The Fall of America, Inc.

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

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.

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.

"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.

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!

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 economist or social scientist but using common sense you had to ask the question -- when we did not question the huge bonuses for more and more difficult to understand "products" coming out of Wall Street with no harness where was the incentive to say let's step back and take a look at what we're creating? Why would a CEO forego a $10,000,000 bonus whether they succeeded or failed, his or her bonus based on churning the "products" -- it was free money, I wouldn't have turned it down and neither did they. We as American people didn't ask the questions we needed to ask and now we reap the whirlwind, we have no choice but to ride it out for the next few years and lend a helping hand to our neighbors who are going to lose their homes, their jobs, and in some cases even surety that they are going to be able to eat from day-to-day.

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

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

Professor Fukuyama's article was very interesting. There is much to be learned from his remarks regardless of ones political persuasion. There needs to be a consensus that politicians must work together and begin to bring their ideologies to the middle of the road. The world economy calls for hybrid approaches to our basic tenants of capitalism.

You call yourself a 'news' organization? You really need to do a little more research. The root cause of this housing/mortgage problem goes back to Pres. Jimmy Carter with his Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), enacted by Congress in 1977 (12 U.S.C. 2901) . It was further exacerbated by Pres. Bill Clinton in the 90s with the help of ACORN and one Barrack Hussein Obama as a lawyer who for them. When the government forces banks to make loans to individuals without credit, no job and no means of paying the loan back, this is what happens. Deregulation didn't cause this. Regulations that forced banks to make bad loans did. Where is your investigating reporting on Franklin Raines and the others at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac who made millions? Barney Frank should be holding hearings and call himself as a witness under oath. He is unbelievable.

Indict Obama for scamming our country out of millions and for encouraging voter fraud.

Cease all funds given to ACORN....they are ROBBING America.

It's the idiot Obama and his idiot friends with ACORN that are to blame for the housing crash....follow the money

You say "And we cannot even begin until we clearly understand what went wrong???which aspects of the American model are sound, which were poorly implemented, and which need to be discarded altogether." I cannot agree more with you on this. There is no doubt that the next administration will have to work just as hard to end the Iraq war, wage and win the Afghanistan War and solve the financial crisis on Wall Street. All three crisis are the work of one man: George Bush. The whole world wishes the next American President goodluck because we all need him to succeed in all three areas. But the core problem which the next President will not be able to solve is how the US goes about choosing the most powerful man in the world. The whole world watches with horror at the spectacle of the American Presidential system which always results in a new President emerging like a jaci-in-the-box. The system has produced people like Bill Clinton who left office having created millions of jobs and bequeathed a budgetary surplus to his successor who emerged like a jack-in-the-box and squandered this inheritance leaving the world where it is today. It is because this sytem of presidential selection is fundamentally dangerous that it produced George Bush and theoretically can still leave the US in the hands of Sarah Palin in the event that the Macain ticket wins and Macain cannot complete his term of office. The world will now be literally in the hands of a young woman who has absolutely no business within 2000km of the White House. The lesser of the two evils is probably Barack Obama; but he still emerges like a jack-in-the-box out of no where. That is precisely why people are questioning his experience. I still think the British parliamentary system is preferable because we already have a pretty good idea of who is likely to succeed Gordon Brown if need be. He has already been training for the job as opposition leader. In France, like in Russia, Germany, China and India, Canada they take the job of the country's leadership very seriously. You cannot just come out of nowhere and expect to take control of the country. You must be tested first. Ultimately, the American political brand is not an exportable one and too bad the next President of the United States cannot change that. This more than anything else is responsible for the Fall of America, Inc.

You say "And we cannot even begin until we clearly understand what went wrong???which aspects of the American model are sound, which were poorly implemented, and which need to be discarded altogether." I cannot agree more with you on this. There is no doubt that the next administration will have to work just as hard to end the Iraq war, wage and win the Afghanistan War and solve the financial crisis on Wall Street. All three crisis are the work of one man: George Bush. The whole world wishes the next American President goodluck because we all need him to succeed in all three areas. But the core problem which the next President will not be able to solve is how the US goes about choosing the most powerful man in the world. The whole world watches with horror at the spectacle of the American Presidential system which always results in a new President emerging like a jaci-in-the-box. The system has produced people like Bill Clinton who left office having created millions of jobs and bequeathed a budgetary surplus to his successor who emerged like a jack-in-the-box and squandered this inheritance leaving the world where it is today. It is because this sytem of presidential selection is fundamentally dangerous that it produced George Bush and theoretically can still leave the US in the hands of Sarah Palin in the event that the Macain ticket wins and Macain cannot complete his term of office. The world will now be literally in the hands of a young woman who has absolutely no business within 2000km of the White House. The lesser of the two evils is probably Barack Obama; but he still emerges like a jack-in-the-box out of no where. That is precisely why people are questioning his experience. I still think the British parliamentary system is preferable because we already have a pretty good idea of who is likely to succeed Gordon Brown if need be. He has already been training for the job as opposition leader. In France, like in Russia, Germany, China and India, Canada they take the job of the country's leadership very seriously. You cannot just come out of nowhere and expect to take control of the country. You must be tested first. Ultimately, the American political brand is not an exportable one and too bad the next President of the United States cannot change that. This more than anything else is responsible for the Fall of America, Inc.

You say "And we cannot even begin until we clearly understand what went wrong???which aspects of the American model are sound, which were poorly implemented, and which need to be discarded altogether." I cannot agree more with you on this. There is no doubt that the next administration will have to work just as hard to end the Iraq war, the Afghanistan War as the financial crisis on Wall Street. All three crisis are the work of one man: George Bush. The whole world wishes the next American President goodluck because we all need it. But the core problem which the next President will not be able to solve is how the US goes about choosing the most powerful man in the world. The whole world watched with horror at the spectacle of the American Presidential system which always results in a new President emerging like a jaci-in-the-box. The system has produced people like Bill Clinton who left office having created millions of jobs and bequeathed a budgetary surplus to his successor who emerged like a jack-in-the-box and squandered this inheritance leaving the world where it is today. It is because this sytem of presidential selection is fundamentally dangerous that it produced George Bush and theoretically can still leave the US in the hands of Sarah Palin in the event that the Macain ticket wins and Macain cannot complete his term of office. The world will now be literally in the hands of a young woman who has absolutely no business within 2000km of the White House. The lesser of the two evils is probably Barack Obama; but he still emerges like a jack-in-the-box out of no where. I still think the British parliamentary system is preferable because we already have a pretty good idea of who is likely to succeed Gordon Brown. He has already been training for the job as opposition leader. In France, like in Russia, Germany, China and India, they take leadership very seriously. You cannot just come out of nowhere and expect to take control of the country. Ultimately, the American brand is not an exportable one and too bad the next President of the United States cannot change that.

Although I'm writing this so far away, from Brazil, I cannot see the whole problem can be properly explained as the result of a bunch of irresponsible money lending. Money lent for houses are usually payed for decades. What seems to me is that north-american jobs were "exported" to wherever there were slave-like working conditions, searching for the lowest costs, to offer the lowest prices for consumers. However, in doing so, the most important consumers in the world lost their jobs, and wouldn't be able to pay their debts anymore. Conclusion: the workers are the consumers, and shouldn't be thought as separate issues. The solution: First world countries should stop buying goods from industries that wouldn't respect a minimal standard of payments/benefits/rights for their workers. This would return work-places to north-american workers (which have probably much more efficient administrations), and their conditions to consume again. And, plus, that would raise the quality of life of workers all over the world. All this based on a new ethics of price making and competition in business: to pay the least possible within decent standards of dignity. Which seems simple, logic, and good for everyone in the world. And could solve the real and hard causes of the present crisis. Sander Fridman

sharkman, that is the most sense i've seen on here. people, prepare to be able to take care of yourselves and your family. not for a day, not a week. longer. encourage your friends and neighbors to do the same. the more of us who can pull together and deal with our lives without the intervention of the government, the better. fact is, they can't help us all. trust me, katrina was proof enough.

Americans,the world has benifited from your inventions,hard work,and common desentsy to other countries.Technology has made us lazy.My grandmother used to tell me stories of the great depression.My grandfather was killed in a head on collision in 1930.My grandmother had to raise 12 children by herself.She used to say that one night they would eat potatoe soup for dinner.The next night dinner would be potatoe peal soup.All Americans plan on this for your future.You cannot eat money.Learn to produce the basics for yourself at least.Do not take our current easy way of living for granite.Prepare for total civil chaos.Be able to produce for yourself.