Even Dr. Doom Likes Them

I CANNOT TOLERATE THIS LUNATIC, INSANE , FANATICAL & HYSTERICAL SUPPORT FOR THIS ROOKIE SENATOR ( OBAMA ) AS PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.A. IT DISGUST ME WITH EXTREME ANGER & PITY FOR ALL THOSE WHO DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY THIS SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO HAPPEN AT THIS POINT & TIME OF OBAMA'S POLITICAL PURSUITS & AMBITIONS. I DEEM THIS A FATAL ERROR IN JUDGMENT & PREDICT DEEP REGRETS AROUND THE WORLD - SO HELP ME GOD.
Kabil Azad Khan.

I don???t understand the extreme positions some people take even before Obama has taken office. I believe he is doing what previous presidents should have done. Selecting the best people based on their character and skills. Perhaps only a man of color really understands what that means. This is the kind of change we need. I also don???t understand the hate e-mails going around that seem to be coming from the so-called religious right. I pray for his safety from these extreme-thinking radicals. John Lee

So now we are going to "rebuild the economy" on the backs of those who knew better for the sake of those who didn't. The "deregulation bogeyman" hasn't harmed me one bit but the individuals (consumers, bank executives, politicians, etc.) who were too stupid and/or ignorant to bother to understand where their money was coming from or where it was going sure are promising to.

I can think of very few spheres of existence where risk and reward are not directly proportional yet we now have many people with their hands out crying about not being able to pay their bills because their ARM went up or their salary went down or because gas got expensive. Somehow these possibilities never entered their minds when they were signing on the dotted line. How do you con someone into a mortgage? Do we pass a law saying that all contracts have to be written at a second grade level using words of no more than 3 syllables? Where do you draw the line where you bail out person A and not person B? "A" wasn't smart enough to know what they were getting into but "B" should have known better so let 'em swing. Or do we bail everyone out and guarantee a certain level of existence for an individual without regard to their ability/willingness to contribute to society?

I resent the fact that my government is making this my problem. My home has lost value now that there's an over-supply of houses (much nicer and larger than mine) in my area following a decade-long boom in construction. Now I have to pay AGAIN so that these poeple can stay in the homes that they can't afford??? This is anything but laissez-faire economics.

Year 2012. Obama asks for next 50 trillion bailout to revive our economy. People complain that it will increase their taxes by 1%.

WHERE IS THE ALL WISE BUSH & CHENEY?

Oh, I know, now that the economy has turned sour and in the worst shape since the Great Depression, the dynamic duo is trying to make a "CUT & RUN" strategy.

Even if Bush never caused any of these national disasters, he is still accountable to the people to fix the problem, or to come up with solutions. Apparently Bush never heard the phrase . . . "The buck stops here".

BUSH IS COLLECTING A "COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF PAYCHECK" WHILE AWOL.

This must be the Bush Bashing Message Board. Or is this the Barry Obama Web Posting Team attacking another message board? Either way, Dr. Doom is merely a Neo-Keynesian Economist. He's getting his 15 minutes of fame. Good for him.

Dr. Doom is however not Alexander Hamilton, Adam Smith, Milton Friedman, or even John Kenneth Galbraith.

Blame Bush not the idiots in congress. They have no control over the financial markets. - You people are so brainwashed it's sad. Try reading a real news outlet, not Newsweek.

I'm no fan of Bush nor the rest or our government. I don't, however think that it's accurate to blame our economic woes on "deregulation" per se. The problem as I see it is that we expect to be protected from the repercussions of our own stupid decisions. My wife and I are middle-class and doing just fine. After 11 years we still live in our starter home that we bought with 20% down (that we saved) which cost roughly 1/2 to 1/3 of what we could have been approved for. We waited 8 years to have our one child in order to make sure we were both financially and emotionally ready. My point is that we didn't need regulations to keep us from making completely stupid financial decisions. We just always thought that if we couldn't pay our mortgage we'd lose our house. Instead we appear to have deregulation without reponsibility and it's folks like us who are now going to be forced to surrender wealth in order to protect those who weren't smart enough to be trusted with gasoline and matches.

There is no doubt that both sides share a portion of the blame in the current crisis we now face. Most of the banking issues can be traced directly back to de-regulation, and no one can argue that if they know what they are talking about. The regulations that have been abolished for the last 28 yrs were put in place during the Great Depression to prevent what is now happening again.

The free trade agreements put in place by the Republican controlled congress, and signed into action by Bill Clinton have caused lots of jobs to flow to countries with cheaper labor. That needs to change.

If you have been listening to Obama at all you would know that he sees the mistakes from both sides, and that is a central theme to his message of change. A modernized New Deal re-building of infrastructure with Green energy implementation, modernized regulations of banking risk, and an emphasis on boosting the middle class to jump start demand and purchasing are core initiatives that we have not seen for the last 8 yrs. Also, his desire to eliminate the profits our corporations gain by shipping jobs overseas is also a much needed stimulus to the American Worker.

It's those core initiatives, coupled with one of the best economic teams available, that are a recipe needed to get our economy on the path to recovery.

Part of the problem withe markets and how we got into this mess are very complex. investors face incomplete information, contradictory theories become more difficult to justify in the face of recent trends. In this sense the market is being redefined in terms of group trends and collective incentives leading to poor outcomes rather than rational individuals judging each situation without bias.
The growth of mortgage indebtedness from 2002-2006 was fueled by securitization of mortgages into a package that could then be sold off to investors in the ???originate to distribute??? model. During this time the aforementioned extension of credit allowed financial institutions to increase leverage, or debt to equity ratios, which amplified losses. The question is: whether the fact that there was low perceived risk allowed the situation to become riskier. In other words, the low cost of risk created an environment where risk might be thought of as even less prevalent and reinforce the extension of credit. Interestingly, if risk is priced properly and adjusts to new conditions, leverage will be cut down by the market itself because debt will cost more???simple supply and demand. Unfortunately during these credit booms, the price of risk is dislocated and other incentives (bankers, rating agencies) work to expose the system to more risk than is appropriate. The aggregate increase in leverage must be correlated to reduced perceived risk on the part of lenders and on the part of the people receiving the leverage. A regulatory answer would be to require higher capital requirements for financial institutions, which would offer a broad containment policy on risk.

so now the economys problems went back to the war. maybe the new democratic campaign slogan should be the ping pongers. what would have been your solution in lieu of war? im curious all dems are anti war so offer up a solution doing nothing? or funding the terrorist more money to attck us as in clinton admin

Well, not all the credit (or blame) is on Bush, the ???decider.??? Both parties had opportunities to put on the brakes. But the facts are that this meltdown started 25 years ago with the deregulation policies of Ronald Reagan and his 1987 appointment of Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan and later assisted by the deregulation act championed by the former general co-chairman of John McCain???s presidential campaign, former Sen. Phill Gramm. If you really want the full story, read the article at the URL below. Here is the Readers' Digest version:

??? December, 1982 --The Garn-St Germain Depository Institutions Act was enacted. This Reagan Administration initiative was designed to complete the process of giving expanded powers to federally chartered S&Ls and enabled them to diversify their activities with the view of increasing profits.
??? In February of 1989, less then 7 years after the initiation of this major banking deregulation, President Bush (the first one) unveiled the 600 billion dollar S&L bailout plan. The number of S&Ls dropped from 4,600 to 2,000.
??? A couple years prior to the S&L bailout, in the spring of 1987, the Federal Reserve Board votes 3-2 in favor of easing regulations under Glass-Steagall Act, overriding the opposition of Chairman Paul Volcker. The Glass-Steagall Act was put in place as a response to the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression to create barriers between investment banks and commercial banks.
??? In August 1987, Ronald Reagan appointed Alan Greenspan, a strong believer in Laissez-faire markets, to become chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, thereby setting in place a series of events that would ultimately result in the financial industry tearing down what remained of the Glass-Steagall Act.
??? In 1999, Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), led the Republican-controlled congress to repeal the last of the depression-era banking regulation law with passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.

Nine years later, we have the worst financial meltdown since the Great Depression. The details are here: http://seekingalpha.com/article/71265-the-credit-bubble-deregulation-gone-wild

Regardless of whom you choose to blame for what, we should all stop with the finger pointing and name calling. That???s the kind of radical, hate-filled politics that helped to put us in this situation and still threatens to divide this country. The US will recover, but to do so both parties must work together.