
They are important because the are the biggest engines of growth in america and
they are connected to almost everything.
The last time the real estate market numbers looked this bad was during
The great depression and real estate often leads the way into major economic recessions.
Bush just like Mcain doesn't understand the economy.
That not just my opinion its his own words. Not only does he not understand how to fix itHe does not understand exactly what is broken.Its no surprise that he doesnt. The people that make up these securities use complex math models very few people understand.They are basically bundles of thousand of loans some good and some bad that are then given rules based on complex math. It will take the best and brightest minds in the world to get us out of this, and the same things bush and mcain have done for the last 8 years
Have not worked so far and wont work in the future.
if you do what you have always done then you will do get what you have always got
90 percent of the time they have voted the same.
Please don't just take my word for it Start to read up on some of this yourself. MSN money, elliot wave and, bloomberg Have tons of articles That prove we are in the heading into one of the worst economies any one has ever seen. So why are the polls even close then ?
The chairman of mcains campaign recently said that people don't vote on issues
they vote on a personality composite which means. He is trying to sell personality instead of results.He believes people will vote against there own self interests.
Lets teach him we are smarter then that and elect the ticket that can
bring us back from the brink of a economic abyss.Mcain admits in the year 2008 he cannot use a computer even to send email.It impossible then that he understands how to help us. its time to wake up now while it will still help

myopinions: in response to your questions.
1. by offshoring millions of jobs to other countries, people earn less and mortgage companies are forced to 'fudge' the rules.
2. those who purchased 'the american dream' are in trouble because there are not many jobs, and the pay has gone down since 1999 for the average worker. The institution to help homeowners save their home is provided by the government who will take half of the equity earned when the house is sold, and is limited to those who qualify.
3. - 4c4 Your pretty much on the mark with these. One thing to remember is that with the loss of 10 million american jobs offshore, both state and feds lose tons of revenue.

don't worry , Biden will protect all the credit card companies!! and the corporatist Bloomberg has sided with Obama to pull strings to bring the street down.

So, let me see if I have this right.
1. The mortgage collapse has created a problem for those who made it possible - the big banks etc.
2. Those who were the recipeints of the american dream - owning your own home - but are unable to manage the drastic changes as a result of the collapse now can get help, but only if an institution will participate in the program.
3. The big banks and insurance underwiters who got caught with their pants down get big bailouts, mandatory bailouts as they would cause more harm if they were allowed to collapse.
4. The little guy that is suffering from this, is alll of us becuse:
a. As forclosure mount - property values fall
b. As property values fall - so does property base revenue for other portions of local govt.
c. As those revenus fall, the taxes will either have to go up - or -
c1. Budget cuts to basic services like police and fire ensue - neighborhoods and property values collapse.
c2. Taxes raise and moderatley service cuts and item c1
c3. Services are not cut and taxes are not raised - local govt collapse is the result
c4. Services are cut, taxes are lowered based on property value - local govt longevity - neighborhoods decline - taxes decline - more service cuts - eventual local and neighborhoods collapse

Now, I am not a doom sayer, these are just the logical result of the current - the economy isnt too bad based thinking.

Think about it. What would be next?