MONEY CULTURE

A Venti-Sized Recession?

The more Starbucks a country has, the bigger its financial problems.

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  • Posted By: Nins @ 10/28/2008 8:00:46 PM

    The GOP is grasping at straws. They have nothing substantive against Obama, but boy are they good at making up lies. This has been a leading Rove tactic for years, and if America falls for this again we should be ashamed of ourselves. Not to mention the fact that this is all a smokescreen to keep the focus off of the fact that Palin and her Alaska associates are in contempt of court for refusing to testify in the Troopergate hearings. After Nixon and Clinton, Americans are to some extent jaded, but really, would you want a VP who refuses to attend hearings in her own defense, and instructs her employees not to testify? That smells like guilt. It surely doesn't give the impression that she has done no wrong and has nothing to hide.

    This year, the GOP offers you an angry old man and a woman who, while personable, is desperately uniformed about national and international issues. Both of them are far right politically. McCain used to be a maverick, but since 2004 he has voted 90% with Bush. McCain's policies are not original or reformist, despite how he has tried to co-opt Obama's popular message of change. Please go to the websites of both of the candidates and read their platforms. Obama's Blueprint for Change has more good ideas than McCain's plan. Compare them yourself. Obama's basic premise is that tax dollars should be spent to make America stronger and to improve the lives and well being of our people. For example, he uses education programs to train a technology workforce, contributing to energy independence, creating jobs and improving the economy. When you read McCain's plan you will find no over-arching design to get America back on track. Instead you'll find more tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation of the health care industry.

    I'm a Republican. Although I embrace some forward-thinking social values, in the past I've rarely voted Democrat. My thinking was that since Republicans grow robust economies, by voting Republican I'd be endorsing a plan that would grow wealth for our nation, and then we would be able to afford social programs. It was a good strategy for a couple decades, but I have to say that the tenure of W. Bush has changed my mind. Not only is there nothing fiscally responsible about today's GOP, the insidious alignment of the party with religious intolerance has really turned me off.

    On the other hand, the intelligent luminous thought of Barack Obama has ignited my patriotism. I want a President who puts America first and can get the economy back on track. In my mind, values voting takes a back burner when we are faced with a meltdown of the economy. It's time for a change, a real change. The Republicans have controlled the Presidency for 28 of the past 40 years, but they have fallen down on the job. The Democrats have a stellar candidate this year, and I am voting for Obama.

  • Posted By: Nowforthetruth @ 10/25/2008 4:15:47 PM

    What do you really know about Obama's economic philosophy? Since he has never run a town, state or business, he has no record to look at. Oh, he has made lots of promises, but given that he broke his promise to be limited to public campaign funds, you can???t put much faith in that, and there will be means to keep those promises anyway.

    But you do know that Obama, along with his democratic buddies in Congress, personally and professionally advocated for a residential housing policy favoring forced sub-prime lending, which subsequently resulted in massive defaults and foreclosures, leading to your loss of significant equity value in your home, to the point that it destabilized your banks, which panicked the stock market, which wiped out your savings.

    Look and listen to Obama for yourself. Obama in this video, addressing his community activist work and his work representing ACORN in litigation against the banks and relating to the Community Reinvestment Act, and addressing the failure of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae as those actions relate to the destruction of our economy by causing the current real estate and subsequent financial crisis, states that, and I quote:

    "Subprime lending started out as a good idea, helping Americans buy homes who previously could not afford to. Financial institutions created new financial instruments that could securitize these loans, slice them into finer and finer risk categories, and spread them out among investors and around the country, as well as around the world. In theory, this should have allowed mortgage lending to be less risky, and more diversified."

    Acknowledging the catastrophe, but as apologist for the Democrats, Obama then offers this justification.

    "The original idea was a good one, which was, lets see if we can distribute risk more broadly, and make it easier to provide loans to people who otherwise might not be able to get one."

    Yah, great idea. Economically unsound, but embraced by Obama. Listen for yourself. You cannot dispute the mans on words recorded live:

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

    Below 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

    • Posted By: Nins @ 10/28/2008 7:52:18 PM



      Here's a video in which Obama discusses fiscal responsibility. Anyone who cares about the economy should see it.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d4a6RNhCUo

      On this web page, you can calculate the amount of your TAX RELIEF under Obama's plan. (This tax calculator is for personal income, not for businesses. Remember that if you itemize, your tax cut will be higher than what the calculator shows. However, Obama's new 1040EZ allows people to get credit for some itemizations without having to fill out the long form and schedules.)

      http://taxcut.barackobama.com/

      You can get even more information on Obama's economic policies from the Blueprint for Change.

      http://www.barackobama.com/issues/

  • Posted By: Vote Now @ 10/25/2008 5:37:24 PM

    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: pbpace @ 10/27/2008 3:35:24 PM

      I'm glad you finally learned to spell Gramm's name correctly after posting this same comment about thirty times....
      Anyway, nice try but this article blows your silly little theory out of the water...read it and weep....

      http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122403045717834693.html

      • Posted By: Nins @ 10/28/2008 7:51:29 PM

        PBPace, you are wrong about this article in the Wall Street Journal. It not only doesn't refute Vote Now's blog, it actually supports it, if you bother to do a little research about the article's author.

        If you follow this link to the Wall Street Journal you will find that it doesn't lead to a real article, but to an opinion piece. It is titled "Obama voted 'Present' on Mortgage Reform" but oddly enough the article does not go on to say that Obama ever voted Present on this issue. In fact, he couldn't have, since this is a Federal issue, and the US Senate does not allow Senators to vote Present. The title alone should clue you in to the fact that lies and deception will be the basis of the article.

        It was written by Peter J. Wallison, a member of American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank that has emerged as one of the leading architects of the Bush administration's public policy. More than 20 AEI alumni have served in the current Bush administration, including Lynne Cheney (VP Cheney's wife), and Irving Kristol, the founder of the neo-conservative movement, both Senior Fellows at AEI. This is a radical right wing group. A bright bunch, to be sure, but very one-sided.

        Wallison's editorial in the WSJ tells us that the Bush administration did not deregulate the financial industry, that such talk is just Democrats telling you lies.

        It is terrifically hard for anyone to believe that, however, since Peter Wallison is AEI's Co-Director of the Financial Deregulation Project, and served under President Bush writing financial deregulation policy. If the financial industry was not deregulated under Bush, how can Mr. Wallison explain his job title as Co-Director of the Financial Deregulation Project?

        Actually, what this article really represents is a self-serving narcissistic inflation of the Republican's mistakes into virtues. If you really were hoodwinked by this, PB, I feel badly for you. However, if you posted this knowing the real truth about Wallison, shame on you.

  • Posted By: Nins @ 10/28/2008 7:46:22 PM

    Taxation is and always has been a redistribution of wealth. Once you recognize that point, the question is, how are we going to spend the money we raise in taxes?

    For the past 8 years, our tax dollars have gone to killing civilians in Iraq and giving big payoffs to Halliburton (co-incidentally owned by the Cheney family). And since there wasn't enough in the Treasury to do this in style, we borrowed money from communist China and ran up the national debt to pay for it.

    Like 80% of Americans, I am sick of this particular redistribution plan.

    Obama's plan reduces taxes on 95% of Americans. The other 5% of us (who make over $250,000 a year) can afford to pay an extra 3%. That extra 3% comes out to only $300 for every $10,000 they make above $250,000. It's not going to kill them. In fact, if you make over $250,000 a year, $300 probably doesn't mean much to you. The other source of increased revenue will be making corporations that ship jobs overseas pay a higher share of tax. Right now, these corporations pay a lower share than companies that keep their employees in the USA. No more incentives to hurt America. We all can agree with that.

    Obama promises to go through the Federal budget line by line and cut all the wasteful spending. He promises to have transparency, a website where you can go and actually see the real Federal budget, not the made for TV version you can access under Bush.

    Furthermore, Obama's economic plans will lead to a strong economy, an educated workforce, more American based jobs, affordable health care, and freedom from foreign oil. We will regain our position as a world leader, a nation that spreads democracy not with guns and threats, but with prosperity and diplomacy.

    How do I know this? I read Obama's Blueprint for Change. And I compared it to what McCain had to offer (more tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, more wars, a really inadequate health plan, and the stated intention of overturning Roe v. Wade). You really should visit the websites of both candidates and read their platforms.

    http://www.barackobama.com/issues/

    http://www.johnmccain.com/Issues/jobsforamerica/

  • Posted By: abe4600 @ 10/28/2008 12:52:23 PM

    Nice try, but I bet you theory doesn't pass the smell test!!

  • Posted By: Nowforthetruth @ 10/27/2008 8:17:35 AM

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iivL4c_3pck

    2001 Chicago Public Citizen Radio Interview criticizing the Warren Court as not radical enough for not pursuing redistribution of wealth.

    Says that community organizing is for the purpose of assembling the political power to force redistribution of wealth.

  • Posted By: Nowforthetruth @ 10/26/2008 9:35:07 PM

    The Kennedy tax cut.

    http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/bg1765.cfm

    About half way through the article.

    "President Kennedy proposed massive tax-rate reductions, which were passed by Congress and became law after he was assassinated. The 1964 tax cut reduced the top marginal personal income tax rate from 91 percent to 70 percent by 1965. The cut reduced lower-bracket rates as well. In the four years prior to the 1965 tax-rate cuts, federal government income tax revenue--adjusted for inflation--increased at an average annual rate of 2.1 percent, while total government income tax revenue (federal plus state and local) increased by 2.6 percent per year . In the four years following the tax cut, federal government income tax revenue increased by 8.6 percent annually and total government income tax revenue increased by 9.0 percent annually. Government income tax revenue not only increased in the years following the tax cut, it increased at a much faster rate.
    The Kennedy tax cut set the example that President Ronald Reagan would follow some 17 years later. By increasing incentives to work, produce, and invest, real GDP growth increased in the years following the tax cuts: More people worked, and the tax base expanded. Additionally, the expenditure side of the budget benefited as well because the unemployment rate was significantly reduced.
    Using the Congressional Budget Office's revenue forecasts (made with the full knowledge of the future tax cuts), revenues came in much higher than had been anticipated, even after the "cost""of the tax cut had been taken into account. Additionally, in 1965--one year following the tax cut--personal income tax revenue data exceeded expectations by the greatest amounts in the highest income classes.
    Testifying before Congress in 1977, Walter Heller, President Kenned''s Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, summarized:
    What happened to the tax cut in 1965 is difficult to pin down, but insofar as we are able to isolate it, it did seem to have a tremendously stimulative effect, a multiplied effect on the economy. It was the major factor that led to our running a $3 billion surplus by the middle of 1965 before escalation in Vietnam struck us. It was a $12 billion tax cut, which would be about $33 or $34 billion in today's terms, and within one year the revenues into the Federal Treasury were already above what they had been before the tax cut.
    Did the tax cut pay for itself in increased revenues? I think the evidence is very strong that it did."

  • Posted By: Vote Now @ 10/25/2008 5:37:33 PM

    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 @ 10/25/2008 5:37:09 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

  • Posted By: Vote Now @ 10/25/2008 5:37:01 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

  • Posted By: Nowforthetruth @ 10/25/2008 4:15:36 PM



    See also
    http://www.newsweek.com/id/164732 from this web site. (oops!) stating that Freddie Mac was spending tax payer money to target Republicans in 2005 who were trying to regulate Fannie and Freddies fraud. Democrats were not targeted, as the were all in the tank with Fannie and Freddie to kill the regulations. Hear that, the article admits that Republicans were trying to regulate Freddie and Fannie, and Democrats were trying to stop it from happening as a means to facilitate the Community Reinvestment Act.

    See also: http://www.newsweek.com/id/164972
    Stating that Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act wasn't what caused the meltdown, and noting that "economists on both sides of the political spectrum have suggested that the act has probably made the crisis less severe than it might otherwise have been."

    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

    Their failed policies are what brought us to ruin. Even Bill Clinton says so. Obama and a supermajority of Democrats simply is not the change we need, nor is it change we can afford.

  • Posted By: Vote Now @ 10/25/2008 12:14:37 PM

    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 @ 10/25/2008 12:14:29 PM

    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: MegaDeath @ 10/24/2008 12:56:22 PM

    I think that under Obama's Health Care Plan for senior citizens is the Soylent Green Program. Obama's plan will save thousands of dollars for every nursing home and hospitals. Under this exclusive coverage, any senior citizen who reaches the minimum age of 70 years old will be required to be detained and taken to one of the Soylent Green Program Plants to be processed into little green crackers that are edible, packaged and sent back to area hospitals and nursing homes, where they will be given to existing senior citizens to eat. It's a great plan that saves money, everyone should agree that Obama has a good solution to elderly populations.

  • Posted By: Nowforthetruth @ 10/23/2008 11:14:26 PM

    Obama in this video, addressing his work with ACORN litigation against the banks and relating to the Community Reinvestment Act and the failure of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, as they relate to the current real estate and financial crisis, states that, and I quote:

    ???Subprime lending started out as a good idea, helping Americans buy homes who previously could not afford to. Financial institutions created new financial instruments that could securitize these loans, slice them into finer and finer risk categories, and spread them out among investors and around the country, as well as around the world. In theory, this should have allowed mortgage lending to be less risky, and more diversified.???

    ??? The original idea was a good one, which was, lets see if we can distribute risk more broadly, and make it easier to provide loans to people who otherwise might not be able to get one.???

    Listen for yourself. You cannot dispute the mans on words recorded live:

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


    Obama in this second video is campaigning at a convention of Acorn and I believe two other ???Community Activist??? organizations. Ask if he will be their ally if he becomes President, Obama says, quote:

    ???Yes, but let me say that before I even get inaugurated, during the transition we are going to be calling all of you in to help us shape the agenda. We???re going to be having meetings all across the country with community organizations so that you have input into the agenda for the next presidency of the United States of America.

    See and hear it for yourself. Obama promised that Acorn and other groups like it will setting his agenda if elected:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vJcVgJhNaU
    See also: http://www.newsweek.com/id/164972
    Stating that Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act wasn't what caused the meltdown, and noting that "economists on both sides of the political spectrum have suggested that the act has probably made the crisis less severe than it might otherwise have been."
    See also:
    http://boards.msn.com/MSNBCboards/thread.aspx?threadid=808692&boardsparam=Page%3d2

    Below 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
    See also
    http://www.newsweek.com/id/164732 from this web site. (oops!) stating that Freddie Mac was spending tax payer money to target Republicans in 2005 who were trying to regulate Fannie and Freddies fraud. Democrats were not targeted, as the were all in the tank with Fannie and Freddie to kill the regulations. Hear that, the article admits that Republicans were trying to regulate Freddie and Fannie, and Democrats were trying to stop it from happening as a means to facilitate the Community Reinvestment Act.

  • Posted By: Bailoutdisaster @ 10/23/2008 9:54:38 PM

    I believe that the cheap price of oil led to the expansion of home developments in suburbs, all Starbucks did was reduce people's savings and retirement accounts since if drinking a cup each day can cost a person up to $2,000 a year.
    http://www.bailoutdisaster.com trying to get an open forum going to discuss our nations problems.

  • Posted By: Bailoutdisaster @ 10/23/2008 9:52:59 PM

    Other than the fact that Starbucks coffee if drunken every day of the year would have cost a little under $2,000, so that is $4,000 for a couple, I don't know if Starbucks relates directly with the economy being in recession. They must have definitely kept couples from buying inexpensive or home made coffee instead and thus reduced their savings, or retirement, but I always thought the rapid rise of the economy was due in part to cheap oil.

    http://www.bailoutdisaster.com

  • Posted By: fdchiu @ 10/22/2008 10:07:12 PM

    I don't know why Newsweek has such article when the whole world is worried about US depression? Are we, American, too worried about China getting better? From the negative article of Newsweek about China, I think so. You tell me!

    Now I can only offered to by from a web site that sells electronics made in China: www.yeedong.com.
    Guess what, it's too expensive to buy from Best Buy or other US outlets.
    No, more to say. Just feel sad....

  • Posted By: Concerned Canadian @ 10/22/2008 8:51:15 PM

    NBC=ACORN=LEFT-WING NUTJOBS=ANTI-AMERICAN=NY TIMES=SOCIALISM=CNN=OBAMA

    Does anyone dispute this? ....thought so ....enjoy REID=PELOSI=OBAMA regime for the next 4 years...yikes!

  • Posted By: Concerned Canadian @ 10/22/2008 8:50:39 PM

    BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA WILL SUFFER FROM THE "NOBAMA EFFECT???...TOO BAD...HE WILL LOSE!!

    TODAY, AT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA'S DAMAGE CONTROL PRESS CONFERENCE ATTRIBUTED TO
    JOE BIDEN'S "FLIRTATEOUS RHETORIC" RELATING TO OBAMA NOT ABLE TO HANDLE THE PENDING CRISIS IF HE WERE ELECTED. BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA GOES ON TO PROMOTE HIS ECONOMIC PHILOSOPHY OF "SPREAD THE WEALTH AROUND" SO THAT HE CAN CREATE AN AMERICAN SOCIETY WHERE ALL CITIZENS ARE AS EQUALS AND ON A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD IN ORDER TO PURSUE PERSONAL PROSPERITY. WELL, IN OTHER WORDS BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA IS TELLING TO EVERY AMERICAN'S FACE THAT HE WILL BE "DICTATING" YOUR PERSONAL FINANCES. AND ALL YOU GUYS ARE EATING IT ALL UP.

    THIS POLITICAL DOCTRINE THAT OBAMA WILL IMPLEMENT IS KNOWN AS SOCIALISM, MARXISM, COMMUNISM, OR WHATEVER TERM ONE WANTS TO USE...BOTTOM LINE IS THAT THIS IS AN AFFRONT
    TO THE FOUNDATION OF AMERICA...CAPITALISM.

    TO IMPOSE THESE DRACONIAN MEASURES SUCH AS RAISING TAXES TO SUPPORT THOSE IN SOCIETY WHO DO NOT EVEN WANT TO SUPPORT THEMSELVES BUT OBAMA DECLARES "SPREAD THE WEALTH AROUND" WILL LEAD TO AN ECONOMIC ABYSS.

    IS THIS THE IDEOLOGY OBAMA ADOPTED FROM HIS CLOSE ASSOCIATION WITH WILLIAM AYERS WHO ALSO IS A BIG PROPONENT OF MARXISM?

    AMERICANS, IF INDICATIONS ARE CORRECT AND OBAMA GETS ELECTED, IT WILL PROVE TO BE THE THIRD TIME IN A ROW THAT AMERICA REGRETS WHO THEY ELECTED AS PRESIDENT.

    AN OLD WISE MAN ONCE SAID ..." BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR ...."

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