Have We Learned Nothing?

.........................................Enron, another disaster for America that happened during the Bush Administration. How can Americans forget Enron, Katrina, The Current Financial Crisis and all of the other screw ups that Bush & Company brought us and be foolish enough to put McCain who goes along with Bush on most everything into office when we have an opportunity to put these incompetents out of office for 4 years?????

Yes, we have learned that although Hoover was brilliant, and wrong, he could articulate a policy.

Have we learned nothing??? From the depression to the S&L fiasco to Enron/Worldcom/Adelphia the answer is yes, we have learned nothing. I have a theory in deregulation... regulations exist as a response to a problem. So if the regulations are removed/bypassed then the origingal problem will return. Therefore the only reason regulations exist in the first place is because lack of regulation didn't work, and so deregulation is bound to fail, and this is know for a fact to the deregulators when they deregulate.

Mark to market is a good idea because if forces the lenders to consider market swings when issuing loans, thus hoding down the optimism. Investment house leaders used mark to fantasy by creating vehicles so large that there was no open market. They could then use any reasonable value to boost their book values, and their compensation packages. As long as the executives duck before the house of cards collapses they have commited moral, but legal, fraud. I play video games with frequent game saves when I am in a precarious position. Some people call this cheating, I call it using the features of the game to my advantage. Some people call the executives Wall St. scum. Those on Wall St. call the executives smart people who used the features of the system to their advantage. It's kind of like an AK-47, the opinion of each person depends on which end of the gun you are on.

Nobody in their right minds will vote for another GOP administration. It's the Republicans who have got us into this mess - not Clinton, not Carter. And it's also the Dems who usually help the economy in times of recession - not the GOP. The economy under Bill Clinton was amazing compared to the mess it's in now. We have a moron to thank for that - Bush Jr. - who was elected twice by the stupid people in this country.

Get over yourselves, Republicans, and pony up to the majority of the blame for this huge disgusting pigging mess you've made of the economy, which was perfectly good at then end of the last Democratic administration. Oh, and 9/11 happened on Bush's watch - not Clinton's. The GOP was too busy impeaching Clinton and Phil Gramm too busy getting stupid bills passed that gave Enron a good loophole so the crooks on Wall Street, the GOP backers, could extend their greed and rip off the American peoplpe ultimately.

Stupid politics, stupid economics = The GOP.

Obama is getting a bump out of this because people are not being reminded of the whole history where the economy is concerned, and who did what when. Call it bias by omission. The media simply says that the economy is Obamas strong issue, but never discusses the facts in detail. Further, who had a majority when is rarely relevant. If the simplistic Party In Power model were true, then the Democrats would not have needed the House Republicans when they tried to pass the bailout bill, as Democrats have the majority in both houses and there is no threat of a veto. In theory, they do not need the Republicans to vote at all. In fact, something like twelve (12) Democrats from Barney Franks own banking committee voted against the bill. Obviously, it is not so simple and the media does the voter a disservice by doing little more than reinforcing the error. A similar argument would be to say that the economy appeared to be doing fine until the Democrats took over control of Congress and the power of the purse, then it tanked. As an aside, the media also misleads regarding the Clinton economy when they fail to mention that it also ended in a recession, requiring the first round of Bush stimulus checks immediately after he took office..

Do Obama and the Democrats deserve a lift in the polls as a result of the financial and mortgage problems? The answer from history is a clear NO. Here's the lead of a New York Times story on September 30, 1999: Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending [link below]. That's 1999 folks. Clinton Administration, I believe.

Here's the lead of a New York Times story on Sept. 11, 2003: The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago. [see link below]

McCain said in co-sponsoring the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190: If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system and the economy as a whole.

What was Barney Frank and fellow Democrats saying at the time of these attempted reforms? According to reports, Representative Barney Frank(D-MA) claimed of the thrifts "These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis, the more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing." Representative Mel Watt (D-NC) added of the reforms "I don't see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing." [ See Community Reinvestment Act, link below w/ history]

The link below contains a purported list of the top 25 in Congress who got contributions from the folks at Fannie and Freddie. Obama is listed third, after Dodd and Kerry, even though Obama is just a junior Senator. Obama is followed next by Clinton. Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi are on the list as well.

http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=16&artnum=1&issue=20080918


For an interesting article purporting to detail Barney Franks long history with Fannie Mae, See http://www.businessandmedia.org/printer/2008/20080924145932.aspx
???Democratic House Financial Services Committee Chair promoted GSEs while former 'spouse' was Fannie Mae executive.???

The last link below describes how some in Congress tried to use the original version of the bailout bill to divert money eventually recovered to groups like ACORN. See:

http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=16&artnum=1&issue=20080918

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act

http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=M2QwNDhkZTg2OGYzZjkzM2E2NDEwM2U5OGVkNTc0YzU=

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06E3D6123BF932A2575AC0A9659C8B63

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260

http://www.businessandmedia.org/printer/2008/20080924145932.aspx

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122247015469280723.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=16&artnum=1&issue=20080926

Look at history. Recessions started under Dem. watch (I am not sure this one is an exception, the laws were implemenrted under Clinton, and Democrats controlled Congress), but always were fixed by Republican administrations. But I still think that americans need Doctor Obama to cyre them from radicalism for next 20 years (like Doctor Carter did).

The Bush Depression


In a few weeks we will make a choice that will decide our future.
I follow an economist named Bob Proctor. He has called the top and bottom of every market crash since the 70s correctly.
Also, 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 will be worse then the great depression.
The banks in the U.S. are going under one after the other. Countrywide the largest morgage bank in the world,Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch which are 3 out of the top 5 wall street firms. Also, Fanny and Freddy Mae which hold 50 percent of the home loans in the United States.
The government 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.

McCain just like Bush " doesn't understand the economy".
That not just my opinion its his own words. Not only does he not understand how to fix it but he does not understand exactly what is broken.
It is no surprise that he doesn't. The people that make up these securities use complex mathematical models very few people understand.
Bush and McCain both can take the credit for this mess since they helped deregulate the laws that were protecting us.

Bush's economic advisor Phil Graham wrote the deregulation bill that allowed banks to take huge risks with all of our future.
Now, Phil Graham is the head of McCain's economic policy.He is also McCain's choice for the next secretary of the treasury.
No one in this country can afford for that to happen. The last time Bush met with his economic advisors was in March. He either didn't care or didn't realize that anything was wrong. Phil Graham had the guts to say that we are in a mental recession after he helped create the worst economy meltdown in our lifetime.
It will take the best and brightest minds in the world to get us out of this nightmare. As bad as Bush has done, McCain would be
even more destructive because things are in much worse shape. The next president will not inherit a surplus like Bush did but a tanking economy and a 11,600,000,000,000 (trillion) dollars deficit.Bush created a national debt larger then the first 42 presidents combined
If you do what you have always done then you will get what you have always got.
When it comes to policy Bush and McCain are the same 90 percent of the time.
So why isnt obama 25 points ahead

The chairman of McCains campaign recently said that people don't vote on issues they vote on a personality composite. Which means he is trying to sell you personality instead of results.

Let's teach him we are smarter than that .

31 states are voting now, dont wait
Elect Obama Biden 2008





Check out this video of sarah palins interview before you vote



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r36Xc0GG4i

The bailout assumes a certain amount of risk. If you don't believe it will work, then by all means, call your congressmen and tell them what a mistake they are making. I might do that myself.
Regardless, the government needs a mechanism for collecting and nurturing distressed mortgages. Paulsons proposal will create that mechanism.
We may not be able to avoid a depression . But, we may be able to determine what kind of a depression we are going to have. Will it be a 1929 USA type of depression where the value of money remained fairly constant? Or, will it be a Pre-Nazi Germany type of depression where it took a wheel barrow full of cash to buy a loaf of bread? We may need to raise taxes on the wealthy and balance the budget to keep the latter from happening. We will aslo have to get people employed by rebuilding our roads, bridges, etc. That will require even more taxes on the wealthy. To make that happen, we will of course have to kick most of the Republcans out of office. I don't like saying this, Some of my favorite perple are Republicans, But it's real.

We've been suckered! Wall Street has played the American people like a violin. On Monday, the bailout didn't look like it won't pass. The big Wall Street investment houses start dumping stocks like crazy to induce a panic, sent DJIA down 777 points, and their ploy worked. Americans and Congresspeople panic, "Oh look, see what will happen if we don't pass this bailout, we'll have a Wall Street crash!" So based on that, enough support builds to pass the bailout Friday afternoon. You'd think the stock market would be overjoyed that the economy has now been "fixed". After all, this bailout was SOOOO important to keep our investments safe, so why is the stock market down 140 points? Well, because this bailout never had anything to do with an "economic recovery" or whatever they wanted to call it, it as always a Bush administration gift of $700 BILLION of his wealthy Wall Street supporters.

A bill with 150 billion in so called PORK:

In the first Presidential debate John McCain stated that AS PRESIDENT,WITHOUT QUESTION, HE WOULD VETO ANY BILL CONTAINING PORK.

In this bill, HE JUST VOTED FOR 150 BILLION WORTH OF PORK.

Obviously, he can NOT be taken at his word to veto any bill with pork. Just like all presidents before him, he will evaluate the bills before him based on all expenditures in the bill.

SO MUCH FOR HIS PROMISES.