End of the ‘Ownership Society’

Give me a break. You trounce Bush, saying he's to blame for everything wrong with this country. Then you go on to say other countries are having the same problems. So, Bush caused those as well? Phooey. Just another example of the liberal media spouting their falsehoods.

Lou Dobbs reports on ACORN corruption and ties to Obama, including Obama Campaign paying ACORN $800,000 for voter registration activities.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2008/10/09/ldt.tucker.acorn.under.fire.cnn

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

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

Look for the truth here...........

Rolling Stone Magazine: Make believe Maverick, A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty.
By TIM DICKINSON
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain?commentPage=8#rate

Palin s model for debate: BUSH! From Countdown MSNBC Oct, 3-08
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f_SmsXgzvg

If Palin wants to play guilt by association , let s compare:
* Video: Sarah Palin addresses the Alaska Independence Party convention.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwvPNXYrIyI

* Article
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/palins_attack_on_obamas_patrio.php#more
I strongly suggest everyone go to:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/10/07/palins_unamerican/
Also google for Palin & mentor Pastor Thomas Muthee, witchcraft ritual and who is Mr. Muthee. Here is one: http://irregulartimes.com/index.php/archives/2008/09/15/sarah-palin-and-the-thomas-muthee-witch-hunt/
For McCain:
- Keating Five, just google it , there are tons to read and see....
- McCain linked to group in Iran-Contra case. Organization had ties to former Nazi collaborators, right wing death squads: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27062761/
- McCain & Pastor John Hagee, just google it , there are tons to read and see....
- McCain ties with Gordon Liddy : <http://mediamatters.org/items/200810040004>
- The Silver State bank and the role of McCain???s son, google it....
At least Obama could walk up to the WH his head held high not trailing mud......

Feel free to re-post.

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

THE AFFIRMATIVE ACTION CANDIDATE!

NEVER IN THE HISTORY OF THIS COUNTRY HAS A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE BEEN GIVEN SUCH A FREE PASS BY THE PRESS AND JUST ABOUT EVERYONE ELSE!

I AM WAITING FOR A BLACK PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE TO MAKE IT ON HIS OWN MERIT.

COLIN POWELL COMES TO MIND!

Karabell makes a weak link between the Zero Down Payment Initiative and the current crisis. And he's couched it in such a manner to lay the blame at Bush's feet. Hey folks, Google the Zero Down Payment Initiative, and you'll see:

1. It was widley supported across both sides of the aisle.

2. It would be structured to assist those creditworthy but cash poor working individuals and families who have been excluded from purchasing their first home. These families can afford monthly mortgage payments, but due to their limited income have not been able to save for a downpayment.

HUD has designed this program to minimize defaults and to protect the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund. FHA has made conservative financial assumptions regarding the program. In order to cover the costs of the program, families who qualify for the Zero Down Payment Plan would be charged a modestly higher insurance premium on their home loan.

3. Borrowers would be held to the same underwriting guidelines as those who apply for FHA's standard three percent downpayment mortgage. They must meet the same payment-to-income and debt-to-income ratios and the same credit standards.

This is a far cry in how the sub-prime loans that sunk the economy were structured and approved.

So let's take it with a grain of salt, and get past Karabell's not-so-hidden agenda.

HOLD UP. The policies that caused the home market to collapse were LONG IN PLACE BEFORE BUSH. This is about as REVISIONIST as it comes. I knew someone would finally get around to blaming Bush. However, this is too soon. You have to wait until everyone forgets the real reason. Until everyone forgets the loans that Acorn was pushing. Until everyone forgets the policies long in place during Clinton era. Fortunately, when you post on the net, people have a chance to respond. As you can see, few believe your bunk.

Bush did want the concept to work, but it wasn't Bush that pushed skip-a-payment and subprime loan concepts. Zero-dollar-down doesn't matter if the owner can pay the loan off. It's people being lied to about flexible interests rates and banks making politically correct loans to people who don't have the capitial or income to support it.

Sorry, you're a day late and a dollar short. You can't rewrite history at this point. Look around the comments on the net; no one believes your garbage about it all being the Republicans fault. IT'S EVERYONE'S FAULT.

I knew eventually someone would finally go past all the whisperings and slip-in comments and finally say what they really wanted people to hear. I'm suprised it took so long for someone to literally say, "It's Bush's fault."

Check the IQ curve, the peak is at 100, not 20.

I am like most, probably all Americans. I would like to own my own home, car, refrigerator etc.. In this silly election season, each side and its partisans come out with numbers which support their vision for OUR COUNTRY, which means YOU and I. A tremendous amount of credit has been given to President Clinton for the "Feel Good" years of his "Reign". Many people I care about and I include myself, look with fond memories at those years. I also recall the tremendous numbers of Wall Street of those days and the growth of the NASDAQ. It was the technology companies, which, starting sometime in 1995 exploded and over a period of about 5 years dominated the growth of wealth. The frantic buying and selling of stocks in these companies, many of which were just a "gleam in the eye" of their founders, produced a tremendous amount of revenue to the IRS in the form of income taxes, especially capital gains taxes. Almost all of these capital gains taxes were of the "short term" kind which are much higher than than the "long term" kind. If I recall correctly, these were quite a bit higher than regular income tax rates and put a lot of people in higher tax brackets. Then the Dot.com bubble started bursting in 1999 reaching its peak in 2000 and finally lost all air in 2001. Come 9/11/2001, another "bubble" burst, this of confidence in our "personal security" which we had foolishly built up as a result of the fall of the Soviet Union. Realisation of our vulnerability caused us to panic and we took it out on everything including the "wealth we ARE" and the "wealth we CREATE". As this article states, somewhere a few paragraphs into it, George W. Bush was not the first to "create" this mess. Society has been doing this for as long as it has existed. The most recent, unabashed, attempt which has so far been sacrosanct is the "Great Society" of Lyndon Johnson in the 1960's.
The ones that come to mind of earlier of particular relevance for today are the 1928 election slogan "A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage" of Herbert Hoover and the 1932 "A New Deal For the Forgotten Man" of Franklin Roosevelt just after the 1929 depression. Please read the book "The Forgotten man" by Amity Schlaes and I am sure there are many others.
Mr. Karabell is not saying anything new, just pointing fingers at George W. Bush, who I perceive he wants to consign to the trash heap of history. If George W. Bush indeed ends up in that trash heap, he will have the "distinguished" company of FDR, Lyndon Johnson and the not so distinguished Jimmy Carter and William Jefferson Clinton.

And don't forget under Bush 17 million families purchased homes and 2 million are in danget of foreclosure. That still 15 million net, which is far better than Clinton, or any Democrat has done in getting families into owned homes.

This idea that either the Dems or the Republicans (each week it's a different group pointing a finger at the other group) FORCED banks to make loans to people who weren't qualified is ridiculous. If I have two brothers, both who want to borrow $1000, one of whom is a high school math teacher (or bank employee, or factory worker, or etc.), and one of whom is a junkie....it is up to ME to decide to lend money to one or the other or both...but if the junkie never pays me back, I can't blame my parents for giving birth to a junkie. The reason we are in this mess is simple...banks and brokerages had the rules changed, that had been in effect, and worked well for the past 60 or so years (Glass-Steagall and other events), that allowed them to go after profits in ways they hadn't been able to before. GREED is what created this mess - real estate agents who wanted to sell more and more houses to get more and more commissions, mortgage brokers, who wanted to approve more and more mortgages to make more and more fees, rating agencies who rated the mortgage packages based on SOME of the mortgages in the package, banks who were anxious to make the interest of the loan payments, it goes on and on. We can still blame the President and Congress, but everyone who continued to take money without considering they were building houses on the sand needs to "man-up" and admit they were part of the problem.

Life itself much more resembles a rental arrangement than an ownership one. You can't take "stuff" with you to the afterlife. In the meantime, though, be more respectful of renters. It's much to America's discredit that these people have been treated like second-class citizens, given no tax breaks whatsoever, and are now expected to chip in to fix a mess they didn't make, all for a "dream" that was much more about setting up a platform for maximizing consumption than it was about benefiting the "end user." All you have to do is compare how much money Home Depot, furniture stores, fix-it businesses, the auto industry, oil companies, utilities and a wide swath of other interests make from homeowners vs. renters. If you own a house you're typically on the hook for a lot more non-mortgage expenses just because of the specs of the arrangement. Commutes are longer, utilities are higher, there's more space to furnish, etc.

You can see why business interests are eager to promote this high-consumption model as the American dream. But is it really best for the individual who has to pay for it all? Or is that person working extra hours or falling behind on savings due to costs that can be avoided under other models (hint: compare what Americans have to spend on commuting and transportation vs. Europeans).

I'm tired of President Bush getting the blame for everything that has gone wrong over the past 7 1/2 years.No, I'm not a registered Republican. The concept of everyone owning a home was initiated during the Clinton years. This was also the time of de-regulation by Congress and signed in by Clinton. Anyone and everyone could get a banking license, including those brokerage houses that are now close to going out of business, or have already failed, due to the re-package of mortage loans bought on the secondary mortgage market.