I have to wonder what the right thing to do is anymore. I remember not to long ago that the GOP was calling the democratic health plans socialism do to government backed money for the programs. Now, without a presidental signature or congressional vote, we have nationalised fannie and freddie and just today AIG

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26746909/

Right or wrong the GOP is now the big government party.

Your Thoughts?
Chris.

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I would say that both the Dems and the GOP are both big government corporate bailout loving parties.

I think that once the government buys up all the junk mortgage based securities from all the bandits they are bailing out then the government should burn them and just forgive the debt of the people who own the houses. Just give the folks the title free and clear. That would be one hell of an economic stimulus for the people who really need it. And it would be socialism for the regular folk rather than corporate welfare socialism.

In a free market, corporate idiots would be allowed to crash and burn, in the USA the bigger the idiot you are the more the government will help you.

In a free market, corporate idiots would be allowed to crash and burn, in the USA the bigger the idiot you are the more the government will help you.[/quote]

It used to be that way.

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Pluto will always be a planet to me.

Seti Ambassador
Not to late to order an Anni Shirt

Mixed reactions at Lehman:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=adb_1221494431


.

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"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

Yes, we are in a fine kettle of fish. This is just another example of: asleep at the switch, the wrong model for a corporation and social meddling (fair housing act) to threaten people into making unsound housing loans. Then as for the other Corporate failures --packaging these "Toxic Loans" into high risk, high yield investments and then having very well educated ?? people buy them to improve profitability is reason enough for every Business school president and Dean to resign at once--starting with Harvard and Yale perhaps.

The trick here to good government is enough oversight to prevent fraud and goofy decisions without excess regulation. We should also throw in some good old prosecution for fraud and professional malfeasance --possibly for incompetence as well.. This is a very tricky balance--especially in the Modern Era of Corporate Greed, inept Government. and Social Welfare--a bad mix.

Freddie and Fannie have to be re-constituted.

I am worried that the prospective new presidential candidates are not mentally equipped to do the necessary fixing. We have the economy, the energy crisis and the war--maybe the new president can surround himself with a bunch of smart people and take National Direction from them.

Geeez--another good rant --I feel better now

Daddio

This is all due to Bill Clinton's affordable housing.
Sorry, I mean welfare housing.

This is all due to Bill Clinton's affordable housing.
Sorry, I mean welfare housing.

I disagree...AIG had the option to NOT take these mortgages...they did. They dug their own grave.

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This is all due to Bill Clinton's affordable housing.
Sorry, I mean welfare housing.

I disagree...AIG had the option to NOT take these mortgages...they did. They dug their own grave.

The whole market is flooded with these subprime loans and they are imbedded in many types stock and bond derivitives. These looked good until some of these other motgages houses started to have trouble.

This is just another example of: asleep at the switch

So... Do we hire the best of the best? or do we hire unfit persons? or does it just depend on the topic at hand? ;)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

the GOP is now the big government party.

Orwell had everything right but the name... ;)

(And if you haven't figured out what the telescreen is, YOU'RE LOOKING AT IT.)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

Could be. But I have to say no. I have a few friends in Real estate and I have been watching this since 2001. Everyone "should" have seen this housing bubble five to seven years ago. Regular banks were give interest only loans and negative interest loans. That is just disaster. It think the Govt allowed this to continue over the last 7 years because the housing market was the only thing propping up the economy.

Then you add the price of oil. I don't know how correct this is, but months ago (before the oil bubble popped), I heard a guy on TV saying that it was do to China improving their standard of living. Since we (and the world) started using their cheap labor(some would say child or slave here) to make all of our good their standard of living increased. So they started using more oil in factors and cars (instead of bikes). So now we have are cheap goods at walmart, but we have to pay 4 dollars for gas in order to get to walmart. I would rather get our products made in America or another democracy around the world instead of getting cheap labor form china that in the long run costs us more.

Chris.

This is all due to Bill Clinton's affordable housing.
Sorry, I mean welfare housing.

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Everyone "should" have seen this housing bubble five to seven years ago.

It wasn't a 'bubble', it was a 'scam'... 'cause remember: "You can never go wrong with real estate!"... ;)

(After forty years of watching 'house and car repossessions are on the rise' commercials, I finally caught on.)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

This is all due to Bill Clinton's affordable housing.
Sorry, I mean welfare housing.

I disagree...AIG had the option to NOT take these mortgages...they did. They dug their own grave.

The whole market is flooded with these subprime loans and they are imbedded in many types stock and bond derivitives. These looked good until some of these other motgages houses started to have trouble.

AIG didn't write the loans they were the Insurance company of choice for all the lending institutions that bought all the bad loans. Seems to me that any institution that is to big to fail is also to big to be unregulated. I'm not sure if their is a law on the books that prevents companies from becoming so deeply involved as AIG did in so many diverse and complicated insurance plans. Perhaps we really need an Anti trust law to prevent companies from becoming to large.

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

Could be. But I have to say no. I have a few friends in Real estate and I have been watching this since 2001. Everyone "should" have seen this housing bubble five to seven years ago. Regular banks were give interest only loans and negative interest loans. That is just disaster. It think the Govt allowed this to continue over the last 7 years because the housing market was the only thing propping up the economy.

Then you add the price of oil. I don't know how correct this is, but months ago (before the oil bubble popped), I heard a guy on TV saying that it was do to China improving their standard of living. Since we (and the world) started using their cheap labor(some would say child or slave here) to make all of our good their standard of living increased. So they started using more oil in factors and cars (instead of bikes). So now we have are cheap goods at walmart, but we have to pay 4 dollars for gas in order to get to walmart. I would rather get our products made in America or another democracy around the world instead of getting cheap labor form china that in the long run costs us more.

Chris.

This is all due to Bill Clinton's affordable housing.
Sorry, I mean welfare housing.

Bill Clinton's drive to increase homeownership went way too far
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act
The repeal of part of Glass-Steagall Act enabled commercial lenders such as Citigroup, the largest U.S. bank by assets, to underwrite and trade instruments such as mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations and establish so-called structured investment vehicles, or SIVs, that bought those securities.

I don't care about that. Yes that may be a problem. But what happened the last 8 years ... 6 of those one party had control of all 3 branches of government. If it was so bad then it should have been fixed. You can not blame one person or one party. Everyone has fault in this. This question is do we feel the pain and let the ship right it self on its own ... or do we pump more money in and nationalize more companies. What kills be is the all the money the CEOs of Freddie and Fannie got when the government took them over.

Anyway, I still don't belive that the leadership and the people understand what the problem is. That housing prices have to come down at least 100k and the value of the dollar has to at least go to 1 to 1 with the euro.

I hope the grand plan of this is not to try to keep prices where they are now. can you imagine the pain for people make 30k and less a year. Even if they save every penny for years, they would never be able to by one of the 500k houses.

Chris.

Could be. But I have to say no. I have a few friends in Real estate and I have been watching this since 2001. Everyone "should" have seen this housing bubble five to seven years ago. Regular banks were give interest only loans and negative interest loans. That is just disaster. It think the Govt allowed this to continue over the last 7 years because the housing market was the only thing propping up the economy.

Then you add the price of oil. I don't know how correct this is, but months ago (before the oil bubble popped), I heard a guy on TV saying that it was do to China improving their standard of living. Since we (and the world) started using their cheap labor(some would say child or slave here) to make all of our good their standard of living increased. So they started using more oil in factors and cars (instead of bikes). So now we have are cheap goods at walmart, but we have to pay 4 dollars for gas in order to get to walmart. I would rather get our products made in America or another democracy around the world instead of getting cheap labor form china that in the long run costs us more.

Chris.

This is all due to Bill Clinton's affordable housing.
Sorry, I mean welfare housing.

Bill Clinton's drive to increase homeownership went way too far
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act
The repeal of part of Glass-Steagall Act enabled commercial lenders such as Citigroup, the largest U.S. bank by assets, to underwrite and trade instruments such as mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations and establish so-called structured investment vehicles, or SIVs, that bought those securities.

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I still don't belive that the leadership and the people understand what the problem is.

I believe that we've all been 'bam-boomered'... ;)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

Yea that to. A month ago our government would have told us. No bailouts don't work, that is big government talk. That is not what we do. We are small governement and lower taxes. More like create debt out the ears then leave it to the next group to have to say ... "well folks you see, we have to raise taxes what else can we do".

Chris.

I still don't belive that the leadership and the people understand what the problem is.

I believe that we've all been 'bam-boomered'... ;)

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We can vote in legislation holding corporations and government responsible for their actions and non actions. We all know who was supposed to watch out for this type of situation. They didn't. They have money. Make them pay for it.


.

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"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

Perhaps this government intervention should be called fascism rather than socialism.

Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of the state with corporate power. -- Benito Mussolini

I bet our next president will grow a mustache similar to a certain leader who started WWII.

I would say that both the Dems and the GOP are both big government corporate bailout loving parties.

I think that once the government buys up all the junk mortgage based securities from all the bandits they are bailing out then the government should burn them and just forgive the debt of the people who own the houses. Just give the folks the title free and clear. That would be one hell of an economic stimulus for the people who really need it. And it would be socialism for the regular folk rather than corporate welfare socialism.

In a free market, corporate idiots would be allowed to crash and burn, in the USA the bigger the idiot you are the more the government will help you.

That's funny how you think it's ok to give "idiots" free homes they couldn't afford in the first place, but not the "idiots" who provide the paychecks so the first idiot can eat even if he's not smart enough to request a fixed rate on his mortgage. Not to mention that without a job, they lose the house anyway...

In a free market, those without jobs would be allowed to starve, but in the USA the less you contribute to society the more the govt. will help you.

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