JPF Home Page Forums Stop The Bailout

Early in the political season, my 15 year old daughter was telling me about how she thought Ralph Nader was the best choice. At the time, I told her I thought that voting for a third party candidate was a waste of a vote because they have no chance of winning.

Sometimes I wish I was as smart as my daughter.

I've always been interested in politics. Usually, I vote for a Democrat, but I have never voted a straight party ticket. I know that no one party has all the answers, but lately it seems that neither of the major parties has ANY of the answers.

Like many Americans, I had always dismissed Ralph Nader as a tree-hugging, anti-corporate activist. Thanks to the videos that were posted here (I'm not sure if it was this thread or not), I have begun to take a serious look at the man. No, I don't think he is absolutely right on every issue, but at this point, it looks like he will have my vote.

As far as the bailout goes, I am completely disappointed that both of my senators, including Evan Bayh whom I had hoped would become president, voted for this monster. I am also pleasantly surprised that my representative, whom I rarely agree with, voted against the bailout. I will send emails to all three. I hope I am proven wrong and the bailout plan works, but if not, I will not vote again for anyone who supported it.

The problem is Kevin that we're never going to know what would have happened if there was NO bailout. So they can spin a failure and say it was less bad than it would have been and they can claim a success was solely due to it. But I think we may have had a success, or less failure, by doing nothing and sticking to our countries principles that we are a capitalist society and not a socialist society. Our government doesn't help dig out failing businesses. I am always against their rescues for companies. The big auto companies can't compete and never will because of their previous worker benefits that cause them to make cheap cars and charge the same as everyone else to try and break even. It's a loser. If they were all gone, we'd start with a new company with realistic overhead and they could make great products in our own country that we could all buy. I think if the government is going to doing any helping out, they should go to HEALTHY companies and give them tax breaks for expanding and bringing on new workers. If a company paid ZERO tax, but employed 100,000 works who all paid tax on their earnings, that's good for our country. Why everyone doesn't see and understand that is beyond me. Instead, we're now bailing out bad business decisions so those who made those decisions can live to make MORE bad decisions. Huh?

I voted for Nader because he was the only credible third party candidate and because I felt he was an honest man, even though I don't agree with him on many issues. I felt 1 honest man who I disagreed with 50% of the time will still do something good the other half of his time. And that's FAR more than either party has done for anyone in the last 20 years.

Brian

Brian, I was actually going to make the same point that we will never know the result of the bailout. But hey, who can argue with the logic of giving more money to the people who got us into this mess?

I used to say that I enjoyed conspiracy theories as a form of entertainment, but I didn't really believe them. Now, either I am becoming paranoid or the paranoids are right. I really do believe that none of this is an accident.

Many good comapanies, partuicularly the small businesses that are out there are about to fail because their credit lines are already frozen. They will have to dip into their own reserves to pay salaries, and once their savings are drained they will lay off employees. Shortly after that they will be out of business. I have already had this discussion with one small business owner who has had all lines of credit frozen for them, and the company has never even had a single late payment on their business loans. The government has no control over any of this, they gave the control to the Federal Reserve.

We have lots of credit cards (thankfully that have no balances) and I haven't heard of any restrictions on those. If companies are taking out loans to make payroll, they've already got some serious problems. Loans for startup inventory are another issue, but that happens usually before you start your business. What is the scenario where someone is taking out regular loans to make payroll Jack?

Brian

Any company that is not yet profitable needs to either get venture capital or take out loans (not that dissimilar) to make payroll. I'd guess OurStage is currently not generating enough profit to pay employees, for example, and must rely on outside funds.

Existing businesses don't typically continue to take out loans to make payroll. If they are, they're already in deep trouble. Most companies start up with an initial loan, but that's not a continual process of taking out NEW loans. New loans are more often for new equipment, expanding territories or lines of merchandise, research and development etc. A healthy business is likely to find plenty of people wanting to lend them money. Anyone on the fringe of failure (or already there) are the ones who are going to have trouble. And that's nothing new. Banks got in trouble because they didn't make good decisions on who to give loans to. Risky loans fail. I'd rather see support of healthy companies who are already making good decisions and who have viable business models so they can become larger and hire more people. That's sound business and if more people did it that way, there'd be less problems right now.

By the way, no that the bailout has passed.. let's see the market is down.. oh yeah.. 500 points, give or take, already today on top of the losses at the end of the last week. And folks are saying more companies now have their hands out for bailouts. What a surprise. So we may just find we spent 700 billion EXTRA dollars chasing bad money down the drain. Yee ha! And both our candidates were all for it.

Brian

Luigi Zingales, professor of finance at the University of Chicago was a guest this morning on CSPAN. He will be testifying later today in a hearing on the collapse of Lehman Brothers and AIG. He wrote the book, " Saving Capitalism from the capitalist". It is his contention that the $700 bailout won't work. He suggest a way to solve this problem (banks refusal to loan to each other) by simply creating a modified "chapter 11" for the failing banks administered by the government. It would overnight free up lending (something that would take 5 years if we let the ordinary courts do it). It would appropriately punish the abuses, free up lending (the real crisis) and not involve a bailout at all.
The sad part of this whole mess is that for the amount of money we are throwing at this problem, we could have launched some grand plans in health care or green energy or infrastructure improvement, all of which would have made the economy explode with activity and optimism.

Here is a link to a Luigi Zingales argument against the bailout.
http://www.debatepolitics.com/economics/36565-why-paulson-wrong-luigi-zingales.html
Read this because it will explain a hell of a lot. The "many" (us)are stuck with toxic debt because the "few" (the rich) are more organized- that is Zingales explanation.

The sad thing is that it doesn't really take a Professor of Finance to know this is a bad deal.

Brian

Yes, and the fact that there is a better option. Any chance this bailout can be stopped? Any good business plan would have to be flexible enough to change plans if it had a better option. Isn't this bailout just money down the drain? We will never know because no matter what happens we can never know what might have happened had we not done it.
_____________
On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does. Will Rogers

The market is down 700 now and keeps plunging. We've lost (after losing nearly 90% already) another 40% of what we had left in the market. Things will definitely be tight in JPF land for the coming year.

Brian

They'll be tight in Skokie IL also, at the Gaines house...The future is very uncertain....6 in 10 people now believe we will have some sort of depression...

http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/06/news/economy/depression_poll/index.htm?postversion=2008100613

This whole thing sucks...well..at least I can play and sing a good song...maybe someone will at least feed me in exchange

"Maybe tomorrow, I'll be an apple seller too"
from the musical "Annie"- "I don't need anything but you"

Well if we do have a depression, I hope we don't get out of it like we got out of the last one because the next great war is likely to be the "last one"

A depression is a little like a person with a psychosis. Everything still works. The heart and digestion are fine. The nervous system functions and the doctor says, "You're fine. I can't find anything wrong with you. It must be in your head." And it is- but the condition is still debilitating. People still know how to make stuff and do things. We still have plenty of wheat, livestock, houses and health care expertise. But people will go hungry, go without shelter and health care; not for lack of those things but because we have a sick and perverted system that allocates them. But we are not going to overreact this time are we? We are not going to live on "Animal Farm" again are we?
We may have to have another Boston Tea Party but we don't need a hero. We don't need Castro, Lenin, Mussolini, Stalin or Hitler and we can't wait for Jesus. We need to get involved in our own political process. We need to write to our congressmen- threaten them if necessary. Get on the school board, run for mayor, get educated. The greed merchants ran wild while we sat complacently on the sidelines. I don't think we can let that happen. "Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom"

The problem is....the barn door is open and ALL the animals have already left...It's too late...All they can do NOW is have hearings and figure out HOW it happened...but
1 We already know how it happened
2 We can't fix it easily
SO they'll make new rules and spend alot of money and hours on them..BUT...does anyone in their right mind think this would happen again in our lifetime? NO WAY...What they are doing is simply closing the barn door...but there's no animals to hold in.
The problem is fixed by NOT allowing stated (liar) loans, and lowering the loan to value people are allowed...We desperately need housing to find a bottom. The written rules that supposedly will make sure this never happens again so Congress (and they country at large) will feel better? Are a waste of time...It COULDN'T happen again...no one would fall for it again ! !
We need a BOLD NEW policy into the future...and I haven't heard one yet

I you are still thinking about voting for McCain, watch this video:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/invite/keatingvideo

Joe,

Why not post the similar propaganda video links that tie Obama to terrorists and mob figures? Or how about his deep deep deep ties to the ACORN rip off people? If you're going to post propaganda, post it all.

Brian

I tink after the Great Depression there were safegards put in place to prevent it from happening again. Maybe they would have worked but I tink there were too many cooks minding the stew. The old addage that "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" got waylaid along the way. And now Mz. Pelosi is going to have hearings to see what happened? Uh, would you run that by me one more time? I don't think I heard correctly.

I only posted this because now Obama has been accused of being a "pal" of a guy who was involved in criminal activity when Obama was 8 years old while McCain was a personal friend of Charles keating, the crook who brought down the savings and loan industry. I'm talking real "pal" here including family vacations in the Bahamas together.

By the way, those hundred of millions of dollars were insured by uncle sam so it wasn't technically a bailout when the taxpayers got stuck with the losses. Keating served hard time in prison but not enough.
My definition of propaganda is misinformation designed to mislead and distort. I thought the video was pretty tame and rather factual. I have nothing to gain by dissing McCain. I'm not voting for Obama. If there is a video you would like to share about Obamas connections to the Chicago underworld, I'll watch it. I don't know what ACORN is but I'll check it out.

Joe, "propaganda" is the dissemination of information that furthers a cause or agenda. It's not assumed to mislead or distort, though it may. It's simply info that helps a cause. This, however, is my definition.

They are not taking out regular loans for payroll. Small businesses feel fluctuations much more severely than large corporate businesses and are often seasonal. It is not at all uncommon to depend on their credit line down during the down periods and make it up and more when their busy season comes around. Their business is falling off fast, and they need their credit line to get past the down economy which is exaserbating their situation.

Businesses take short-term loans against inventory all the time. Its the companies that aren't part of a conglomerate that raises its own capital that will feel the heat. Financiers are not the first ones hit by restrictive monetary policy. They just have to cut the pie a little more slowly for a while. Its the same commercial v propertied class struggle that's been going on for centuries and the advantage hasn't changed. Nor have the victims.

All this is doing is shaking the commoners out of the system.

I may have missed it in the 170 posts already in this thread....but did anyone catch that the guy the government put in charge of overseeing the bailout money is a former bigwig at Morgan Stanley?!!!! One of the failing financial institutions that got us into this mess.....

Talk about the fox guarding the chickens.....

Christine

Christine,

I did notice that. And the foxes, when government is involved, are ALWAYS guarding the chickens.

Brian

A friend just lost $55,000 of his retirement. Close to a third of what he'd had in the 401K. He's very sad, he and his wife worked hard, saved every way the could, and now he's lost that much. It's so sad.

I watched CNN do their "keeping them honest" investigation on both the Palin's comments about Obama and the Obama video about the savings and loan scandal. They concluded the Palin claim that Obama was a pal of a guy who wanted to blow up the Pentagon was false. On the Obama video, they concluded that the facts were correct but that the way it was edited, with graphics putting McCain next to Keating and showing graphics of all the various scandals over the past 20 years behind McCain's picture was designed to imply that McCain was somehow involved in those scandals too- not just the savings and loan scandal. I think they are probably right- it wasn't exactly a Front Line PBS piece.
I also learned that the video was shot a long time ago and was only to be brought out if McCain's campaign went negative and personal. So now we have a month to learn to hate both of them so much, we won't trust either to do anything. They probably can't anyway now that we squandered the money toxic debt.

People's mind are changed through observation and not through argument.
Will Rogers

I'm curious about something. Do our stanch principals of supposedly being strict capitalists (I'll define that loosely as no government intervention) and not socialists also apply to health care? After all, I hear this same argument from my Congressman and friends when I bring up universal health care. It's wrong on principal for the government to get involved because that is socialism, and we are American capitalists by Jove! We need less government and not more, and individuals should take care of themselves, not the government!

Of course, that argument ignores the fact we have one of the largest socialist medical programs in the world in Medicare, and that our entire health system is already socialized, as others pay for the care of the uninsured in one way or another. It also ignores the fact there are thousands if not millions of talented people who would love to quit their jobs and start their own companies, but cannot because they are tied to a job due to health care. Removing the worry of health care could create vast wealth and more jobs because it releases pent up talent into the market. In fact, one could argue that big business would like to see the status quo in health care, because they can tie down workers and reduce competition. But of course, we can't have universal health care, because that would be socialism.

And, if we claim to be strict capitalists, then when someone shows up at the hospital with no means to pay, they should be turned away, and left even to die, because after all, helping them with others money would be socialist. Right? And we can't have that. Hey, it's black and white. If the government shouldn't interfere in financial matters to save jobs or investments, it shouldn't interfere in a hospital's decision to turn away destitute patients.

I wrote and recorded this on Sunday - pretty much sums it all up.........

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=6950767

Doug, this morning on the Diane Reims show on NPR, the topic was health care and a man called in to tell about a relative in Tennessee who needed emergency care. His family took him to one hospital who wouldn't admit him because he had no health insurance. He was driven 40 miles further to another hospital that wouldn't admit him. Finally, the third hospital admitted him but he died in treatment.

I have a good (but expensive) health care plan but it gets more expensive every year and it changes just about every year. This year because of a change in carrier, we got a bill for $7000 for physical therapy. When we investigated, it turns out that it was a mistake and that the insurance would pay for it but the real shocker was that my insurance only had to pay 1/5 of those charges. While the insurance negotiates for payment (in this case $80 per treatment, the uninsured are charged $400 per treatment! That means that the insurance companies and the hospitals are conspiring against us and there IS no "free market" health care. The corporations and insurance companies are like the "company store" in the song 16 tons". We have to fix this corrupt partnerships between insurance companies, drug companies and politicians or we will all owe our souls to the company store. There is so much "free enterprise" mythology sold to us packaged as the American dream. We have to shake it out ourselves because congress is chained to the special interest troff. The world of politics changed since the idea of representative government was conceived so we have to change the rules. Diane Reims suggest a million man march on Washington. We have to do things like that.

good job. why don't you post the lyrics? I guess we will know this economy really has tanked when guys like us think Mexico is a better option that the USA.

We just had the same thing happen...It's absolutely disgusting that if have NO insurance they want 2-5 times more than if you HAVE it. What sense does that make? The more we really look at all of this stuff, the madder I get. The guys at Lehman STOLE hundreds of millions of dollars (in the form of bonuses) right up to the day they went under ! ! How can this be?

Herbie
Don't be so hard on them
Huld said he was sorry and feels really bad about all the families who lost their homes and savings while he took Hundreds of Millions.
He lives with this guilt every day when he has his morning coffee on the patio of his 16 Million dollar house.

Give the poor guy a break

Some fun reading for everyone, in the wake of another DJIA tumble:

http://consumerist.com/5060290/afte...-a-440000-retreat-at-a-california-resort

Hey Bill
Ya I really feel bad for the guy

Good one Andrew ! ! That is just another raping of common sense that seems to be rampant.

I am starting to agree with the people that want to vote ALL incumbents out of office

If going to war was a solution for our economic woes, we should have the most prosperous economy in history.

Actually, it worked after the "Great Depression" because we had a manufacturing-based economy. The war effort needed our plants to run at full capacity to supply the military. In today's service-based economy, war is just a further drain, as we have already seen.

Similar story but in reverse. Last year a truck whilst driving past scraped along and slightlly damaged my parked car. Normally it would have been settled by the insurance company. The guy who owned the truck offered to pay for the damage rather than go through his insurance as he would lose his no claim bonus and his insurance premiums would go up next year. I had to get estimates for the repair. The garage estimate for a "private job" was a fraction of the price they were going to charge if it was an insurance job. Standard practice said the garage guy. So what in effect happens is the insurance companies get ripped off by being charged more than the going rate by garages. We the insured have to pay these rip off charges in our inflated insurance premiums which rise way above inflation every year.
This must be immoral if not illegal. I asked my local Member of Parliament about this scandal and he was not interested.
Guess what my MP is a certain Mr Darling (chancellor of the exchequer!!!!!)

Actually the NY Times broke a story that Obama has VERY close ties to Ayers and has been his point man to distribute his 50 million dollar grant to educate students into become "radical" rather than by teach them reading, writing and math. The radical wording was Ayers and was used in getting the grant. Obama was charged with giving that money to radicalize children rather than educate them. That's a pretty direct and long running connection with Ayers. And by his own campaigns admission, this happened AFTER Obama knew who Ayers was and what he had done and was still proclaiming he wanted to do.

Bad news. Sorry.. but I prefer not to educate kids into becoming radicals rather than knowing how to read and write.

Brian

Samuel,

I know that stuff happens, and it's getting worse all the time. Pretty sad isn't it? I'd bet the only reason the one hospital took him is because either it's a Catholic or Lutheran hospital, or they are required by law. Some hospitals around here build separate facilitates without ER's, one purpose being to avoid treating uninsured patients by law. And you and I most likely paid a portion of his bill in some form or another (which is socialism). But hey, this is capitalism at work and the government shouldn't interfere, right?

In reference to the Emergency Rescue Package, arguing it abandons our cherished principals of capitalism (and no government interference) in the markets is the same main position used against universal health care. Neither issue is that black and white.

The government "interferes" in the market all the time, be it regulation, the Fed changing interest rates, etc. In fact, it's REQUIRED the government "interfere" in the markets, otherwise the result would be poor if not poorer utilization of resources than in Communism. Again, the key is doing it in the right places at the right time. The Emergency Rescue Package is simply a move, right or wrong. I'll accept the argument it won't work or there are better alternatives (and maybe doing nothing *is* the right move - my hunch is no - but it could be). But saying it somehow abandons our capitalist principals ignores reality and is problematic if you support universal health care or some other issues.

Ok, but Obama is going to win the election. So what does it mean to us? Are we to expect a radical administration and is Obama going to appoint Ayers Secretary of State? All youth is radical and the presidency is going to age him fast!

__________________
"Sorry I had a fight in the middle of your Black Panther party."
Forrest Gump

I wish a religious affiliation made a hospital fair but it was Hugley Medical Center in Burleson, Texas, a Seventh Day Adventist owned hospital that charged us $7000.00 for $1400 worth of services. It actually happened twice. They sent us a bill for $10,500 for a minor surgery. When the insurance paid it, they paid $2800.00. Then the insurance company tried to charge us $1100.00 for the anesthesiologist. They said he was not "in network". The anesthesiologist worked 1/2 hour so I guess he makes $2200.00 an hour. It isn't as if we had a choice because they had approved of the surgeon! This is why we can't let insurance companies, under the pretense of "free enterprise"
profit from our misfortune. There is something fundamentally immoral about that. I think government has the responsibility to protect us all from what clearly is predatory business practice. This isn't "socialism"! This is just common sense. We need a moral compass mounted right in the middle of the hall of congress and our representatives need to stare at it every day before they go to lunch with the lobbyist.

Moral compass? I think I know what that USED to be...but in the midst of all this chaos and the stories that are coming out, I think that term is....well.. ummm...how about "in retreat" as a nice way to put it?

Joe,

Not sure why you're so convinced Obama is going to win. Even the Patriots last year, the team that couldn't possible lose, lost in the Super Bowl. A week ago McCain was in the lead. Now Obama is. This Ayers thing is going to really ruffle some feathers and I think it's actually getting worse. More and more info is coming about all of this. Ayers 2 years ago was hanging out with Chavez in Venezuela to help him get away from educating the kids there with reading and writing and instead radicalizing the kids there. These appear to be the people pulling Obama's strings. ACORN, which is Obama's closest life accomplishment is as corrupt as can be. More and more fraud proof is coming out and he and his cronies tried to give 20 billion of the 700 billion dollars in this bailout directly to ACORN. This stuff is adding up fast. It's not over.

Perhaps a better question is what will happen is Obama ISN'T elected? Will the likes of Bill Ayers call on the radicals to start bombing the US again? Will Obama's followers jump in on that action? James Carville, the Democratic mouthpiece said that if Obama loses there will be race riots across the US. And he's one of the guys that will be pushing that. So, sure, what will happen if Obama is elected is a question you can ask.. but I think considering if he loses is a far more explosive question.

Brian

Yes, Brian I think you are right. On CNN last night, I think it was Carville who said, "If Obama is leading by 5 points going into the election and then loses"....he didn't quite finish the statement; but he seemed to be implying that the angry mobs will conclude that the election was stolen, as many feel about the 2000 election; and then all hell will break out. Or maybe he said there would be riots- I don't remember that. (I wonder if Carville was the model when the Harry Potter producers created the look of Gollum?)

The reason I feel so strongly that Obama will win the election is because of the way the electoral college numbers are lining up. Each candidate has certain wins in various states, so those numbers are pretty much lock in. Then you have the "toss up" states where the battle rages for the numbers that will "tip" the scales and give the whole state to one or the other. Obama is winning all but one of those states. Yes, the margins are small but the Obama campaign is trying to get all the people they can convince- to vote early- in short lock the vote before election day. The campaign has more money, is more organized and has more volunteers. It is also smarter, more modern and uses new technology. And they are registering young voters who may not even show up at the polls simply because pollsters use residential phone numbers and the young use cell phones.

You may have to remind me that I made this promise but here it is: After the election, if Obama is president, I will donate $50 to JPF and if he is not the president, I will donate $100.

Explain to us how JPF lost 90% of it's stock in the recent crash? Was the stock not diversified?

I am not asking anyone to vote for this guy but I think you should hear what he has to say:

Ralph Nader is on TV tonight

He will be on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blizter at about 5 p.m. EST this afternoon.

And he'll be on Fox's The O'Reilly Factor with Bill O'Reilly at about 8:25 p.m. EST tonight.

Brian, the Ayers "connection" is not going to hurt Obama. Obama has condemned the actions of Ayers that were committed when Obama was a little kid, they haven't been "palling around" like Gov. Palin might have implied, and Ayers is not up to any sort of illegal activity today.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/05/fact-check-is-obama-palling-around-with-terrorists/

Likewise, the ACORN connection is practically irrelevant. Not much of a skeleton in the closet there.

Andrew,

I've spent some time looking into the Ayers connection (which ironically was first raised by Hillary Clinton) and there's actually MORE to it rather than less I think. And the ACORN connection, for me, is the most disturbing connection of all. I haven't seen any evidence that Obama has distanced himself from ACORN.

Now, beyond that, I agree with you that things are clearly in Obama's favor. I actually called the election for Obama myself before the VP announcement was made for Palin. I think Palin and Obama are both unqualified to be president, so voting for McCain because of Palin alone is pretty shortsighted. Then again, Obama matched directly to Palin really illustrates some fundamental problems I have with him being qualified as well. So yes, I very much doubt McCain (especially with his latest stupid move to support this bailout bill) has much of a chance. But we're one little scandal or event away from the polls shifting the other way. It's happened over and over. McCain a few weeks ago had nealry a double digit lead across most of the key swing states. So I don't think it's over. And I think this Acorn relationship is the first substantive smoking gun to come up with Obama. As much as you read, I am a bit surprised you're not more aware of the deepening issues around it. It really hits the core of a lot of this financial crises.

That said, I still think the more interesting question is: What happens if, come election day, Obama loses? It's clear the media is in the tank for Obama. Even left wing comedians are making fun of it. Add racial tension to that powder keg (a whole other topic) and the tension from previous close elections and I think the interesting question is what happens if he loses?

If he wins, I think we already know what will happen. We need look no further than the democraticly controlled house and senate. They've already demonstrated what that will look like. If you like the job they are doing, then you should be very happy. If you think they haven't done a good job, then you should be very disappointed. Either way, we'll get more of what they've done the last two years. (Some will suggest they haven't done anything others apparently are ecstatic with the job they are doing, though polls show less than 10% approve of the job they've done.. so I don't know what so many of them are voting for more of it exactly?).

I'd be very happy if we removed 100% of the incumbents up for election. Let's let new folks take a shot at this. If we keep the same old people, we can't be surprised when they keep doing the same old thing. I've never viewed McCain as being the same as Bush, but certainly both he and Biden are part of the old problem happening in the Senate.. I don't think either are up for election though right?

Brian

What is the definition of insanity?- isn't it something like "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result". No matter how hard we try, we can't kick them all out because probably 80% of the population don't even know who represents them!

Here is my idea for a bumper sticker. Probably half who read it wouldn't know it's a joke.

PALIN-OBIDEN 08

Haha, nice backlash against AIG. Apparently, when confronted with criticism of their $440,000 retreat, they countered that it's a regular event that's important to their business (???) and that they were planning ANOTHER ONE.

Thank God the popular opinion knocked some sense into them...

http://consumerist.com/5061132/backlash-outrage-forces-aig-to-cancel-second-pricey-hotel-party

These people should all be fired, as Obama said.

If a bank is bankrupt and in a bailout, I can't see how that is not misappropriation of funds. People thinking they are entitled. People thinking the world owes them something. People thinking credit is a right and that they should be able to maintain a lifestyle regardless of their income. People or corporations or government spending more money than they make. Those are the problems.

Brian, last time I checked, the Legislative branch of our government is not all-powerful nor does it alone dictate policy. We have had a Democrat-controlled House and Senate for a mere two years, inheriting the mess started the prior 6. Unless you really think that 2000-2006 were an amazing time for America themselves. Most of the issues we are mired in now - the Iraq war, the subprime crisis, the healthcare crisis, the social security crisis - were put into motion before 2006, so it is frankly inane of you to imply that the state of our country now is the fault of the actions of the Legislative majority of the last two years. It just doesn't make sense.



So substantive that McCain's campaign has given it barely a mention and even conservative media outlets have largely ignored it.

I don't think Democrats are flawless, nor do I think Obama is. But the difference is that the flaws I see in various Republican leaders and in the party itself is in their fundamental philosophies about the economy and role of government. That's why I write so much about it. People can point fingers at Democrats in specific instances of bad decision making (ie. their role in the subprime crisis) but bad decisions and mistakes are less important to me than an entire policy or philosophy that in and of itself is deeply flawed, IMO.

Andrew,

If the House and Senate are helpess, then the Democrats sure seem to want to hold control of them awfully bad don't they? It is a naive view to think the President has the power to do much of anything. Unless the congress puts forth legislation, the president's powers are very limited. The Democrats have control and can put forth and pass anything they want. If Bush was vetoing everything that they were doing, then I'd agree that he's been the problem. But that hasn't been the case. They haven't put forth any solutions on any signficant issues. If things haven't gotten BETTER or stayed the SAME under the Democrats, then that proves they made them worse.

If the Democrats were paying any attention, they would have put a stop to the practices that led to this failure. They did not. It happened on their watch. It's their fault. If you want to throw Bush in WITH them, that's fine. I didn't vote for Bush either time and I think he's an idiot. But he's not running for reelection. The Congress IS. And the Barney Franks and the Dodds and the other corrupt scam artists were the foxes guarding the chicken coops. The farmers (i.e. the US Public) need to eradicate those foxes.

Obama is waist deep involved with ACORN. It's an evil entity that is working overtime right now to creative massive voter registration fraud. It should be shut down and those running it should be in jail for treason. Serious penalties should be imposed on any who registers or attempts to vote under a false name. I consider that treason as well. If any politicians are involved or have facilitated this fraud, they too should be charged with treason and removed from office. I don't care what party they belong to. How anyone of ANY party could be tolerant or supportive of any organization engaged in rampant voter or registration fraud is a mystery. It tells me they hate everything our country stands for and are willing to sell their soul to try and win an election.

In the midst of all this stuff, we have BOTH candidates fiddling while Rome is burning. The difference seems to be that Obama supporters are gleefully happy because it guarentees Obama the election. So they have no interest at all of fixing anything. And they'll just blame Bush for the troubles throughout Obama's 4 years. He'll never take any responsibility for anything, and since he'll have Congress on his side, they'll all fleece the country while pointing the finger at Bush. It's obvious that is their strategy. They've already been doing it for 2 years.. and in that time we've gone from the highest number EVER on the stock market to a crash (which isn't over) of 40% in 1 year. If the party in charge of the Senate and House bears no responsibility for that, then there's no hope going forward.

Income and wealth distribution to those who choose not to work is not a world that any hard working person should want to live. That is socialism and once the economy tanks to the point where government becomes the only viable employer due to bloated growth, then we're looking at communism. Neither form of government works. With McCain, we're going to move WAY left as a country. With Obama, we're going to move left of any administration in our history. I don't think that bodes well for our economic standing in the world or our ability to defend ourselves or others who depend on us. It also means that there's no longer an incentive to work hard. With a doubling of taxes on profits from stocks or home sales, no one is going to invest in the US anymore. Why would they?

I predict a grim future regardless of which of these two guys are elected president. Their input isn't going to matter nearly as much as the overwhelming majorities the Democrats will have in Congress. Their performance in the last 2 years registers as the worst in history. Their approval rating is the lowest in history. And we'll be looking at another 4 years of more of the same.

Brian