The GOP and the economy

[montanadave]

While there has always been significant opposition to the "tax and spend" policies of liberal Democrats, the alternative Republican strategy of "don't tax and spend" hasn't done anyone any favors either (with the exception of the wealthiest sliver of our society).

David Stockman, Reagan's OMB director, directs attention to the politically expediency but fiscal folly of the current GOP efforts to extend the Bush tax cuts and how the GOP leadership have betrayed the principles of fiscal responsibility that once served as a cornerstone of the party. And this betrayal didn't just happen overnight.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/opinion/01stockman.html?scp=1&sq=deformations%20of%20the%20apocalypse&st=cse

Precipitated by Nixon's abandonment of the gold standard back in 1971, which permitted the Treasury to print money like, well, like paper, the public debt exploded under Reagan (and continued under Bush, Sr. and Clinton) as the federal government fueled both a welfare and warfare state while simultaneously cutting taxes, reducing federal revenues by 2009 to 15% of GDP. George W. Bush closed the deal by abandoning all fiscal restraint, chopping taxes, passing a $1,000,000,000,000 unfunded Medicare prescription drug plan, and waging two wars without paying a dime. As Stockman puts it, "Republicans thus joined the Democrats in a shameless embrace of a free-lunch fiscal policy."

The ultimate nail in the coffin for the American economy has been the expansion of the financial services industry, which produces nothing but binary bits of digital currency, which evaporate just as quickly as they appear, leaving nothing of tangible worth in their wake. An industry, by the way, which now holds the federal government hostage. For those who fear a government takeover of the private sector, a mere cursory review of recent events should dispel that myth. Corporate lobbyists write our laws, including healthcare reform and finreg, and shamelessly game the system to their own advantage. Washington's running Wall Street? Hardly. Who got the money? The fat cats on Wall Street! Who spent the money? Washington! (and lest we forget, TARP was George Bush and Hank Paulson's baby, rubber stamped by a feckless Congress scared shitless by the specter of another Great Depression). And who got the bill? John Q. Taxpayer.

Meanwhile, the middle class slowly sinks into the sunset, as American corporations morph into multi-nationals, shifting both jobs and production overseas into cheaper labor markets and leaving the US of A with a shell economy consisting of little more than service industries catering to a consumer society. Increasingly, most American workers are simply doing each other's laundry. And the natives are getting restless.

Don't misunderstand my intent. I'm not looking to give the Democrats a free pass on this unmitigated disaster. They own every bit as much of it, if not more, than the Republicans. What drives me crazy is the hypocrisy of the GOP when, to quote Stockman once again, "it’s a pity that the modern Republican Party offers the American people an irrelevant platform of recycled Keynesianism when the old approach — balanced budgets, sound money and financial discipline — is needed more than ever."

For an even gloomier take on Stockman's op-ed piece, read Paul Farrell's commentary on the WSJ's Market Watch website.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/reagan-insider-gop-destroyed-us-economy-2010-08-10?pagenumber=2

[Palmguy]

He certainly makes a case that spending is out of control. I have no argument with that. That said, I will never take any argument to raise taxes seriously that does not require primary reduction in spending.

Most people, if they were to get a raise in annual income from, for example, $50k/year to $100k/year, would expand their standard of living to meet that new income. The government certainly follows this pattern; and as such I have no reason to believe that if they were to receive an extra $x billion from the Evil Rich Bastards™ that it would do a damn thing to address our balance sheet(s). And to be honest, our deficit this year alone, huge though it may be, is a drop in the bucket compared to the unfunded liabilities of our social programs. Income and estate tax revenues for 2009 were, what, ballpark around a trillion dollars? Pulling another couple hundred billion from the ERBs isn't the answer to a hundred trillion dollar question. Spending has to be cut, and in a much more meaningful way than is being done. Last April, Gibbs got up and told us that a $100M cut on a $3.69T budget was a big deal:



"I'm being completely sincere that only in Washington, D.C. is $100 million not a lot of money," Gibbs said. "It is where I'm from. It is where I grew up. And I think it is for hundreds of millions of Americans."

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeff-poor/2009/04/20/cnn-touts-obama-100m-spending-cut-even-white-house-acknowledges-insignifi#ixzz0wDN6VABP


On a side note, as far as the notion that the Bush Tax Cuts only help the rich, I've taken a look at the provisions expiring this year and how that will affect me next year. Assuming the Bush Tax Cuts are allowed to expire and my income does not change, I will pay 106% more in income tax next year than I did this year. Married filing jointly, 1 child, 1 job (wife stays home with the baby), 5-figure middle class income.

[John_Wayne777]

George W. Bush closed the deal by abandoning all fiscal restraint, chopping taxes, passing a $1,000,000,000,000 unfunded Medicare prescription drug plan


:rolleyes:

I absolutely adore historical revisionism used to try and score political points.

[randolph]

I have a flash for you.
George Bush isnt President any more.
Democrats have controlled Congress since jan. 4th, 2007

Blaming Bush is getting old.

one of many links on the net (http://www.examiner.com/x-268-Right-Side-Politics-Examiner~y2010m1d26-National-debt-increased-42-under-Democrat-controlled-Congress)

When the Democrats regained control of Congress on January 4, 2007, the national debt was $8,670,596,242,973.04 -- that's $8.67 trillion.

In the three years Pelosi and the Democrats have been in charge, the national debt has grown to $12,302,465,487,917.34 -- that's $12.30 trillion.

Since Pelosi and the Democrats regained control of Congress $3,631,869,244,944.30, or $3.63 trillion, has been added to the national debt. That is a increase in three years the Democrats have controlled Congress.

The Democrat controlled Congress gets the credit for the soaring national debt because under the Constitution, Congress controls the purse strings:

Article I, Section. 8.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

[chadbag]

The GOP has done a lot of dumb stuff. Tax cuts are not one of them.

Facts: After the so-called Bush Tax cuts, the percentage of taxes paid by the wealthiest went UP. Not down. (There was a short dip due to recession)

http://taxesandgrowth.ncpa.org/news/do-the-rich-and-businesses-pay-their-fair-share

http://www.ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html

In fact, the IRS reached new records on taxes received during Bush's time. Ie, the growth sparked by the tax cuts brought in more money overall.

Also fact. Every other time in history the marginal rate has gone up, tax receipts have gone down.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703977004575393882112674598.html

Also interesting: Bush Tax Cut calculator -- see how you will do

http://www.mytaxburden.org/

----

Yes, The GOP has screwed up by advocating spending. GWB was no Conservative. However, no society has ever taxed itself to prosperity. The Bush tax cuts need to be renewed. For all taxpayers, including those "wealthiest" among us. Spending must be cut. That is the only solution to the problem. Taking money out of the economy will not help the economy. It will not provide jobs. Those wealthiest among us spend money, and the invest money, and that money helps drive the economy.

[dookie1481]

The GOP has done a lot of dumb stuff. Tax cuts are not one of them.

Facts: After the so-called Bush Tax cuts, the percentage of taxes paid by the wealthiest went UP. Not down. (There was a short dip due to recession)

http://taxesandgrowth.ncpa.org/news/do-the-rich-and-businesses-pay-their-fair-share

http://www.ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html

In fact, the IRS reached new records on taxes received during Bush's time. Ie, the growth sparked by the tax cuts brought in more money overall.

Also fact. Every other time in history the marginal rate has gone up, tax receipts have gone down.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703977004575393882112674598.html

Also interesting: Bush Tax Cut calculator -- see how you will do

http://www.mytaxburden.org/



Adding to this: http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2010/08/09/the-destructive-economics-of-class-warfare-taxation/

[Belmont31R]

Most republicans are social spenders just as much as the democrats.



I said in another thread but unless we somehow get a president who wants to cut the budget in half, and a Congress willing to do it our future is filled with high taxes, huge Federal budgets, and our financial situation is only going to get worse. Even if we get a republican most likely they will be a RINO....a McCain type, and those people love social spending. These programs that are ruining us are going to go full steam ahead, and most of Obama care is still going to be going on.


Look at what republicans did....they increased medicare/medicaid spending. Did they ever CUT spending? Spending increased under their control from when Clinton was in office.


Sure Bush cut taxes but never cut spending to go along with it, and even increased spending. That is why he was running a multi hundred billion dollar deficit every year. Now these social programs eat up every tax dollar taken in, and anything outside of that is deficit spending.


DOD spending, and the normal departments pale in comparison spent on entitlements and welfare. We spend more in one year on SS than Iraq has cost us since 2003.

[Belmont31R]

This year they haven't even passed a budget because they don't want the numbers to come out.


This is 2009, and 2010 is going to be worse.


http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj245/BM31R/7f3bf654.png




Welfare, entitlement, and debt spending is a majority of the budget. This doesn't even include the mandatory state spending on these programs, either, and doesn't include the huge amounts of money given out as tax refunds...speaking of which its not really a refund if you are getting way more back than you paid in. Its another form of welfare that doesn't get included in these numbers.

[rickrock305]

allowing the bush tax cuts to expire right now would be a huge mistake. you simply can't raise taxes in a recession

[M4arc]

allowing the bush tax cuts to expire right now would be a huge mistake. you simply can't raise taxes in a recession

While I'm sure (or at least I hope) that most Americans know this to be true Pelosi is on record as saying we're going to spend out way out of this recession. So I expect her to believe we can tax our way out of it too :suicide2:

[rickrock305]

While I'm sure (or at least I hope) that most Americans know this to be true Pelosi is on record as saying we're going to spend out way out of this recession. So I expect her to believe we can tax our way out of it too :suicide2:


never underestimate the stupidity of the average american. no, i don't agree that most americans know or understand this. in fact there are economists, people that do this stuff for a living, who are on record as saying the exact same thing as pelosi.

[thopkins22]

:rolleyes:

I absolutely adore historical revisionism used to try and score political points.

Well, it's not exactly incorrect is it? Revisionism would say that GWB was a fiscal conservative.

Nobody in government in the past 20(hell 100) years deserves a pass. The democrats are in charge now and deserve criticism for what they're doing now. But we have decades of problems that have accumulated.

Can we no longer blame FDR for signing Social Security into law since there have been countless presidents since?

[Skyyr]

Well, it's not exactly incorrect is it? Revisionism would say that GWB was a fiscal conservative.

Nobody in government in the past 20(hell 100) years deserves a pass. The democrats are in charge now and deserve criticism for what they're doing now. But we have decades of problems that have accumulated.

Can we no longer blame FDR for signing Social Security into law since there have been countless presidents since?

To be fair, Bush tried to make choices to get the economy out of the mess it was headed into and only dug us deeper. What I don't understand is how people try to pin the recession on Bush - it was freaking Clinton that passed the legislation that allowed for the banks to get into the mess.

The Democrats started it, the Republicans made it worse, and so now the Democrats blame the Republicans for the mess THEY started.

Crashes don't start at the moment of impact - they start once you no longer have enough room to come to a complete stop. The Democrats started this mess with the equal housing opportunity bills and now they want to pin this on Bush because the problem exploded at the end of his term. That's not fair, it's not right, and it's revisionism in its truest sense.

Yeah, Bush made some stupid decisions, but anyone who thinks Bush was THE problem is either 1) uninformed, 2) a progressive revisionist, or 3) a liar.

The problem happened long before Bush and Bush did a heck of better job than Kerry could have done. People seem to forget it was either Bush or Kerry. If you've forgotten how bad we almost had it, listen to this...

John Kerry - The Candidate for ALL Americans (http://www.skyyr.com/audio/john_kerry_commercial.mp3)

[PrivateCitizen]

This is 2009, and 2010 is going to be worse.


http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj245/BM31R/7f3bf654.png


Can you source this? Hoping it has a interactive element.

[rickrock305]

To be fair, Bush tried to make choices to get the economy out of the mess it was headed into and only dug us deeper. What I don't understand is how people try to pin the recession on Bush - it was freaking Clinton that passed the legislation that allowed for the banks to get into the mess.

The Democrats started it, the Republicans made it worse, and so now the Democrats blame the Republicans for the mess THEY started.


You're forgetting that Republicans were in charge of Congress during the Clinton administration.

The legislation you're referring to that allowed banks to get into this mess is called the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, which repealed the Glass Steagall Act, was written by two Republicans and only signed into law by Bill Clinton. Clinton did not write or pass the legislation, only signed it into law. That means that both parties were complicit.



Crashes don't start at the moment of impact - they start once you no longer have enough room to come to a complete stop. The Democrats started this mess with the equal housing opportunity bills and now they want to pin this on Bush because the problem exploded at the end of his term. That's not fair, it's not right, and it's revisionism in its truest sense.

Yeah, Bush made some stupid decisions, but anyone who thinks Bush was THE problem is either 1) uninformed, 2) a progressive revisionist, or 3) a liar.


You're right, crashes don't start at the moment of impact. It generally takes 3-5 years for economic policy to take effect. You can do the math there.

The Democrats AND the Republicans started this mess. They were both complicit. It started under Clinton and was escalated under Bush. Yes, Bush was part of the problem, as was Clinton, but more importantly than both of them it was the Republican controlled Congress who wrote and repealed certain legislation.

Specifically which equal housing bills are you referring to? We can go further in depth if you're interested, but I would need you to be a bit more specific. I have a feeling you're talking about provisions added to the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act regarding the Community Reinvestment Act but I want to be sure before we delve further into it.

[John_Wayne777]

Well, it's not exactly incorrect is it? Revisionism would say that GWB was a fiscal conservative.


Revisionism is to speak of the prescription drug benefit as if it was Bush's idea...as if he somehow did it on his own. The media and the democrats were screaming for a larger benefit than what got passed ultimately after a rather nasty political battle...but now somehow this was a "Bush" spending item that was irresponsibly expensive?

It's an intellectually dishonest attempt to score some short term political points in the hopes of making the current governmental fiscal incontinence more palatable. Deny, obfuscate, and make counter-accusations! Nevermind that the people bitching about the prescription drug benefit they lay at the feet of "Bush" were screaming a few years ago that it was too stingy and not large enough. They don't have to worry about that because nobody is actually going to call them on the carpet for it.



Can we no longer blame FDR for signing Social Security into law since there have been countless presidents since?

FDR was the engine of the New Deal and the fiscal nightmare it has been. Bush was not the engine behind the prescription drug program...progressives were, because something "had to be done" about prescription drugs just like something "had to be done" about healthcare. He signed it...but go back and actually look through the criticisms at the time. The only criticisms about the expense were from conservatives who asked what in the hell we were doing. The progressives who pushed the issue criticized the program because we weren't spending enough money.

It annoys the living hell out of me to see these kind of stories because they assume that we're all too stupid to remember more than 5 minutes into the past. It's yet more of the damnably low political discourse that has led us to the mess we face in Washington. Bush faced the absolute erosion of his base partially because he abandoned conservatism. He abandoned it under extreme pressure, just like his father did.

[chadbag]

Revisionism is to speak of the prescription drug benefit as if it was Bush's idea...as if he somehow did it on his own. The media and the democrats were screaming for a larger benefit than what got passed ultimately after a rather nasty political battle...but now somehow this was a "Bush" spending item that was irresponsibly expensive?


It can still be laid at Bush's feet in the form that passed as he signed it.

And at the feet of the GOP Congress. The fact that the progressives wanted this and the Democrats wanted a bigger program should not be lost and they need to be tarred and feathered, but the GOP passed it and Bush signed it. He could have said no, we cannot afford this. Instead, he wanted "Compassionate Conservatism" which is a code word for progressive policy by Republicans. Bush screwed up a lot fiscal wise.

[chadbag]

Bush faced the absolute erosion of his base partially because he abandoned conservatism. He abandoned it under extreme pressure, just like his father did.

And who exerted that pressure on him? Progressives in Republican clothing. National Republicans who were more interested in staying in power through populism than in principle.

[rickrock305]

The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act was sponsored by a Republican, passed by a Republican Congress, and signed into law by a Republican president.

[Belmont31R]

While both parties share blame for this the majority is on democrats, and especially the progressive democrats.



Go back and look at the economic bill of rights AKA 2nd bill of rights. Its what FDR introducted in a state of the union speech, and has been the current goal of progressives for quite some time. Barney Frank has been pushing for housing for a long time, and now he refuses to admit he did anything wrong. His comittee in Congress has been pushing for increased borrowing and lending for housing for a long time, and that bubble came home to roost.


You can also think people like Obama who represented ACORN in a lawsuit against City Bank to force them to give loans to people by playing the race card. They didn't want to loan money to inner city people, and they sued the bank to force them to loan it anyways.


I really do hate the term republicans and democrats because it depends on the person not what party they belong to. There are plenty of fiscally conservative republicans out there but there tons of the Bush/McCain types that love to spend money, and love the social programs to pander to a certain voting block. They will throw the country under the bus hoping more people will vote for them. The Democrat part has some conservatives in it (not many but a few).


But the liberal republicans took over sometime around 2000, and began the huge spending and pandering to the entitlement crowd. They never did anything fiscally that would put us in a better spot. There was a conservative spike after 1994 but that died, and the McCain/Graham types took over ending that. For all intents and purposes these same types are still leading the R's, and I don't think they have learned a single thing from it. Instead of going back to what made them successful in the mid to late 90's we still got all the same ole rino's in charge. They never did a damn thing but spend money we didn't have.

[montanadave]

The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act was sponsored by a Republican, passed by a Republican Congress, and signed into law by a Republican president.

Bingo!

And let's not forget Louisiana's own Representative Billy Tauzin, a blue dog Democrat who jumped ship to the GOP, where he served as the Republican chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and key advocate for the Medicare Prescription Drug Act of 2003. Anybody naive enough to think it was a coincidence that Tauzin resigned his house seat after the bill was signed into law and took the job as President and CEO of PhRMA, the largest pharmaceutical lobbying group, for an estimated $2.5 million a year?

Those who suggest that the Medicare Prescription Drug Act was anything more than a huge financial payoff to the pharmaceutical companies by Bush and a Republican-controlled Congress are smoking dope. The failure to force pharmaceutical companies to competitively bid for drug contracts (like the VA does) is costing taxpayers billions of dollars a year (not that there was ever any provision made to pay for any of it anyway).

And the failure to revise that policy in this year's healthcare reform bill lies squarely on the Democrats. The pharmaceutical companies score yet again.

The failure of Congress to make the difficult choices required to solve our fiscal problems (i.e. raise taxes and cut entitlements) is criminal but, as I watch and listen to the American public point the finger of blame at anyone but themselves while refusing to make any sacrifices of their own, I'm increasingly convinced we're getting exactly the kind of leadership we deserve.

[ForTehNguyen]

The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act was sponsored by a Republican, passed by a Republican Congress, and signed into law by a Republican president.

progressive keynesians are in both parties. Obama is throwing napalm on the fire bush started

[variablebinary]

I've yet to see the GOP put together a plan to cut spending.

The few that do go on record and mention cutting social security and entitlements get crucified by the press and labeled kooks that want slavery back

Until I see Social Security reform I will continue the think the GOP is full of crap.

Tax cuts are not going to close the deficit anymore than tax hikes if spending is not controlled

[No.6]

I've yet to see the GOP put together a plan to cut spending.

Couldn't agree more. The problem as I see it is that we have the Progressive/Socialist party and the Progressive Lite/Quasi Capitalist party. We need a true Fiscal/Social Policy Conservative party.


The few that do go on record and mention cutting social security and entitlements get crucified by the press and labeled kooks that want slavery back

The saddest thing to me is press not knowing the true meaning of slavery. We as a nation are slaves to debt and the banking system. We buy stuff that doesn't really mean anything trying to impress our neighbors and friends. And then are still paying for it long after it's in the landfill.


Until I see Social Security reform I will continue the think the GOP is full of crap.

The GOP is full of crap. They just don't think it stinks.


Tax cuts are not going to close the deficit anymore than tax hikes if spending is not controlled

All tax cuts historically have done is end up in the long run bringing more revenue into the Government. Might as well be giving the keys to a meth lab to a tweeker for all the good it does. You're right; raise taxes, lower taxes, it doesn't matter. Just cut the freakin' spending, we'll get to a more vibrant economy faster!

[austinN4]

We buy stuff that doesn't really mean anything trying to impress our neighbors and friends. And then are still paying for it long after it's in the landfill.
And whose fault is that?

[No.6]

And whose fault is that?

Ours, no doubt. If we would only learn to exercise a bit more restraint and do what our grandparents did. Save for it. It's amazing how tight and analytical you will become when you get ready to plunk down the cash for something. "Do I really need this?"

[John_Wayne777]

The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act was sponsored by a Republican, passed by a Republican Congress, and signed into law by a Republican president.

Yes...and that's a gross oversimplification of what was going on at the moment.

Nobody is arguing that there aren't Republicans that suck. There are plenty of libtards in R clothing...but the influence for these mind-numbingly stupid ideas keep coming from the left side of the political spectrum. It is the redistributionist fantasy that they've been selling for over a century that has led us to the brink of financial ruin.

There have been political leaders who have tried to solve some of these problems...like, ironically enough, Bush. His administration tried to propose a major entitlement reform to deal with part of the fiscal cancer that's killing us. It was met with politics as usual from the spendthrifts on the left, which ensured that the spineless in the center did what they usually do...nothing of any import, preferring instead to whistle "Tomorrow" while they busied themselves trying to promote their individual short term political interests. The ones who did try were roundly ignored. Anyone besides me remember the reception Clinton's Social Security commission (with people like Breaux on it) received? Or the umpteen previous commissions on fixing social security?

For some reason we never hear this from any of the sources in the media and in politics who now lament the fiscal irresponsibility of continuing the Bush tax cuts while they've supported an administration that has created the single largest entitlement since FDR using numbers everybody knew were absolute fiction, and that has spent going on 1 trillion dollars and counting in specious "stimulus" efforts that nobody with a room temperature IQ actually expected to actually stimulate the economy.

The simply truth is that both sides do not suck equally on this.

[variablebinary]

The saddest thing to me is press not knowing the true meaning of slavery. We as a nation are slaves to debt and the banking system.

I don't know about you, but being forced to pay debts that aren't mine sure as hell sounds like slavery to me.

What is it GWB said, some shit like "I abandoned capitalism to save capitalism". That is some of the most moronic oral ass spray to ever come out of the presidency in the history of the USA.

I spoke with my dollars. I dont bank or invest with Goldman Sachs, and don't own a GM car. It made no difference. I still paid those assholes' debts.

How is that not slavery to anyone with a brain.

The GOP controlled the White House and both houses and did nothing but spend us into the ground, and then we got Obama...

[dbrowne1]

..........

[dbrowne1]

..........

[rickrock305]

but the influence for these mind-numbingly stupid ideas keep coming from the left side of the political spectrum. It is the redistributionist fantasy that they've been selling for over a century that has led us to the brink of financial ruin.

Wrong. There are plenty of stupid ideas coming from the right as well. Like cut taxes and trying to wage two wars at the same time. Or good old Reaganomics, which really kick started all this ridiculous spending. Or maybe Nixon removing us from the gold standard, paving the way for the Fed to try their hardest to manipulate the economy.



There have been political leaders who have tried to solve some of these problems...like, ironically enough, Bush.

This is hilarious. Bush tried to solve our financial problems!?!?! If anything, he made them exponentially worse. The housing bubble, TARP, Prescription drug plan, etc., were all on his watch. Cutting taxes while drastically increasing spending. Yea, Bush was the pinnacle of reform :rolleyes:



His administration tried to propose a major entitlement reform to deal with part of the fiscal cancer that's killing us. It was met with politics as usual from the spendthrifts on the left, which ensured that the spineless in the center did what they usually do...nothing of any import, preferring instead to whistle "Tomorrow" while they busied themselves trying to promote their individual short term political interests. The ones who did try were roundly ignored. Anyone besides me remember the reception Clinton's Social Security commission (with people like Breaux on it) received? Or the umpteen previous commissions on fixing social security?


Are you referring to Bush's attempt at Social Security reform? You mean his plan to invest SS money in the stock market? Yea, that would have worked out great. Do you have a 401k? Hows that been working out lately?

Truthfully, Medicare is in a much more dire state than Social Security. And Bush's policies made it exponentially worse. Here are the facts as reported by the Social Security and Medicare actuaries in 2005: The unfunded liability of Social Security in perpetuity is $11.1 trillion. The unfunded liability of Medicare is $68.1 trillion, of which $18.2 trillion is accounted for by the prescription drug benefit plan enacted by a Republican Congress and signed into law by Bush.




The simply truth is that both sides do not suck equally on this.


Yes, they do. Both Republicans and Democrats have spent their way to oblivion on their pet issues. The issues may change, but the spending steadily increases.

Here's some hard facts for you.



According to the Cato Institute, total federal outlays will rose 29 percent between fiscal years 2001 and 2005 according to the president's fiscal year 2005 budget. Real discretionary spending increases in fiscal years 2002, 2003, and 2004 are three of the five biggest annual increases in the last 40 years.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp-087es.html

According to economist Veronique de Rugy President Bush increased government spending more than any of the six presidents preceding him, including LBJ. In his last term in office, President Bush increased discretionary outlays by an estimated 48.6 percent.

During his eight years in office, President Bush spent almost twice as much as his predecessor, President Clinton. Adjusted for inflation, in eight years, President Clinton increased the federal budget by 11 percent. In eight years, President Bush increased it by a whopping 104 percent.
http://mercatus.org/publication/spending-under-president-george-w-bush

Look, for example, at the demands made by Alaska, a state that produces a disproportionate quantity of anti-government rhetoric, which has had Republican governors since 2002, and which has a congressional delegation dominated by Republicans. Nevertheless, for the last decade, Alaska has been among the top three largest state recipients of federal funding, per capita. Usually, Alaska is far ahead—sometimes three times as far ahead—of most other states in the union. http://www.slate.com/id/2262532/

Republicans are supposed to place more emphasis on fighting
inflation. But, in practice, Presidents Reagan and the first Bush pressured the Fedto ease up on monetary policy – sufficiently so that Paul Volcker decided thechairmanship was no longer worth having in 1987, according to Bob Woodward.In contrast, Clinton deliberately and unprecedentedly let Alan Greenspan do hisjob, without backseat driving.** Republicans are supposed to support small government, but federal employment rose under Presidents Reagan and Bush, and
shrank under Clinton. Republican presidents have been big on free trade rhetoric. But their actions have in fact been protectionist, judged not just by some politics-free ideal, but as compared to the record of Clinton. Highlights include George W. Bush’s tariffs on steel and lumber and Ronald Reagan’s voluntary export restraints on autos. And the trend toward deregulation that most imagine
began in the Reagan Administration? It actually began in the Carter
Administration – in airlines, trucking, natural gas, and banking. Reagan at bestcontinued the trend. These characterizations are shared by economists fromacross the political spectrum, as is clear in both the 1990s book, and in the earlier1980s book on which it was modeled.***

www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/jfrankel/RepubDemoSwitchMIR-rSS.pdf




Sorry, but the facts simply do not support your assertions.

[chadbag]

Wrong. There are plenty of stupid ideas coming from the right as well. Like cut taxes and trying to wage two wars at the same time. Or good old Reaganomics, which really kick started all this ridiculous spending. Or maybe Nixon removing us from the gold standard, paving the way for the Fed to try their hardest to manipulate the economy.



How did Reaganomics increase all this spending? It set the stage for close to 20 years of growth ( on average )

How is cutting taxes and trying to wage 2 wars at the same time stupid? The cost of the wars is within the revenue of the government even with tax cuts. The "welfare" spending is what breaks the budget. Also, remember, the Bush tax cuts drove tax receipts to all time highs.

The economy is not a zero sum game. Cutting taxes does not mean the govt gets less money if/when it drives economic growth which increase tax receipts overall. And raising taxes does not necessarily mean the govt has more money either when it kills economic growth and lowers tax receipts.

[chadbag]

Those who suggest that the Medicare Prescription Drug Act was anything more than a huge financial payoff to the pharmaceutical companies by Bush and a Republican-controlled Congress are smoking dope. The failure to force pharmaceutical companies to competitively bid for drug contracts (like the VA does) is costing taxpayers billions of dollars a year (not that there was ever any provision made to pay for any of it anyway).



Can you explain what you are talking about please?

Anything related to this? (read down past the first couple paragraphs)

http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/14525/Liberals_Medicare_Reform_Proposal_Is_Just_Plain_Politics.html

Just trying to understand what you are saying.

There are lots of scoundrels in both parties. Lots of progressives and those who favor any policy that will get them elected. The GOP is not the savior of us, though if there is a savior it will probably come from the GOP if they can clean house of all the RINOs.

[chadbag]

The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act was sponsored by a Republican, passed by a Republican Congress, and signed into law by a Republican president.

I think you missed the point JW777 may have been making (I am not him and cannot speak for him).

We "only" got the bill we did instead of something much worse from the left because the Republicans were able to propose a less progressive solution to the problem and pass it. Something along those lines.

It may be true but I don't agree with that line of thinking (on the Republicans'/Bush's side, not JW777). Better to have not done it at all then give us crap-lite.

However, I have read recently, sometime this summer, (though I could not Google up the link), that the Bush Medicare benefit is one of the few programs that is coming in under projected costs instead of an order of magnitude higher like most government solutions.

[chadbag]

I've yet to see the GOP put together a plan to cut spending.

The few that do go on record and mention cutting social security and entitlements get crucified by the press and labeled kooks that want slavery back

Until I see Social Security reform I will continue the think the GOP is full of crap.

Tax cuts are not going to close the deficit anymore than tax hikes if spending is not controlled

+1

---

notice the last day or two how Obama is claiming that he has improved the outlook for Medicare based on the Medicare custodians (whatever they are called) report that is based on future savings due to Obamacare? How this has improved the foundation of Medicare? HBow can you claim to improve something based on something else that has not even started to take effect yet and had ZERO effect so far on what you are claiming great improvements in?

[chadbag]

About the true unemployment and how it is a horror:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/opinion/10herbert.html?_r=1

From my remembrance of previous things this guy has written I think he is a committed leftist type (again IIRC).

However, if his numbers are correct, there is no way that current policies will ever make a dent in this.

They need to eliminate the corporate income tax, get rid of Obamacare and other huge costs of doing business that are preventing hiring based on uncertain and too expensive costs of having employees and MOST IMPORTANTLY the uncertainty in the business world as people don't know what is coming, what the true costs of Obamacare will be, what new taxes are in line, etc.

Doing those things would see massive new hiring take place as companies that need to hire would feel that they could afford to hire.

An article I read in the last day or two was talking about the decrease in productivity this quarter and how it meant that companies cut too much and have wrung the last drop of blood from employees and will need to start hiring. But companies don't seem to have gotten that memo because of the disincentives being put in place by Obamacare, new taxes, higher taxes, etc. All stuff that makes it not worth it.

[chadbag]

Are you referring to Bush's attempt at Social Security reform? You mean his plan to invest SS money in the stock market? Yea, that would have worked out great. Do you have a 401k? Hows that been working out lately?


Investing is a long term thing. Unless you are retiring soon short term performance is pretty much meaningless. Historically the stock market has outperformed the COL increases the govt has "granted" to SS recipients. Having allowed SS payers to invest part of the money 30 or 40 years ago, they would have much larger SS payments coming to them now, on average.



Truthfully, Medicare is in a much more dire state than Social Security. And Bush's policies made it exponentially worse. Here are the facts as reported by the Social Security and Medicare actuaries in 2005: The unfunded liability of Social Security in perpetuity is $11.1 trillion. The unfunded liability of Medicare is $68.1 trillion, of which $18.2 trillion is accounted for by the prescription drug benefit plan enacted by a Republican Congress and signed into law by Bush.


I don't see that Bush made it "exponentially" worse. 18/50 is a little over 1/3. Not exponential. (This is not to support what he did but we need to be fair in how we describe it)






Yes, they do. Both Republicans and Democrats have spent their way to oblivion on their pet issues. The issues may change, but the spending steadily increases.


unfortunately so



Here's some hard facts for you.



According to the Cato Institute, total federal outlays will rose 29 percent between fiscal years 2001 and 2005 according to the president's fiscal year 2005 budget. Real discretionary spending increases in fiscal years 2002, 2003, and 2004 are three of the five biggest annual increases in the last 40 years.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp-087es.html

According to economist Veronique de Rugy President Bush increased government spending more than any of the six presidents preceding him, including LBJ. In his last term in office, President Bush increased discretionary outlays by an estimated 48.6 percent.

During his eight years in office, President Bush spent almost twice as much as his predecessor, President Clinton. Adjusted for inflation, in eight years, President Clinton increased the federal budget by 11 percent. In eight years, President Bush increased it by a whopping 104 percent.
http://mercatus.org/publication/spending-under-president-george-w-bush


Clinton gutted the military. How would the numbers have looked if the DoD spending had remained at the same level throughout Clinton? Just wondering.

Clinton's badness was not his spending (that is Bush's badness). Clintons was attacks on civil liberties. He attempted to do things like HillaryCare but they were shot down. If Clinton had been successful, I think things would have been much different. Clinton was also lucky to get an upward tending business cycle (which can be traced back to Reagans tax cuts and stuff) and the huge increases in productivity that came through technology and Al Gore's internet.



Look, for example, at the demands made by Alaska, a state that produces a disproportionate quantity of anti-government rhetoric, which has had Republican governors since 2002, and which has a congressional delegation dominated by Republicans. Nevertheless, for the last decade, Alaska has been among the top three largest state recipients of federal funding, per capita. Usually, Alaska is far ahead—sometimes three times as far ahead—of most other states in the union. http://www.slate.com/id/2262532/


I am not sure how fair it is to use Alaska. They have (2009 estimate) under 700 000 people but a huge land area and lots of Federal lands and installations so their per capita expenditures will be higher anyway. I am not discounting pork requests but the Slate article just talks about Federal expenditures per capita in Alaska and not specifically pork per capita so I don't know how Alaska really compares.



Republicans are supposed to place more emphasis on fighting
inflation. But, in practice, Presidents Reagan and the first Bush pressured the Fedto ease up on monetary policy – sufficiently so that Paul Volcker decided thechairmanship was no longer worth having in 1987, according to Bob Woodward.In contrast, Clinton deliberately and unprecedentedly let Alan Greenspan do hisjob, without backseat driving.** Republicans are supposed to support small government, but federal employment rose under Presidents Reagan and Bush, and
shrank under Clinton.


This is from only 1/2-way through Clinton's presidency but this disputes that notion

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6254

And a lot of Clintons "reductions" were gutting defense.


Republican presidents have been big on free trade rhetoric. But their actions have in fact been protectionist, judged not just by some politics-free ideal, but as compared to the record of Clinton. Highlights include George W. Bush’s tariffs on steel and lumber and Ronald Reagan’s voluntary export restraints on autos. And the trend toward deregulation that most imagine
began in the Reagan Administration? It actually began in the Carter
Administration – in airlines, trucking, natural gas, and banking. Reagan at bestcontinued the trend. These characterizations are shared by economists fromacross the political spectrum, as is clear in both the 1990s book, and in the earlier1980s book on which it was modeled.***

www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/jfrankel/RepubDemoSwitchMIR-rSS.pdf




Sorry, but the facts simply do not support your assertions.

[rickrock305]

How did Reaganomics increase all this spending? It set the stage for close to 20 years of growth ( on average )

Reagan's tax policies pushed both the international transactions current account and the federal budget into deficit and led to a significant increase in public debt. National debt more than tripled from 900 billion dollars to 2.8 trillion dollars during Reagan's tenure. Advocates of the Laffer curve problematically contend that the tax cuts did lead to a near doubling of tax receipts[citation needed] ($517 billion in 1980 to $1.032 trillion in 1990)[citation needed], so that the deficits were actually caused by an increase in government spending. However, an analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities argues that "history shows that the large reductions in income tax rates in 1981 were followed by abnormally slow growth in income tax receipts, while the increases in income-tax rates enacted in 1990 and 1993 were followed by sizeable growth in income-tax receipts." Specifically, the analysis calculated that the average annual growth rate of real income-tax receipts per working-age person was 0.2% from 1981 to 1990 and a much higher 3.1% from 1990 to 2001.[37]. In 1982, during Reagan's second year in office, the U.S. economy fell into a recession.



How is cutting taxes and trying to wage 2 wars at the same time stupid?

You consider cutting taxes and dramatically increasing spending a smart fiscal policy?



The cost of the wars is within the revenue of the government even with tax cuts. The "welfare" spending is what breaks the budget.

This doesn't make any sense. Neither is "within the revenue" of the government because we are running an enormous deficit. The combination of everything is what breaks the budget, you can't just cherry pick a certain thing. These wars cost TRILLIONS of dollars.



Also, remember, the Bush tax cuts drove tax receipts to all time highs.

This is a bit misleading. Do you have a source for this? Because I'm finding conflicting information. For example...

http://www.cbpp.org/images/cms/3-8-06tax-f1.jpg

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=165




Tax revenue has historically averaged 18 percent of GDP. The average from 2000 to 2007, and including the year 2000 high point, was 17.6 percent. By contrast, the average during the 1990's was 18.5 percent.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/08/cherry-picking_season.html


The 2006 tax revenues were not substantially far from levels projected before the Bush tax cuts. Despite estimates that the tax cuts would reduce 2006 revenues by $188 billion, they came in just $58 billion below the pre-tax cut revenue level projected in January 2000.

Fact: Tax revenues correlate with economic growth, not tax rates.

Many of those who desire additional tax revenues regularly call on Congress to raise tax rates, but tax revenues are a function of two variables: tax rates and the tax base. The tax base typically moves in the opposite direction of the tax rate, partially negating the revenue impact of tax rate changes. Accordingly, Chart 4 shows little correlation between tax rates and tax revenues. Since 1952, the highest marginal income tax rate has dropped from 92 percent to 35 percent, and tax revenues have grown in inflation-adjusted terms while remaining constant as a percent of GDP.

Chart 5 shows the nearly perfect correlation between GDP and tax revenues. Despite major fluctuations in income tax rates, long-term tax revenues have grown at almost exactly the same rate as GDP, remaining between 17 percent and 20 percent of GDP for 46 of the past 50 years. Table 1 shows that the top marginal income tax rate topped 90 percent during the 1950s and that revenues averaged 17.2 percent of GDP. By the 1990s, the top marginal income tax rate averaged just 36 percent, and tax revenues averaged 18.3 percent of GDP. Regardless of the tax rate, tax revenues have almost always come in at approximately 18 percent of GDP.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2007/01/Ten-Myths-About-the-Bush-Tax-Cuts




The economy is not a zero sum game. Cutting taxes does not mean the govt gets less money if/when it drives economic growth which increase tax receipts overall. And raising taxes does not necessarily mean the govt has more money either when it kills economic growth and lowers tax receipts.


Agreed. And I am completely against allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire at this point in time. If would drastically hurt any chance at our economy recovering.

[chadbag]

I am going to bed so will just make a few quick comments





You consider cutting taxes and dramatically increasing spending a smart fiscal policy?


That is not the question in "cutting taxes and fighting two wars".

According to CBO[2007], the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will have cost 2.4 Trillion by 2017. 16 years after they started. That is not "dramatically increasing spending". While spending is not flat, if it were, that would be 150 billion per year.

If cutting taxes increases growth (which increases tax revenues) then yes it is smart policy.



This doesn't make any sense. Neither is "within the revenue" of the government because we are running an enormous deficit. The combination of everything is what breaks the budget, you can't just cherry pick a certain thing. These wars cost TRILLIONS of dollars.


see above

If you eliminate the "welfare" type income redistribution form the budget, there is plenty of revenue for defense considerations. Which is actually something the Feds are supposed to be concerned with, unlike income redistribution which is totally unconstitutional.



This is a bit misleading. Do you have a source for this? Because I'm finding conflicting information. For example...


I do not have a link. But the IRS itself put out a press release at the time that tax receipts hit an all time high.

Tax receipts as percentage of GDP is not a good measure imho to judge the effects of tax cuts. Incorrect metric. Total tax receipts and tax receipt growth is. If you can cause the GDP to grow faster, you will get more money in the bank, even if the tax receipts as percentage of GDP stays flat.

I agree with what you say below that tax receipts are related to growth of GDP and not tax rates. Tax rates only play a role if they can spur greater growth.



http://www.cbpp.org/images/cms/3-8-06tax-f1.jpg

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=165




Tax revenue has historically averaged 18 percent of GDP. The average from 2000 to 2007, and including the year 2000 high point, was 17.6 percent. By contrast, the average during the 1990's was 18.5 percent.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/08/cherry-picking_season.html


The 2006 tax revenues were not substantially far from levels projected before the Bush tax cuts. Despite estimates that the tax cuts would reduce 2006 revenues by $188 billion, they came in just $58 billion below the pre-tax cut revenue level projected in January 2000.

Fact: Tax revenues correlate with economic growth, not tax rates.

Many of those who desire additional tax revenues regularly call on Congress to raise tax rates, but tax revenues are a function of two variables: tax rates and the tax base. The tax base typically moves in the opposite direction of the tax rate, partially negating the revenue impact of tax rate changes. Accordingly, Chart 4 shows little correlation between tax rates and tax revenues. Since 1952, the highest marginal income tax rate has dropped from 92 percent to 35 percent, and tax revenues have grown in inflation-adjusted terms while remaining constant as a percent of GDP.

Chart 5 shows the nearly perfect correlation between GDP and tax revenues. Despite major fluctuations in income tax rates, long-term tax revenues have grown at almost exactly the same rate as GDP, remaining between 17 percent and 20 percent of GDP for 46 of the past 50 years. Table 1 shows that the top marginal income tax rate topped 90 percent during the 1950s and that revenues averaged 17.2 percent of GDP. By the 1990s, the top marginal income tax rate averaged just 36 percent, and tax revenues averaged 18.3 percent of GDP. Regardless of the tax rate, tax revenues have almost always come in at approximately 18 percent of GDP.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2007/01/Ten-Myths-About-the-Bush-Tax-Cuts





Agreed. And I am completely against allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire at this point in time. If would drastically hurt any chance at our economy recovering.

[rickrock305]

Investing is a long term thing. Unless you are retiring soon short term performance is pretty much meaningless. Historically the stock market has outperformed the COL increases the govt has "granted" to SS recipients. Having allowed SS payers to invest part of the money 30 or 40 years ago, they would have much larger SS payments coming to them now, on average.

30 or 40 years ago, sure. But the U.S. is not the only big fish in the pond anymore as it relates to industry and business. The days of leaving your money in the stock market and watching it grow are over. All the economists I follow who have been right on about all the events which have come to pass already say the same thing. The days of throwing your money into a house and the rest in the stock market and watching it grow are over.

The idea seems to have been an attempt at economic stimulus by injecting all that SS money into the markets.




I don't see that Bush made it "exponentially" worse. 18/50 is a little over 1/3. Not exponential. (This is not to support what he did but we need to be fair in how we describe it)

Ok, I'm really not interested in playing semantic games. The GOP's policy made it drastically worse. They ignored the huge problem that is the insolvency of Medicare, and even made it worse, while politicking on the smaller problem of SS reform.



Clinton gutted the military. How would the numbers have looked if the DoD spending had remained at the same level throughout Clinton? Just wondering.

Gutted? I don't know if I'd go that far.

http://getluky.net/projects/policyresearch/

http://getluky.net/projects/policyresearch/national-defense-budget-1940-2003.gif

National Defense Budgeting, 1940-2003, in FY 2000 Millions USD.



http://getluky.net/projects/policyresearch/national-defense-budget-percentages-1940-2003.gif

National Defense Budgeting as a Percentage of Total Budget and GDP




http://getluky.net/projects/policyresearch/avg-national-defense-spending-by-admin.gif


I don't think "gutted" is accurate at all.



Clinton's badness was not his spending (that is Bush's badness). Clintons was attacks on civil liberties.

Unfortunately, Bush was bad on both. (Patriot Act)



Clinton was also lucky to get an upward tending business cycle (which can be traced back to Reagans tax cuts and stuff)


How can you trace that back to Reagan?



I am not sure how fair it is to use Alaska. They have (2009 estimate) under 700 000 people but a huge land area and lots of Federal lands and installations so their per capita expenditures will be higher anyway. I am not discounting pork requests but the Slate article just talks about Federal expenditures per capita in Alaska and not specifically pork per capita so I don't know how Alaska really compares.

Of course its fair to use Alaska.

Or we could use the fact that the biggest welfare recipients are generally "red" states.





And a lot of Clintons "reductions" were gutting defense.


No, because defense was not "gutted".

At the end of fiscal year 1993 (which was Bush’s last one in office), the Army had 572,423 active-duty soldiers – a far cry from 725,000. In fact, to get to that number, one has to go back to 1990, during the first gulf war. Moreover, Clinton’s cuts in the military, while large, were nowhere close to 25 percent to 30 percent. Between 1993 and 2001, the Army went from 572,423 to 480,801, which is a decline of 16 percent. The entire military went from 1,705,103 to 1,385,116, a decrease of 18.8 percent.

Compare that with the far larger cuts made during the first Bush administration: In 1989, the military stood at 2,130,229 and the Army had 769,741 soldiers. By 1993, those numbers had declined by 19.9 percent and 25.6 percent, respectively.

[chadbag]

Your graphs show pretty drastic cuts in defense spending during Clinton. A large part of the defense establishment is fixed costs (salaries, maintenance, etc) so large budget cuts have an effect far larger than they would appear to show on a simple graph. I did not serve but I have heard many many comments from people who served during Clinton that training, readiness, maintenance all suffered a lot. That sounds like "gutted" to me.

really going to bed now

[rickrock305]

That is not the question in "cutting taxes and fighting two wars".

According to CBO[2007], the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will have cost 2.4 Trillion by 2017. 16 years after they started. That is not "dramatically increasing spending". While spending is not flat, if it were, that would be 150 billion per year.


Those numbers are not accurate. First, they do not take many factors into account.

All told, the bill for the Iraq war is likely to top $3 trillion. And that's a conservative estimate.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/07/AR2008030702846.html

When we're talking increases to our debt by TRILLIONS of dollars, yes I consider that to be dramatically increasing spending.



If cutting taxes increases growth (which increases tax revenues) then yes it is smart policy.

But its not that simple.

Bush's economic policy was wrong, and we are feeling the effects of it now.



If you eliminate the "welfare" type income redistribution form the budget, there is plenty of revenue for defense considerations. Which is actually something the Feds are supposed to be concerned with, unlike income redistribution which is totally unconstitutional.


The problem with that is, eliminating the "welfare" portion of the budget will completely destroy the country. Our country will be over and done with.



I do not have a link. But the IRS itself put out a press release at the time that tax receipts hit an all time high.

But can you prove that this was due to tax cuts, or was it due to other economic factors?



Tax receipts as percentage of GDP is not a good measure imho to judge the effects of tax cuts. Incorrect metric. Total tax receipts and tax receipt growth is.

Thats not accurate. I posted a few articles stating explaining why, but it has to do withe the tax base vs tax rate. And there are many other economic factors to take into account when judging the effect of tax cuts or the increase of tax receipts.

[rickrock305]

Your graphs show pretty drastic cuts in defense spending during Clinton. A large part of the defense establishment is fixed costs (salaries, maintenance, etc) so large budget cuts have an effect far larger than they would appear to show on a simple graph. I did not serve but I have heard many many comments from people who served during Clinton that training, readiness, maintenance all suffered a lot. That sounds like "gutted" to me.

really going to bed now


Well like I said before, I don't want to delve into a disagreement based on semantics. But I believe you can't characterize Clinton's defense cuts as "gutted" without also mentioning Bush's cuts which were even more extreme. Yet noone ever brings that up.

[chadbag]

Bush's economic policy was wrong, and we are feeling the effects of it now.


WHat was his policy that you are calling wrong? I can't agree or disagree without knowing what policy you are calling wrong.



Thats not accurate. I posted a few articles stating explaining why, but it has to do withe the tax base vs tax rate. And there are many other economic factors to take into account when judging the effect of tax cuts or the increase of tax receipts.

I am sorry, but it is accurate and I think the stuff you posted supported what I said.

Tax cuts generally will spur economic growth. Economic growth means more money is made to be taxed. Receipts go up. Money in the bank is what is important in the end as that is what pays the bills. So policies that accelerate growth mean you end up with higher receipts even if the tax rates (percentage of GDP) stays flat. Very simple.

[austinN4]

This is hilarious. Bush tried to solve our financial problems!?!?! If anything, he made them exponentially worse. The housing bubble, TARP, Prescription drug plan, etc., were all on his watch. Cutting taxes while drastically increasing spending. Yea, Bush was the pinnacle of reform :rolleyes:
I'll give you TARP and Part D, but not the housing bubble. GWB tried to get changes as far back as the early 2000's:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnSp4qEXNM

[ForTehNguyen]

Ours, no doubt. If we would only learn to exercise a bit more restraint and do what our grandparents did. Save for it. It's amazing how tight and analytical you will become when you get ready to plunk down the cash for something. "Do I really need this?"

its hard to save when interest rates are like 1% and inflation is much greater than that. Savings is losing value just sitting around. Thanks Federal Reserve

[No.6]

its hard to save when interest rates are like 1% and inflation is much greater than that. Savings is losing value just sitting around. Thanks Federal Reserve

This is true, but more to my point was not borrowing money (credit) to purchase something. Why would you, or anyone, want to spend 20 to 30 percent more on something? And don't even think that "I'll pay it off when the bill gets here". There is always something that impedes that happening.
Savings is a loosing proposition, even if you could get 4 percent. Inflation rates, true inflation rates are well above what generally gets published (and accepted by the public, i.e. we're being lied to).

[John_Wayne777]

Wrong. There are plenty of stupid ideas coming from the right as well. Like cut taxes and trying to wage two wars at the same time. Or good old Reaganomics, which really kick started all this ridiculous spending.


I don't know where you learned your history or economics, but you should probably get your money back. If you think Reagan was the genesis of "ridiculous spending" then you've completely missed the boat.



Are you referring to Bush's attempt at Social Security reform?


Yes...which despite your trite dismissal is actually one of a very small handful of attempts at real entitlement reform posited since the inception of the programs.



You mean his plan to invest SS money in the stock market? Yea, that would have worked out great. Do you have a 401k? Hows that been working out lately?


Private investment will never be free of risk...but neither is government assured programs, as the current financial situation demonstrates nicely. The bottom line is that the only way for SS to meet obligations is for the program to have a lot more revenue...revenue that must come from either higher taxes or a much higher rate of return on investment. Private investments like the stock market are historically the only way of generating those kinds of returns, and that doesn't even begin to cover the benefits of having people OWN their own retirement funds rather than have them solely dependent upon a government check cut solely based on government's rulings on the matter.



And Bush's policies made it exponentially worse.


To quote Reagan, "there he goes again."

Bush signed a really bad idea into law because everybody at the time was screaming about a "crisis" over prescription drugs that was as ginned up as the "crisis" in healthcare which produced the travesty that Obama signed into law. Bush's really bad program was less really bad than the program being put forward by those on the left. Bush's really bad program was turned into a reality in the first place because the left did their usual class warfare goodie handout routine which has worked splendidly in terms of electoral outcomes over the last 80 or so years.

The principled thing to do was to veto any expansion to entitlements...but Bush was not a principled conservative.

Part D wasn't big enough for many of the people who bring it up now in the ongoing debate about this congress and administration's actions. It's yet more of the old Washington two step...deny, obfuscate, and make counter accusations. Medicare part D was a stupid idea and lots of people (like me) told politicians that it was a stupid idea to sell out the long term interests of the nation for short term political gain because democrats were screaming for a new gimmie program as a means of promoting their short term political goals. (Realistically their long term goals as well) I even have a copy of the letter I wrote to the white house, my representatives, and the RNC asking them what possible good could come of seeking to expand, rather than eliminate, an entitlement with costs that have exploded beyond any projection ever made about it.

The goal in bringing up Medicare part D now is precisely to get people to be too busy saying "Well he did it too!" to actually hold this administration and congress accountable for what they are doing. Bush and the Republican party were held accountable already...that's one of the reasons why Republicans lost the majority. After going wobbly in the knees in their confrontation with Clinton, (helped in no small measure by a mainstream press that was wholly in the bag for Clinton) they abandoned the principles that got them elected and did a list of stupid and wasteful things which eroded their base of support.

In short, they stopped acting like conservatives and instead started behaving more like democrats...just as all their critics on the hill thought they should. It didn't work out so well.



Yes, they do.


No, they don't. There's simply no rational way to make that argument if you spend the effort to look past mainstream press coverage and talking points. Yes, the Republican party has done stupid things...because it has within it "moderates" who insist on behaving like democrats. Often these "moderates" are held up as the enlightened and reasonable members of the party while actual conservatives who do things like proposing the elimination of the Department of Education are painted as big fat meanies. I don't know what you were doing during the budget showdown between Clinton and the newly elected Republican congress, but I was paying attention. I distinctly remember Tom Daschle sitting beside Newt Gingrich accusing him of wanting to hurt the elderly, and to "dirty the air and dirty the water".

Did the press have a rational consideration of Daschle's claims or of the long term fiscal impact of failing to scale back government spending? Of course not. Why would they?

There's no argument that Bush sucked out loud on a number of things. Education is another great indicator of where Bush sucked. NCLB is a stupid law. It's made even more stupid coming from a Republican president given that not even a decade before the Republicans actually tried to eliminate the education department entirely believing, correctly, it was a state issue...not a federal one.

...but while Bush takes the rap for NCLB people neglect to mention that Ted Kennedy wrote the damn bill in the first place. Bush, in his eagerness to bring a "new tone" to Washington by reaching across the aisle to work with democrats...the kind of reaching across the aisle you have personally endorsed in the past... had Ted Kennedy write the bill.

If you want a picture of what was wrong with the Bush administration, that would be a fitting picture to summarize it.



Republicans are supposed to support small government, but federal employment rose under Presidents Reagan and Bush, and
shrank under Clinton.


...and who was in control of congress (because they do have the purse strings, you know) during each of those administrations, hmm? In which of the congressional sessions that took place under each of those presidents were meaningful reductions in federal payrolls achieved?

Again: I don't know what you were doing at the time, but I was paying attention.

[Gutshot John]

Rickrock is obviously too young to remember double digit unemployment (if we measured unemployment like we did during Carter/Reagan we'd have close to 20% today); double-digit inflation and double-digit interest rates. That Reagan's policies fixed those HUGE problems is really beyond debate to an honest broker.

Reagan increased defense spending (which had been rotting on the vine post-vietnam) which was a vital necessity. In the process he also put Americans back to work. That's real stimulus. He CUT virtually all other government programs.

By cutting tax rates he encouraged investment in the economy through those that had previously sought to hide it (like they do in Europe) which in turn sparked a massive growth in the economy.

He may have increased spending but he also increased revenues by growing the economy. You persistently wish to ignore this "truth" so inconvenient to your argument.

I'd suggest a basic economics class. You don't know what you're talking about.

[montanadave]

Stockman weighs in again and, no surprise, he's still taking the GOP to task for abandoning their core principal of fiscal conservatism.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/watch-out-for-the-federal-debt-freight-train-2010-08-11

A brief quote: "There's no possibility in either this world or the next of obtaining the needed $700 billion to $1 trillion in structural deficit reduction by spending cuts alone. We've had a rolling referendum since the first Reagan budget plan in 1981, and progressively over these three decades the Republican party has exempted every material component of the budget from cuts, including middle-class entitlements, defense, veterans, education, housing, farm subsidies and even Amtrak!"

The takeaway? As much as everyone wants to cling to the Bush tax cuts, we simply cannot afford them any longer. Time to pay the piper!

[ForTehNguyen]

you know its funny how Galveston County public workers have a privately investment retirement fund that grows at 10% as an alternative to Social Security. Yea guess what the public worker is going to choose. SS is trash because the money isnt invested instead its a redistribution deferred payment pool. it depends on a ponzi scheme where there are more people paying in than taking out.

Oh noes privatized SS.
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba514

[John_Wayne777]

The takeaway? As much as everyone wants to cling to the Bush tax cuts, we simply cannot afford them any longer. Time to pay the piper!

What we cannot afford is to continue on the path of spending that we've been on since the 1930's. Republicans haven't made much headway in cutting entitlements and programs because...surprise, surprise, each of those programs and entitlements has a constituency who is primarily interested in protecting their goodies. Want to reduce entitlements? Good luck, as the AARP and unions will smash you. Want to reduce federal intervention in education? Good luck, because the teachers unions will smash you. Etc. When government ceased to be about the things government is supposed to be about and instead became a massive social experiment in the redistribution of wealth, this was inevitable. Now the primary concern about government is who gets how big a slice of the pie that's comprised of other people's money.

This is why the founders had a vision for a limited government that concerned itself only with clearly defined responsibilities within a constitutional framework that limited its power.

[Gutshot John]

The takeaway? As much as everyone wants to cling to the Bush tax cuts, we simply cannot afford them any longer. Time to pay the piper!

You don't think cutting spending would achieve the same thing?

As for Stockman, you either didn't understand what you read or don't have blatantly misrepresented it. He's taking both Keynesians and Supply-siders to task. What he's talking about is a huge structural debt that is destroying the economy that cannot be solved by either tax increases or the business cycle.

I still don't understand how if the GOP was wrong by abandoning fiscal restraint (which I agree was wrong) than how are the Dems right by doing the same thing? Two wrongs don't make it right.

Tax increases only make it easier for the Dems to grow the government. Taxes should be cut if for no other reason than to force Congress to slash government spending...the real problem according to your article.

Funny how you overlooked that little point.

[chadbag]

The takeaway? As much as everyone wants to cling to the Bush tax cuts, we simply cannot afford them any longer. Time to pay the piper!

You cannot afford to NOT keep them. The damage to the economy will be greater than any additional revenue they generate. Most people call that false economy.

[Palmguy]

The takeaway? As much as everyone wants to cling to the Bush tax cuts, we simply cannot afford them any longer. Time to pay the piper!

Yes, because as soon as the Bush tax cuts expire, we will be in a fiscally solvent and stable position. :rolleyes:

Feel free to write a bigger check to the Internal Revenue Service next year than you are required to. Time to pay the piper and all, doing what you see as your patriotic duty.

No one in Washington has the philosophical outlook to spend less than they make. Period. That isn't going to change by raising the top income tax bracket to 39.whatever% (and oh yeah, raising taxes on a whole hell of a lot of people making less than $250k a year as well).

If I'm in over my head in bills, I'm turning off the A/C and getting rid of cable TV and my cell phone, and selling the cars that I have payments on before I go begging to mommy and daddy for money.

The government should take their damn budget to the bandsaw before they come to us, in this recession, asking for more money for them to blow on metaphorical (and in some cases literal) hookers and blow. Until they do that, they can get the f*** off my lawn.

[GermanSynergy]

allowing the bush tax cuts to expire right now would be a huge mistake. you simply can't raise taxes in a recession

Oh yes they can- and they will...... Recovery & fiscal restraint be damned, full speed ahead to the socialist utopia, comrades! :mad:

[rickrock305]

I don't know where you learned your history or economics, but you should probably get your money back. If you think Reagan was the genesis of "ridiculous spending" then you've completely missed the boat.

The national debt more than tripled from 900 billion dollars to 2.8 trillion dollars during Reagan's tenure.




Private investment will never be free of risk...but neither is government assured programs, as the current financial situation demonstrates nicely. The bottom line is that the only way for SS to meet obligations is for the program to have a lot more revenue...revenue that must come from either higher taxes or a much higher rate of return on investment. Private investments like the stock market are historically the only way of generating those kinds of returns, and that doesn't even begin to cover the benefits of having people OWN their own retirement funds rather than have them solely dependent upon a government check cut solely based on government's rulings on the matter.


The stock market is also a great way to LOSE all your investment. Its a gamed system. Just look at Goldman Sachs. They do not lose, at all. And thats simply impossible if they were not cheating the system. And then if the government gets more involved in the market, which they will do if we start investing SS money there, its a recipe for disaster.




To quote Reagan, "there he goes again."

Bush signed a really bad idea into law because everybody at the time was screaming about a "crisis" over prescription drugs that was as ginned up as the "crisis" in healthcare which produced the travesty that Obama signed into law.

There is a crisis with Medicare. The insolvency of Medicare is much more of a problem than Social Security. Problem is, the GOP's program made it much worse.



Bush's really bad program was less really bad than the program being put forward by those on the left. Bush's really bad program was turned into a reality in the first place because the left did their usual class warfare goodie handout routine which has worked splendidly in terms of electoral outcomes over the last 80 or so years.

The principled thing to do was to veto any expansion to entitlements...but Bush was not a principled conservative.


Again, you're trying to place blame for Part D on the left. Yet the fact is, it was a bill sponsored, written, passed, and signed into law all by Republicans.



Medicare part D was a stupid idea and lots of people (like me) told politicians that it was a stupid idea to sell out the long term interests of the nation for short term political gain because democrats were screaming for a new gimmie program as a means of promoting their short term political goals. (Realistically their long term goals as well)

Again, your attempt to lay this at the feet of the left is laughable. It was the Republicans trying to promote their short term goals. It was the right that pushed hard for this legislation to pass.

Honestly, I'm not trying to get into the partisan sh*t slinging fest with you, because I'm not trying to defend the left as you are the right. I believe they are both the problem.





No, they don't. There's simply no rational way to make that argument if you spend the effort to look past mainstream press coverage and talking points.

:rolleyes:

I couldn't even tell you the last time I watched a mainstream news program, and I certainly pay no attention to the democrat talking points.

My information comes from economists, independent studies and reports, historical record, raw numbers. Both the Democrats and the Republicans have spent tons of money. The Republicans ARE just as bad. Just look at the facts.

Since 1970, spending has grown 64% faster when a Republican sits in the White House than when a Democrat does.

When Democrats controlled the White House plus both houses of Congress, spending grew at 1.70% per year, slightly below the average growth rate of 1.83% for the entire period.

During the 14 years Republicans controlled the White House and Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, spending grew at an average annual rate of 1.92%. During the eight years with a Republican president and a split Congress, spending grew at 2.54% per year.

http://www.libertyunbound.com/archive/2004_11/bradford-spending.html

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/78/US_Debt_Trend.svg/450px-US_Debt_Trend.svg.png


The facts are there. You choose to ignore them, therefore it doesn't make much sense to continue to have a discussion with you. My point is clear and is backed up by fact. Both Democrats and Republicans are out of control with their spending. It all goes back to the premise that the two party system has become like WWE wrestling, it's all theater and marketing. Both parties are beholden to the same military industrialist and financial puppet masters, but in order to keep most of the average citizens divided and in line, they have to create narratives that make it seem like each party is a different entity so the people will divide themselves up and go at each other while the real raping and pillaging takes place. The good guys versus the bad guys (depending on who your favorite wrestler, er I mean party is). So the Republicans marketed themselves as the party of "fiscal conservatism", while the Democrats marketed themselves as the party of the "little people", regardless of whether either was true in real world terms.

Under both parties' rule, the debt has always continued to grow, military imperial spending and posturing has always continued unabated, bankers and elite financial interests have always been propped up, bailout out or backstopped, and the only functional differences have been minor peripheral ones, just enough to keep the lumpenproletariat convinced there is some massive fundamental divide. The grand triumph of rhetoric and marketing.

[rickrock305]

Rickrock is obviously too young to remember double digit unemployment (if we measured unemployment like we did during Carter/Reagan we'd have close to 20% today); double-digit inflation and double-digit interest rates. That Reagan's policies fixed those HUGE problems is really beyond debate to an honest broker.

Reagan increased defense spending (which had been rotting on the vine post-vietnam) which was a vital necessity. In the process he also put Americans back to work. That's real stimulus. He CUT virtually all other government programs.

By cutting tax rates he encouraged investment in the economy through those that had previously sought to hide it (like they do in Europe) which in turn sparked a massive growth in the economy.

He may have increased spending but he also increased revenues by growing the economy. You persistently wish to ignore this "truth" so inconvenient to your argument.

I'm not saying Reagan didn't do some good things. My only comment was that he greatly increased the public debt.




I'd suggest a basic economics class. You don't know what you're talking about.

You really feel the need to insult anyone who disagrees with you? :rolleyes:

[Gutshot John]

You really feel the need to insult anyone who disagrees with you? :rolleyes:

I suggested you understand a bit what you're talking about.

If that's an insult, oh well.

[RancidSumo]

You're forgetting that Republicans were in charge of Congress during the Clinton administration.

The legislation you're referring to that allowed banks to get into this mess is called the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, which repealed the Glass Steagall Act, was written by two Republicans and only signed into law by Bill Clinton. Clinton did not write or pass the legislation, only signed it into law. That means that both parties were complicit.




You're right, crashes don't start at the moment of impact. It generally takes 3-5 years for economic policy to take effect. You can do the math there.

The Democrats AND the Republicans started this mess. They were both complicit. It started under Clinton and was escalated under Bush. Yes, Bush was part of the problem, as was Clinton, but more importantly than both of them it was the Republican controlled Congress who wrote and repealed certain legislation.

Specifically which equal housing bills are you referring to? We can go further in depth if you're interested, but I would need you to be a bit more specific. I have a feeling you're talking about provisions added to the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act regarding the Community Reinvestment Act but I want to be sure before we delve further into it.

I get so tired of the crap about "deregulating the banks caused this mess." No, the FDIC and insuring stupid business practices is what did it. Banks should be allowed to fail so that the people actually have to treat them like a business and make responsible decisions. Not this bullshit fairyland that they live in where they can't fail no matter how stupid they are.

[variablebinary]

I'd like to see a compromise for the next few years where the Bush tax cuts sunset for a period of time, but we dramatically cut corporate tax for companies to encourage investment and hiring, thus increasing the number of tax payers on the rolls

Back this with serious, unpopular cuts to entitlements and social security. It has to be done.

It is in our interest to get out of this deep deficit as quickly as possible.

It will be unpopular, but better that that complete financial meltdown where our debts far exceed our GDP.

[Skyyr]

I get so tired of the crap about "deregulating the banks caused this mess." No, the FDIC and insuring stupid business practices is what did it. Banks should be allowed to fail so that the people actually have to treat them like a business and make responsible decisions. Not this bullshit fairyland that they live in where they can't fail no matter how stupid they are.

EXACTLY.

Example: You buy a car that has a warranty on the engine: "This engine will last a MINIMUM of 500,000 miles without any required maintenance." Of course the nay-sayers stand there and don't like it because it seems irresponsible to allow an engine to run that long without working on it. So, in the course of things, someone breaks it open and does what they think is a tune-up at 80,000 miles. Shortly thereafter, it breaks and the nay-sayers come back and proclaim "WE TOLD YOU IT WOULD FAIL!" It's not true - they interfered and now the rules are changed entirely. What did apply no longer does.

This is EXACTLY what these stupid feel-good measures do. "We can't let banks fail, people will get hurt" gets argued and measures get passed so the banks CAN'T fail. Now, the banks no longer have to answer for their decisions and look what follows. Of course, the socialists/reformists look at this and state "Well of course there's still responsibility" and they argue semantics.

People get hurt. People's lives get ruined. People die. It happens. Quit trying to make laws that minimize this. We're all adults and INVESTING (what did everyone think a freaking bank does???) is a RISK. They want to have their cake and eat it too. If you want the convenience of a bank, then deal with the risks. If you don't want to deal with the risks, then DON'T BANK.

[variablebinary]

I get so tired of the crap about "deregulating the banks caused this mess." No, the FDIC and insuring stupid business practices is what did it. Banks should be allowed to fail so that the people actually have to treat them like a business and make responsible decisions. Not this bullshit fairyland that they live in where they can't fail no matter how stupid they are.

I agree 100%.

The banking industry took huge risks they couldn't afford. In my mind if you can't turn a profit, you have no right to stay in business.

Bush and Obama should have allowed the market to self correct the banking mess. If you are a bank and you hold a billion dollars in toxic mortgages then you go out of business and lots of people get a free house if another bank doesn't come in and buy your assets and renegotiate the terms to mitigate the risks, thus making the assets less toxic.

This would have worked great for everyone.

But nooo, Bush and Obama both believe banks should not be allowed to lose even if they dig themselves into a hole. They are far too beholden to Wall Street banking cartels for my tastes.

[austinN4]

Its a gamed system. Just look at Goldman Sachs. They do not lose, at all. And thats simply impossible if they were not cheating the system.

This is so wrong and not at all impossible. If one acts as a broker only to buyers and sellers, thereby not taking a risk position, they will not lose money. Fee-based businesses without risk positions are the smart place to be. Risk positions are where the losses occur.


No, the FDIC and insuring stupid business practices is what did it.
Please explain exactly how did the FDIC do this?


If you are a bank and you hold a billion dollars in toxic mortgages then you go out of business and lots of people get a free house if another bank doesn't come in and buy your assets and renegotiate the terms to mitigate the risks, thus making the assets less toxic.
Huh? Somebody gets a free house because they didn't pay their mortgage? I don't think so. You seem confused on how things work in the banking business, but I see a lot of that in the threads here.

If the bank does not fail, they still own the mortgage, underwater though it may be. And they can still foreclose, sell the property and recover some of their money.

If the bank fails then a number of different things might happen. What happens in all cases is that the deposit insurer (FDIC) becomes the liquidator of the assets and liabilities. What happens in most cases it that another bank pays some amount to acquire the deposits and maybe some bank facilities. In a few case they might even buy some of the loans, but not usually. In which your mortgage is then owned by the FDIC and they will usually liquidate it by selling it at a discount to some investor. And there will be an investor at some price. That investor will then foreclose on your house if you can't pay.

Either way, you lost your house. You may be able to game the system and stay there without paying while things get sorted out but it will catch up to you sooner or later.

[Belmont31R]

Rickrock-




The simple fact of the matter is anyone can pull a stat or graph that supports their position. Republicans did become big spenders once Bush took office. They did a lot of things their base did not like, and its no wonder why the GOP lost Congress in 2006.


I have lost a lot of faith in Republicans, and still do not like most of them because they are still in that 2000-2006 mindset of pandering to buy votes instead of doing whats right for the country. Ill be glad when these RINO's are no longer in office.


But I still do contend Democrats have contributed most to our current situation. The debt is a huge problem but its not near as big of a problem as the liability these entitlement and welfare programs, as a whole, have put us in to. Both SS and medicare were signed into law by democrats, and they alone are almost HALF our Federal budget.


Raising taxes may help pay for these programs but they shouldn't exist to begin with. FDR and Johnson signed SS and Medicare in law, respectively. Our national debt would be ZERO if it were not for these programs. At the same time the DOD needs an fiscal overhaul. There is so much waste there its crazy.


If government was tight with money, and only did what its constitutionally mandated to do our country would be in a lot better place. Somehow humans survived for tens of thousands of years without SS and Medicare, we can do it again.


Since both parties are hell bent on this entitlement society we are going to live in a depressed economy, and high (historically) unemployment. Europe has already gone where we are now at, and the same thing happened to them. You cannot at the same time has of healthy of economy as possible, and tax people to death to pay for trillions worth of entitlements a year. The true cost of these programs are sewn in a web that we'll never know. Not only do the Feds spend enormous amounts of money on them so do the states. Most of the state budgets, just like the Feds, are swamped with entitlement spending costs.


If you've ever been to Europe you'll see what entitlement does to a country. Most people there are poor by American standards. Its crazy the amount of people who cannot afford a car. Public transportation is huge there because its too expensive to drive for most people. Gas is 6-10 dollars a gallon. Their houses are much smaller. That is the way the US is going to have to be as taxes go up to pay for all this spending.

The DOD is just a symptom of this mentality where it costs inane amounts of money to do anything. Our red tape filled government increases the cost of everything. The procurement system is a joke. There is no critical thinking or common sense left in any government. Everyone is worried about covering their asses so they come up with absurd ways to do things. John Stossel the other day showed the mandatory recipe if you want to make brownies for the DOD. Its 26 pages long, and is filled with all kinds of stupidity and red tape. Thats just a basic example but it shows how far down the tubes government is. You are right...the American dream of buying a house and investing your money is just about over. What is expanding is ever increasing dependency on government to fulfill people's needs in life.

In order for government to change the people have to change first. Our society is filled with entitlement mentality. JohnWayne was right in that if you do anything to reduce spending you have some group out there who is going to smear you, and accuse you of hurting someone. How many seniors would flip out if you proposed cutting back on SS and medicare spending? Everyone feels entitled to some chunk of tax dollars, and you're an asshole if you want to cut their piece of the pie out. Look at that court ruling that said it was unconstitutional to stop giving funds to ACORN.


This is why the only way any of this is going to change is if our government crashes and burns (figuratively speaking). There isn't enough public support to prevent that since almost everyone will keep voting for whatever broke dick politician that promises them their SS/welfare/medicare checks will keep coming.

[rickrock305]

I suggested you understand a bit what you're talking about.

If that's an insult, oh well.


I clearly do, thank you. Much beyond the old fingerpointing partisan rhetoric at least.

[rickrock305]

This is so wrong and not at all impossible. If one acts as a broker only to buyers and sellers, thereby not taking a risk position, they will not lose money. Fee-based businesses without risk positions are the smart place to be. Risk positions are where the losses occur.


Of the 63 trading days in the three-month period ending in March, Goldman Sachs generated revenue of at least $25 million on every single day, according to its latest quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

On nearly three out of every five days, Wall Street's most profitable firm generated revenue exceeding $100 million trading stocks and bonds, and creating and entering into derivatives contracts.

Of Goldman's $9.7 billion in total Q1 revenue, 76% came from trading.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/un****ingbelievable-goldman-has-zero-trading-loss-days-last-quarter

[Skyyr]

This is so wrong and not at all impossible. If one acts as a broker only to buyers and sellers, thereby not taking a risk position, they will not lose money. Fee-based businesses without risk positions are the smart place to be. Risk positions are where the losses occur.


Please explain exactly how did the FDIC do this?

"FDIC deposit insurance increased permanently to $250,000.00 per depositor [from $100,000]."

The government bails the banks out and we pay for it. It's all part of the problem. Why should people be guaranteed that their banking is safe? WHY? It's a business and you aren't forced to use it.

[Gutshot John]

I clearly do, thank you. Much beyond the old fingerpointing partisan rhetoric at least.

Because you're not engaging in "fingerpointing partisan rhetoric"? :rolleyes:

You can dish it out but you sure can't take it.

Come back when you get a clue.

[RancidSumo]

The FDIC insuring bank accounts and being able to change the management or close the bank if they don't follow their rules led to taking banks out of the market. We don't need government run insurance on anything. It should be up to the consumer to pick a reliable bank and if they don't and the bank fails, bummer, I guess you lose your money. Don't like it then stuff your money under your mattress. Banks should operate like any other business in the market. It is a risk reward system and the government with insuring banks and bailing them out has taken the risk away at the expense of all the taxpayers, not just the ones who did business with bad banks.

[rickrock305]

I get so tired of the crap about "deregulating the banks caused this mess." No, the FDIC and insuring stupid business practices is what did it. Banks should be allowed to fail so that the people actually have to treat them like a business and make responsible decisions. Not this bullshit fairyland that they live in where they can't fail no matter how stupid they are.


Sorry, but the deregulation was directly the cause, along with a liberal dose of greed and stupidity in the mortgage loan business. The repeal of Glass Steagall by the Graham Leach Bliley Act is what allowed the banks to come up with these complicated financial instruments. The GLB Act explicitly exempted security-based swap agreements (a derivative financial product based on another security's value or performance) from regulation by the SEC by amending the Securities Act of 1933, Section 2A, and similarly the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, Section 3A.

I do agree that the banks should have been allowed to fail and not propped up by government. But thats what you get when you have a government beholden to corporate interests instead of the good of the country.

[Skyyr]

Sorry, but the deregulation was directly the cause...

I stopped reading right there. It's one thing to be neutral and/or bi-partisan, but it's completely another to be biased with a predetermined goal. Gutshot_John was right.

[rickrock305]

Because you're not engaging in "fingerpointing partisan rhetoric"? :rolleyes:

You can dish it out but you sure can't take it.

Come back when you get a clue.



No. I've clearly stated on multiple occasions that both Democrats AND Republicans are both the problem.

Come back when you can engage in intelligent debate without talking down to people. Its a sign of insecurity.

[Gutshot John]

Sorry, but the deregulation was directly the cause, along with a liberal dose of greed and stupidity in the mortgage loan business. The repeal of Glass Steagall by the Graham Leach Bliley Act is what allowed the banks to come up with these complicated financial instruments. The GLB Act explicitly exempted security-based swap agreements (a derivative financial product based on another security's value or performance) from regulation by the SEC by amending the Securities Act of 1933, Section 2A, and similarly the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, Section 3A.

Uhm no. Derivatives existed long before GLB which became law in 1999 as did their "exemptions" which weren't really exemptions. No one really understood what they were.

Brooksley Born was sounding alarm bells well before GLB ever came into existence...oh yeah she worked for a Democratic President...and was shouted down by Democratic advisors.

You really don't know what you're talking about.

[rickrock305]

I stopped reading right there. It's one thing to be neutral and/or bi-partisan, but it's completely another to be biased with a predetermined goal. Gutshot_John was right.


Who said deregulation was solely a Republican or Democrat act?

Deregulation was not a party specific thing, both parties were equally complicit. After all, it was Clinton who signed the thing into law.

[RancidSumo]

You can keep repeating your point without addressing mine all you like but it doesn't make what you are saying true. It is not a question of regulation, there should be NO regulation. Regulation is every bit as much of an intrusion on the market as is bailing out the banks. You're ideas on how the market should work are so contradictory that I don't know how you can believe all these things at once.

Either government intervention is allowed (regulation/bailouts) or it isn't (no regulation and failures result from bad business practices). We've seen how well the government answer works, its time to try door number two.

[Gutshot John]

No. I've clearly stated on multiple occasions that both Democrats AND Republicans are both the problem.

And yet you blame the Republicans far more, including GLB which was signed by a Democratic president.


Come back when you can engage in intelligent debate without talking down to people. Its a sign of insecurity.

Physician heal thyself.

[Alric]

"FDIC deposit insurance increased permanently to $250,000.00 per depositor [from $100,000]."

The government bails the banks out and we pay for it. It's all part of the problem. Why should people be guaranteed that their banking is safe? WHY? It's a business and you aren't forced to use it.

There aren't very many other ways in the economy that a person or family could lose their entire life savings and not have a clue as to why it happened or any forewarning that it was happening. Banks don't give any indication of their health to their depositors.

I suppose the most basic reason is that people wouldn't feel as secure about their money in the banks and then they wouldn't put it there. More money in the banks means more money to lend, which helps businesses expand and create "economic growth".

[austinN4]

"FDIC deposit insurance increased permanently to $250,000.00 per depositor [from $100,000]."

The government bails the banks out and we pay for it. It's all part of the problem. Why should people be guaranteed that their banking is safe? WHY? It's a business and you aren't forced to use it.
The 2 statements above tell me that you are confusing FDIC insurance with TARP.

FDIC insurance protects the depositor via an insurance arrancement that is paid for by the banks which are members of the FDIC system.

TARP is the taxpayer funded bailout which made temporary investments in banks (and others) to shore up their capital ratios and liquidity when the credit markes froze. I believe all, or at least most, of the TARP money has been paid back to the US Treasury, except for the huge investments in AIG, Fannie, Freddie, GM and Chrysler.

The justification for TARP, right or wrong, was the systemic risk to the entire financial system and the US economy, in answer to your WHY question.

[variablebinary]

The FDIC insuring bank accounts and being able to change the management or close the bank if they don't follow their rules led to taking banks out of the market. We don't need government run insurance on anything. It should be up to the consumer to pick a reliable bank and if they don't and the bank fails, bummer, I guess you lose your money. Don't like it then stuff your money under your mattress. Banks should operate like any other business in the market. It is a risk reward system and the government with insuring banks and bailing them out has taken the risk away at the expense of all the taxpayers, not just the ones who did business with bad banks.

This scenario still unfairly benefits the banks position.

If you have a car loan and lose your job, the bank takes your car

If the bank closes up shop they take your savings, you are screwed. You can't do anything about it. Go to court? Good luck with that.

In my mind I should be allowed to go to the board of directors house, but a Glock in their mouth and have them pay me my savings back.

If I can't do that FDIC is a good idea.

[austinN4]

Of the 63 trading days in the three-month period ending in March, Goldman Sachs generated revenue of at least $25 million on every single day, according to its latest quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Yep, GS had a great quarter. You shoulda owned stock in GS. What is your point? I pointed out to you that it is entirely possible to make money by being a broker only and not take risk.

I also said taking a risk position is where the losses are. It is also where the gains are.

[rickrock305]

Uhm no. Derivatives existed long before GLB which became law in 1999.

Brooksley Born was sounding alarm bells well before GLB ever came into existence.


Sure, but the GLB Act effectively repealed the long-standing prohibitions on the mixing of banking with securities or insurance businesses. Glass Steagall barred national banks and state-chartered, Federal Reserve member banks from investing in shares of stocks, limited them to buying and selling securities as agent, and prohibited all banks from underwriting and dealing in most securities. It was this underwriting and dealing in securities that brought down the banks.

Yes, there were loopholes before the GLB Act, but GLB removed the reins. And in fact it were these loopholes that allowed the Citicorp and Travelers to merge, which ultimately led to the repeal of Glass Steagall. Again, a great example of our government beholden to corporate financial interests at the expense of the people.

[rickrock305]

Yep, GS had a great quarter. You shoulda owned stock in GS. What is your point?


The point is that this is next to impossible without inside knowledge and gaming the system. Maybe you aren't aware of the recent SEC case against GS for fraud? Thats just the tip of the iceberg. Do you think its a coincidence that there are so many ex-GS employees employed by the government and the Fed?

[Skyyr]

The justification for TARP, right or wrong, was the systemic risk to the entire financial system and the US economy, in answer to your WHY question.

I was asking for the hard, deductive logic, not the reactive answer.

Bluntly, TARP exists so that we can all share the burden of a few instead of a few bearing THEIR burden completely themselves (because responsibility is too harsh, right?). That's SOCIALISM, plain and simple. Oh sure, it's covered in icing and looks harmless, but it's a form of socialism nonetheless. And it's a slippery slope; a few extra dollars here, a few there, and few more here and... capitalism is gone.

I'll be honest: I don't care about X number of unknown people that lose their houses, their lives, etc. Except for a TINY, TINY fraction of a percent of exceptions, most of those people made bad choices and they have to live with them. I'll continue to make fiscally conservative choices and save my money. I own a house, I have a seemingly enormous student loan to pay off, I have a wife AND a new-born... and I make less than 40k a year. I also pay nearly 20% in taxes (you do the math). Until recently, I also would give 10% of my income to those in need (I had to lower it to 7% in lieu of higher tax burdens this year). I'm not saying this to brag, I'm saying WAKE UP. I've diversified, I have assets, and If I can do it, ANYONE can do it.

I'll take care of myself and I'll do my best to help out those I know. Screw everyone else - I'm don't believe in allowing my life to be affected because some single-parent "breh" from da hood couldn't keep up with his mortgage payment or because some Mexican with ten anchor babies put every last penny of his money into a shady bank that capitalized on serving illegal immigrants. It's not responsible, it's not moral, and it's stupid.

[rickrock305]

You can keep repeating your point without addressing mine all you like but it doesn't make what you are saying true. It is not a question of regulation, there should be NO regulation. Regulation is every bit as much of an intrusion on the market as is bailing out the banks. You're ideas on how the market should work are so contradictory that I don't know how you can believe all these things at once.

Either government intervention is allowed (regulation/bailouts) or it isn't (no regulation and failures result from bad business practices). We've seen how well the government answer works, its time to try door number two.


Its not all or nothing. There is gray area here. For example, Glass Steagall worked perfectly fine for quite some time by keeping banks separate from investment houses and insurance. Once those things are combined, the potential for insolvency is much greater. Some regulation is needed, otherwise you have monopolies, fraud, etc.

[rickrock305]

And yet you blame the Republicans far more, including GLB which was signed by a Democratic president.



merely two posts up from yours...


Who said deregulation was solely a Republican or Democrat act?

Deregulation was not a party specific thing, both parties were equally complicit. After all, it was Clinton who signed the thing into law.

are you reading my posts, or simply trolling for an argument?

[rickrock305]

I'm don't believe in allowing my life to be affected because some single-parent "breh" from da hood couldn't keep up with his mortgage payment or because some Mexican with ten anchor babies put every last penny of his money into one bank without diversifying. It's not responsible, it's not moral, and it's stupid.


Yea, of course it was all blacks and mexicans in foreclosure right? No white people at all...

wow :rolleyes:

[Gutshot John]

Sure, but the GLB Act effectively repealed the long-standing prohibitions on the mixing of banking with securities or insurance businesses. Glass Steagall barred national banks and state-chartered, Federal Reserve member banks from investing in shares of stocks, limited them to buying and selling securities as agent, and prohibited all banks from underwriting and dealing in most securities. It was this underwriting and dealing in securities that brought down the banks.

Yes, there were loopholes before the GLB Act, but GLB removed the reins. And in fact it were these loopholes that allowed the Citicorp and Travelers to merge, which ultimately led to the repeal of Glass Steagall. Again, a great example of our government beholden to corporate financial interests at the expense of the people.

You're dancing around the issue.

GLB did a lot of things, many of them good. We've subsequently learned that some were bad not in and of themselves but through unintended consequences allowed firms to game the system. This is true for EVERY law ever passed in Congress.

Derivatives however weren't the only cause of the financial collapse. Cheap loans by Fannie/Freddie to people who lacked the means to pay them back was another huge issue. The latter however was a deliberate attempt to buy votes by Democrats. Cheap money in the form of low interest rates were another problem orchestrated by the Democrats.

Some regulation is good, much of what GLB did was get rid of archaic regulations that were no longer relevant but it didn't eliminate all or even most regulation. The notion that republicans intend or even can deregulate the financial service industry is a cynical lie.

[Belmont31R]

Its not all or nothing. There is gray area here. For example, Glass Steagall worked perfectly fine for quite some time by keeping banks separate from investment houses and insurance. Once those things are combined, the potential for insolvency is much greater. Some regulation is needed, otherwise you have monopolies, fraud, etc.



That should be their decision to make not the governments.

[austinN4]

If the bank closes up shop they take your savings, you are screwed. You can't do anything about it. Go to court? Good luck with that.
Please stop with this misinformation. The bank-paid FDIC insurance protects depositors up to $250,000. And depending on your family situation you can get a lot more coverage than that. So unless you leave more than $250,000 on deposit with any one FDIC-insured institution you are not going to lose your savings account.

And if you do have more than that on deposit with any one bank you better make it your business to determine the banks financial health. And there are ways to do it contrary to what one other poster said.

To all discussing the "GLB", at least try to get the name right - it is the Graham, Leach, Riley Act

[Gutshot John]

To all discussing the "GLB", at least try to get the name right - it is the Graham, Leach, Riley Act

incorrect, its Bliley. Ive met him.

[variablebinary]

Please stop with this misinformation. The bank-paid FDIC insurance protects depositors up to $250,000. And depending on your family situation you can get a lot more coverage than that. So unless you leave more than $250,000 on deposit with any one FDIC-insured institution you are not going to lose your savings account.


No shit. I responding to what would happen if the FDIC were abolished.

Did you bother reading the whole post

[Skyyr]

Yea, of course it was all blacks and mexicans in foreclosure right? No white people at all...

wow :rolleyes:

And there's your straw-man argument; that's what gives you away as a biased, agenda-oriented poster and someone not interested in the truth.

Now did I say whites weren't to blame? Nope. But here's a fact: the average black and hispanic/latino have POOR credit scores and default on their loans and credit cards on a MUCH higher basis than your typical caucasian American. Want to disown that FACT?

Insurance companies have found that there is a direct correlation between credit score and risk liability and they commonly use credit score as a way of "tiering" insureds. A civil liberties group in Texas found out and claimed it was "discrimination" against ethnic minorities, even though every piece of data proved that this "discrimination" was valid and actually saved policy holders money.

My use of examples was appropriate; maybe not sensitive, but I don't care about offending people. But hey, drink your Kool-aid. Drink enough of something for a long enough time and soon everything else looks like it would be a nice change.

[austinN4]

incorrect, its Bliley. Ive met him.
You are correct, and I stand corrected.

[rickrock305]

You're dancing around the issue.

GLB did a lot of things, many of them good. We've subsequently learned that some were bad not in and of themselves but through unintended consequences allowed firms to game the system. This is true for EVERY law ever passed in Congress.

No, those WERE the intended consequences (allowing firms to game the system). The lobbying by Citigroup directly led to the passage of the GLB. One week before the Citibank-Travelers deal was announced, Congress had shelved its latest effort to repeal Glass-Steagall. In the 1997-98 election cycle, the finance, insurance, and real estate industries spends more than $200 million on lobbying and makes more than $150 million in political donations. Campaign contributions are targeted to members of Congressional banking committees and other committees with direct jurisdiction over financial services legislation.



Derivatives however weren't the only cause of the financial collapse. Cheap loans by Fannie/Freddie to people who lacked the means to pay them back was another huge issue. The latter however was a deliberate attempt to buy votes by Democrats. Cheap money in the form of low interest rates were another problem orchestrated by the Democrats.

Sure, and I mentioned that a few posts back. The greed on behalf of banks making loans to people they knew couldn't pay them back.

I know you're referring to the CRA. Only problem with that is, the CRA wasn't the problem at all. CRA loans actually had historically low levels of default. CRA loans didn’t default at higher rates than other mortgages. CRA banks didn't fail more than other financial institutions, CRA areas aren’t hotspots of defaults. Studies have suggested that only 6 percent of subprime loans were extended by CRA-regulated lenders to either lower-income borrowers or neighborhoods in the lenders' CRA assessment areas. 80% of subprime loans were from lenders with no regular government supervision; 50% with none at all.

Another narrative that is necessary is that the CRA had to be gaining, or holding steady, in regulatory power under the Bush administration. Especially during 2004-2006. I’ve been really fascinated lately with just how terrible the OTS was in its regulatory responsibility, and am writing this mostly as a way to document the following. Instead of decades old pamphlets or old stockholder speeches, let’s look at Federal Register/Vol. 70, No. 40/Wednesday, March 2, 2005/Rules and Regulations:

DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY
Office of Thrift Supervision
12 CFR Part 563e

ACTION: Final rule.
SUMMARY: In this final rule, OTS is making changes to its Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) regulations to reduce burden, provide greater flexibility to meet community needs, and restore the focus of CRA to lending.
Specifically, OTS is providing additional flexibility to each savings association evaluated under the large retail institution test to determine the combination of lending, investment, and service it will use to meet the credit needs of the local communities in which it is chartered, consistent with safe and sound operations.


Sounds like in the middle of the subprime mortgage market the OTS cut the balls off the CRA when it came to big lender institutions in the name of “additional flexibility.” However this might be lawyer trickery in the language. Let’s look at how the lobbyists lined up in this action – continuing:

IV. The Comments
A. Overview
OTS received approximately 4,200 comments. The vast majority (about 4,000) came from consumer and community organizations and representatives (Consumer Comments). These included community development advocates, Community Development Corporations, Community Development Financial Institutions, housing authorities, consumer protection and civil rights organizations, faith-based organizations, and educators…These comments opposed the proposal…

In contrast, OTS received a couple of hundred comments from financial institutions and industry trade associations (Financial Institution Comments). Almost all of these supported the proposal, including the portion on assigned ratings…OTS considers the level of support significant.

So the OTS finished doing an overhaul of CRA in 2005 that community organizers protested and large banks applauded. This overhaul had probably been de facto law since Bush showed up, and in 2005 there was the talk of “The Permanent Republican Majority” so it would have likely stayed. That doesn’t sound like the CRA was something to fear during the Bush years – OTS was the best site for regulatory capture (that’s why AIGFP chose it as their regulator), and they were definitely in the business of making banks CRA free.

http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/cra-again/

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/06/cra-thought-experiment/

[rickrock305]

That should be their decision to make not the governments.


Thats exactly what GLB allowed them to do, and it led us into the situation we find ourselves in now. Didn't work out too well did it?

[Gutshot John]

You don't have a clue what you're talking about.

Citibank was one of many, many banks, including small banks, consumer banks and other national banks of various sizes and holdings that lobbied for GLB.

The rest of your argument is as flawed as your understanding.

Once again go back and take a basic economics class and you might have something to offer.

[Skyyr]

Thats exactly what GLB allowed them to do, and it led us into the situation we find ourselves in now. Didn't work out too well did it?

How frequently can you contradict yourself? Congress didn't let the financial collapse happen and INTERVENED. Get something right for once. If they had let it collapse, completely uninhibited and we were STILL in the situation we are today, then your argument would be valid. They intervened, so any theory you might come up with is simply guesswork.

[rickrock305]

You don't have a clue what you're talking about.

Citibank was one of many, many banks, including small banks, consumer banks and other national banks of various sizes and holdings that lobbied for GLB.


So, I don't have a clue what I'm talking about, yet I'm right about Citigroup? You're contradicting yourself in the space of a couple sentences.



The rest of your argument is as flawed as you're understanding.

As flawed as your command of the english language?



Once again go back and take a basic economics class and you might have something to offer.


I've offered plenty right here. None of which you have been able to refute. All you have done is talk down and attempt to insult me instead of refute my points and information. Thats ok with me, it only shows your own insecurities and inability to refute my points.

[Skyyr]

As flawed as your command of the English language?


Those in glass houses should not throw stones...



I've offered plenty right here, none of which you have been able to refute. All you have done is talk down and attempt to insult me instead of refute my points and information. Thats ok with me, it only shows your own insecurities and inability [incorrect pairing of direct objects - both should either be singular or plural] to refute my points [You used the phrase "refute my points" twice and the word "refute" three times. While not absolutely incorrect, this is generally considered redundancy and on par with low grade-level writing].

Corrections and comments in red.

[austinN4]

No shit. I responding to what would happen if the FDIC were abolished.
I didn't get that from your post, but I'll go with it if you say so.

[rickrock305]

How frequently can you contradict yourself? Congress didn't let the financial collapse happen and INTERVENED. Get something right for once. If they had let it collapse, completely uninhibited and we were STILL in the situation we are today, then your argument would be valid. They intervened, so any theory you might come up with is simply guesswork.


Instead of playing "gotcha", why don't you go back and follow my posts. Read closely. I have not contradicted myself at all. Congress passed an act that repealed Glass Steagall. This act, the GLB Act, directly led to the deregulation of financial institutions and led to the subprime collapse. Congress then intervened on behalf of the banks to issue them bailouts. This amounted to kicking the can down the road. Either way, we were going to be headed for recession. If they had let the banks collapse as they should have, we would still have experienced a painful recession, more painful than the recession we are currently experiencing but it would have been over quicker without the additional public debt the bailouts added and our economy would have been much stronger in the end. Instead our government decided to bailout the banks, which amounted to an infusion of capital and free money that disguised the underlying fundamentals of the economy. Now the bailout money is running dry and the economy is still in need of contraction, which is where we are today.

Thats the brief synopsis for you. This is not guesswork. This is basic economics.

[Gutshot John]

So, I don't have a clue what I'm talking about, yet I'm right about Citigroup? You're contradicting yourself in the space of a couple sentences.

Don't be obtuse. Yes Citibank lobbied but the clear implication of your claim was that citibank was responsible. ALL financial services including realtors, insurance companies and banks lobbied for GLB. If it were only citibank it would have gone nowhere.


As flawed as your command of the english language?

As flawed as your disingenuous reasoning.


I've offered plenty right here. None of which you have been able to refute. All you have done is talk down and attempt to insult me instead of refute my points and information. Thats ok with me, it only shows your own insecurities and inability to refute my points.

You've offered nothing but inanities, half-truths and deeply flawed understanding of both the legislative process and economic reality. What's there to refute?

[rickrock305]

Those in glass houses should not throw stones...



Corrections and comments in red.



Oooooo, gotcha! :rolleyes:

[RancidSumo]

FDIC is bad because it is a government run program that can shut down banks or change their management if they don't follow their rules. A bank is a risk so if you put your money in it you should stand a chance of losing it. Its crap to think that you should have a surefire way to make money without doing any work and not have ANY risk whatsoever.

Banks are allowed to operate in the semi-secretive ways they do because nobody actually needs to watch them as it is because there is no risk (although it is entirely possible to monitor the health of banks as is).

If it was an entirely private insurance that you could choose to purchase or not for your bank account, well thats a different story and is completely acceptable. Thats an industry that hasn't emerged though due to the government already covering it.

Would people bitch this much about it being unfair if they lost all their savings privately investing? No because the risk is made apparent there. Why is that? Its essentially the same risk.

As to "grey areas", there are no grey areas in moral issues. You may not view the market as a moral issue but it is because ANY intervention is a destruction of a fundamental right, that of property.

[rickrock305]

Don't be obtuse. Yes Citibank lobbied but the clear implication of your claim was that citibank was responsible.

I did not say nor imply that Citibank alone was responsible. But their contributions were a very big part of getting it passed.


On Oct. 21, with the House-Senate conference committee deadlocked after marathon negotiations, the main sticking point is partisan bickering over the bill's effect on the Community Reinvestment Act, which sets rules for lending to poor communities. Sandy Weill calls President Clinton in the evening to try to break the deadlock after Senator Phil Gramm, chairman of the Banking Committee, warned Citigroup lobbyist Roger Levy that Weill has to get White House moving on the bill or he would shut down the House-Senate conference. Serious negotiations resume, and a deal is announced at 2:45 a.m. on Oct. 22. Whether Weill made any difference in precipitating a deal is unclear.

On Oct. 22, Weill and John Reed issue a statement congratulating Congress and President Clinton, including 19 administration officials and lawmakers by name. The House and Senate approve a final version of the bill on Nov. 4, and Clinton signs it into law later that month.

Just days after the administration (including the Treasury Department) agrees to support the repeal, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, the former co-chairman of a major Wall Street investment bank, Goldman Sachs, raises eyebrows by accepting a top job at Citigroup as Weill's chief lieutenant. The previous year, Weill had called Secretary Rubin to give him advance notice of the upcoming merger announcement. When Weill told Rubin he had some important news, the secretary reportedly quipped, "You're buying the government?"


Top Citigroup officials were allowed to review and approve drafts of the legislation before it was formally introduced. After resigning as Treasury Secretary and while secretly in negotiations to head Citigroup, Robert Rubin helped broker the final deal to pass the bill.

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/4647166/Sold-Out---How-Wall-Street-and-Washington-Betrayed-America



ALL financial services including realtors, insurance companies and banks lobbied for GLB. If it were only citibank it would have gone nowhere.

Do you not read my posts, or is it a comprehension problem?

right here, in the same post you reference above...


In the 1997-98 election cycle, the finance, insurance, and real estate industries spends more than $200 million on lobbying and makes more than $150 million in political donations. Campaign contributions are targeted to members of Congressional banking committees and other committees with direct jurisdiction over financial services legislation.








You've offered nothing but inanities, half-truths and deeply flawed understanding of both the legislative process and economic reality. What's there to refute?


Oh boy, more personal attacks. :cray::lazy:

[Skyyr]

Instead of playing "gotcha", why don't you go back and follow my posts. Read closely. I have not contradicted myself at all. Congress passed an act that repealed Glass Steagall. This act, the GLB Act, directly led to the deregulation of financial institutions and led to the subprime collapse. Congress then intervened on behalf of the banks to issue them bailouts. This amounted to kicking the can down the road.

You're still not getting it. The government intervened before a collapse could happen, so any trouble that arose or mushroomed cannot be attributed to decisions BEFORE the bail out. It's called critical thinking and you'd be removed from any competitive debate or speech event if you tried to base your argument on the above.

Now, you could argue the GLB act was bad, but that's all you can do; you cannot attribute our economy to it because it was never allowed to play out. Sure, the economy MIGHT have collapsed, but other entities would arise to take it's place. Sure it's conjecture, but it's conjecture just as much as your scenario which is why you can't use either as "proof" of your claims.

The only thing we know is that Obama and the incumbent Democrats have done NOTHING but made the mess worse since coming into power. Sure GWB might be to blame, but we'll never know to what extent due to the moron we have in office right now.

[RancidSumo]

Oh boy, more personal attacks. :cray::lazy:


Honestly, I have not been following your ongoing back and forth with Gutshot John but I can comment on this. Saying you use flawed logic and don't understand the issues at hand is not a personal attack, it is addressing your failure to adequately argue your points and is a perfectly legitimate thing to say in a debate.

[rickrock305]

FDIC is bad because it is a government run program that can shut down banks or change their management if they don't follow their rules. A bank is a risk so if you put your money in it you should stand a chance of losing it. Its crap to think that you should have a surefire way to make money without doing any work and not have ANY risk whatsoever.

Banks are allowed to operate in the semi-secretive ways they do because nobody actually needs to watch them as it is because there is no risk (although it is entirely possible to monitor the health of banks as is).

If it was an entirely private insurance that you could choose to purchase or not for your bank account, well thats a different story and is completely acceptable. Thats an industry that hasn't emerged though due to the government already covering it.

Thats exactly what the Glass Steagall Act prevented, risk in commercial banking institutions, by separating commercial banking and investing institutions. The repeal of the Glass Steagall Act led to banks taking on much more risk by delving into insurance and investments. You sort of just proved my point, thank you.

I don't make money from my bank. In fact I lose money paying them fees and all the nickel and dime games they play.




Would people bitch this much about it being unfair if they lost all their savings privately investing? No because the risk is made apparent there. Why is that? Its essentially the same risk.

No, its not the same risk. At least historically it has not been. With the repeal of Glass Steagall, it became the same risk because commercial banks were then permitted to go all in with investment and insurance operations as well.



As to "grey areas", there are no grey areas in moral issues. You may not view the market as a moral issue but it is because ANY intervention is a destruction of a fundamental right, that of property.

Sure, there are plenty of grey areas in moral issues. For example, your morals may be completely different than my morals.

How is government regulation a destruction of property?

[austinN4]

Congress passed an act that repealed Glass Steagall. This act, the GLB Act, directly led to the deregulation of financial institutions and led to the subprime collapse.
Fannie and Freddie started securitizing mortgages back in the ealy 80's and MBS were not a product of GLB.

Two of the biggest subprime mortgage originators in the country after 1995 were Countrywide and GMAC Mortgage and they sold many, if not most, of their loans to Fannie and Freddie. None of these 4 companies, I don't believe, benefited from the passage of GLB.

I believe the subprime collapse would have occurred without GLB due to HUD policy. From The Washington Post:

"Since HUD became their regulator in 1992, Fannie and Freddie each year are supposed to buy a portion of 'affordable' mortgages made to underserved borrowers. Every four years, HUD reviews the goals to adapt to market changes.

"In 1995, President Bill Clinton's HUD agreed to let Fannie and Freddie get affordable-housing credit for buying subprime securities that included loans to low-income borrowers. The idea was that subprime lending benefited many borrowers who did not qualify for conventional loans. HUD expected that Freddie and Fannie would impose their high lending standards on subprime lenders."

[RancidSumo]

Thats exactly what the Glass Steagall Act prevented, risk in commercial banking institutions, by separating commercial banking and investing institutions. The repeal of the Glass Steagall Act led to banks taking on much more risk by delving into insurance and investments. You sort of just proved my point, thank you.

Not hardly. I understand what the Glass Steagall Act did, what I am saying is the risk should not be removed. I thought that was pretty clear...


I don't make money from my bank. In fact I lose money paying them fees and all the nickel and dime games they play.

If I was losing money with the bank I wouldn't use one, in fact that seems like a pretty stupid decision on your part.




No, its not the same risk. At least historically it has not been. With the repeal of Glass Steagall, it became the same risk because commercial banks were then permitted to go all in with investment and insurance operations as well.

I don't think you understand what I am saying. It should be the same risk because it is the same thing except when artificially covered up by government nonsense.



Sure, there are plenty of grey areas in moral issues. For example, your morals may be completely different than my morals.

No grey area, one of us has to be wrong if our values contradict each other. We can't both be right.


How is government regulation a destruction of property?

Telling me what I can or cannot do with my property, taking money out of my pocket with the taxes needed to run their intervention, need I go on?

[Skyyr]

Thats exactly what the Glass Steagall Act prevented, risk in commercial banking institutions, by separating commercial banking and investing institutions. The repeal of the Glass Steagall Act led to banks taking on much more risk by delving into insurance and investments. You sort of just proved my point, thank you.


What the freak are you smoking? You admitted the banks FAILED when the Glass Steagall Act was prevented. DUH! That's what they SHOULD have done. Banks wanted to get greedy and, as such, they failed. How dense are you? Banks like that should fail so that are the ones that are left are responsible banks. It's called CAPITALISM. Only the fit survive.

The problem is the government bailed them out... AGAIN, so you're left with an ungodly amount of sickly, un-optimized banks that all compete with each other in a market that was designed so that the weak, mismanaged companies would fall to the better-managed ones.

Banking is a RISK (or should I say, "was"). Just because you're stupid enough to put your life savings in a bank does not mean you're entitled to have it protected. That's leftist, progressive thinking.

So what is your point? You want all the banks to be regulated so everyone can bank with a warm, fuzzy feeling in their stomach when they hand in their paycheck? You really do need to go re-read your history books, and maybe attend school again, if you actually went through it and came to these conclusions.

[rickrock305]

You're still not getting it. The government intervened before a collapse could happen, so any trouble that arose or mushroomed cannot be attributed to decisions BEFORE the bail out.

HUH? I'm not sure I understand your assertion here. The collapse WAS happening when the government intervened with bailouts. Yes, decisions made before the bailout directly led to the reasons used to justify the bailout.



Now, you could argue the GLB act was bad, but that's all you can do; you cannot attribute our economy to it because it was never allowed to play out. Sure, the economy MIGHT have collapsed, but other entities would arise to take it's place. Sure it's conjecture, but it's conjecture just as much as your scenario which is why you can't use either as "proof" of your claims.

Your understanding of what I'm saying seems to be a bit...off, to put it nicely.

Yes, the GLB Act did play out. It was passed in 1999, it had plenty of time to play out and did exactly that. Banking institutions expanded into investments and insurance, increased their risk of insolvency, and when the subprime crap came home to roost it was so spread out among them that it caused the failure of many institutions.



The only thing we know is that Obama and the incumbent Democrats have done NOTHING but made the mess worse since coming into power. Sure GWB might be to blame, but we'll never know to what extent due to the moron we have in office right now.


Is that really what you get from my posts, that I'm saying GWB is to blame? :rolleyes:

Thats not my point at all. Not at all what I'm saying.

[rickrock305]

I believe the subprime collapse would have occurred without GLB due to HUD policy. From The Washington Post:




Yes, it would have. But it would not have been nearly as bad due to the separation of banks, investment houses, and insurance that Glass Steagall provided. The GLB Act simply made the problem much larger than it would have been.

[Skyyr]

Ok, now I finally know who we're talking with here.



I don't make money from my bank. In fact I lose money paying them fees and all the nickel and dime games they play.


So you can't even manage your own finances. It finally makes sense why you think government intervention is needed. You can't even bank without losing money. Your weighted input on banking just went from minimal to zero.

By the way, year to date, I've payed: $0.00 in banking fees, aside from $168 I used to transfer a balance while I was buying a house, waiting for my tax return. I've EARNED $25x so far from rewards points (and I've still got 4 months to go). That leaves me with earning $90-some-odd before interest payed on my accounts. Anyone with half a brain can MAKE money from their bank. Then again...

[RancidSumo]

Ok, now I finally know who we're talking with here.



So you can't even manage your own finances. It finally makes sense why you think government intervention is needed. You can't even bank without losing money. Your weighted input on banking just went from minimal to zero.

By the way, year to date, I've payed: $0.00 in banking fees, aside from $168 I used to transfer a balance while I was buying a house, waiting for my tax return. I've EARNED $25x so far from rewards points (and I've still got 4 months to go). That leaves me with earning $90-some-odd before interest payed on my accounts. Anyone with half a brain can MAKE money from their bank. Then again...


I was thinking the same thing :D. Expect the whining about personal attacks to begin....now

[rickrock305]

What the freak are you smoking? You admitted the banks FAILED when the Glass Steagall Act was prevented. DUH! That's what they SHOULD have done. Banks wanted to get greedy and, as such, they failed. How dense are you? Banks like that should fail so that are the ones that are left are responsible banks. It's called CAPITALISM. Only the fit survive.

Dude, slow down a little bit and try to understand my argument instead of trying to play gotcha, ok?

Yes, banks that made these bad loans and used shady lending practices should have failed and been allowed to fail. I've said this over and over again, where you been?

BUT the repeal of Glass Steagall allowed these banks to become so large that their failure represented a systemic risk to our economy. And thats what was used to justify bailing them out.



The problem is the government bailed them out... AGAIN, so you're left with an ungodly amount of sickly, un-optimized banks that all compete with each other in a market that was designed so that the weak, mismanaged companies would fall to the better-managed ones.


I agree with you, this is a problem. But its the result of the repeal of Glass Steagall, which led to the banks becoming so large that anyone could even justify a bailout. I don't know how many different ways I can explain this to you.

[QUOTE=Skyyr;730752]
Banking is a RISK (or should I say, "was"). Just because you're stupid enough to put your life savings in a bank does not mean you're entitled to have it protected. That's leftist, progressive thinking.

So what is your point? You want all the banks to be regulated so everyone can bank with a warm, fuzzy feeling in their stomach when they hand in their paycheck? You really do need to go re-read your history books, and maybe attend school again, if you actually went through it and came to these conclusions.

Right, banking is a risk. Glass Steagall mitigated that risk by ensuring banks remained banks and did not increase their risk of insolvency by delving into insurance and securities. With the repeal of Glass Steagall, banks were allowed to take on much more risk.

If you haven't understood my point by now, I don't know what to tell you. I've explained it in a variety of different ways.

[rickrock305]

Ok, now I finally know who we're talking with here.



So you can't even manage your own finances. It finally makes sense why you think government intervention is needed. You can't even bank without losing money. Your weighted input on banking just went from minimal to zero.

By the way, year to date, I've payed: $0.00 in banking fees, aside from $168 I used to transfer a balance while I was buying a house, waiting for my tax return. I've EARNED $25x so far from rewards points (and I've still got 4 months to go). That leaves me with earning $90-some-odd before interest payed on my accounts. Anyone with half a brain can MAKE money from their bank. Then again...


To say I can't manage my finances is simply wrong. You're speaking on something you know absolutely NOTHING about.

I don't keep enough money in my bank acct to make money from a savings account, that all goes to my brokerage acct. And my checking acct doesn't earn interest. I don't use my bank to make money, I use it to pay bills and cash checks. And because I don't have direct deposit or a certain acct minimum, I get charged a fee. Any extra money is put into my brokerage acct with a separate institution, where I DO make money. Enough to offset that fee charged by not keeping it in my bank. Get it? Again, its obvious you're far more interested in playing gotcha games than actually discussing anything. Reminds me of my 6 year old.

[Skyyr]

Get it?

Yeah. I get that I'm making money with one bank, while you're losing it and using another bank's profits to pay the losses of the other. Sounds familiar...

[austinN4]

You admitted the banks FAILED when the Glass Steagall Act was prevented. DUH! That's what they SHOULD have done.
GS did not prevent banks from failing. During the ag/oil/re problems of the late 80's to early 90's many banks failed. If fact many more failed then than are failing now.

One could look at the number of bank failures then and now and claim that there have been far fewer bank failures under GLB and be numerically correct. But, of course, this doesn't tell the whole story.

From 1986 through 1992, there were 2,287 bank and thrift failures, which averaged a little over 1 per business day during that 7-year period.

During the peak years of 1988 through 1990, there were 1,379 bank and thrift failures, which averaged nearly 2 per business day during that 3-year period.

Bank failures:

2000 = 7
2001 = 4
2002 = 11
2003 = 3
2004 = 4
2005 = 0
2006 = 0
2007 = 3
2008 = 25
2009 = 140
2010 = 108 as of 7-30-10

[austinN4]

The GLB Act simply made the problem much larger than it would have been.
Your opinion, but we will never know that for sure.

[rickrock305]

GS did not prevent banks from failing. During the ag/oil/re problems of the late 80's to early 90's many banks failed. If fact many more failed then than are failing now.

One could look at the number of bank failures then and now and claim that there have been far fewer bank failures under GLB and be numerically correct. But, of course, this doesn't tell the whole story.

From 1986 through 1992, there were 2,287 bank and thrift failures, which averaged a little over 1 per business day during that 7-year period.

During the peak years of 1988 through 1990, there were 1,379 bank and thrift failures, which averaged nearly 2 per business day during that 3-year period.

Bank failures:

2000 = 7
2001 = 4
2002 = 11
2003 = 3
2004 = 4
2005 = 0
2006 = 0
2007 = 3
2008 = 25
2009 = 140
2010 = 108 as of 7-30-10



Right, and while I'm assuming that is factually accurate, those banks that were failing then did not have their risk spread out through the entire financial system. Thats what Glass Steagall prevented.

[rickrock305]

Your opinion, but we will never know that for sure.



We do know that. We've seen the effects. I've spent the last few pages explaining how. Many economists will agree.

[Gutshot John]

We do know that. We've seen the effects.

You've seen the effects of a lot of things, GLB wasn't even a minor cause of most of those. The conditions that created the "effects" we've seen predate GLB by decades.

You simply don't know what you're talking about. Your understanding is simplistic and your reasoning insipid.

[montanadave]

It appears we are, and ever shall be, ****ed based on two universal (but, sadly, mutually exclusive) truths:

1. Nobody wants to pay taxes.

2. Nobody is willing to sacrifice their slice of the pie (i.e. whichever government program or service which happens to benefit them).

But, given the tone and tenor of the preceding discourse, I'm confident that a fair and equitable solution acceptable to all is within our grasp. :sarcastic:

[austinN4]

Right, and while I'm assuming that is factually accurate, those banks that were failing then did not have their risk spread out through the entire financial system. Thats what Glass Steagall prevented.
Sorry to disappoint you, but TOO BIG TO FAIL was an issue then also. In fact, many more large institutions bit the dust this time (failed or forced merger) then did in the 1986-1992 period.

Commercial Banks and Thrifts
• Countrywide Bank $116 billion – nearly failed, sold to Bank of America
• IndyMac Bank $30 billion – failed, bridge bank operated by FDIC
• Washington Mutual Bank $350 billion – failed, deposits sold to Chase
• Sovereign Bank $80 billion – nearly failed, sold to Banco Santandar
• National City $151 billion – nearly failed, sold to PNC
• Wachovia Bank $780 billion – nearly failed, sold to Wells Fargo
• Franklin Bank $6 billion – failed, deposits sold to Prosperity Bank
• Colonial Bank (2009) $25 Billion – failed, sold to BB&T
• Guaranty Bank (2009) $13 Billion – failed, sold to BBVA Compass

Investment Banks
• Bear Stearns – nearly failed, sold to JP Morgan Chase
• Merrill Lynch – nearly failed, sold to Bank of America
• Lehman Brothers – Chapter 11, sold to Barclay’s and Nomura

[rickrock305]

a group of economists, including Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, slammed Gramm for having a “mentality that doesn’t understand the nature of systemic risks in financial systems,” and said that his bill helped create the current financial turmoil:

Economic experts say that Gramm and others are to blame for the current crisis that is shaking Wall Street.

Gramm’s successful effort to pass banking reform laws in 1999, which reduced decades-old regulations separating banking, insurance and brokerage activities, helped to create the current economic crisis.

“As a result, the culture of investment banks was conveyed to commercial banks and everyone got involved in the high-risk gambling mentality. That mentality was core to the problem that we’re facing now,” Stiglitz says.

Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of the Economic Cycle Research Institute, said that “we were setting up this bonfire years ago — the deregulation, the inordinate amount of liquidity given to the system all set the stage for the bubble and the bust.”

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2008/09/20/economists-blame-gramm/

[rickrock305]

You simply don't know what you're talking about. Your understanding is simplistic and your reasoning insipid.


And you have failed to show or prove one example. :lazy2:

[austinN4]

a group of economists, including Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, slammed Gramm for having a “mentality that doesn’t understand the nature of systemic risks in financial systems,” and said that his bill helped create the current financial turmoil
Al Gore is a Nobel Prize winner also. So is our king.

[Gutshot John]

a group of economists, including Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz,

This reveals further misunderstanding...there is no monolithic bloc of economists.

You've chosen ONE left-leaning economist out of hundreds that have WON the nobel prize to cherry pick your conclusions.

Sorry but it doesn't work that way.

You're simply quoting things you don't really understand...hence a basic econ class might help you out a bit.

[Gutshot John]

And you have failed to show or prove one example. :lazy2:

Your lack any basic understanding of what you talk so there is nothing I could disprove since you're talking about proving a negative.

Nice try but the burden of proof is on you.

[rickrock305]

This reveals further misunderstanding...there is no monolithic bloc of economists.

You've chosen ONE left-leaning economist out of hundreds that have one the nobel prize to cherry pick your conclusions.

Sorry but it doesn't work that way.

You're simply quoting things you don't really understand...hence a basic econ class might help you out a bit.


Actually, there were two in my post. You chose to cherry pick one. There are many more, I'm not going to quote every single one.

And I'm supposed to think a guy who uses "one" in place of "won" is the pinnacle of intelligence here? :no:

[rickrock305]

Your lack any basic understanding of what you talk so there is nothing I could disprove since you're talking about proving a negative.

Nice try but the burden of proof is on you.


I've provided plenty of proof. You've ignored it all. You have yet to refute one point I've made.

Nice try, but :no:

[Gutshot John]

Actually, there were two in my post. You chose to cherry pick one. There are many more, I'm not going to quote every single one.

There are many others that totally disagree with Stiglitz. Duh, that's what I'm talking about.


And I'm supposed to think a guy who uses "one" in place of "won" is the pinnacle of intelligence here? :no:

Ooooh gotcha, it's called a typo, they happen and even I didn't call attention to yours but if an ad hominem (funny how you use them but then get all whiny when you're called out) is the best you can do see your earlier posts if you're going to become a nitpicker about language, they are fare more grammatically flawed.

Despite this you remain uninformed.

[rickrock305]

There are many others that totally disagree with Stiglitz. Duh, that's what I'm talking about.

Of course. There are also many who swear we are in a recovery. :jester:



Ooooh gotcha, it's called a typo, they happen and even I didn't call attention to yours but if an ad hominem (funny how you use them but then get all whiny when you're called out) is the best you can do see your earlier posts if you're going to become a nitpicker about language, they are fare more grammatically flawed.

Despite this you remain uninformed.

oh, the irony.

[Gutshot John]

Of course. There are also many who swear we are in a recovery. :jester:

Funny how they all seem to work for your boy in the WH.

[/quote]oh, the irony.[/quote]

You're not being ironic, only a hypocrite.

[rickrock305]

My boy? :no:

You won't catch me defending him, especially on the economy.

Hypocrite? Pot, meet kettle.

I think I've had about enough of your childishness.

[Gutshot John]

my boy? :no:

you won't catch me defending him, especially on the economy.

Yet you adopt his rhetoric hook, line and sinker.

At least have the courage of your convictions.

[RancidSumo]

This is going nowhere. We all agree that GLB created more risk. Where we differ is in whether or not that is a bad thing.

[rickrock305]

Yet you adopt his rhetoric hook, line and sinker.

At least have the courage of your convictions.


Actually, I don't. There are numerous occurrences in this thread that I've criticized his economic policies.

[Gutshot John]

Actually, I don't. There are numerous occurrences in this thread that I've criticized his economic policies.

I have plenty of criticism for Republicans as well but the notion that GLB caused all the problems today is a partisan red herring that you've swallowed it whole.

You can't regulate away risk, bad things will always happen. Deal with it.

I thought you were done?

[rickrock305]

I have plenty of criticism for Republicans as well but the notion that GLB caused all the problems today is a partisan red herring that you've swallowed it whole.

You can't regulate away risk, bad things will always happen. Deal with it.
\


I never said GLB cause all the problems. Sorry, you have comprehension problems.

And of course you can't regulate away risk. But it can be mitigated.

[Skyyr]

And of course you can't regulate away risk. But it can be mitigated...

...through regulations. Now look who's playing the semantics game.

[Gutshot John]

I never said GLB cause all the problems. Sorry, you have comprehension problems.

Man you dance and evade and can't even stick to one argument. When called on it you simply claim you didn't say something, when in fact it was pretty clear.

I'm sorry but there is no qualitative difference between saying "ALL the problems" and "it was THE problem."

The following are your words.


Sure, but the GLB Act effectively repealed the long-standing prohibitions on the mixing of banking with securities or insurance businesses. Glass Steagall barred national banks and state-chartered, Federal Reserve member banks from investing in shares of stocks, limited them to buying and selling securities as agent, and prohibited all banks from underwriting and dealing in most securities. It was this underwriting and dealing in securities that brought down the banks.


those WERE the intended consequences (allowing firms to game the system).

You have a writing comprehension problem.

[Gutshot John]

And of course you can't regulate away risk. But it can be mitigated.

Abject nonsense and disingenuous as Skyyr pointed out.

That "new economy" bullshit was discredited before Bush even took office.

You can TRY to mitigate risk, but government regulation does a far less efficient job of this than allowing market forces to work. This is called "moral hazard" and regulation can only mitigate the impacts, not the cause.

[rickrock305]

...through regulations. Now look who's playing the semantics game.


Tell me you're joking. Really... :rolleyes:

Stop playing little kid games.

I said you can't regulate away risk, meaning regulate it away entirely. But you can mitigate some of it, yes through regulation.

[Gutshot John]

I said you can't regulate away risk, meaning regulate it away entirely. But you can mitigate some of it, yes through regulation.

That's just it, you're missing the point. The only way to "mitigate" risk is to allow those that take risk to bear the full brunt of the consequences of their decisions. That means people will lose their life-savings for making shitty investments so they'll be less likely to take obscene risks.

Regulation protects them from the consequences of that risk.

You can no more mitigate the risk inherent in the business cycle than you can mitigate the risk in gravity.

Stop playing little kid games.

[rickrock305]

Man you dance and evade and can't even stick to one argument. When called on it you simply claim you didn't say something, when in fact it was pretty clear.

I'm sorry but there is no qualitative difference between saying "ALL the problems" and "it was THE problem."

The following are your words.

You have a writing comprehension problem.


Right, and where did I say that GLB caused all the problems OR that it was the problem? I didn't. Read it again, slowly if you have to.

Allow me to quote myself, way back from post #71.


the deregulation was directly the cause, along with a liberal dose of greed and stupidity in the mortgage loan business.

Not GLB, but deregulation in general. Along with other factors.

Again, the facts simply are not on your side. Try again.

[Gutshot John]

Right, and where did I say that GLB caused all the problems OR that it was the problem? I didn't. Read it again, slowly if you have to.

Allow me to quote myself, way back from post #71.



Not GLB, but deregulation in general. Along with other factors.

Again, the facts simply are not on your side. Try again.

Wishing it were so does not make it so. That must be the reason why you continue despite my "childishness" because you recognize that you have to discredit it. You've abandoned any pretense of reason and you've been demonstrably wrong in virtually every assertion you've made and so you resort to the above inanity. You weasel out of every position you take when it's revealed as false and then disingenuously accuse others of partisanship while denying how much of your arguments tow the partisan line you decry.

Grow up, take a class or two and learn how the real world works.

[rickrock305]

That's just it, you're missing the point. The only way to "mitigate" risk is to allow those that take risk to bear the full brunt of the consequences of their decisions. That means people will lose their life-savings for making shitty investments so they'll be less likely to take obscene risks.

Regulation protects them from the consequences of that risk.

You can no more mitigate the risk inherent in the business cycle than you can mitigate the risk in gravity.

Stop playing little kid games.

Finally you make a coherent point! Let me respond.

I fully advocate letting these businesses that make bad decisions live with their decisions and fail. You'll get no argument out of me there. The problem is with the systemic risk that these huge institutions pose. And the only way to deal with systemic risk is through regulation. The problem is striking the balance between too much or the wrong kind of regulation, which can be harmful, versus too little regulation.

Here, these folks can explain it better than I ever could.




Systemic risk is the risk that the failure and distress of a significant part of the financial sector reduces the availability of credit which in turn may adversely affect the real economy. Not all economic downturns involve systemic risk, but the occurrence of systemic risk has almost invariably transformed economic downturns into deep recessions or even depressions. Such systemic risk has been ubiquitous in the current crisis. It has manifested itself in the moral hazard encouraged by "too-big-to-fail" guarantees, in the externalities created by deleveraging, fire-sales, hidden counter-party risk and liquidity shortages, and in the aggregate decline in home prices.

We argue that the "laissez-faire" amount of systemic risk in an economy will likely be inefficiently high because systemic risk involves externalities. That is, each institution manages its own risks but does not consider its impact on the risk of the system as a whole. We draw the analogy of a firm that creates environmental pollution. Such a firm is often regulated to limit the pollution or taxed based on the externality it causes. Regulation is therefore needed. Unfortunately, current financial sector regulations do not address the problem because they seek to limit each institution's risk seen in isolation; they are not sufficiently focused on systemic risk. As a result, while the risks of an individual firm are properly dealt with in normal times, the system itself remains, or is induced to be, fragile and vulnerable to large macroeconomic shocks.

http://whitepapers.stern.nyu.edu/summaries/ch13.html



So yes, in short risk can be mitigated. This is unarguable. The argument comes in how to mitigate the risk.





http://www.frbatlanta.org/cenfis/pubscf/vn_reg_systemic_risk_1209.cfm
Regulating Systemic Risk

Gerald P. Dwyer
December 2009

* The financial crisis of 2008 is a clear example of systemic risk becoming real and affecting financial markets.
* Differences in the regulatory environment from country to country appear to explain some but not all of the differences in how the crisis affected different countries.
* Financial regulation that considers the international dimensions of financial markets and institutions is both desirable and feasible.
* Two specific regulatory proposals to reduce the frequency and severity of financial crises are contingent capital—funds that convert to capital in bad times—and regulation of systemic risk by bank examiners.

In my conference presentation, I discussed Kaufman and Scott's definition and their more substantive point about the sources of such risk. They suggest that systemic risks can emerge from (1) common shocks to the system, (2) successive losses along a chain of counterparties, and (3) an unexpected development that results in reassessments of the value of assets. While there was a common shock to the U.S. economy from falling house prices beginning in 2006 and 2007, this shock itself did not cause the failures and near-failures of financial firms.

Instead, the decline in the value of structured securities—in particular, collateralized debt obligations backed by subprime mortgages—and the difficulty of valuing these assets were the primary means by which losses were transmitted through the U.S. financial system. Losses and uncertainty about losses seem to have then traveled from firm to firm, engendering problems along the chains of counterparties.

Professor Lord John Eatwell (2009) discussed the international structure of regulation in the context of macro-prudential regulation, a newer term coined for "regulating systemic risk." In a wide-ranging talk, Eatwell outlined financial architecture and regulatory principles that he regards as important to improving the financial system and avoiding similar crises. He regards international regulation by laws to be unrealistic even though it is desirable. He suggested that international coordination of regulation can accomplish much. Regulation need not be insular even if it is implemented at the national level. For example, rules to improve bank capital and to discourage excessive leverage can be agreed upon at the international level and implemented on the national level.

Larry Wall (2009) and James Thomson (2009) discussed two proposals for regulation of systemic risk in the United States. Neither proposes what they regard as a cure for financial crises. Rather, they propose specific changes that would reduce the likelihood and severity of a future financial crisis and, at least as important, mitigate the effects of the too-big-to-fail policies applied to large financial institutions.

Wall proposes that banks be required to issue debt securities that convert to capital when a bank encounters financial difficulties. Effectively, banks would be required to have arrangements and funds in place to acquire additional capital when their existing capital is depleted. While different than dynamic provisioning in important respects, this contingent capital would play the same role of providing a cushion when losses occur.

Thomson proposes a five-tier classification system for systemically important institutions. Bank examiners would determine any specific bank's tier. Supervisory oversight would increase as a bank rose up the tiers, and specific requirements would be greater for a bank determined to be more systemically important. While Thomson's proposal is intended to be a framework for thinking about the issues, he suggests general requirements that might increase as a bank becomes more systemically important. For example, interbank exposures would be monitored and limited as a bank's counterparty exposures became more important to the stability of the banking system.


A link to an entire conference on regulating risk.

http://www.frbatlanta.org/news/conferences/09-regulating_systemic_risk.cfm




http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jbr/journal/v9/n4/full/jbr200815a.html

Regulating risk: A measured response to the banking crisis

This paper argues that regulatory responses to the sub-prime crisis ought to be guided by the fundamental principle that bank regulation is justified by the adverse consequences of banks taking excessive risks. It therefore proposes three reforms: requiring banks to retain a proportion of any loan that they originate, so as to reduce the risks of moral hazard; insisting that the risks involved in the financial products in which banks trade are transparent; and reforming Basel II so that the amounts of regulatory capital that banks are required to hold are less pro-cyclical than is currently the case.

[rickrock305]

Wishing it were so does not make it so. That must be the reason why you continue despite my "childishness" because you recognize that you have to discredit it. You've abandoned any pretense of reason and you've been demonstrably wrong in virtually every assertion you've made and so you resort to the above inanity. You weasel out of every position you take when it's revealed as false and then disingenuously accuse others of partisanship while denying how much of your arguments tow the partisan line you decry.

Grow up, take a class or two and learn how the real world works.


Grow up? LMFAO. :lol:

I guess you're mad because I keep proving you wrong, again and again. So you can't help but resort to the only thing you have left to save face, attacking me personally. Does it make you feel better? Because I couldn't care less. I think its amusing to watch you squirm. It is unfortunate that you choose to clog up an interesting discussion with personal nonsense. And I almost feel bad for you that you have to resort to attacking and belittling an anonymous stranger on the internet in order to feed your obviously narcissistic personality.

[Gutshot John]

Really? That's the best you could do? And yet you keep responding with ever increasing amounts of invective when your argument is deconstructed?

Talk about narcissistic.

[rickrock305]

Really? That's the best you could do? And yet you keep responding with ever increasing amounts of invective when your argument is deconstructed?

Talk about narcissistic.


You have failed to deconstruct one point I've made. You just keep coming back to the personal attacks every time.

[Gutshot John]

You have failed to deconstruct one point I've made. You just keep coming back to the personal attacks every time.

I don't have to deconstruct them, you've done that for me. Moreover they're not "your" points, you've at best quoted men who have an institutional bias. All you can do is quote men who fit nicely into your interpretation without acknowledging or even knowing the existence of many others who disagree. You've been spoon-fed your "knowledge" without any real understanding of what it means. It's sophmoric, insipid and so the rest of your argument is accordingly wrong.

Your "points" are demonstrably false and reveal a profound misunderstanding of both the political as well as economic process, you made the claim the GLB caused this. The burden of proof is on you. However you're thinking far too small and don't see the forest for the trees.

Just like his pal Krugman, Stiglitz is a Keynesian who ignores Keynes main point about "structural" deficits.

The size, scope and regulation of government was responsible for not only the recent recession but also GLB which did NOT eliminate regulation, it only changed them. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Either way its flaws were in the belief that you can regulate systems that are far too complex for anything (congress, regulatory bodies, monetary funds) to understand in their entirety.

Get over it, you can't regulate your way out of risk. The more you try, the more likely you are to make the problem WORSE instead of better. That's the most damming criticism that can be offered of GLB but the ideology that inspired such hubris has existed well before GLB ever came into existence.

You can double the size and scope of regulatory bodies and not mitigate risk by even a fraction of a percent. You will however stagnate an economy that rewards and values risk.

[ForTehNguyen]

I get so tired of the crap about "deregulating the banks caused this mess." No, the FDIC and insuring stupid business practices is what did it. Banks should be allowed to fail so that the people actually have to treat them like a business and make responsible decisions. Not this bullshit fairyland that they live in where they can't fail no matter how stupid they are.

the fuel of the runaway engine was the federal reserves low interest rates. None of this would've been possible without cheap money.

[Palmguy]

You just keep coming back to the personal attacks every time.

Pot, kettle.

Can we get back to the discussion about something other than you guys talking about each other?

[montanadave]

Apropos of nothing, might I contribute a quote from Voltaire:

"A long dispute means that both parties are wrong"

[BrianS]

Voltaire was a big fan of absolute monarchy. I am not a big fan of Voltaire.

[rickrock305]

I don't have to deconstruct them, you've done that for me. Moreover they're not "your" points, you've at best quoted men who have an institutional bias. All you can do is quote men who fit nicely into your interpretation without acknowledging or even knowing the existence of many others who disagree. You've been spoon-fed your "knowledge" without any real understanding of what it means. It's sophmoric, insipid and so the rest of your argument is accordingly wrong. .

I make my points, and then back them up with facts and expert opinions.




Your "points" are demonstrably false and reveal a profound misunderstanding of both the political as well as economic process, you made the claim the GLB caused this.

You keep saying my points are false, yet you do nothing to refute them.

I made the claim that GLB was a factor in causing this. I did not make the claim, as you seem to think, that GLB was the only reason for all this economic mess. I clearly quoted post #71 above, where its very clear I believe other factors were in play.



The burden of proof is on you. However you're thinking far too small and don't see the forest for the trees.


I've provided plenty of proof. You seem to take issue with that as well, being that you have such a problem with me linking to other sources.



Just like his pal Krugman, Stiglitz is a Keynesian who ignores Keynes main point about "structural" deficits.

Fine, this is one small point out of many I've made. If you took issue with that, you could have said it at the time. Instead you chose to attack me personally and not the information I posted resulting in this stupid back and forth instead of some meaningful discussion.



The size, scope and regulation of government was responsible for not only the recent recession

How so? Prove it.



but also GLB which did NOT eliminate regulation, it only changed them.

Wrong. It did both.

Again, from post #71...

The GLB Act explicitly exempted security-based swap agreements (a derivative financial product based on another security's value or performance) from regulation by the SEC by amending the Securities Act of 1933, Section 2A, and similarly the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, Section 3A.



Get over it, you can't regulate your way out of risk.


No, not entirely. And I never said you could. But regulation is needed to mitigate systemic risk.



The more you try, the more likely you are to make the problem WORSE instead of better. That's the most damming criticism that can be offered of GLB but the ideology that inspired such hubris has existed well before GLB ever came into existence.

You can double the size and scope of regulatory bodies and not mitigate risk by even a fraction of a percent. You will however stagnate an economy that rewards and values risk.


I'm not talking about more regulation, I'm talking about the right kind of regulation. For example, Glass Steagall.

[rickrock305]

Apropos of nothing, might I contribute a quote from Voltaire:

"A long dispute means that both parties are wrong"



:D good one

I'll bow out gracefully. Its obvious we're going to get nowhere. :suicide:

[Gutshot John]

Your "points" have been repeatedly refuted by myself and others, you simply refuse to recognize it. You have also made claims that are demonstrably false e.g. citigroup being responsible for GLB. This reveals a profound misunderstanding of not only the legislative process but also how the lobbying process worked in the case of GLB.

Your "experts" present one side of the argument and yet you misrepresent it as some form of "truth" without even understanding the principles of economics that contradict them. You've cherry picked evidence that supports your side while pretending no other evidence exists and if you knew as much as you claimed you would have a decent grasp of what those are. If you knew half as much about economics as you claim you would at least acknowledge the Chicago school and others that dismiss Stiglitz, Krugman et al as Keynesians in a world that discredited Keynes back in Carter's day.

If that weren't disingenuous enough, both you and they fail to account for the very large caveats that Keynes himself warned could complicate the issue.

Further your flawed sense of economics also refuse to acknowledge that for an economy to grow risk is an inherent part of the equation. You can no more mitigate risk with regulation than you can mitigate gravity with a plane...eventually you're going to crash. The more you try to keep mitigating the problems by pretending they don't exist, the harder that crash is going to be. Decades of poor Democratic economic policies have demonstrated this reality and dating back to the S&L bailouts we've failed to deal with this fundamental reality.

Seriously you don't have a clue what you're talking about and all your childish insults only reveal the depths of your sophomoric insecurity.

[variablebinary]

:D good one

I'll bow out gracefully. Its obvious we're going to get nowhere. :suicide:

The world's problems are seldom solved on the internet.

And while this thread has gotten down into the weeds, the fact remains, the GOP has had a huge hand in sinking this nation financially.

Party loyalists will suggest otherwise, but that is part of the problem in itself.

At this point my only reason for voting for the GOP is better protection of gun rights and SCOTUS appointees. Sadly this is like polishing brass on the Titanic.

[Belmont31R]

While I think Democrats have a majority stake in why our country is in the financial mess its in the GOP hasn't really done anything meaningful to correct it.


They had 2001-2007 to do something, and they increased spending. They didn't cut anything that is even worth mentioning.


That is why so many people, myself included, feel the lines have blurred substantionally between the two parties. I don't really think the GOP has learned a damn thing in those years because they are still singing and dancing to the same ole tune they had then.


Until CUTTING spending (besides talking about it), and reducing the helf the boot on our necks Ill continue to treat them the same...IE not voting for them. How long ago was it the GOP was trying to pass amnesty? Now they are railing against Obama. They are railing against him for many of the same things he is doing now. They never did a damn thing to correct anything. They just spent money and tried passing laws to get votes...obviously that didn't work out. I don't care if a law was passed by a democrat 10 years ago, 20, 60 years ago. The GOP had the chance to reverse it, and they have never done that. **** em, too. Makes them complicit in this shit. Only a small segment of republicans are actually small government conservatives. The rest are where democrats were 20-30 years ago at most.


Look at McCain. Now he is talking about fiscal conservatism, border security, medical issues. He is just another two faced politician who just says whatever he thinks will get him political points. A few years ago he was acting like a liberal. He suspended his campaign to go vote for TARP. Yeah thats a real fiscal conservative! :rolleyes:


Gee lets continue spending almost a trillion a year on social security!


No problem is in more need of attention and action by Congress than the looming financial challenges of entitlement programs. John McCain will fight to save the future of Social Security, and he believes that we may meet our obligations to the retirees of today and the future without raising taxes, which could further damage an already weak economy. John McCain will continue his efforts to reach across the aisle to address these challenges.



A fiscal conservative would never support these programs that eat up so much of our tax dollars. Just these entitlement programs eat up just about every real tax dollar taken in. The majority of the rest of spending is all deficit. SS spending is rising faster than our ability to pay for them. This means if taxes are kept the same eventually SS alone will eat up every tax dollar. Since its rising faster than our ability to pay for it without raising taxes we either raise taxes or cut spending in other areas. But eventually you have to cut out everything else. This is only going to get far worse in the next 10-15 years as the giant baby boomer bubble retires.


This is why I don't want to vote for these jackasses because these ponzi schemes are failures. If people think these programs are expensive now wait 10 years. My dad was born in 1947, and will be looking to hit up SS pretty soon. By the time my kids entire the workforce they are going to be shouldering a HUGE budget....

[Belmont31R]

Here is another one:




Fighting For a More Effective Government

For years, John McCain has fought against wasteful and excessive spending — and leadership is needed now more than ever to curb such waste. With an agenda of bigger government and higher taxes, the current Administration and its allies in Congress have more than quadrupled the budget deficit in this year alone. In 2009, the federal government spent more than $1.4 trillion more than it actually had — growing our national debt to more than $12 trillion, much of which is owed to foreign nations


Remember this guy was a leader in the senate during the 2001-2007 spending spree, and suspended his presidential campaign to go vote for TARP. The same 2009 deficit he is complaining about was at least in part due to him voting for the spending like TARP. TARP went onto the 2009 budget due to the Federal calendar.


If McCain is what passes for a fiscal conservative these days there is no saving this country from financial ruin.

I swear politicians only get elected and reelected because the majority of the people in this country are either stupid or don't pay attention at all. If people had a memory at all they'd laugh at people like this (his mil service aside). Its actually rather insulting for people who do actually remember, and can look at people's records. McCain is one of the most liberal republicans out there. Even his daughter admits she is a "progressive republican". Whatever that is. I guess some cool code word for being a ****ing RINO.

[Belmont31R]

On a roll here:



This is why fiscal responsbility and conservative don't mix with the GOP anymore.



Senator McCain offered a good-faith alternative to this plan, which received the support of all of his Republican colleagues. The proposal would have cost about half as much as the enacted measure, but would have provided the American taxpayers with a stimulus bill devoid of wasteful and excessive spending on programs that fail to create jobs. This plan included targeted, fiscally responsible provisions to invest in our nation’s infrastructure, stabilize the housing market, and reduce taxes on individuals and businesses.




Here this douche is talking about fiscal responsibility, and saying we should have passed a bill that only cost HALF as much as Obama's stimulus. So the line between someone far left like Obama, and a supposed "fiscal conservative" is the difference between 870 billion, and 435 billion? This is why I say the lines have blurred, and why fiscal responsibility and the GOP is nothing but a joke now. These assholes will pander to people like me using all these consertive buzzwords but you scratch beneath the surface a tiny bit, and you get an Obama lite underneath. McCain's plan, and the TARP he voted for would cost over a trillion dollars we didn't have. This guy needs to join his buddy Liberman, and start caucusing with the liberals. He is certainly no conservative.


If this is really what the GOP has to offer then Id just as soon as not even bother voting except when a real conservative is running. I do like my House rep but the rest can go **** themselves. Clinton was more conservative than these cheese dick republicans.


And just you watch they are going to run another Ghouliani or that gun banning prick state health care forcing asshole Romney.

[Gutshot John]

I don't think anyone can deny that both parties, including the GOP, bear significant responsibility for the current mess.

The political psychology that spawned both parties' actions is one that says activist government (or at least the appearance of one) is superior to one that is not. The costs of creating that perception will invariably rise as a political necessity.

In that vein we the American voter/consumer bears as much responsibility as the politician. So long as people continue to view government as the solution to their problems, the more severe and costly it will become.

[Belmont31R]

I don't think anyone can deny that both parties, including the GOP, bear significant responsibility for the current mess.

The political psychology that spawned both parties' actions is one that says activist government (or at least the appearance of one) is superior to one that is not. The costs of creating that perception will invariably rise as a political necessity.

In that vein we the American voter/consumer bears as much responsibility as the politician. So long as people continue to view government as the solution to their problems, the more severe and costly it will become.



Which is why there is no fixing this until we crash and burn. Then maybe people will wake up, and see this spending cannot continue forever. We cannot rely on anyone or either party to fix it because they are both complicit. Might take a little longer with republicans but they are both on the same path.

The ideals this country was founded on have long been completely blown out the water. Small limited government? Ha. Now they openly admit they have unlimited power to do whatever they want.

Maybe after we crash we will go back to those ideals but that is a toss up. With the direction both parties are in its not a matter of if but when. Im only 26, and my future doesn't look all that good.

[variablebinary]

Which is why there is no fixing this until we crash and burn. Then maybe people will wake up, and see this spending cannot continue forever. We cannot rely on anyone or either party to fix it because they are both complicit. Might take a little longer with republicans but they are both on the same path.

The ideals this country was founded on have long been completely blown out the water. Small limited government? Ha. Now they openly admit they have unlimited power to do whatever they want.

Maybe after we crash we will go back to those ideals but that is a toss up. With the direction both parties are in its not a matter of if but when. Im only 26, and my future doesn't look all that good.

That's racist talk. You hate black people and mexicans. You want to fire teachers and fireman


I'm not a true conservative. I'm somewhere between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson when it comes to political ideology. I don't believe the Feds must be 100% hands off all thing, but I think the power has been overstated, abused and misappropriated when it comes to taxation, entitlements, defense spending and regulation.

[Belmont31R]

That's racist talk. You hate black people and mexicans. You want to fire teachers and fireman


I'm not a true conservative. I'm somewhere between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson when it comes to political ideology. I don't believe the Feds must be 100% hands off all thing, but I think the power has been overstated, abused and misappropriated when it comes to taxation, entitlements, defense spending and regulation.


I believe we should only take care of people who cannot take care of themselves. People with mental issues, some physical issues, etc, and they don't have family that can help them.


I don't believe in giving any assistance to those who could work but either made bad decisions or just are lazy. This is the vast majority of those who currently get entitlements/welfare. We have the fattest "poor" people in the world.

There should be no gov retirement so we could get rid of SS entirely.

If someone has kids they cannot afford they should be given up for adoption, and then garnish the parents wages to pay for the foster care. People have the option of getting help from their family, friends, churchs, charity, etc. That should be the "public assistence" not taxing people beyond belief to pay for someone to pop out kids. My wife had a few extended relatives that do this. She has one obese relative who due to his weight is "disabled", and lives off SS. Another on welfare who has a lazy fat husband, and they have been living off welfare for years now. We have footed that families bills to the tune of hundreds of thousands (complicated pregnancies and births we funded) because they made poor life decisions. They need help because they are ****in stupid. I firmly believe most welfare enables people to make poor decisions, and many of them enjoy the free money. Always looking for a way to get more. Go visit your local WIC/county health department, and see all the people in there. I did it once because my wife had to get some sort of certification for her nursing school, and it was full of people who barely spoke english getting their kids free shots, foodstamps, etc. Sickening.

We are dumping trillions every year on people who do not deserve or really need a single cent. Welfare is not at all about helping people but keeping a voting base turning up come election time to ensure they keep voting for people who won't cut their free money or even give them more in most cases.

Our country really is not in a good spot, and so many people are reliant on the government there is no way in hell a candidate will get elected on the basis of him reducing spending to levels we can actually afford. I read something earlier this year, and if you add up all government workers, people on welfare, gov contractors, military, police, even prisoners, road crews, etc...its around half the country is dependent on gov to put food on the table. There is no way for a society to support that kind of numbers, and have the economic fervor to be a super-power/world leader. The only reason its lasted this long is the debt load, and we started off in such a good spot. We have a huge country that is ideally setup to support a large economy. But that doesn't mean we can spend the unlimited amounts of money like we have been. Look at how fast the debt has risen in the last 30 years. There is no way we can continue to support the level of spending that has taken place, and that spending is rising at an astronomical rate every year.

[rickrock305]

We have the fattest "poor" people in the world.




:D sad but true.

[Terry]

Having read only the first 5 or 6 pages, it appears, thankfully, more people than not "get it".
If the day ever comes when more people than not think that raising taxes and limiting freedom are the best ways to govern, then it is time to feed and water the "tree of liberty".
In the mean time, I pray, for my children more than anything.