Do you really like the way this country is headed?

[JenV]

Seriously. Can any right winger on here actually defend what is going on right now? We’re headed for a depression because of the economic policies of this administration…now they’re talking bailouts left and right. What a frightening thing, and yet people want to keep the right wingers in office for four more years. They have run this country into the ground in more ways than one. I just don’t get it.

remember- “it’s the economy, stupid!”

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[rs261]

I hardly think we’ll have a depression…recession is definitely possible, depending on your definition, we are already in one now. There are really 3 things to blame for our current financial crisis.

1. The banks/financial institutions that over leveraged themselves in hopes of a quick profit

2. Greenspan (yes greenspan from Clinton times as well) slashing the interest rate, and all for deregulation of the financial institutions.

3. Congress/senate and Bush for passing all the laws so that fiancial institutions could “self regulate” come on now….we all know thats not going to happen.

For more information…read http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/17/stiglitz.crisis/index.html

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[JoB]

rs261

you forgot deregulation from the Reagan presidency that allowed banks to overextend in that reckless manner.

and the pressure exerted by those financial institutions to keep interest rates down to fuel the mortgage industry.

you also forgot the cost of this war which has placed an incredible debt load on America…

What about the cost of oil and the price gouging engaged in by the oil companies (record profits) that have added not only to the price of gas but to every consumer good that is transported.

Did i forget to mention using corn and soy as fuel depleting farmlands once used to produce food products driving up the price of grains?

Oh.. and how about the growth of the middleman industry to process insurance claims adding one more layer of cost to medical care.. not to mention price gouging and benefit cuts by insurance companies (record profits).

or pharmacy companies indulging in price gouging (more record profits).. hitting the united states where they have received public money to help develop their drugs the hardest…

gosh. the loss of jobs as American companies diversify into the global market and exploit cheaper labor markets…

what about the shift in perception towards measuring a manufacturing company in terms of shareholder price and profits instead of production…

depressing if you really think about it, isn’t it.

America took a wrong turn when we elected an actor president and doesn’t seem to have come to it’s senses yet.

yes, Clinton was in the white house.. but the republicans ruled congress… and seem to have gotten their way more often than not. heck.. they tied up the last half of his presidency with a sex scandal.. nobody got anything done.

while they ignored real threats.. like Osama Bin Laden.

What ever happened with Newt’s pledge to America anyway?

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[walfredo]

You left out the unprecidented in recorded history history Bush economic plan- massive tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% during the start of a massive never ending war. This neo-con experiment had never been tried before, even by the Romans, and we are all now enjoying the results of this.

Record deficits, declining value of the dollar, soaring inflation, higher staple good prices, declining wages, lost jobs, and now the same type thinking that led to banks “policing themselves” has led to the beginning of the collapse of the entire financial markets…

Obama needs to get this message across, it is not an accident what is happening now in the economy, and doubling down on these failed policies is not the “change” that is needed.

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[rs261]

This is gonna be long….

First off, did you guys read the link? it talks about the war, dollar etc.

Oil companies have a profit margin of 10%, Google has a profit margin of 25%, Microsoft has a profit margin of 29%. It’s true that while the oil industry rakes in huge sums of cash in raw numbers, the profit margin for the S&P energy sector, at about 10%, is only slightly higher that the average for the S&P 500. Google, by contrast, has a profit margin of 25%, yet no one is calling for a special tax on search engines. Should we penalize a company because they make more money due to the price of their product on the open market going up? Should we penalize Apple because they run out of iPhones and demand drives the prices up? Oil trades in dollars across all markets, low dollar = high oil price. More demand from china/india/other developing economies = high oil price, assuming supply does not keep pace (I’m not a drill drill drill person, I think we NEED to get off oil for gasoline, and move to other sources of power, be it wind, solar, biomass, bio-coal, or any other clean energy. We will always need oil for other things, but gasoline is not one of them.)

Soy/corn discussion I’ve had with you before…the fed pays farmers not to plant land, and the corn/soy products being used for fuel are not the grade/quality that can be used for human consumption. If we moved production to switchgrass or poplar trees for cellulose production of ethanol would that change anything? We’re still using the land, just for a different crop, which wouldnt have any effect on the price of corn or soy. Driving factors for the price of corn and soy are Supply and demand, and the american dollar. As it happens demand for these crops is very high right now (exports to other countries have been exceeding expectations, Iran is a huge importer of our wheat), and supply is relatively low. (Although the past 2 months prices of corn, soy and wheat have been dropping)

Insurance companies I cant comment on, I dont know enough about them. I do know they raise prices to cover lawsuit costs…but yet I still think of them as a ripoff screwing the average worker. Have health care insurance premiums ever fallen? I really do want to know.

Pharm companies again I dont know much about…I know the cost of american products is higher, and covers the cost of research and development for new products…but the costs overseas are MUCH cheaper. Is it better to help us or other people? I’d say help the most people possible. But I’m no expert on them (im sure there are pharmacists on here though could speak about costs though)

I’m not for shipping of jobs overseas, but if I recall correctly, most of the overseas telephone centers has happened in the last 10 years or so. Was there de-regulation involved? I dont know, please enlighten me if you know of rules or regulation changes that brought this about.

Shareholder prices and profits have ALWAYS been in companies first thoughts, can you name a time when this isnt so? Sure there are exceptional companies in every case…Knoll is a carpet manufacturer that makes corn based carpet, completly recyclable. The building industry is one of the main polluters of the globe, more building/construction waste goes to landfills then any other type every year. Knoll has taken a step in the right direction, just like I hope many other companies will do. I cant tell you when de-regulation would be good or bad, I’m not an economist. But I do know hindsight is 20/20.

Congress has also spent a huge amount of time on Steroids in the MLB…what a rediculous waste of time and money…but again, the FOMC makes monetary policy decisions. Congress/pres can pass laws/regulations/deregulations, but the FOMC is controlling force regarding overall forces of inflation control and interest rates.

Walfredo…

I’m not for tax cuts on the wealthy, I REALLY like Obama’s tax plan. If I made more then 250k a year, I may not like it as much, but I sure understand it. I SHOULD have the tax burden if I make 5x the average family.

I’m not for the war, never was. But its not a war about oil…its a war about faulty intelligence and revenge…which makes it all the more wrong. (Even if it was a war about oil its still very very wrong).

Personally, I’m sick of the fed bailing out companies that run themselves into the ground. Let them fail, yeah its gonna suck for LOTS of people, but companies brought it upon themselves. Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, and several other financial institutions did not get caught up in the meltdown (until aquistions and other business deals). They were smart, they judged the risks and saw that they could get burned…others like AIG, Lehman, WaMu, Merril, Countrywide, etc saw the profits and said screw the risks. They are paying for it now.

I like most of Obama’s plans for the economy, but blaming bush for ALL of what we’re in today is just an easy way out. This has been in the works since probably before 1997. Regan, Bush, Clinton, Bush Jr, all had a hand in it. Maybe even before that…but I’m not old enough (or perhaps too old) to remember.

Who did everyone blame during the .com bubble/collapse? Did you still find a republican to blame? Bias is one thing, looking at the facts is a completly seperate issue.

Pet peeve time (not that anyone mentioned Iraq was a war for oil but still) Do people know where we import most of our oil from?

Canada (over 20%), then Saudi Arabia(14%), Mexico(14%), Venezuela (11%). Canada has been at the top of the list for a long time…if we wanted a war for oil…we’d have invaded our neighbor to the north.

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[JoB]

regardless of what oil companies profit margins are.. they are still making record profits… and receiving government handouts.

i think suggesting we are penalizing them is probably a gross exaggeration.

Go to a third world country and repeat the corn/soy rationalization… they are calling it the tortilla wars in Mexico.. because peasants can no longer even afford the grain to make tortillas… i don’t think the rationalizations will go over so well there.

The research for pharmacuetical companies is subsidized by the american taxpayer… yet the american consumer absorbs all of the cost… while those in other countries with governments that regulate drug costs actually pay less for brand name drugs produced in the same manufacturing facilities that produce the drugs we buy.

I guess they have to recoup their advertising costs somehow…

shareholder prices and and profits have always been public companies first concerns, but it is only somewhat recently that the expectations of shareholder profits and profiteering on wall street have become more important than the expectation that those same companies would reinvest in future development.

When the question of how much profit can you generate today becomes more important than the question of how long you can generate any profit at all, you have fiasco like our current mortgage and insurance bailouts..

which, by the way, the taxpayer will pay for whether the company bankrupts the individual taxpayer’s personal assets or not.

here’s the thing.. supply side economics didn’t really get popular until Reagan.. and with him we got massive deregulation..

there is a chance that it could have ultimately worked for the United States economy if the market had been confined to the United States… tho i am skeptical.

But of course, it isn’t. Supply side economics has only worked for those who look at business globally. In other words, global businesses are doing well..

but if the economy of the united states includes the economic health of it’s citizens.. not so much.

oh.. and apparantly those citizens who aren’t doing as well economically as they were a decade or two ago.. are expected to pick up the tax burden for bailing the companies that failed due to poor business practices.

How can anyone justify that? I understand it was necessary to forestall the kind of crash that created the great depression.. but bailouts won’t eliminate another great depression, they will only forestall it.

regulation came as a result of the lessons learned in previous economic disasters… how many times will we have to relearn them?

seems to me like we should put supply side economics back in the universities and go back to demand side economic policies..

those which most americans think we are following when they say.. let the market place work.

American’s are being sold a real bill of goods… and aren’t getting much in return for their investment.

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[rs261]

First off, I’m not suggesting that they are currently penalizing them…I am suggesting taxing them more and more for their profits due to a high oil price is though. Some other people generating record profits this year are

a big company called Microsoft

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/apr07/04-26Q3FY07ERPR.mspx

a small company called Immunocor

ttp://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2008/07/21/daily53.html?ana=from_rss

and the farmers of america

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/02/22/farmfinances/

should we tax all of them more as well? I’m saying singling out the oil companies is a bad idea.

Yes, there are countries that are fighting over corn, rice, wheat…is it the united states job to bail them out? The Iranian government buys wheat from us, as does mexico, whos job is it to set the prices on wheat? The farmers sell it to the processing center, at a price determined by supply and demand. If we knew demand would be this high for wheat, more farmers would have planted more instead of hay or some other crop and that price would go up. Or the feds could stop paying farmers for vacant land again.

Are we are are we not in a global economy? Supply AND demand are used in price determination… I encourage you to visit futuresource and read news about the futures traded ( http://futuresource.quote.com/markets/market.jsp?id=grain

)… an example of the news that comes out every day is http://futuresource.quote.com/news/story.jsp?i=DJC01D4Y80917

It talks about why prices moved the way they did for the day…read it for a month and you get a better impression of why a general trend is happening in prices.

Again I say I LIKE Obama’s tax plan, the highest 20% of income earners SHOULD be taxed more.

If you are a believer in Keynesian economics (demand side), then you should really read up on those ideas. Cut real wages to increase employment, Excessive savings = bad, balanced budget = bad, Active fed interest rate cuts = good.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian

Is this really what you think we should head too? Are you a secret republican? (granted supply side economics is MORE republican ie voodoo economics)

I believe a mix of both supply AND demand are needed as well as other methods. not just one or the other.

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[Zenguy]

I am sick and tired of greed in this country!

I am tired of people voting for the politician that promises the biggest tax cut and the measures that puts money in their pockets but put our infrastructure at risk. Tax is not a dirty word, it is what allows us as a country to function and compete on a global basis.

I am tired of CEOs, COOs and investors squeezing every last drop out of companies, putting them at risk and then leaving them for the rest of America to clean up the mess with employees hung out to dry.

We are in a class war here people and this election is about that as much as anything.

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[rs261]

I completely agree with you Zen, but my question to everyone is what constitutes greed? Is wanting enough to live the rest of my life in my current lifestyle greedy? I’m not living beyond my means, nor in any sort of lavish lifestyle. Where is the line between greed and need drawn?

CEO’s and COO’s are overcompensated. I however consider us all investors…every company or job I’ve ever worked for or in is an investment. And I squeeze every last bit out of the company or job to reach my goal.

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[JoB]

I have read up on those ideas rs261..

though it isn’t apparent to you.

and i don’t have the time or energy today to trade sources with you…

but you might ask yourself..

reagon/deregualtion/bushSR/clinton-republican congress/bushJR/more deregulation/massive bailouts

is it possible there is a pattern here and that it might have anything to do with our current economic crisis?

and.. why can’t the american public affect the price of gasoline by lowering demand as has happened in the past?

why are we subsidizing oil companies and why are those same oil companies who have not exercised viable leases they already own demanding more drilling rights?

sigh… i just don’t have the time and energy today for this.

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[rs261]

Lowering demand for gasoline would drive prices down…assuming the supply of gasoline remains constant. It does happen, it can happen.

Again, I havent commented on regulation vs deregulation. I think the massive bailouts are a bad idea. Does a 1.5% interest rate with low inflation during clinton times have anything to do with a housing boom? Do people getting in over their heads in a mortgage have anything to do with the collapse of mortgage companies? Granted, if banks didnt offer up fancy negative amortization loans a lot of those houses wouldnt have been bought…is that better or worse?

Hey, I’m all for stopping subsidies on oil companies, farmers, steel manufactuers, importers, exporters, software companies, or anyone else. I’m not for more drilling, im not for more oil. Nor do I see where you got that from my previous posts.

The republican congress/senate may have passed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 (which McCain voted for), but Clinton signed it into law…and then I believe, boasted about the rise in home ownership.

Do I think it was a good thing? Not now…but hindsight is after all…you know…

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[Jenny]

Trust me on this: Things could be worse. Those of you who are GenX’ers & younger never had to live through the Carter years. Heck, the ’70s as a whole, from Nixon thru Ford, weren’t much better. I guess Carter just represented the final puttering out of the liberal era in the US.

Those of you who think we started going to hell in a handbasket with Reagan, PLEASE tell me you don’t want to go back to this:

Carter’s MEOW speech (1977):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IlRVy7oZ58

I remember this speech as the point when I knew I could never be a liberal (1979):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IlRVy7oZ58

(audio is low)

Now, about the housing crisis: I’m sure that to some extent that creating the current crisis was a team effort, but it’s mostly the Dems’ fault, coming from the Clinton administration’s attempt to increase homeownership among the low-income masses. (A worthy goal, but accomplished by using government to manhandle the credit market & interest rates, with loads of unintended consequences):

http://ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=306370789279709

Bush even tried to rein in Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae back in 2003, but was blocked by the Dems in Congress:

In the long run you Democrats are going to be really uncomfortable when the Congressional investigations start. ‘Course, as long as y’all can blame this on Evil Bushhitlermccainpalin before November, then it’s a Good Thing. ;)

Anyways, I’m old enough (shudder) to know that we always muddle through such periodic crises & recessions. So this doesn’t bother me too much: I survived the Carter years!

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[Trick]

Jenny,

The Democrats denounced it on the grounds of “affordable housing” regulation for poorer recipients would be more difficult.

“Blocking it” wasn’t mentioned in your link.

Considering the Republicans controlled congress baffles me the Dems could block it alone.

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[Trick]

No one talks about the loophole created for these mortgage companies not having to verify employment or wasges.

Blame the person who wants to own the American dream, not the lender who knows it’s a bad loan.

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[FullTilt]

I have realized something over the past few weeks after reading about polls on the election and hearing quotes from middle America. This country is chocked full of a lot of stupid people. A lot. A freakin huge amount. We are buffered here on the coast, as people on the east coast are. The rest of the country, seems to be about 50% morons.

People vote how they think they are going to be. They think they are going to be rich at any moment, so they vote with the wealthy 1%. There is about as much chance of most of them joining the upper crust as there is of me looking Brad Pitt.

Look at when Al Gore ran a populist campaign, he could not get the vote of uneducated white men, even though he was talking directly to them. The estate tax, which is aimed at the Uber Wealthy failed because people really thought that any moment they were going to be stinking rich. This people are ignorant. Many people vote as if they are just pre rich. They may be shopping at Sam’s Club now and eating at Apple Bee’s, but any moment their ship is going to come in. This is what we are all told. That any one in this country can pull themselves up by there boot straps and become a gagillionaire. That is BS. Chances are you are going to die in the social economic class you where born into.

We envy the wealthy, and look up to them. We don’t want to penalize them. Hell, we want to be just like them some day. Why the hell would we pass a tax that is going to hurt ourselves when we become rich. Doesn’t matter if you are in hock up to your eye lids now, you must think of the future.

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[acemotel]

exactly, fulltilt. I’m always bewildered that people vote against their own best interest. Under Bush, the incomes of the middle class have actually decreased while the top 1 per cent of income earners have enjoyed the greatest prosperity known to man in the history of this country. Even more so the top 1/10 of 1 per cent. How can working people be opposed to unions?

OTOH, the richest man in the US is a liberal.

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[JoB]

rs261..

lowering demand in the united states no longer affect gas prices much since there is so much demand elsewhere…

that’s the difference between functioning as a microclimate economically and functioning as a macro climate…

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[rs261]

it does not affect it much, but it still does affect it. Every Wednesday a report comes out from the Energy Information Agency (eia.doe.gov) reporting on current inflow, stock and consumption of oil and its refined goods. Every Wednesday the price of oil reacts to that information. If we have an unexpected rise in gasoline stocks, the price goes down. Everybody refines their own oil into seperate products, gasoline here is a different price then gasoline in europe partially because of this. I follow future prices every day on over 30 markets (interest rates, equity indexes, currencies, grains, metals) and can tell you supply and demand are some of the major influencing factors on the price of these goods.

In regards to most things in the US, consumption is our issue…until we curb our consumption of foreign and domestic goods, things will not change drastically. But if we did change our habits, things would change. Not you or I, but everyone. Yeah I realize its not going to happen…

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[JoB]

Jenny..

had the united states followed the conservation efforts of the 70s.. when it became evident that oil producing countries held us by the short hairs.. with leaner more eco friendly vehicles instead of the gas guzzling armored tanks we drive today… there wouldn’t be a gas crisis… and families wouldn’t have to be making the hard choices between gas to get to work and medicine or food for their kids.

the local food bank now sees well dressed white collar working people who can’t feed their families but don’t qualify for public assistance.

Something is wrong with this picture.

instead.. the companies that leased out those experimental electric cars that their owners were clamoring to purchase shredded them into bits of metal… and we now have manufacturers bragging that their cars get 25 miles to the gallon.

You can only put off a crisis so long.. then you run smack dab into it again.

you would have thought America got a wake up call in the 70s with those gas lines… and that we would now have a functioning public transport system that would be the envy of the world… and cars that exceeded the standard 25 mpg by the end of the 70s… but no.

it’s easier and more self satisfying to make fun of Carter… and pursue personal greed… bigger, better, faster, newer, i want it, i need it, i can pay for it later.

it’s later.

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[Jenny]

Update to what I said re: the mortgage crisis: Here’s an article from way back in 2000 that goes into detail about how Clinton put the Community Reinvestment Act on steroids to bully the banks into lending to bad credit risks. It was a ham-handed attempt to make amends for historical redlining. But it ended up practically mandating that banks lower their legitimate credit standards.

http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_1_the_trillion_dollar.html

It’s true, Republicans were controlling Congress at least during part of this era, although the new CRA regulations were a product of the Clinton administration & carried out thru the Treasury Dept. (But then why didn’t Bush just repeal those provisions? If Clinton could enact them by executive fiat, Bush should’ve been able to rescind them.) One hero of this then-incipient debacle who stands out, BTW, is Phil Gramm:

When Senator Gramm attacked the CRA for its role in funding advocacy groups and for the burden it imposes on banks, the Clinton administration fought back furiously, willing to let the crucial Financial Services Modernization Act, to which Gramm had attached his CRA changes, die, unless Gramm dropped demands that, for instance, CRA reviews become less frequent. In the end, Gramm, despite his key position as the chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs (even the committee’s name reflects a CRA consciousness) and his willingness to hold repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act hostage to CRA reform, could only manage to require community groups to make public their agreements with banks, disclosing the size of their loan commitments and fees.

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[Jenny]

> it’s easier and more self satisfying to make fun of Carter…

In this case I wouldn’t callit making fun of him. It’s more like reliving a painful memory. It’s instructive. Did you watch them?

Anyway, in the MEOW speech he predicted we’d run out of gas by 1982.

Oops, I’m sorry, I see my link to the MEOW speech was wrong. Here it is:

Here’s the “Crisis of Confidence” speech:

BTW, it turns out these are shorter versions of the full speeches, from the Miller Center’s extensive archive of presidential speeches. It looks like they have audio recordings starting with FDR, and videos starting with JFK. This is going to be addicting…

http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches

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[Jenny]

Fair & balanced: Here’s President Ford telling us how he’s going to “Whip Inflation Now!” THAT really worked.

http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3283

Reaganomics (as was Thatchernomics) was truly revolutionary. The powers-that-be in the ’70s had no clue, on either side.

It’s reminiscent of the Great Depression: FDR’s actions dragged the Depression on for TEN FRIGGING YEARS – but he was only doubling down on Republican Herbert Hoover’s earlier clueless reactions to what started out as merely a sharp recession.

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[JoB]

Jenny..

i am very glad not to to live in your alternate universe…

if you were around in the 60s and 70s.. it seems you didn’t learn much from your experiences.

that’s sad.

You should go listen to the Yes We Can video posted here today…

i might do your heart good.

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[Jenny]

> i am very glad not to to live in your alternate universe…

> if you were around in the 60s and 70s.. it seems you didn’t learn much from your experiences.

> that’s sad.

??? In MY alternate universe, the ’60s culminated in the ’70s, which were a BAD time. Were the ’70s a good time for you? How so? I’m astonished anyone could’ve preferred the ’70s to the ’80s & ’90s – and yes, even today. (We’re much more resilient to shocks to the system today because the markets are so much freer. Trust me: The Fannie & Freddie meltdown will blow over, and we’ll still be here, and the Misery Index will still be well below 1980 levels.)

Really, truly, sincerely: WATCH THE CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE VIDEO (a.k.a. “the Malaise Speech”). THIS is what the big-government, liberal pre-Reagan mindset led to:

http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3402

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[JoB]

rs261..

ahh..

you see the economy through the eyes of a financial trader…

i see the economy through the eyes of the farmer’s market..

i suspect we don’t mean the same thing when we use the same terms ;~> doesn’t mean we can’t talk though.

i do enjoy a well presented alternate viewpoint.

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[Author]

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