It's the Democrats, DON'T blame GWB !!

Dems Repubs, what's the difference. I love this site but it's making me even more paranoid than I am in the first place. I watch too much news, and have a runaway imagination. I'm lucky I work for very wealthy folks who need an honest handyman.
I'm just shooting for the food, clothing and shelter, hunkered down and laying low. I have not taken advantage of all the opportunities this USA has made available to me, but I have supported myself since the age of 19. I come from a broken home. I had a severely alcoholic father who was literally there maybe once a year. He was a merchant marine in WWII, survived torpedo attacks twice. I imagine he had PTSD before it was ever defined. My mother fought the big C for ten years before it killed her when I was 12. We lived in an apartment in Albany, NY and never even had a car. But I was never hungry and recieved a decent public school education.
I remember walking to the gas station with a quarter and a screw top glass gallon wine jug to get gasoline for the neighbor's lawnmower. Petroleum was an abundant cheap resource. Today I spent $35 for two gallons of motor oil and a filter. I used to love working on cars, now I can't fix them, can't find an honest mechanic. I'm reading that the 2nd ammendment is being taken away quickly, I can't get a gun anyway in NJ unless I want to spend thousands on a lawyer. I have no criminal record, but was in a rehab when I was 19, hence a reason for permit denial. I would like to own a home, but it is highly unlikely here in NJ.
I don't like seeing the population infiltrated by foreigners that refuse to learn English. I heard the population of this USA will hit a billion in the next few decades if they don't close the borders. I don't believe the USA can absorb the world's population. I think the Statue of Liberty should be turned around 180 degrees so that plaque about 'give me your tired, your poor..' faces some other country.
Now I read it will be illegal to have my tomato garden soon. I'm getting jaded and think nine out of ten people are totally dishonest and greedy.
I'm imagining holing up with some of my right wing buddies here, somewhere in PA, in some kind of compound or fort, with The Constitution pinned up on a wall. Handing them ammo clips in the last great fight for freedom as the hordes of evil enemies assault us!
But I still hope to spend more time thinking about the things I have to be grateful for, even as so many things I cherished about this country seem to be slipping away.
How's that for a rant?

shano06 wrote:I really have tried to ignore these political threads but this is the same argument that I have with the Republicans that I work with. Anyways, I am a 22 year old homeowner that bought my house about 1 year before the collapse. I have never been late for a payment and pay my mortgage every month, just like 94% of Americans. I find it hard to believe that 6% of one industry in the whole market can collapse it. What Republicans are blind to are that what caused this was the deregulations of REGAN allowed these rediculous amount of bad securitys that were traded between banks. The market doesnt regulate itself unlike you Republicans like to believe( check out what happened in1929 if you dont believe me.) Just one last thing, how do you think Bernie Madoff voted? My bet is Republican.

REAGAN(if you are going to insult him, spell his name right) was long gone when Clinton signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.

GLBA repealed most of the Glass-Steagall Act which was enacted after the Great Depression. It kept retail banks, commercial banks, investment houses and insurance companies from pooling their money. Citi Bank merged with Travellers Insurance and the snowball started rolling.

The remaining provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act - enacted following the Great Depression - forbade banks to merge with insurance underwriters, and meant Citigroup had between two and five years to divest any prohibited assets. However, Weill stated at the time of the merger that they believed "that over that time the legislation will change...we have had enough discussions to believe this will not be a problem". Indeed, the passing of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in November 1999 vindicated Reed and Weill's views, opening the door to financial services conglomerates offering a mix of commercial banking, investment banking, insurance underwriting and brokerage.

Then when you add in tons of "free" money from the Fed and banks do what they do best, make money. They were choking on cash and started inventing ways to lend it. It didn't hurt that GWB wanted to give speeches bragging about how we had the highest "home ownership" in history. And the D's were just happy to have a happy electorate. Like I said earlier, happy voters don't upset the applecart be voting the incumbents out.

And even though it is technically 6% of the mortgages, all that money was leveraged out 30-50 times. Sometimes multiple times. And then it was all insured, and insured against the insurance. And then they bet against themselves just in case. It was positively Byzantine.

There is plenty of blame to go around from the top to the bottom. Blaming borrowers, lenders, R's or D's is pointless. The truth is, everyone got what they wanted. At least for a little while. The real issue now is throwing good money after bad to prop up the sham system. They all should have been allowed to fail and then we could start fresh. As it is now, the system will still fail, we'll just be more in debt when it finally comes.

acesover wrote:And now we have dirt bags wife to look out for our intrests abroad. LOW life southern SCUM.

Speaking as someone from the south (raised in GA) - boy, do you have the Clintons pegged! If you looked up Trailer trash in the dictionary I bet you'd see their names as the definition. No respect intended. That's earned and the Clintons haven't earned my respect. Lisa

Sorry to burst the big lib bubble, but bernie madoff is a democrat and since 1991 his political contrib. were skewed 89% democrat(over 500,000 in last 11 years). Do you think will will see a moral issue arise about returning some campaign contributions??? Anyone remember Abramoff, there was outrage by the dems for the return on lobby money, but then again they were republicans not democRATS.

frank

shano06 wrote:You honestly believe that Bernie and all of his riche douchebag buddies on Wall Street voted Democrat? C'mon, really? The biggest fear of all Republicans are non existant terrorists in Iraq , and taxes. And believe me, I bet the biggest fear of a fraudulent billionaire is taxes just the same as all you Republicans reading this.

Bernie was a life long Democrat.

Black_And_Blue wrote:

shano06 wrote:You honestly believe that Bernie and all of his riche douchebag buddies on Wall Street voted Democrat? C'mon, really? The biggest fear of all Republicans are non existant terrorists in Iraq , and taxes. And believe me, I bet the biggest fear of a fraudulent billionaire is taxes just the same as all you Republicans reading this.

Bernie was a life long Democrat.

He voted Republican & bribed both sides, as they all do.

Devil505 wrote:

Black_And_Blue wrote:

shano06 wrote:You honestly believe that Bernie and all of his riche douchebag buddies on Wall Street voted Democrat? C'mon, really? The biggest fear of all Republicans are non existant terrorists in Iraq , and taxes. And believe me, I bet the biggest fear of a fraudulent billionaire is taxes just the same as all you Republicans reading this.

Bernie was a life long Democrat.

He voted Republican & bribed both sides, as they all do.

Democrats got 88% of contributions....

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/12 ... nearl.html

Black_And_Blue wrote:Democrats got 88% of contributions....

Even Al Capone was smart enough to not donate to the Republican Party heavily in the last few years. Everyone knew they were going to lose big time! (John McCain as their candidate???....give me a break....Remember Rush Limbaugh threatning to vote for Hillary if McCain won the Repub nomination?!? )

What's killing us is not the subprime loans. What's killing us is the derivatives created with the subprime paper.

If we were only talking about the subprime loans this would be a smaller deal than the S&L crisis.

Devil505 wrote:

Black_And_Blue wrote:Democrats got 88% of contributions....

Even Al Capone was smart enough to not donate to the Republican Party heavily in the last few years. Everyone knew they were going to lose big time! (John McCain as their candidate???....give me a break....Remember Rush Limbaugh threatning to vote for Hillary if McCain won the Repub nomination?!? )

88% pure coincidence I suppose?

WASHINGTON -- The Senate's first attempt to pass a bill designed to recoup some $165 million in bonuses paid to AIG was blocked Thursday by Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.

From: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03 ... s-bonanza/

Funny how the Dems are rushing to try and pass this bill in light of the fact that it was the "Stimulus Bill" which the Dems rushed through which allowed this whole AIG mess to occur.

Oh I forgot the large font:

Funny how the Dems are rushing to try and pass this bill in light of the fact that the "Stimulus Bill" which the Dems rushed through which allowed this whole AIG mess to occur.

In a dramatic reversal Wednesday, Sen. Chris Dodd confessed to adding language to a spending cap in the stimulus bill last month that specifically excluded executive bonuses included in contracts signed before the bill's passage.

From: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first10 ... e/100days/

Oh I forgot, it's all part of the "vast right-wing conspiracy" and it can't possibly be true because I referenced reports on Foxnews.com which is obviously just a front for the Republican party. Well I think Obama is dragging this country towards Socialism, everything he does and says is well calculated, and if that annoys anyone well...

EXCUSE ME!!!

Freddie-time to start printing the "Don't blame me--I voted for McCain" bumper stickers.

You are falsely associating financial sector greed and corruption almost exclusively with the Republican party. This is a big mistake. MBS's were started and propelled by Fannie and Freddie, run primarily by democrats over the past two decades (indeed since their creation). AIG had a Republican CEO I think, but many of the top executive are/were democrats. Many of the wall street investment houses are run by democrats, not just republicans. Maddoff... it is not at all a safe bet to peg him as a Republican. There is a pox upon both houses when it comes to this long building mess.

Corruption knows no party. Greed is its own master. Insert additional platitude here.

I will agree with you on this point though. It is hard to imagine that a relatively small fraction of just one sector of the economy, accounting for maybe a few percent of yearly GDP, has the ability to drag the whole damn system down. I don't buy it. Somewhere someone is gaming this thing, pushing it much further than it normally would go, faster than it normally would go. The chaos is a goal unto itself, opening doors for policy shenanigans that have no relevance or impact on the primary economic issues at hand and shifting attention away from actions that are quite likely far more dangerous than the fall they purport to be avoiding. Some of this, particularly the later, was started under the last two-three months of Bush and it is all accellerating under Obama.

I'm convinced government is furiously digging the hole into which we found ourselves falling. Sure, there were private banks and investment houses happily digging away with them, in tandem, but at this point it's all the government's doing and they are showing no signs of slowing down (apparently on the theory that if we keep going we'll end up in China, the new land of economic opportunity and prosperity).

How can the democrats possibly be upset about the bonus money for aig when they are the ones who voted for the stimulus bill. Oh maybe they didnt bother reading the bill they needed to rush to get passed. Obama, barney frank and the like are all to blame for the aig bonuses. how can they claim they didnt know about them when they wrote the legislation allowing aig to take the bonuses. they say one thing and do another. im so sick of obama and his democrats already and its only been two months

Somewhere someone is gaming this thing, pushing it much further than it normally would go, faster than it normally would go. The chaos is a goal unto itself, opening doors for policy shenanigans

Exactly. It's a simple idea, a little wrench in the works here and there, things go awry, the economy worsens.....and here comes Obama and crew to save the day.

Pvolcko, you sir are right, I smell a rat, and it aint the goverment, but that rat has the goverment FOOLED into thinking we have a problem biger than it is.
Ray