BUSINESS

The Fall of America, Inc.

Along with some of Wall Street's most storied firms, a certain vision of capitalism has collapsed. How we restore faith in our brand.

By Francis Fukuyama | NEWSWEEK

Published Oct 4, 2008

From the magazine issue dated Oct 13, 2008

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Discuss

Posted By: Vote Now @ 10/31/2008 8:41:52 AM

Comment: orn is just another invented issue.
All the group does is register new voters . They pay people 8 bucks a hour a help people
fill out registration forms and then turn them in. By law they are required to turn in ballots people fill out that dont seem credible. But they seperate them from the normal ballots and inform election officials when they turn them in. As a example If somone fills out a ballot that says donald duck they still have to turn that ballot in , but since there really is no donald duck and no one to show up and vote with a id that matches that registration on election day . It will zero effect on anything and all this is is a waste time
Also all ballots acorn marks as fishy are also investigated and checked against state records to make sure they are real people if not they are thrown out.
It not fraud and no one can vote without proper ID
So let move on to something that matters like the fact we are going in to the next great depression
and that mccain says he doesnt understand the economy
Can we talk about the war, the national debt <11 trillion>, The housing market, the job market,health care,global warming.
Are things so great we need to invent issues like acorn ?
or is it the gop has no answers to the mess they have created in the last 8 years?
Let talk about things that will improve our lifes and not something no one cares about.
And let throw out the poeple that created this mess
they dont deserve a chance to make things worse
Please vote early election day will be a mess
Posted By: Nins @ 10/30/2008 2:46:37 PM

Comment: Honestly, looking at McCain and Obama objectively (without any party affiliation or any racism) I really can't see why anybody would vote for McCain. Obama has offered a much more coherent plan to get America out of the economic disaster we are in.

Right now, most people are anxious about the economy, fearing the worst but hoping for the best.

Reality check: within 18 months YOU could be standing in a bread line. That's how bad it really is. And Obama will work actively to prevent this short term, as well as make us strong again long term. As much as I like McCain and admire his patriotism, he really is not up for the job, not now with the global markets falling apart.

Obama's economic plan can be found at:

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/index.php
Posted By: yanyhy @ 10/30/2008 7:01:10 AM

Comment: Dear professor,

It seems to me that you have quite an obsession with "ending" things (end of history, end of america inc...). I would like to know why you have such a linear perspective. Also, productivity gains, wealth creation, competitive advantages, etc...aren't they supposed to be used to better the quality of life of the people? The world is not a theoretical model Mr. Fukuyama for you to play with. You should relax a bit after 2 decades of failed analysis and try to enjoy a long holiday and short working week.
Posted By: Vote Now @ 10/23/2008 1:25:22 PM

Comment: People on these bogs are fond of saying that the current economic meltdown was caused by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac underwriting bad mortgages. While Fannie and Freddie obviously are guilty of writing bad mortgages, and worse, guilty of lobbying Congress to allow them to do so with impunity, their actions are just a small piece of the puzzle when it comes to determining who (or what) caused the financial crisis we face today.

In 1929 the stock market crash caused the banks to fail, because the banks were in bed with the stock market. Back then, banks owned investment houses, so when the stock market fell, the banks fell too. This triggered the Great Depression. So in 1933 the Congress wrote laws that regulated banking, making it illegal for banks to own investment companies, mortgage guaranty companies or insurance companies. The idea was to keep key industries separated by a fire wall, so that if one industry failed the whole economy would not go down in flames.

But the Republicans under Bush deregulated the banking industry. Senator Phil Gramm wrote legislation (the Gramm Rudman Act, the Gramm Leach Biley Act, etc.) that stripped away the regulations in the financial and insurance industies. He pushed them through the Republican Congress and they were signed into law by Geo. W. Bush. John McCain voted in favor. Everybody said how great it is to deregulate and create free markets.

Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch each gave over a million dollars to Senator Gramm's re-election campaign.

The economic collapse that happened later was a direct result of the deregulation, and here's how: the banks wrote bad mortgages, then bundled the mortgages into investment vehicles that they sold all over the world, and they even got firms like AIG to insure the investments. It was all a house of cards.

If there had been no deregulation, sure we would have had a bunch of bad mortgages, and the mortgage guaranty and real estate industries would have suffered, but there would not have been a global financial meltdown, since the problem would have been contained in one sector of the economy. You can thank Geo W. Bush, Sen. Phil Gramm and Sen John McCain for the meltdown, since they were strong proponents of deregulation.

Furthermore, although Fannie and Freddie are now holding the bulk of these bad mortgages, Fannie and Freddie did not originally write most of these mortgages. They bought them after the fact, bundled by banks/investment companies. Fannie and Freddie got screwed by the Wall Street fat cats. And so did you, if you pay taxes.

What is Phil Gramm doing today? He works as a lobbyist in Washington, trying to make it legal for the Swiss bank he represents to sell Death Bonds in the United States. Nice guy, Phil Gramm. Incidentally, John McCain has said that he wants to appoint Phil Gramm as Treasury Secretary. Some people just can't learn from their mistakes.
Posted By: Vote Now @ 10/23/2008 1:25:13 PM

Comment: People on these bogs are fond of saying that the current economic meltdown was caused by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac underwriting bad mortgages. While Fannie and Freddie obviously are guilty of writing bad mortgages, and worse, guilty of lobbying Congress to allow them to do so with impunity, their actions are just a small piece of the puzzle when it comes to determining who (or what) caused the financial crisis we face today.

In 1929 the stock market crash caused the banks to fail, because the banks were in bed with the stock market. Back then, banks owned investment houses, so when the stock market fell, the banks fell too. This triggered the Great Depression. So in 1933 the Congress wrote laws that regulated banking, making it illegal for banks to own investment companies, mortgage guaranty companies or insurance companies. The idea was to keep key industries separated by a fire wall, so that if one industry failed the whole economy would not go down in flames.

But the Republicans under Bush deregulated the banking industry. Senator Phil Gramm wrote legislation (the Gramm Rudman Act, the Gramm Leach Biley Act, etc.) that stripped away the regulations in the financial and insurance industies. He pushed them through the Republican Congress and they were signed into law by Geo. W. Bush. John McCain voted in favor. Everybody said how great it is to deregulate and create free markets.

Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch each gave over a million dollars to Senator Gramm's re-election campaign.

The economic collapse that happened later was a direct result of the deregulation, and here's how: the banks wrote bad mortgages, then bundled the mortgages into investment vehicles that they sold all over the world, and they even got firms like AIG to insure the investments. It was all a house of cards.

If there had been no deregulation, sure we would have had a bunch of bad mortgages, and the mortgage guaranty and real estate industries would have suffered, but there would not have been a global financial meltdown, since the problem would have been contained in one sector of the economy. You can thank Geo W. Bush, Sen. Phil Gramm and Sen John McCain for the meltdown, since they were strong proponents of deregulation.

Furthermore, although Fannie and Freddie are now holding the bulk of these bad mortgages, Fannie and Freddie did not originally write most of these mortgages. They bought them after the fact, bundled by banks/investment companies. Fannie and Freddie got screwed by the Wall Street fat cats. And so did you, if you pay taxes.

What is Phil Gramm doing today? He works as a lobbyist in Washington, trying to make it legal for the Swiss bank he represents to sell Death Bonds in the United States. Nice guy, Phil Gramm. Incidentally, John McCain has said that he wants to appoint Phil Gramm as Treasury Secretary. Some people just can't learn from their mistakes.
Posted By: quacker @ 10/22/2008 10:48:16 PM

Comment: The Republicans and Democrats in Congress and all administrations since Regan have been catering to the wealthy, allowing them to steal our pay and benefits, thereby denying us our just rewards for our hard work and intelligence. Our CEOs make 400xs what the common worker does; all other industrialized countries CEOs make 15-25% more and pay heavy taxes. McCain has it wrong: It's not class warfare by the middle class - it's class warfare by the rich on the middle class and below. The redistriubtion of the wealth is just forcing the rich to pay their share of taxes and returning at least some of our hard earned wages and benefits to us. We've got to stop corporations from outsourcing our jobs, bringing in illegaly people from third world countries to take our jobs. We must demand and demonstrate and stop business to force our government to force companies to pay just wages, benefits, worker protection, protect environments, etc. not just for us but for all people we do business with around the world. WE MUST DEMAND FAIR & JUST TRADE.

If we don't change now, China and India will be world powers by 2025 - with power to write the rules, with the strongest and biggest militaries with nuclear power.

Suggested reading: THE WAR OF WEALTH (among nations), PERFECTLY LEGAL, FREE LUNCH.
Posted By: quacker @ 10/22/2008 10:13:19 PM

Comment: McCain says Obama's plan regarding taxes is to "spread the wealth" and socialism. McCain says this is class warfar. McCain has it upside down. It is class warfare, but by the rich on the middle class and down. What Obama would be doing is taking from those who have been stealing from the middle class and down for the last 30 years by pushing the worker to take deeper and deeper cuts in pay and benefits. The alternative has actuallly forced more middle class people to pay higher taxes and lose their tax cuts that Bush has given. The top 10% have made over 500x more in the last 30 years while the middle class stagnated or lost.

The Republicans and Democrats have kept our mind on the wars in Afghanistan & Iraq, while sending our jobs overseas, bringing in illegally people from third world countries to take our jobs, incorporating their companies offshore to avoid taxes. CEOs have been allowed to get sinful compensation packages at the expense of the middle class by cutting employees, sending our jobs overseas, bringing in illegally third world workers to take other jobs, preventing workers from forming unions, cutting deals with foreign governments to avoid taxes here. Do you know CEOs here make 400+ times the average worker - when I graduated from college, ceos made about 15x more. Other industrialized nations CEOs only get 15-25% more than the common worker and the CEOs pay heavy taxes. This has been grand theft by the greedy CEOs and corporations. These CEOs have most of their wages "deferred" for thirty years, in the meantime its picked up by the company which pays taxes on it, but the CEO can take loans to buy stocks against these deferrments. And people earning $100,000 and above don't pay social security taxes on their wages above that figure (I think it's $100K).

I'd like to suggest 3 books for more information if anyone is interested. PERFECTLY LEGAL (how the rich have been stealing from the rest of us through the tax code), FREE LUNCH (takes each segment of our economy and very informatively shows exactly how the rich have manipulated our democrats and republican congress people to steal from you and me, and THE WAR FOR WEALTH - just came out....a must read if you are concerned about how our greedy & ignorant politicians and presidents are allowing China and India to become the world powers, with the power to right rules for governments, business, and are becoming world powers with nuclear capabilities.

Americans must get knowledgeable. Share what you know with everyone you can. We must wake up and take back our government and start leading again.
Posted By: jack33 @ 10/22/2008 8:58:15 PM

Comment: our senators are CORRUPT, president is a liar and corrupt. System is corrupt, that allows lobbyist to bribe senators openly and legally. This is called corruption in other countries and here it is called lobbying. Give money to senators and get things done. Ranbaxy, hired rudy guiliani last month to get their charges dropped, and their money, sorry bribe worked. Shame on these people.
Posted By: jack33 @ 10/22/2008 8:53:59 PM

Comment: American government system is CORRUPT, senators are corrupt, president is corrupt and people are corrupt. dentists, mechanics all are corrupt here.
Posted By: vor26cma @ 10/22/2008 4:58:08 PM

Comment: Well it sounds like there is a time for everything. So now lets move on and get Obama into the office instead of repeating last years programs.
Posted By: Nins @ 10/21/2008 1:33:29 PM

Comment: People on these bogs are fond of saying that the current economic meltdown was caused by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac underwriting bad mortgages. While Fannie and Freddie obviously are guilty of writing bad mortgages, and worse, guilty of lobbying Congress to allow them to do so with impunity, their actions are just a small piece of the puzzle when it comes to determining who (or what) caused the financial crisis we face today.

In 1929 the stock market crash caused the banks to fail, because the banks were in bed with the stock market. Back then, banks owned investment houses, so when the stock market fell, the banks fell too. This triggered the Great Depression. So in 1933 the Congress wrote laws that regulated banking, making it illegal for banks to own investment companies, mortgage guaranty companies or insurance companies. The idea was to keep key industries separated by a fire wall, so that if one industry failed the whole economy would not go down in flames.

But the Republicans under Bush deregulated the banking industry. Senator Phil Gramm wrote legislation (the Gramm Rudman Act, the Gramm Leach Biley Act, etc.) that stripped away the regulations in the financial and insurance industies. He pushed them through the Republican Congress and they were signed into law by Geo. W. Bush. John McCain voted in favor. Everybody said how great it is to deregulate and create free markets.

Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch each gave over a million dollars to Senator Gramm's re-election campaign.

The economic collapse that happened later was a direct result of the deregulation, and here's how: the banks wrote bad mortgages, then bundled the mortgages into investment vehicles that they sold all over the world, and they even got firms like AIG to insure the investments. It was all a house of cards.

If there had been no deregulation, sure we would have had a bunch of bad mortgages, and the mortgage guaranty and real estate industries would have suffered, but there would not have been a global financial meltdown, since the problem would have been contained in one sector of the economy. You can thank Geo W. Bush, Sen. Phil Gramm and Sen John McCain for the meltdown, since they were strong proponents of deregulation.

Furthermore, although Fannie and Freddie are now holding the bulk of these bad mortgages, Fannie and Freddie did not originally write most of these mortgages. They bought them after the fact, bundled by banks/investment companies. Fannie and Freddie got screwed by the Wall Street fat cats. And so did you, if you pay taxes.

What is Phil Gramm doing today? He works as a lobbyist in Washington, trying to make it legal for the Swiss bank he represents to sell Death Bonds in the United States. Nice guy, Phil Gramm. Incidentally, John McCain has said that he wants to appoint Phil Gramm as Treasury Secretary. Some people just can't learn from their mistakes.
Posted By: Nins @ 10/21/2008 1:29:04 PM

Comment: After 9/11, the US government started rounding up Muslims without cause and without due process of law, like we did to the Japanese Americans in WWII. The Bush administration called it's main internment camp Guantanamo Bay. While there are certainly many guilty terrorists held in Guantanamo, there are also many innocent American citizens who have been held illegally for years without even being charged with any crime. They have been tortured by our government. Some of them have died.

Recently the Supreme Court ruled against the Bush administration in the matter of Guantanamo Bay. The Supreme Court Justices were NOT on the side of the terrorists. They were on the side of the Geneva Convention, that says you can not torture POWs, and on the side of US laws that state you can not imprison a person without charging them with a crime and bringing them to trial. I'm sure that like most Americans, the Justices who voted against the illegal, immoral doings at Guantanamo didn't feel sympathy for the terrorists. They felt sympathy for the laws of AMERICA, the land of the FREE, where even rat finks get a fair trial.

Meanwhile, back in Iraq, the Bush administration is busy trying to build a smokescreen to hide the CRIMES they have committed. Those pesky weapons of mass destruction. Just think, the National Debt went up over 6 trillion dollars under Bush. More than 2 TRILLION of it went directly into the pockets of Halliburton, a corporation owned by the Cheney family. Halliburton is now a DUBAI corporation and therefore is not subject to US taxes. All that money they took out of the US Treasury is going into the coffers of a MUSLIM country.

Did you hear about how the US government is being charged millions for Halliburton deliveries of sand into Iraq from Kuwait? Sand. Like there is a shortage of sand in Iraq? Another contractor shipped sand from Idaho to Iraq at our expense. Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz discusses these and other excesses of our current government's out of control spending in Iraq.

Your grandchildren will be working like slaves to pay off this debt, so that the Bushes and Cheneys can live the high life in Dubai.

Yeah, they're patriots, Bush&Co. They wear flag pins. And hide the money they stole from America in Dubai.

And they want me to believe that Obama is a socialist. Right.

In case you think McCain is any different than Bush, watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdJUCU1UH2w
Posted By: Nowforthetruth @ 10/20/2008 9:09:53 PM

Comment: Nims: Funny how fast Newsweek took that article : AP IMPACT: Mortgage firm arranged stealth campaign, http://www.newsweek.com/id/164732 , came off the general table of contents for this site once they figured out that, instead of being a bit on those evil lobbiest, it in fact admitted that the Republicans were trying to regulate Freddie and Fannie in 2005 and were targeted by Freddie, and the no Democrats were targeted because they were all in the tank with Freddie and Fannie not to regulate them as a means of promoting the Community Reinvestment Act. I don???t think that article stayed up 24 hrs before they took it off the main screen.
- Posted By: Nins @ 10/21/2008 1:28:44 PM
  
  Comment: As usual, NFTT, you are twisting the truth. That article said that a certain number of Republicans were, as you put it "in the tank" for the firm that was lobbying on behalf of Fannie and Freddie. It also said that another group of Republicans, including John McCain, tried to get a bill passed to regulate Fannie and Freddie, but that they were blocked by the first group and the bill never came to a vote. That article praised John McCain for being on the right side of this issue. That article did NOT say that any Democrats were part of the group that blocked the legislation. You made that up.
  
  Also, that article stayed up only a day because it didn't get very many hits. Newsweek cycles out the slow movers, and adds several new articles every day. However, you can still find it on line. It is just no longer on the featured table of contents. That's why they have a search feature.
Posted By: Nowforthetruth @ 10/20/2008 6:25:02 PM

Comment: Who "Joe the plumber" may be is not the issue, though it's easy to see why the Dems want it to be. That's because the real issue is what Obama's comments to him revealed about Obama. In the exchange with "Joe the plumber" we find out that Obama really is as radical as his early political acquaintances, Davis, Ayers, Wright, etc., and that he is into the failed economic policy of wealth redistribution. Obama's tax and spending plans alone would be bad enough, but add Reid and Pelosi to the mix, with the three of them controlling both houses of Congress and the executive branch without any effective restraint, and you have something that should causes concern even among moderate Democrats.
See Wall Street Journal: A Liberal Supermajority:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122420205889842989.html

And whether McCain won or lost the third debate is also not relevant. He succeeded in the first half hour to plant the seeds of a Reagan style wipeout. Reputable historians and economists overwhelmingly agree that the taxation imposed by Hoover and FDR, and the "stimulus" spending and public works programs of FDR, actually deepened and prolonged the Great Depression. It was the production demands of WWII that got the economy going again. And when the war was over, the economy promptly went into recession.

See e.g. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/03/opinion/main4499465.shtml
And
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409.aspx

Point is, Obama's programs are to tax, and it does not really matter who he taxes, those taxes are going to be passed through the economy. He has to tax, because it is they only way he can pay for his massive social engineering experiments. Any first year economics student knows that taxation is a tool used to contract an economy experiencing inflation, because it reduces demand by reducing the amount of money individuals and businesses have to spend. It is contractionary, which is exactly what you do not want to do when the problem is that the economy is contracting already into recession. Like Hoover and FDR, Obama's plans will only make it worse for longer.
Posted By: Nowforthetruth @ 10/20/2008 6:24:52 PM

Comment:

Look and listen for yourself. Hear Obama in his own words discusses his links to both ACORN and the mortgage meltdown, and praises bundling and securitizing mortgages by banks as a means to float loans to the poor. Never mind the link commentators point of view, just listen to what Obama says in his own words. A picture is worth a thousand words. Maybe more in the case of the last half of the second link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vJcVgJhNaU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr1M1T2Y314&feature=related

See also:
http://boards.msn.com/MSNBCboards/thread.aspx?threadid=808692&boardsparam=Page%3d2

This is a link to C-SPAN video clips of the Congressional hearings at roughly the time McCains attempt at S.190. to fix Fannie and Freddie. See for yourself who said what.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs

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

And the link below describes how some Democrats in Congress tried to use the original version of the bailout bill to divert money eventually recovered to groups like ACORN, a group Obama has a long association with. See:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122247015469280723.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Posted By: VOTENOW @ 10/20/2008 6:19:59 PM

Comment: THE GREAT BUSH DEPRESSION
I follow an economist named Bob Proctor. He has called the top and bottom of every market crash since the 70s correctly.
He perfectly predicted the current meltdown and the picture he paints about what will happen next
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 ,Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch , Fanny and Freddy Mae ,AIG
The government took them over because they are bankrupt. Even with the goverment nationalizing hundreds of billions of dollars in debt the stock market is crashing
the credit markets are frozen and all of us may suffer beyond anything seen in generations
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 how its been broken.
It is no surprise that he doesn't. The people that make up these securities use quantum 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 was the last to know somthing 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. Check out this link to the truth http://my.barackobama.com/keatingvideo
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 budget surplus like Bush did but a crashing economy and a 11,600,000,000,000 (trillion) dollars deficit. Most of it Bush created and it will take decades to pay it back.
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 are the polls even close then ?
Mccains team just said they no longer want to talk about the economy.Instead they would like to spend time talking about obama
which means running the biggest smear campaign in history.
They think they can just tell you lies and you wont be smart enough to see through it
Let's teach him we are smarter than that
Stand up and hold them accountable
Bush isn't on the ballot this year but his policies are
Elect Obama Biden 2008

Check out this video of sarah palins interview and ask your self if she understands what she is talking about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r36Xc0GG4iQ
Posted By: VOTENOW @ 10/20/2008 6:19:48 PM

Comment: THE GREAT BUSH DEPRESSION
I follow an economist named Bob Proctor. He has called the top and bottom of every market crash since the 70s correctly.
He perfectly predicted the current meltdown and the picture he paints about what will happen next
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 ,Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch , Fanny and Freddy Mae ,AIG
The government took them over because they are bankrupt. Even with the goverment nationalizing hundreds of billions of dollars in debt the stock market is crashing
the credit markets are frozen and all of us may suffer beyond anything seen in generations
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 how its been broken.
It is no surprise that he doesn't. The people that make up these securities use quantum 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 was the last to know somthing 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. Check out this link to the truth http://my.barackobama.com/keatingvideo
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 budget surplus like Bush did but a crashing economy and a 11,600,000,000,000 (trillion) dollars deficit. Most of it Bush created and it will take decades to pay it back.
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 are the polls even close then ?
Mccains team just said they no longer want to talk about the economy.Instead they would like to spend time talking about obama
which means running the biggest smear campaign in history.
They think they can just tell you lies and you wont be smart enough to see through it
Let's teach him we are smarter than that
Stand up and hold them accountable
Bush isn't on the ballot this year but his policies are
Elect Obama Biden 2008

Check out this video of sarah palins interview and ask your self if she understands what she is talking about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r36Xc0GG4iQ
Posted By: VOTENOW @ 10/20/2008 6:19:39 PM

Comment: THE GREAT BUSH DEPRESSION
I follow an economist named Bob Proctor. He has called the top and bottom of every market crash since the 70s correctly.
He perfectly predicted the current meltdown and the picture he paints about what will happen next
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 ,Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch , Fanny and Freddy Mae ,AIG
The government took them over because they are bankrupt. Even with the goverment nationalizing hundreds of billions of dollars in debt the stock market is crashing
the credit markets are frozen and all of us may suffer beyond anything seen in generations
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 how its been broken.
It is no surprise that he doesn't. The people that make up these securities use quantum 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 was the last to know somthing 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. Check out this link to the truth http://my.barackobama.com/keatingvideo
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 budget surplus like Bush did but a crashing economy and a 11,600,000,000,000 (trillion) dollars deficit. Most of it Bush created and it will take decades to pay it back.
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 are the polls even close then ?
Mccains team just said they no longer want to talk about the economy.Instead they would like to spend time talking about obama
which means running the biggest smear campaign in history.
They think they can just tell you lies and you wont be smart enough to see through it
Let's teach him we are smarter than that
Stand up and hold them accountable
Bush isn't on the ballot this year but his policies are
Elect Obama Biden 2008

Check out this video of sarah palins interview and ask your self if she understands what she is talking about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r36Xc0GG4iQ
Posted By: VOTENOW @ 10/20/2008 6:19:28 PM

Comment: THE GREAT BUSH DEPRESSION
I follow an economist named Bob Proctor. He has called the top and bottom of every market crash since the 70s correctly.
He perfectly predicted the current meltdown and the picture he paints about what will happen next
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 ,Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch , Fanny and Freddy Mae ,AIG
The government took them over because they are bankrupt. Even with the goverment nationalizing hundreds of billions of dollars in debt the stock market is crashing
the credit markets are frozen and all of us may suffer beyond anything seen in generations
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 how its been broken.
It is no surprise that he doesn't. The people that make up these securities use quantum 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 was the last to know somthing 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. Check out this link to the truth http://my.barackobama.com/keatingvideo
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 budget surplus like Bush did but a crashing economy and a 11,600,000,000,000 (trillion) dollars deficit. Most of it Bush created and it will take decades to pay it back.
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 are the polls even close then ?
Mccains team just said they no longer want to talk about the economy.Instead they would like to spend time talking about obama
which means running the biggest smear campaign in history.
They think they can just tell you lies and you wont be smart enough to see through it
Let's teach him we are smarter than that
Stand up and hold them accountable
Bush isn't on the ballot this year but his policies are
Elect Obama Biden 2008

Check out this video of sarah palins interview and ask your self if she understands what she is talking about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r36Xc0GG4iQ
Posted By: Jim Johnson @ 10/17/2008 7:35:31 PM

Comment: Obama's view of the future of America - Socialism which is the next step to Communism!! He admitted to Joe the Plumber than he wanted to spread the wealth! He said that he wanted to make everyone equal! Is America ready for Socialism? The Iranian president, Ahmadinejad, said today that he is glad to see the end to capitalism in America!! Are you glad?????
====================================================================================================

Under socialism a ruling class of intellectuals, bureaucrats and social planners decide what people want or what is good for society and then use the coercive power of the State to regulate, tax, and redistribute the wealth of those who work for a living. In other words, socialism is a form of legalized theft.

The morality of socialism can be summed-up in two words: envy and self-sacrifice. Envy is the desire to not only possess another's wealth but also the desire to see another's wealth lowered to the level of one's own. Socialism's teaching on self-sacrifice was nicely summarized by two of its greatest defenders, Hermann Goering and Bennito Mussolini. The highest principle of Nazism (National Socialism), said Goering, is: "Common good comes before private good." Fascism, said
Mussolini, is "a life in which the individual, through the sacrifice of his own private interests??realizes that completely spiritual existence in which his value as a man lies."

Socialism is the social system which institutionalizes envy and self-sacrifice: It is the social system which uses compulsion and the organized violence of the State to expropriate wealth from the producer class for its redistribution to the parasitical class.

Despite the intellectuals' psychotic hatred of capitalism, it is the only moral and just social system.

Capitalism is the only moral system because it requires human beings to deal with one another as traders--that is, as free moral agents trading and selling goods and services on the basis of mutual consent.

Capitalism is the only just system because the sole criterion that determines the value of thing exchanged is the free, voluntary, universal judgement of the consumer. Coercion and fraud are anathema to the free-market system.

It is both moral and just because the degree to which man rises or falls in society is determined by the degree to which he uses his mind. Capitalism is the only social system that rewards merit, ability and achievement, regardless of one's birth or station in life.

Yes, there are winners and losers in capitalism. The winners are those who are honest, industrious, thoughtful, prudent, frugal, responsible, disciplined, and efficient. The losers are those who are shiftless, lazy, imprudent, extravagant, negligent, impractical, and inefficient. [What about the role of luckbeing in the right place at the right time or the wrong place at the wrong time? R. R. Pope}
Posted By: sparkly @ 10/17/2008 5:47:15 PM

Comment: Francis Fukuyama -- I'm beginning to get tired by your "end of" declarations. I believe you also said (infamously) a while back that we were facing "The End of History" only to have that stunningly be proven wrong, now you're saying "End of America"... maybe you should consider a new motif?
Posted By: sparkly @ 10/17/2008 5:46:59 PM

Comment: Francis Fukuyama -- I'm beginning to get tired by your "end of" declarations. I believe you also said (infamously) a while back that we were facing "The End of History" only to have that stunningly be proven wrong, now you're saying "End of America"... maybe you should consider a new motif?
Posted By: Jim Johnson @ 10/16/2008 1:38:52 PM

Comment: Obama's view of the future of America - Socialism which is the next step to Communism!!

Under socialism a ruling class of intellectuals, bureaucrats and social planners decide what people want or what is good for society and then use the coercive power of the State to regulate, tax, and redistribute the wealth of those who work for a living. In other words, socialism is a form of legalized theft.

The morality of socialism can be summed-up in two words: envy and self-sacrifice. Envy is the desire to not only possess another's wealth but also the desire to see another's wealth lowered to the level of one's own. Socialism's teaching on self-sacrifice was nicely summarized by two of its greatest defenders, Hermann Goering and Bennito Mussolini. The highest principle of Nazism (National Socialism), said Goering, is: "Common good comes before private good." Fascism, said
Mussolini, is "a life in which the individual, through the sacrifice of his own private interests??realizes that completely spiritual existence in which his value as a man lies."

Socialism is the social system which institutionalizes envy and self-sacrifice: It is the social system which uses compulsion and the organized violence of the State to expropriate wealth from the producer class for its redistribution to the parasitical class.

Despite the intellectuals' psychotic hatred of capitalism, it is the only moral and just social system.

Capitalism is the only moral system because it requires human beings to deal with one another as traders--that is, as free moral agents trading and selling goods and services on the basis of mutual consent.

Capitalism is the only just system because the sole criterion that determines the value of thing exchanged is the free, voluntary, universal judgement of the consumer. Coercion and fraud are anathema to the free-market system.

It is both moral and just because the degree to which man rises or falls in society is determined by the degree to which he uses his mind. Capitalism is the only social system that rewards merit, ability and achievement, regardless of one's birth or station in life.

Yes, there are winners and losers in capitalism. The winners are those who are honest, industrious, thoughtful, prudent, frugal, responsible, disciplined, and efficient. The losers are those who are shiftless, lazy, imprudent, extravagant, negligent, impractical, and inefficient. [What about the role of luckbeing in the right place at the right time or the wrong place at the wrong time? R. R. Pope}

Capitalism is the only social system that rewards virtue and punishes vice. This applies to both the business executive and the carpenter, the lawyer and the factory worker.
Posted By: Nowforthetruth @ 10/13/2008 8:30:44 PM

Comment: Biggest one day increase in the Dow in market's history. However:

"The Dow's lone decliner was General Electric (GE, Fortune 500), which reported weak quarterly earnings late Friday. It was also among the 18 components of the S&P 500 that didn't join the rally.???"

http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/13/markets/markets_newyork/?postversion=2008101318

Another reason might be that, having provided a soapbox for socialist through its NBC division, the market no longer trusts GE with investment capital, Buffet notwithstanding.
Posted By: CathyG @ 10/13/2008 3:31:40 PM

Comment: I most definitely do not want to restore our brand. Our "brand" has reduced our democracy to a kleptocracy - rule by thieves. An unholy alliance between Washington and Wall Street has resulted in lobbyists writing legislation, no bid contracts, open looting of the National Treasury in favor of incompetent, irresponsible, insatiably greedy managers at key financial institutions and a death spirial of the middle class.

We need to return to the original vision of America - where government represents the PEOPLE, not the richest CORPORATIONS. Where actions by rogue corporations that cause terrible harm to society are prohibited by law, regulated fiercely and punished severely.

Actions that damage our economic sovereignty and, by extension, our national security are tantamount to treason and can no longer be tolerated. If the system can't be changed to rein in this behavior once and for all, the system is, frankly, not worth saving.
Posted By: LG Jaramillo @ 10/13/2008 10:07:52 AM

Comment: In January 14th of this year, I proposed a comprehensive language to lead our organizations. It???s called MBS! (See http://www.fivestarmanager.com).
Would be desirable to analyze the managerial failures of those organizations, probably responsible for the crisis we face today
The answer could be in the lack or failure of any of the basic premises involved in the MBS.
Another question: Is the practice of MBS in our organizations an utopia?
Are our societies in a state of no return and the knowledge, the practice of rationality and values are an impossible?
The most important thing today is to know that happened and what we must do, to avoid repeating the history.
Luis G. Jaramillo
Posted By: daniels1 @ 10/13/2008 8:01:56 AM

Comment: Nins is mistaken. I can't believe I am in the position of defending the Bush administration, buy the Gramm Leach Bliley Act was passed in 1999, two years before "W" took office.
Posted By: Nins @ 10/12/2008 11:08:36 PM

Comment: On October 10, the Alaska Legislative Council found Sarah Palin guilty of abusing power. Immediately Ms. Palin said "if you read the report you'll see that there was nothing unlawful or unethical about replacing a cabinet member." This quote by Palin is only 50% true. The Legislative Council report says it was LEGAL for her to fire Commissioner Monegan, since as Governor she has the right to hire and fire her staff at will. The report also says that her firing of Commissioner Monegan was an UNETHICAL abuse of power.

Palin tells you half of the truth, and lies outright about the other half. You know the old saying: If you tell a lie, make sure it contains some truth so it will be believable.

From the report:

Palin tried to force the Commissioner to prosecute Trooper Wooten (her former brother in law) for illegally shooting a moose. The Commissioner explained to Palin that if they charged Wooten they would also have to bring charges against Palin's sister, who was present on the hunt, had the moose permit and illegally let her husband use it. They would also have to prosecute Palin's father, who cut up the moose and stored it in his freezer, sharing the meat with the Palin family. In other words, the Palins were OK with Wooten illegally shooting the moose when it happened. They participated in the hunt and kept the meat. But a year later when Wooten was divorcing Palin's sister, suddenly the Palins turned him in for illegally killing a moose.

The Palins turned Wooten in to the State Troopers disciplinary commission about a year and a half before she became Governor. The Troopers investigated Wooten, finding that some of Palin's allegations were true and some were false. The Troopers disciplined Wooten with a few days' suspension. When Palin tried to get Monegan (the new Commissioner) to re-open the case once she was Governor, Monegan told her he couldn't do it. All the allegations had already been investigated and Palin had no new evidence. Trooper Wooten belongs to a union, and he can not be fired just because the Governor doesn't like him.

So, the Palins hired a private investigator to trail Wooten, trying to catch him doing something wrong. The investigator took photos of Wooten dropping his kids off at school, using his patrol car. The Palins file a complaint, saying it is illegal for him to ferry his kids in a patrol car. They try and get him fired for this, except it turns out that since Wooten was working a swing shift, his Commander had given him a waiver to bring his kids to school in the car.

Wooten and Palin's sister have been divorced 3 years, yet the Palins continue to persecute Wooten. Palin just can't forgive and get past this family drama.

Read the report yourself (it takes a few seconds to load):

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/Components/Interactives/Politics/Election2008/branchflower
_report_to_the_legislative_council.pdf
Posted By: Nowforthetruth @ 10/12/2008 10:22:35 PM

Comment: Bill Clinton points to liberal Congressional Democrats' protection of Fannie and Freddie from scrutiny as a primary cause of the current economic meltdown.

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

To prove Bill Clinton's point, this is a link to a C-SPAN video clip of the Congressional hearings at roughtly the time McCains attempt at S.190. to fix fannie and freddie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs

"Video Unearthed Democrats in their own words Covering up the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Scam that caused our Economic Crisis"

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

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122247015469280723.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

And here is Lou Dobbs reporting on ACORN corruption and ties to Obama, including Obama Campaign paying ACORN $800,000 for voter registration activities, and Obama representing them when he was a practicing attorney.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2008/10/09/ldt.tucker.acorn.under.fire.cnn
- Posted By: Nins @ 10/12/2008 11:24:14 PM
  
  Comment: Half Truth, you are wrong about this. The current economic meltdown was not caused by the bad paper held by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Here's a little history for you:
  
  In 1929 the stock market crash ultimately caused the banks to fail, because the banks were in bed with the stock market. Back then, banks owned investment houses, so when the stock market fell, the banks fell too. This triggered the Great Depression. So in 1933 the Congress wrote laws that regulated banking, making it illegal for banks to own investment companies, mortgage guaranty companies or insurance companies. The idea was to keep key industries separated by a fire wall, so that if one industry failed the whole economy would not go down in flames.
  
  But the Republicans under Bush deregulated the banking industry. Senator Phil Gramm introduced he Gramm Rudman Act and the Gramm Leach Biley Act, which stripped away the regulations written during the Great Depression, stripped away America's protection from another economic meltdown.
  
  So banks wrote bad mortgages, then bundled the mortgages into investment vehicles that they sold all over the world, and they even got firms like AIG to insure the investments. It was all a house of cards.
  
  If there had been no deregulation, sure we would have had a bunch of bad mortgages and the mortgage guaranty and real estate industries would have suffered, but there would not have been a global financial meltdown, since the problem would have been contained in one sector of the economy. You can thank Geo W. Bush, Sen. Phil Gramm and Sen John McCain for the meltdown, since they were strong proponents of deregulation.
- Posted By: Nins @ 10/12/2008 11:17:39 PM
  
  Comment: It is normal for campaigns to pay organizations to register and mobilize voters. Both Republicans and Democrats have done this for years. In a campaign that is costing hundreds of millions of dollars, spending $800,000 on a voter registration drive is not in the least bit shocking.
  
  Obama was affiliated with Acorn about 15 years ago in Chicago. Acorn has done excellent work in America, helping to bring disenfranchised poor voters into their legal rights as citizens. We all have the right to vote. Some of us (historically blacks, women and ethnic minorities) have been barred from voting by prejudice. Acorn exists to recitfy these wrongs, and to help people claim their rights as citizens.
  
  It happens to be true that most poor and disadvantaged voters tend to vote Democrat. The Democrats have reached out to this voting block with great success. It's kind of hard for Republicans to say to poor blacks "Vote for us!" when the GOP has so consistently fostered racism in American politics, in ways ranging from blocking civil rights legislation to Rush Limbaugh, et al.
  
  As for allegations of registration fraud at Acorn, it may be true that there are a few specific cases where over-zealous individuals abused the integrity of the Acorn mission. But one bad apple doesn't spoil the whole bunch, and a few inaccurate registrations can not cancel out the altruistic work that Acorn has done for decades. Even more important, Acorn is required by law to submit ALL voter registrations it receives. This law exists to prevent voter registrations groups from dumping registrations of people they object to -- for instance, a GOP registration drive is required to turn in the registrations of everyone, including Democrats who sign up at their table. Sometimes people fill out fake registrations, using names like Donald Duck or giving the planet Mars as their address. For this reason, every registration drive will end up turning in forms that are counted as fraudulent by the elections board. Acorn, like every other voter registration organization, has a percentage of forms that are invalid and labeled "fraudulent". This does not mean that Acorn is committing fraud. But the smear mongers and conspiracy theorists go crazy.
  
  I was watching the night that Lou Dobbs presented his opinion about Acorn. He gave no facts, only his own personal opinions. He's entitled to his opinions, but you are not entitled to present opinions as facts, NowfortheHALFtruth.
Posted By: Nowforthetruth @ 10/12/2008 8:24:52 PM

Comment: This link of a CSPAN video clip may help set the context, as these hearings were at the time of McCains attempt at S.190.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs

"Video Unearthed Democrats in their own words Covering up the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Scam that caused our Economic Crisis"
Posted By: kdelaere @ 10/12/2008 6:21:45 PM

Comment: Oh, and all the defeatists are coming out of the woodwork as well. "Give up!" "Withdraw!" "It can't work". Sorry, you tried it with Iraq (it's not working so we must pull out because that's the only solution) and it won't work here either. You are more than welcome to leave our capitalist paradise and say, move to Cuba. Just leave the free-thinkers alone, we'll sort it out ourselves. And take your white flag with you.
Posted By: kdelaere @ 10/12/2008 6:18:00 PM

Comment: If anyone, anywhere, can factually demonstrate that larger government and higher taxes lead to more growth I will order my hat rare. There are no examples in history of conservative economics being discredited. In fact, it's the opposite: the only examples are that cutting taxes and removing government from free enterprise promotes extreme growth. Just look at Ireland and Spain as examples. It's insane to use the excuse that market dislocations discredit capitalism and support socialism. That's exactly what deepened and lengthened the Great Depression until enough businesses fought back against the government's socialist experimentation. But, these people have been biding their time and are now coming out of the woodwork to prove that capitalism and free markets don't work. Laughable.
Posted By: robojamie @ 10/12/2008 4:03:58 PM

Comment: "But in continental Europe, workers are still treated to long vacations, short working weeks, job guarantees and a host of other benefits that weaken their productivity and will not be financially sustainable."

This just isn't true statistically -- if you look at the OECD data you will find that in terms of GDP per hour worked that the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Norway all have higher productivity levels than the United States. France has 93% of US productivity and Sweden has 89%.
Posted By: shaysite @ 10/12/2008 10:53:51 AM

Comment: By way explanation: Whatever they may say, it should be obvious that neither Fukuyama nor anybody else at this stage has any idea what sort of "ruling ideology" will emerge from the catastrophe we're now in. We can't tell, for instance, that the sort of liberal democracy/free market capitalism, championed by Fukuyama in the past, will prevail. His own analysis in this article, makes that clear.
Posted By: shaysite @ 10/12/2008 10:40:33 AM

Comment: The Fall of Francis Fukuyama: So I guess 1990 wasn't the "end of history" after all. Go back to the drawing board or, better, stay in the real world from now on. And, while you're at it, if it's the American approach that's been called into question, answer the question: "How does that suggest that European labor practices should be called into question?!"

Hegel is no substitute for history

Mostly good article but it's not consistent with Fukuyama's earlier writing.
Posted By: Nowforthetruth @ 10/12/2008 1:34:03 AM

Comment: This link of a CSPAN video may help set the context, as these hearings were at the time of McCains attempt at S.190.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs

"Shocking Video Unearthed Democrats in their own words Covering up the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Scam that caused our Economic Crisis"
Posted By: navydave83 @ 10/11/2008 7:55:48 PM

Comment: Mr Fukuyama I am sure is a brilliant man in his field of International Political Economics, but what makes his evaluation of the state of the current economic and financial crisis any better than another professor of economics from another university or from a corporation? I realize that any magazine such as Newsweek has certain restraints regarding how much to include in their edition, but is it right to include just one opinion? Don't get me wrong, I think Mr. Fukuyama's article is very thought provoking, and I in no way detract from it. I just would like to read differing evaluations from other economists that are of his peer group regarding our current situation. I feel that one person's opinion should not be held inviolate, unless he's God. One should be able to look at all facets of an argument, and then make a decision. But, I can't afford to buy Time, US News and World Report, The Economist, Barrons, Financial Times, etc., to get all the different slants on the news. Thanks goodness for the Internet. For Servant 43: Have Obama send you his bills and you bundle them up and sell them on the financial market as collateralized securities.
Posted By: Servant 43 @ 10/11/2008 12:53:00 PM

Comment: All these expenses that Obama has promised are going to cost a lot of money! Who will pay? Only those over $250K of income? They are too smart. They will take their money to other countries as so many companies have done with their jobs. Then who will pay? Who ever is left holding the bill.
Posted By: Servant 43 @ 10/11/2008 12:48:01 PM

Comment: Obama wants to give humanitarian aid to every country that asks for it while bombing Pakistan one of our allies! What if - God for bid - we kill even one innocent citizen of Pakistan in the process? Will NATO attack us to protect Pakistan? Will Pakistan bomb its enemies living on our soil? They have nuclear bombs you know! The absurdity should stop the foolish talk. We should get permission from Pakistan before making outlandish statements like bombing allies without explicit consent from their leaders. How would you feel if Russia, Iran or North Korea bombed us to kill their terrorists living in our country?
Posted By: Servant 43 @ 10/11/2008 12:46:24 PM

Comment: People are afraid of what the polls are telling them is currently happening. Fact - with Obama, taxes will go up. His record states that and even he admits it. People know that higher taxes means a worse economy. The people have spoken the only way they know how - With Money. They pulled out of the stock market from fear of Obama and they have stopped buying to save up money to pay all the new taxes.
Posted By: Brainfreezer @ 10/11/2008 11:12:57 AM

Comment: "The era of trickle down economics is over". Wait..."The era of crushing the middle class is over". Scratch that..."The era of over hyped republican idiots destroying our economy is over". There we go. Whether the republicans liked it or not, government is a necessity for capitalism to succeed as long as it's run intelligently and paid for. Regulations are needed to reign in modern day robber barons and prevent the messes we currently find ourselves in. The lists are long and painful. How can the CEO of AIG make a half billion dollars since 2000 while the retirements of most Americans is in ashes. Oh wait, thats a republican's wet dream. The rich get richer and the middle class and poor get shafted. Since the late 70's the wealth gap between the rich and poor has widened to mind boggling levels. The country has exported manufacturing to the point where we don't make anything anymore. They argued that by having other countries such as China and Mexico become wealthier, they would in turn buy more American products. Wait a minute, we don't make anything anymore, hmmm, interesting concept. The catch 22 economic policy. They argued Americans needed to go back to college in order to compete in the new information economy but a college education has increased more in cost than almost any other item unless you take out numerous loans and saddle yourself with debt. Americans were brainwashed that retirement pensions were old fashioned and 4
01ks were the panacea to working class Americans....not. It's over, a new generation will be in charge come January 2008 and the
Posted By: cani77 @ 10/11/2008 9:27:56 AM

Comment: 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 ,Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch , Fanny and Freddy Mae ,AIG
The government took them over because they are essentially bankrupt. Even with the goverment nationalizing hundreds of billions of dollars in debt the stock market is crashing
the credit markets are frozen and all of us may suffer beyond anything in the last 80 years.
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 didnt 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. Check out this link to the truth http://my.barackobama.com/keatingvideo
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 crashing economy and a 11,600,000,000,000 (trillion) dollars deficit. Most of it Bush created and it will take decades to pay it back.
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 are the polls even close then ?
Mccains team just said they no longer want to talk about the economy.Instead they would like to spend time talking about obama
which means running the biggest smear campaign in history.
They think they can just tell you lies and you wont be smart enough to see through it
Let's teach him we are smarter than that .
Elect Obama Biden 2008

Check out this video of sarah palins interview and ask your self if she understands what she is talking about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r36Xc0GG4iQ
Posted By: cani77 @ 10/11/2008 9:27:38 AM

Comment: 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 ,Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch , Fanny and Freddy Mae ,AIG
The government took them over because they are essentially bankrupt. Even with the goverment nationalizing hundreds of billions of dollars in debt the stock market is crashing
the credit markets are frozen and all of us may suffer beyond anything in the last 80 years.
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 didnt 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. Check out this link to the truth http://my.barackobama.com/keatingvideo
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 crashing economy and a 11,600,000,000,000 (trillion) dollars deficit. Most of it Bush created and it will take decades to pay it back.
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 are the polls even close then ?
Mccains team just said they no longer want to talk about the economy.Instead they would like to spend time talking about obama
which means running the biggest smear campaign in history.
They think they can just tell you lies and you wont be smart enough to see through it
Let's teach him we are smarter than that .
Elect Obama Biden 2008

Check out this video of sarah palins interview and ask your self if she understands what she is talking about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r36Xc0GG4iQ
Posted By: cani77 @ 10/11/2008 9:27:28 AM

Comment: 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 ,Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch , Fanny and Freddy Mae ,AIG
The government took them over because they are essentially bankrupt. Even with the goverment nationalizing hundreds of billions of dollars in debt the stock market is crashing
the credit markets are frozen and all of us may suffer beyond anything in the last 80 years.
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 didnt 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. Check out this link to the truth http://my.barackobama.com/keatingvideo
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 crashing economy and a 11,600,000,000,000 (trillion) dollars deficit. Most of it Bush created and it will take decades to pay it back.
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 are the polls even close then ?
Mccains team just said they no longer want to talk about the economy.Instead they would like to spend time talking about obama
which means running the biggest smear campaign in history.
They think they can just tell you lies and you wont be smart enough to see through it
Let's teach him we are smarter than that .
Elect Obama Biden 2008

Check out this video of sarah palins interview and ask your self if she understands what she is talking about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r36Xc0GG4iQ
Posted By: williambanzai7 @ 10/11/2008 9:12:16 AM

Comment: The Words We Will Never Hear
WilliamBanzai7

Fellow Americans,

As you have heard by separate announcement,
the United States Treasury Department today announced
that it is extending an emergency line of credit in the
amount of _____________ Billion US Dollars to ACME Bank.
In addition, it was announced that the
Treasury Department by means of the recently
enacted "TARP" legislation, will be injecting an additional
____________ Billion dollars in the form of fresh equity
capital.

The purpose of this statement is not to provide
the details of these matters which are covered
elsewhere. Rather, we the management and employees
of ACME Bank want to extend our sincerest
thanks and appreciation to the American taxpayers for
providing this financial lifeline to our company at
a time of dire need.

Although the recent events in the financial
markets are unprecedented, we take full
responsibility for the difficult position we
find ourselves in. We also want you to know
that we recognize the hardship being caused
by this crisis to each and every one of you. Many
of the activities recently engaged in by ACME
have contributed to this crisis. We a sincerely apologize
to each and everyone of you in this regard.

As a Company we pledge to
do everything in our power to redeem
the trust and confidence you have extended us.
Your trust and generosity is our
most valued asset.

Further, we pledge that from this moment on, we
will work 24/7 to rebuild ACME for the
good of the United States of America as well as our
stakeholders.

We look forward to your continued support.

God Bless You All

Sincerely,

ACME BANK
Posted By: arroyoribera @ 10/11/2008 3:09:49 AM

Comment: Sorry Productive American (who posted at 10/10/2008 12:07:33 PM). You wrote that (quote) The computer you used to write your ridiculous article and just about everything else you are surrounded by (less your lack of intelligence) is a product of Capitalism and the unrelenting productive ability of TRUE Americans". More than likely, sir, most of what is around most of us including the clothes we are wearing, much of our home electronics and so much else, was produced outside the U.S. Typical creating a reality which matches the feeble analysis one already has developed. As to Mr. Francis Fukuyama, the author of the Newsweek piece above, this is the same individual who wrote the gloating piece a number of years ago on the end of history. Now he is writing about the fall of America and the end of capitalism. Most likely his stock portfolio has collapsed and he is looking for work. Perhaps he can take up tutoring economically and politically illiterate citizens of the U.S. in the reality of an empire in rapid decline.
Posted By: lptechmach @ 10/10/2008 6:34:02 PM

Comment: Amen to "LifeLibertyHappiness" and "Productive American" !!! I have never posted a comment on a blog before in my life, but the simple statement, "Worse, the culprit is the American model itself: under the mantra of less government, Washington failed to adequately regulate the financial sector and allowed it to do tremendous harm to the rest of the society." was so absolutely shocking to me that I had to respond. I fully expected to see a long string of praise comments for this drivel because i am convinced that the Mainstream Media is winning the fight in its attempt to brainwash middle America. I was elated to read the comments by these two readers and I echo their sentiments tenfold! Capitalism in the financial sector failed entirely due to the fact that is WAS REGULATED by the government. In 1995, during the "Clinton Years", when Andrew Cuomo, Janet Reno and others demanded that banks and other lending institutions get creative with their financing and make it possible for low income families to "live the American dream" by purchasing a house they truly could not afford by historic measures, their policy REGULATION opened the floodgates to hundreds of thousands of bad loans. The policy change went widely unnoticed for so many years because the economic BOOM our country was enjoying due to the DEREGULATION that occured under Reagan allowed most middle and lower class residents to become upwardly mobile. The "fast and loose" loan approval process began to spin out of control as every lender wanted a big bite of this giant dessert. Eventually, nearly every bank, regardless of how conservative their underlying principles were, adapted the new standards of approving loans, in order to be competitive in this REGULATED industry. In much the same way that one printer company decides to sell its printer below cost and then charge 10 times cost on the consumable ink cartridges, this forces all of their competition to do the same in order to maintain market share. That is, until the consumers realize the pawnzie scheme and stop buying the printers. Lending institiutions in the US and around the world need a small amount of regulation and oversight to protect consumers from what they are selling, but for the most part, capitalism should and ultimately will prevail in a free society, which I hope we will still have after this Presential election. The comments posted to this blog give me some cause for hope that Americans are starting to get fed-up with the liberal media and all of the brainwashing lies and are finally starting to fight back. It is time for a "grass roots" fight for CONSERVATISM and DEMOCRACY and smaller, less expensive government. I am calling and e-mailing all of my contacts to inform them of the truth and to educate themselves on the reality behind the "media-cultivated" issues so that they can and will go out and vote on election day.
Posted By: LifeLibertyHappiness @ 10/10/2008 2:32:21 PM

Comment: "Productive American" is right. What's more, when you 'swing the pendulum' willy-nilly to whichever direction the frustrated wind blows, you mess up any chance of a 'system' such as capitalism to be shown as good or bad because you muck it up in the name of 'pragmatism'. This article seems to make 'pragmatist' a compliment to Obama. I guess of all the adjectives I could use to describe him that probably would be the nicest... but pragmatism is dead-wrong: it espouses this notion of sticking your finger in your mouth, up in the air, and then doing whatever seems to be the most popular at the time. It's never taking a stand and being tough in the face of possible opposition. It's never sticking to it long enough to find out if your convictions are right or wrong. It's not following-through, changing course, letting all the pieces collapse where you abandoned them and then turning around to point a blaming finger at those stunned ones you left behind you. There are so many seemingly 'educated', 'enlightened', 'intellectual' folks explaining this current situation by ripping it from history, from context, from REALITY that the less-knowledgeable masses are getting confused and misguided. That is a real shame, a real failure of responsibility to speak the truth, to look at the WHOLE picture, to take full accountability.

Finally, this notion that America's 'brand', our 'image' and/or respectability is somehow Issue #1 in this election (followed by claims that only Obama can restore them) are just infuriating. Since when is image more important than substance? Since when do we choose important things by what OTHERS will think about us? I know that my parents taught me to think for myself, not to do things for the sake of appearances to others if I know they are not the right things to do, and to never let others' opinions of me guide my life. America should also listen to *its* parents here - the founding fathers had it right, and if we stick to their vision, we'll be just fine. Wake up America and remember your true north.
Posted By: Productive American @ 10/10/2008 12:07:33 PM

Comment: Are you all retarded? It's one thing to bite the hand that feeds you but it's another to boldly lie about it. The very building you sit in, the computer you used to write your ridiculous article and just about everything else you are surrounded by (less your lack of intelligence) is a product of Capitalism and the unrelenting productive ability of TRUE Americans. There are so many falsehoods, fallacies and contradictions in this article that I am not even sure where to begin. Socialists and communists alike are always waiting to pounce and point the finger at capitalism when things go aria and this article is no different. What this article fails to mention, and the reason for this entire article and argument to be laughable, is the main contradiction: It is that when ever a socialist act is injected into a capitalist fundamental the outcome is going to be bad. Case and point Fanny Mae and the Community Revitalization Act. Fanny Mae, a quasi-government entity and acts as if it???s a normal capitalist organization only to be contradictory in its very nature and thus fails sending us into this tail spin of an economy. The Community Revitalization Act; it???s a 100% socialist agenda forced upon a capitalist industry buy the big hand of government and causes such chaos that even dim-wits such as Mr. Fukuyama can spin things to make it seem as if it???s the fault of a free market. Wake up folks, socialism and communism doesn???t work no matter what face you paint on them and no country will ever match the productive abilities of the U.S.A so long as we have the freedom to be just that, PRODUCTIVE!
Posted By: Productive American @ 10/10/2008 12:07:14 PM

Comment: Are you all retarded? It's one thing to bite the hand that feeds you but it's another to boldly lie about it. The very building you sit in, the computer you used to write your ridiculous article and just about everything else you are surrounded by (less your lack of intelligence) is a product of Capitalism and the unrelenting productive ability of TRUE Americans. There are so many falsehoods, fallacies and contradictions in this article that I am not even sure where to begin. Socialists and communists alike are always waiting to pounce and point the finger at capitalism when things go aria and this article is no different. What this article fails to mention, and the reason for this entire article and argument to be laughable, is the main contradiction: It is that when ever a socialist act is injected into a capitalist fundamental the outcome is going to be bad. Case and point Fanny Mae and the Community Revitalization Act. Fanny Mae, a quasi-government entity and acts as if it???s a normal capitalist organization only to be contradictory in its very nature and thus fails sending us into this tail spin of an economy. The Community Revitalization Act; it???s a 100% socialist agenda forced upon a capitalist industry buy the big hand of government and causes such chaos that even dim-wits such as Mr. Fukuyama can spin things to make it seem as if it???s the fault of a free market. Wake up folks, socialism and communism doesn???t work no matter what face you paint on them and no country will ever match the productive abilities of the U.S.A so long as we have the freedom to be just that, PRODUCTIVE!
Posted By: monnie12 @ 10/09/2008 9:37:13 PM

Comment: Mr. Fukiyama is correct about excessive deregulation and tax cuts, but I have to ask where was he and the other pundits when we needed them to raise a stink when the Congress was rushing toward the abyss like lemmings? I am not an eco

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