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Quote[/b] ]

Also, why does everyone "deserve" insurance? What about some of the guys I knew back in construction, whose lot in life had much to do with voluntary choices (Becoming a drunk in high school, dropping out in the 10th grade, and acquiring a minor criminal record)? Why should I, the college-boy who studied on Friday and Saturday nights, spend my working years paying additional taxes to subsidize the lives of people who made poor decisions where I made better ones? Doing so would only make sense if there was sort of benefit to society for insuring everybody, otherwise it's just another weight around the neck of the US budget, which is already half sunk and is still sinking.

So what if someone made good or bad choices? If it makes you feel better, imagine that your portion of the healthcare coverage is helping those that made the good choices.

Someone's right to anything is not based on whether they made good choices. Can someone only buy a gun if they made good choices in life? Can someone only be free from religious harassment if they made good choices?

If you are a felon that is one thing, as most of your rights are stripped at that point, even some supposedly defined in the BoR.

Getting back to healthcare and education, back in when the Constitution and BoR were written, they were far from what we would consider rights. But we don't live in that time any more. The Constitution should evolve with the times.

There is no reason why our government should be able to offer education and healthcare for its citizens, in fact I would argue that it is a requirement and an absolute right (whether you want to term it positive or negative).

The reason things like healthcare, education, and science aren't funded as they should be is there is no political consequences. Same with overspending and pork spending. No political consequences from the citizens. We complain about it, but when we go to the polls we vote the same people in that have been there 30 years, the same people that have caused the mess in the first place. Do we really expect the Good Ol' Boy Network to fix spending when there is no reason for them to?

So the answer to the overall question is it is OUR fault, not the politicians. You can blame Obama or Bush or whoever your ideological nemesis is, but the real problem is the voters, ideology, and a system that gives us two choices to pick from.

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Quote[/b] ]So what if someone made good or bad choices? If it makes you feel better, imagine that your portion of the healthcare coverage is helping those that made the good choices.

Asides from my opinion that it's not ethically stellar, nor economically sensible, to confiscate from the responsible to give to the irresponsible, there is the problem of subsidizing poor behavior. If the gov't funded a program that gave everyone free dog food, the result of the program would be an explosive growth in dog ownership. Making an item or an activity cheaper without also lowering demand for it through some other means will result in a growth of the cheapened activity. So if we make bad behavior more affordable, more people will engage in it. The result will be that the program will grow far larger than initially anticipated, which brings us right back around to the problem of America's ridiculous budget.

So yes, if you make bad choices, your rights are either directly or indirectly restricted. The problem that arises, and one of the reasons I personally have problems with libertarian theory, is that innocent people can suffer because of the screwups of others. To me, at least, there is a vast gulf between gov't health insurance for the child of a drunken bum and gov't insurance for the drunken bum himself.

I wouldn't bother imagining that "my share" is going to some good people, because that means someone else is funding the irresponsible people.

Quote[/b] ]Someone's right to anything is not based on whether they made good choices. Can someone only buy a gun if they made good choices in life? Can someone only be free from religious harassment if they made good choices?

If you've committed anything more than a minor infraction, you can very likely lose your right to buy a gun. Felonies certainly cost you that right, and some milder offenses (For example, domestic abuse in some areas) will also do so. So will certain psychological diagnoses. If you've blown all your money, you won't be allowed to buy the gun because no one will sell one to you. You also aren't technically "free" from religious harassment, you are only protected against gov't interference and private criminal acts against you. You can lose any right against religious interference by engaging in sufficiently despicable religious practices, such as screwing and/or eating children.

On the same note, you might lose your right to be free from a warrantless police search if an officer saw blood in your driveway and heard screaming from the basement. You have a right to be protected from cruel and unusual punishment, at least until you do something really bad, at which point we will throw you into a windowless cell and leave you there for several decades (Admittedly, we claim this isn't cruel and unusual, a stance that is technically referred to as "being full of shit").

Quote[/b] ](whether you want to term it positive or negative).

It's a positive right, unless the old terminology changed while I wasn't watching. If you have the right to something, it's a positive right; If you have the right to be free from something, that's a negative right. I'm not trying to imply that positive rights are good and negative rights bad ("Positive" and "negative" are not meant to be value judgments), or vice versa, just that the nature of these two different types of rights results in a very different sort of policy for each one. Personally, I think that positive rights are much more expensive, and so we as a country need to make some hard decisions. We may be able to afford a few positive rights protected through carefully managed bureaucracies, but raft of such rights will eventually sink under the sheer weight of what's being funded.

Quote[/b] ]The reason things like healthcare, education, and science aren't funded as they should be is there is no political consequences. Same with overspending and pork spending. No political consequences from the citizens.

Well, pork spending always has had a consequence: People vote for the politicians who bring home the bacon crazy_o.gif . It's also seemingly impossible to properly fund the government, because balancing the budget will necessitate a huge cut in gov't goodies and/or a considerable tax hike.

Quote[/b] ]So the answer to the overall question is it is OUR fault, not the politicians.

The politicians reflect what the people want to vote for. If Americans were genuinely concerned with a balanced budget, either the parties would nominate candidates for this end or a new party would arise to exploit the political demand for a candidate with a balanced-budget policy.

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Quote[/b] ]Asides from my opinion that it's not ethically stellar, nor economically sensible, to confiscate from the responsible to give to the irresponsible, there is the problem of subsidizing poor behavior. If the gov't funded a program that gave everyone free dog food, the result of the program would be an explosive growth in dog ownership. Making an item or an activity cheaper without also lowering demand for it through some other means will result in a growth of the cheapened activity. So if we make bad behavior more affordable, more people will engage in it. The result will be that the program will grow far larger than initially anticipated, which brings us right back around to the problem of America's ridiculous budget.

So yes, if you make bad choices, your rights are either directly or indirectly restricted. The problem that arises, and one of the reasons I personally have problems with libertarian theory, is that innocent people can suffer because of the screwups of others. To me, at least, there is a vast gulf between gov't health insurance for the child of a drunken bum and gov't insurance for the drunken bum himself.

I wouldn't bother imagining that "my share" is going to some good people, because that means someone else is funding the irresponsible people.

If it is not ethical to "take" someone else's money, to aid those that are less fortunate, how is it ethical to leave those less fortunate out in the cold? How is it ethical is it to chose who gets health coverage and who doesn't? How is it ethical to perhaps let someone die because they can't afford health coverage (or be in a "bottom dwelling" job because they can't afford a higher education, etc.)? I fail to see the ethics in gauging someone's personal belongings or money against the life of another person. And who exactly determines who isn't "worth" helping and who is?

Quote[/b] ]

If you've committed anything more than a minor infraction, you can very likely lose your right to buy a gun. Felonies certainly cost you that right, and some milder offenses (For example, domestic abuse in some areas) will also do so. So will certain psychological diagnoses. If you've blown all your money, you won't be allowed to buy the gun because no one will sell one to you. You also aren't technically "free" from religious harassment, you are only protected against gov't interference and private criminal acts against you. You can lose any right against religious interference by engaging in sufficiently despicable religious practices, such as screwing and/or eating children.

I already mentioned felons, but that is not who we are really talking about. We are talking about ordinary Jo Blow. It is a reasonable assumption that if you hurt society in some way or another citizen of society, that you necessarily get some rights taken.

Quote[/b] ]It's a positive right, unless the old terminology changed while I wasn't watching. If you have the right to something, it's a positive right; If you have the right to be free from something, that's a negative right. I'm not trying to imply that positive rights are good and negative rights bad ("Positive" and "negative" are not meant to be value judgments), or vice versa, just that the nature of these two different types of rights results in a very different sort of policy for each one. Personally, I think that positive rights are much more expensive, and so we as a country need to make some hard decisions. We may be able to afford a few positive rights protected through carefully managed bureaucracies, but raft of such rights will eventually sink under the sheer weight of what's being funded.

I merely meant you can either call it the right to healthcare or the right to be free from treatable illness in a modern society...you can look at it from either perspective.

Quote[/b] ]Well, pork spending always has had a consequence: People vote for the politicians who bring home the bacon crazy_o.gif . It's also seemingly impossible to properly fund the government, because balancing the budget will necessitate a huge cut in gov't goodies and/or a considerable tax hike.

There is a definite lack of political consequences for pork spending. Every year at budget time there is an outcry about half the crap that is put in the bill, and every year the outcry dies down because people have the attention span of gnats. Then they vote the same people in, and the cycle continues.

As they say, one man's pork spending is another man's employment stimulus.

But balancing the budget does not necessarily mean "government goodies" need to be cut. What needs to be cut is the crap we don't need. I again reference $1 Billion B-2 bombers.

Quote[/b] ]The politicians reflect what the people want to vote for. If Americans were genuinely concerned with a balanced budget, either the parties would nominate candidates for this end or a new party would arise to exploit the political demand for a candidate with a balanced-budget policy.

The politicians vote for what is most advantageous to themselves, whether that be going with the constituents for once, or voting the party, or voting what will give them more power. The people are rarely in consideration unless it's for sound bites.

Phil Gramm said it best I think when he said politicians are herd-mentality animals. There has been no political consequence or reason to change the way things are in Washington, but if they sense that the winds are blowing the direction of change, then that is what they will do. Whether or not all the talk of "change" in the last year or so will come to anything, we'll just have to see.

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Quote[/b] ]If it is not ethical to "take" someone else's money, to aid those that are less fortunate, how is it ethical to leave those less fortunate out in the cold? How is it ethical is it to chose who gets health coverage and who doesn't? How is it ethical to perhaps let someone die because they can't afford health coverage (or be in a "bottom dwelling" job because they can't afford a higher education, etc.)? I fail to see the ethics in gauging someone's personal belongings or money against the life of another person. And who exactly determines who isn't "worth" helping and who is?

My problem here is that I believe in a difference in the ethics of redistribution to help the unfortunate (People who've had bad luck, whether born into bad families or somehow stricken by unforeseen events) versus helping the willfully irresponsible. I'd repeat my example about the difference between helping the child of drunk and helping the drunk himself. In the first case, we help the child now and hope that they grow into a productive member of society. In the latter, we merely subsidize and likely encourage a continuing pattern of bad behavior.

Quote[/b] ]I merely meant you can either call it the right to healthcare or the right to be free from treatable illness in a modern society...

True. From a policy perspective, this still leaves the gaping question of what is a "treatable" illness. Basic medical procedures like stitches, immunizations, antibiotics, or treating broken limbs is one thing. But what happens as we try to pay for treatment of the elderly? The cost of treating an old person becomes higher and higher with every year they live, as the amount of effort and technology used to extend his/her life becomes ever more complex. Organ transplants, joint replacements, cancer therapy, or just sustaining someone in a vegetative state cost many thousands of dollars. At some point we're going to have to say "You've lived a long time, you're using thousands of dollars worth of treatment while inputting very little through taxes, so come up with the payments yourself."

Quote[/b] ]But balancing the budget does not necessarily mean "government goodies" need to be cut. What needs to be cut is the crap we don't need. I again reference $1 Billion B-2 bombers.

Well, I agree with you there. However, personally I'd imagine that massive defense cuts would be accompanied by huge hikes in entitlement spending, as any party that cuts military spending by a huge amount is going to take a beating at the polls (And so must bribe people with more goodies). Hell, I'd think it was great if we slashed our military down to a basic force sufficient to protect our borders, some intel gathering capabilities, and some ICBMs as a deterrant. It's just that drastic cuts will be accompanied by charges of "Isolationism" or just plain "Hating America".

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As we've devolved into the usual socialism vs capitalism debate, I'll throw my 2 cents in here.

I'm pretty sure I do understand where most socialists like Wolfrug or Akira are coming from. They are concerned about their fellow human beings, and want to see everyone live a healthy, happy life. I get that.

But I don't think that they see where people like me are coming from. We tend to be cast as "uncaring" or "selfish". So let me try to explain my point of view, hopefully in a polite manner.

My goal isn't to convince anyone of my point of view, but rather to make them understand that the reasons why I hold them are actually quite similar to the reasons why you hold yours. I believe that my beliefs will cause the most happiness in the world, and will provide the most food, housing, shelter, etc for the most possible people.

So we both want the same end result, but we disagree on how to get there. Now, real quick:

------------------------------

Point #1: who should be supported by taxpayer dollars?

You want to know why I think socialized medicine is misguided? Well, I'll ask you this: why doesn't the government provide free food to everyone? After all, food is more essential to survival then health care is.

To me, it makes no sense to argue that the taxpayer should buy ALL of us health care, but should NOT buy all of us food.

Okay, now here is the really important part for you socialists to listen to. I'm sure you will say something like "well, if someone can't afford food, then they can/should be able to get government assistance!".

Okay, I'm alright with doing that. But my very important question is: why should health care be different? How come we only give free food to people who can't afford it, yet we are arguing that we should give free health care to everyone, including those who can afford it?

The same analogy can be made to subsidized / free housing. It doesn't make sense to give free housing to people who can afford it.  The majority of Americans don't qualify for welfare or food stamps or free housing. This is because they can afford it. Wouldn't it be more practical to do the same thing with health care?

We should find the "poverty line", below which someone can no longer afford health care. Anyone below this line can get welfare sponsored health care. The rest of us should be required by law to purchase health care. Just like we are required by law to purchase food (if we have children).

My view is that people should be responsible for funding their own survival. ONLY if they can not do that, should the government step in. It makes no logical sense to me, that you have people who can afford boats and plasma TVs, and you want them to get taxpayer funded health care.

What is essential for survival?

-Food

-Shelter

-Health care

-Retirement savings (for when you can't work anymore)

What should any person who has an income pay for, before anything else?

-Food

-Shelter

-Health care

-Retirement savings

ONLY if you can afford all of these things should you be buying luxuries. How does it make any logical sense to have someone pay for:

-Food

-Shelter

-Luxuries

and then have the government pay for:

-health care

-retirement savings

So, to sum up: my belief is that anyone who can afford the requirements for life, should be expected to pay for those requirements themselves. We should ONLY give welfare / socialized benefits to people who can not afford the basic requirements of life. That welfare should be designed to only cover those basics of life, not luxuries like a TV.

In practice, this means Americans need to buy less luxuries, save more money, and spend more money on health insurance. I don't own a house or a TV, yet I have health insurance and retirement savings.

Back when I was working part time at a minimum wage job, and going to school, I managed to pay for my own food, shelter, and health insurance, as well as school. Plus I stashed money away in retirement savings.

How many "gangsters" do you know of who have giant rims on their expensive Escalades? These people are mis-allocating their resources, which is bad for them, and bad for society. We should not enable them to do so. We should require that they purchase the requirements for life, only after should they be allowed to buy giant rims and bling.

It really isn't as expensive to live, assuming you can live without massive amounts of material possessions.

I honestly believe that it is selfish and greedy to want to personally be covered by socialized medicine, unless you are literally spending 100% of your money on food and shelter, and can not possibly cut down on that spending.

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Quote[/b] ]As we've devolved into the usual socialism vs capitalism debate, I'll throw my 2 cents in here.

I don't think it did...yet. Granted I have socialist tendencies, so I just mentioned that so that everyone knew where I was coming from regarding tax and spending.

I agree with all your points, and part of the now talked about healthcare plan of the democrats apparently has provisions for people to have their own healthcare, something that is quite logical. If someone can afford their own healthcare, there is no reason why they should be forced onto the government plan.

I've never supported healthcare for people that don't need it, don't want it, or can already afford it. I have always argued from the standpoint of those that can not afford it.

Which kinda brings us back to the TV coupons. The Senate voted to postpone the Feb 17 transition (something that has been in the works well over 5 years), for 4 more months because the coupon program needs more money and they are not sure some 6.5 million people will be ready. I support the coupon program, but at some point you have to say "READ THE FREAKIN' NEWS PEOPLE!"

I'm not sure about other places, but here in Texas it's been a non-stop assault of commercials and scrolling bars during shows telling everyone that FEB 17 is the big change. That has been happening for months. If people need more coupons or what have you fine, continue making them and distributing them even after Feb 17th (when 6.5 million people will finally wake up), but don't postpone it because a bunch of people haven't been paying attention.

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Ok, good, I think it is more productive to talk about actual, real-world issues, instead of the old us vs them political diatribe. So with that spirit, I'll continue berating our country's overlords. First off, let me agree with you here:

Quote[/b] ]"READ THE FREAKIN' NEWS PEOPLE!"

I've been reading the news recently, and I'm completely outraged. I've been outraged since this whole bailout BS began under Bush, and now I'm even more outraged with Obama.

Latest figures put the cost of Obama's "stimulus" package at 1.2 TRILLION dollars (link).

Now, some of the actual contents of this bill are, in my opinion, completely laughable, including the TV coupons. However, I don't want to argue the content of the spending. Instead, I want to take a step back, and look at the big picture. I'm afraid to say it, but I think most Americans are just too ignorant to realize what is really happening here.

Q: Does the US have 1.2 TRILLION dollars to pay for this bill?

A: No, of course not. We are already spending more money then we have. So the ENTIRE stimulus package will be financed by DEBT. We are putting this on a credit card. So it will be future generations who have to pay for whatever is contained within this bill. Note, those future generations don't get to vote today.

Q: Who loans us the money to pay for the bill then?

A: Anyone who buys treasury notes from the Federal Government. This used to be the Chinese. But guess what? As of a few months ago (under Bush), the Federal Reserve has started buying treasury notes from the Federal Treasury.

This has never happened before. It is a huge deal, for reasons I'll get to next. Every person who talks about politics (meaning, everyone in this thread) should have or form an opinion on this issue, because it is more important than the stimulus package itself.

Q: Where does the Federal Reserve get the money to loan us?

A: It prints it. It creates it out of thin air.

Now this is what I want to talk about the most:

We are now literally printing money to pay for government spending.

The Federal Reserve prints money and uses it to "buy" treasury bonds from the Federal Government. This is how we are now financing our deficit. The Chinese aren't subsidizing our government anymore. We are using fake money to do that now.

Does anyone think this is a good idea? Does the thought of printing money make anyone else outraged, like it does to me?

Or does nobody care, as long as they get to see that money themselves, or have it go to their favorite government program?

If printing money works, then why don't we just print 1 million dollars per person, and make ourselves a nation of millionaires?

Printing money will cause problems in the future far worse than what we face today. Just look at WWII-era Germany, or the current situation in Zimbabwe. That is what happens when the government prints money to make ends meet. People suffer and DIE. Every single dollar in this stimulus package, is going to cause more harm and misery in the future, then it will supposedly prevent today.

Regardless of your opinion of how the money is being spent, everyone should have an opinion of where the money is coming from. But I don't hear any talk about that in the news or from Capitol Hill.

If you are a Democrat / socialist, and you believe in the spending in this bill, then you should be DEMANDING that congress and the president finance this bill from revenue, not printing money. The democrats should be cutting government spending elsewhere, in order to finance this "stimulus". The democrats have control over everything, so there is nothing stopping them from slashing defense or anything else. They have the ability to do this, yet they choose not to.

Nobody should stand for this. But then again, as long as the American people are ignorant of the facts, the ruling politicians of the day don't need to worry about reality. We should blame the media for not bringing the President to task about this, and we should blame ourselves for not caring enough to ask or understand the questions that children ask ("What's the national debt? Who pays for it?").

I could have sworn Obama campaigned on the idea of "fiscal responsibility". The fiscally irresponsible Bush administration left office with a deficit of 400 billion dollars. Obama's "fiscally responsible" stimulus package is going to increase the deficit by 3 times that much in his first year. And to pay for it, he is going to literally print money.

New president, same old garbage.

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Have you ever asked yourself how much does Iraq cost?

Pulling out will release some funds.

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Have you ever asked yourself how much does Iraq cost?

600 billion dollars to date. That averages out to 100 billion dollars a year. Obama's deficit is (so far) 1200 billion dollars/year, so pulling out of Iraq would pay for 8.3% of it. Okay, what about the remaining 91.7%?

However, last time I checked, there was nothing in this bill about pulling out from Iraq. You should be pressuring your senators to include such measures, to pay for that 8.3%. I'd encourage you to also worry about the remaining 91.7%.

-----

Now, it is very good that you are concerned about the cost of the Iraq War. If you are worried about that, then you will be even more worried when you look at reality and realize that 6 years in Iraq is just a drop in the bucket compared to the money we've been spending recently.

Depending on who you ask, the last round of bailouts has cost us 4.5 to 7.7 trillion dollars. That is 7700 billion dollars, or nearly 13x the cost of the war in Iraq. In three months, Paulson and Bernanke spent more than twice the cost of all of WWII.

The cost of the last round of bailouts is more than the Marshall Plan, Louisiana Purchase, moonshot, S&L bailout, Korean War, New Deal, Iraq war, Vietnam war, and NASA's lifetime budget -- combined!

You can read a short article about it here, or a longer article here.

So, if you are truly worried about the cost of Iraq, then you should be HORRIFIED about the recent government spending. It shouldn't matter if it is a republican or a democrat administration that is doing the spending. It was wrong when the Bush administration was doing it, and it is wrong now the Obama administration is doing it. Either way, our country is being ruined, and we are forcing future generations to pay for our mistakes right now.

So, while you and I worry about the switch to digital TV, our government is printing money and destroying our economy.

In a way it's funny, like when you read history about Roman emperors stealing the people's rights, but they don't even know or care because they are watching the fights in the Colloseum. But I have a hard time laughing, because it is real. I'd trust my 4th grade nephew to run the country better then the clowns we have in there now, or had in there two weeks ago.

-----

In my state, the government is forbidden by law from having a deficit. I love that.

When it comes to finances, The federal government is morally bankrupt, and has been for decades, as far as I'm concerned.

It would be almost criminal for you or I to manage our finances the way the Federal Government manages it's own.

Many Americans live their lives entirely on credit, but I think by now we should realize how dangerous of a notion that is. I don't understand how people can think it is OK for the government to live like that.

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Look, let me be frank with everyone here.

The temptation is to always resort to partisan politics.

For example, I was listening to conservative talk radio today, and heard the host bashing specific items in Obama's "stimulus" package.

The other example is the (as I see it) knee-jerk reaction of Democrats to instantly go "well, Iraq has been expensive!", as if that justifies them spending lots of money.

But in both cases, the larger, more important point is being missed:

-In recent months, we have seen government spending on a scale that has never been seen before in American history.

-In every case, up to and including Obama's bill, it has been pushed through with very little input from or transparency to the people.

-We do not have the money we are spending. That means future generations will have to pay for our present government, in addition to their own government. (Note: my nephews are too young to vote, yet they will have to pay for the recent spending, not the generation that is benefiting from it)

-We can no longer borrow enough money to spend, so we have started printing money.

All of the above should scare the hell out of anyone who looks at the big picture. Instead of just arguing about this or that specific item in this or that bill, we need to be looking at the bigger picture as well. But the media and the people on this forum are not doing that. This ignorance will cause more pain and misery in the future than any current economic "crisis". Simple math proves that.

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The prior financial model in the US was that the Federal Reserve, a semi-autonomous entity, would with the guidance and sponsorship of the US Federal Government, >create< inter-bank loans. Changes to the net amount of loans in-system was the method by which money supply was managed.

Why do I note this in the past tense? Because impulsive decisions of the past several months have in response to as-yet unprosecuted shenanigans made it abundantly clear that financial system realities have altered dramatically.

First and foremost, it should be amply evident by now that the Federal Reserve, even with dubiously legal commercial bank collusion, is wholely unable to control the financial markets and impose stability. They can for a time add brakes here and there, but the reality is that individually and collectively there is nothing that they can do to prevent any sort of freefall.

Lehman Brothers was the sacrificial goat test. I think everyone's assumption was that if LB were hung out as a test, cooler heads would prevail and the chaos would lessen. Rather, LB wasn't even a speedbump, and AIG dropped the next day. At this point, it should have been obvious to anyone involved that shoveling Zimbabwean mountains of money at 'the problem' wouldn't 'fix' anything, as the agencies 'trusted' to guide and manage the money system were largely irrelevant to the building nightmare.

The alternative Venezuelan model, of nationalizing problematic commercial sectors and restricting bad corporate policy by fiat, is what's being played with currently. It may not be advertised as such, but as always the devil's in the details. Throwing more money into the rathole of business as usual will not fix the rathole. It will however alter the corporate accountability in a direct fiduciary role as opposed to the traditional government role.

Fundamentally, the markets are in a freefall, the only question is whether there's an outright run on the entire system, or if people are just setting fire to the banking system because they don't care any more. The policy makers won't say this publicly because 1 - they don't have the personal metaphorical assets required to govern with due diligence, and 2 - it's been over a hundred years since the last time we've had good old fashioned bread riots, and nobody wants to go down in history as the next fiddling Nero or Pres. Harding.

What we're seeing now is panic scrambles by the people that should be leading, managing, and governing, but instead are caught with their pants down doing shoe taps in the bathroom and hooker sushi in the boardrooms. Congress has abdicated any sort of oversight credibility by arguing over the precise amount of gravy to add to their own pork, little or none of it actually targeted at the actual financial problems. This isn't fixing any problems, this isn't just throwing good money after bad to continue business as usual, this is outright setting the town on fire in a gluttonous orgy.

So what can the citizenry do? Not much at this point. Bush made a half-hearted apology, his comment about "compromising his free market principles" meant that he asked the people who's responsibility it was for their advice and recommendations, then gave them the support they wanted, and it failed anyway. If you throw all of the financial folks in Club Gitmo and coddle them in the subservient way that the previous celebrity residents were, that's still not going to 'fix' anything. We're all just going to have to hold and see where it goes.

Job 1:20-22

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I recall watching a doco about the lead up to WWII. At one point kids were playing with stacks of worthless money in the street, as the German government had printed money in order to solve their problems, leading to hyper-inflation.

Another scary thought is that if the arse falls out of the US dollar, then other countries will no longer hold it in reserve, switching to the Euro instead, exacerbating the problem.

If things get worse with Iran, they might start selling their oil in Euros too.

I heard a rumour that Iraq had threatened to sell it's oil in Euros, that being a major factor in the decision to invade in '03.

Whatever happens, it shows that the whole financial system was fucked to start with. How can the whole global economy be grinding to a halt thanks to a few greedy dickheads?

It all seems to run on sentiment and emotion. Greed or fear.

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It's grinding to a halt because the money has all been spent.

The entire western economic model of the last 20 years has been based on borrowing money and the boom of the last ten has been based on borrowing it for a low return.

40% of total global wealth has been wiped out on bad debt in the past 18 months.

They can't control the banks to lend more money because they have all run out of it.

Nationalisation doesn't cure the problem. We've been living beyond our means for so long we've spent all our savings. transfering ownership of nothing to another government employed manager doesn't create anything.

Legislation, banking controls, printing new currency, forced lending.... none of it addresses the core problem only the symptoms.

Time to suck it up and change the way we've all been living.

Bailouts may mitigate the pain of the transition but they are not a cure. A comfort, yes. But not a cure.

There is no cure. What's done is done. Time to start rebuilding.

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First and foremost, it should be amply evident by now that the Federal Reserve, even with dubiously legal commercial bank collusion, is wholely unable to control the financial markets and impose stability. They can for a time add brakes here and there, but the reality is that individually and collectively there is nothing that they can do to prevent any sort of freefall.

I'm going to go a step further, and argue that the Federal Reserve actually CREATES these crisis.

Remember, the Federal Reserve was first established in 1913, about 25 years before the great depression. It obviously could do nothing to stop or reduce that depression... has it occurred to anyone that it might have caused or lengthened that depression? And maybe it is doing the same thing again?

What started off this current crisis? The housing bubble. Housing prices had risen far above their true value, which is the definition of a bubble. Why was there a housing bubble? Because, after September 11, the Federal Reserve wanted to prevent us from going into a recession. So, they kept interest rates artificially low. Low interest rates of course make it easier to buy a home, so everyone started buying, which drives prices up. Add speculation and government required sub-prime loans, and you've got yourself an accident waiting to happen.

So we've got a problem created by the Government, not the free market. What's  the solution? Do the exact same thing that caused this problem.

This is lunacy and idiocy.

Recessions are a force of nature. They can not be avoided. By trying to stop them, our governments just push back the problem so we get an even bigger recession in the future. To save ourselves a bit of discomfort now, we cause bigger problems down the line.

Quote[/b] ]

Whatever happens, it shows that the whole financial system was fucked to start with. How can the whole global economy be grinding to a halt thanks to a few greedy dickheads?

As I mentioned above, the global economy is being ruined by the Governments and central banks. These people always say they are acting in the best interest of society, but in reality they are causing bigger problems.

Those "greedy dickheads" you are referring to... that is you, me, and every single citizen of this world. We are all guilty, because we elect these government dickheads. We elect them, because we want to think we are getting something for nothing. Case in point, is Obama's "stimulus" program.

"1.2 trillion dollars of free stuff? I'll vote for that guy any day!" (read with an uneducated yokel voice)

Of course, it isn't free, and we can't actually pay for it. But we are so greedy and selfish, that we want to believe the money is there. No one wants to live in a smaller house, or drive a smaller car, or save more money. We want to keep living our lives as we always have, living beyond our means, and we want the government to come in and buy us healthcare and TV's and other stuff on top of it all.

It would be nice, but it really isn't possible. In the future, we will pay dearly for these "bailouts" and this "stimulus" plan when our currency collapses. This isn't the free market. This is the government creating a problem, and trying to blame it on the "free market".

Think about that for a second: What would happen if every single US dollar in the world became worthless?

That is what we are heading towards, as we try to print ourselves enough money to avoid a little bit of discomfort today.

But hey, as long as I get my free TV, why should I care, right?

Wake up America.

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You've got me a little confused here General Barron. First you say that

Quote[/b] ] the global economy is being ruined by the Governments and central banks
but then the blame is on the citizens for voting them in
Quote[/b] ]Those "greedy dickheads" you are referring to... that is you, me, and every single citizen of this world.

I think you'll agree that the 'every single citizen of the world' part is a non-sensical exaggeration.

As I'm sure you know, this whole mess started with the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Banks lending to people they knew, or didn't care if they could pay the loans because the US housing market was booming, ie lend $250k, doesn't matter if they default as the house with be worth $275k in a year.

I fail to see how that's the whole world's fault. Though I do agree that there is definitely a buy-now-pay later attitude around.

I also think that there has been a shift in recent years away from any government debt. A small bit of limited and manageable government debt can be used to build infrastructure which can then boost the economy.

However what we've seen here with this endless pit of money being splashed around is quite the opposite. As you say GB, just a big slush fund for corporations to cry poor and get their snouts into.

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Quote[/b] ]I also think that there has been a shift in recent years away from any government debt. A small bit of limited and manageable government debt can be used to build infrastructure which can then boost the economy.

Could be true, but the problem is that US debt is neither limited nor manageable. I could see the government operating one or two billion in the red, as a relatively small increase in taxes could quickly eliminate the problem and put the country back in the black. Of course, the US national debt is no longer even measured in billions anymore, it's measured in trillions (Soon to be tens of trillions crazy_o.gif ).

Quote[/b] ]As I'm sure you know, this whole mess started with the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Banks lending to people they knew, or didn't care if they could pay the loans because the US housing market was booming, ie lend $250k, doesn't matter if they default as the house with be worth $275k in a year.

While it is the banks fault for offering the stupid loan, it's also the consumer's fault for seeking and taking the loan. If you borrow X Dollars to buy an object with the assumption that you'll immediately be able to turn around and sell the object for X + Y Dollars, fine. Different people invest in different ways. But I fail to see why people who gamble and lose should be compensated for the money they were gambling, particularly using money from other people who are either digging themselves out of a similar hole or people who didn't bother digging such a hole in the first place. Ditto for the banks that tried to make a buck by investing in the risky loans.

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Unbelievable...

Quote[/b] ]Michael Alix, who was Bear Stearns' chief risk officer from 2006 until 2008, when the bank imploded, has joined the US Federal Reserve as a senior vice-president in the Bank Supervision Group.

Apparently his job is to "oversee the financial safety and soundness of banks, which are inspected by Federal Reserve examiners".

Which is akin to a computer hacker getting an IT job with the FBI.

True story.

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Cool, apparently I'm not the only American who thinks the Federal Government should actually have limits on it's powers.

Seems that the New Hampshire state legislature introduced a resolution that would declare all unconstitutional federal laws and actions null, void and hostile!

From the article:

Quote[/b] ]The New Hampshire state legislature took an unbelievably bold step Monday by introducing a resolution to declare certain actions by the federal government to completely totally void and warning that certain future acts will be viewed as a “breach of peace†with the states themselves that risks “nullifying the Constitution.â€

<a href="http://patdollard.com/2009/02/new-hampshire-fires-first-shot-of-civil-war-resolution-immediately-voids-several-federal-l

aws-threatens-counterstrike-against-breach-of-peace/" target="_blank">link</a>

I love to see the States standing up to the Federal government like this. We need to have diversity in America, not one giant, one-size-fits-all federal government. Read your Constitution, people! Read your history! Realize that the Federal Government is supposed to be limited in scope! The states are supposed to have the power, because the people have more power over the states!

Note that I do not in any way agree with the author that we should have a civil war.

I do, however, agree that our federal government has overstepped it's bounds, and that it needs to be stopped. If everyone read the constitution, people might wake up and realize this.

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because the people have more power over the states!

Agreed. This is a sad fact overlooked by many people, the state doesn't own you. The goverment offices and people in charge are in the service of the people, not the other way around.

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but then the blame is on the citizens for voting them in

Correction, blame the citizens whom voted them in.

@General Barron:

that's awesome, its about time somebody stands up to our out of control federal government.

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I think a recession is natural.. Its just a sick cycle that will always happen. From my experience with business the economy reminds me of my old job. I used to be a Sales Rep for Kraft foods. They would hand me down sales objectives every month. If I would reach these goals my boss and his bosses ect... and I would get nice bonuses.  

I would recieve tons of preasure on hitting these objectives because of all the money that could be made above me. From this you can only grow so much before you have to take a loss. I reached my objectives every month for a year then it got to the point where I had to take in more product into a store more than the consumer would buy just to reach these high objectives.

Finnaly I just had to lay off awhile and take a loss for a few months where I could actually start reaching prior year objectives again. Because of this I caught hell from my bosses.

So the way I see it just give it time and the economy will fix itself and of coarse Obama will get credit for it.

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I think a recession is natural.. Its just a sick cycle that will always happen.

So the way I see it just give it time and the economy will fix itself and of coarse Obama will get credit for it.

+1

If more Americans knew something--anything--about economics, they would grasp this point.

Unfortunately, all the government plans that are supposed to "fix" the recession are actually going to cause bigger problems down the track. Just like the response to the 2001 recession worsened the current recession. Now the NEXT recession is going to be even worse than THIS one, and so on until....?

The massive government borrowing we do now is going to cause us huge problems down the road, after Obama leaves office. But most people are too short sighted or ignorant to realize that. They just want "free" stuff, they don't stop to wonder how it all gets paid for: by our children and grandchildren.

This is moral bankruptcy on a national scale.

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If more Americans knew something--anything--about economics, they would grasp this point.

Thought you might find this article interesting. Pretty much sums it all up for me  link

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Hi all

From both tone the of Obama and Geithner speeches and most importantly from an Interview on CNBC of Bernie Frank it appears to me that the Democratic party intend to hang both Wall Street and the Bankers out to dry.

Essentially Bernie Frank said it is your mess your the ones who are going to pay for it.

The shock on the interviewers faces on CNBC was amazing; they all went white and very quiet; their originally combative tone became meek, and their eyes went wide. Several CNBC anchors were involved in the businesses that created Mortgage Backed Securities.

The banks that had TARP that have been involved in fraud to get their bonuses through they are Already under investigation by the Justice Department

Any that took TARP and did not use it for the purpose of increasing liquidity, also under investigation.

Ah but some of then say they were forced to have the TARP by Paulson.

Fine says Frank. If they don't want to have all their TARP they can give it all back plus interest today; if they keep it they still have to reduce all executive bonuses and the investigations go ahead.

Banks go broke? Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

On the question what to do about Mark to Market?

Answer it is not a political issue, we do not legislate accounting, does the market really want accounting to be legislated by 600 plus politicians?

Everyone knows that Mark to Market is day by day pointing out the real worth of the Toxic assets. Those involved in the Mortgage Backed Securities want to hide their dodgy deals and mark to market is discovering them, essentially it is the last backstop of the regulation the one that the Bush Administration had not managed to remove.

Essentially Bernie Frank said we know you are hiding toxic assets that you know the value of and so do the accountants, if you have committed fraud your going to jail, if you have taken your bank into bankruptcy you and everyone of the executives who received bonuses that lead to it are civilly liable.

Want to know what to invest in?

Legal companies that specialise liability and forensic accounting and Class actions

I am betting on 100s of cases beginning with Merrill Lynch and Bank of America.

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN1135227020090211

Kind Regards walker

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