Name one thing? Are you kidding? They (along with Little Georgie Porgy Bush) just turned a predicted depression into a recession. If they do nothing more, that is enough. Geez, a few of the bailouts have even netted a positive return. I heard a very good description of what has just happened in Washington. The question was: Has Obama advanced socialism in America? Well, one of the answers was that no, what he has done is save capitalism from itself!
I don't often quote myself but sometimes it's just the obvious thing to do.
Yesterday, on the Bob Brinker Money Talk program ( a good show I might add) he had an extreemly interesting guest on. His name is Andrew Sorkin and he has a book out called Too Big To Fail. I swear, this was the most interesting discussion I'd heard in a long time. He sounded pretty neutral in placing blame for everything but, anyway, one of his points was that if the federal government hadn't stepped in with bailouts and stimulus we would probably be in the midst of a depression right now and unemployement would be around 23%, not the present 10+%. One interesting thing: He said AIG was the final straw that woud break the camel's back. If AIG had gone under the next thing would have been General Electric. Saving AIG is what saved "main street", in his words. Very interesting indeed.
I'm going to get this book when I can find it used:
__________________ "...let us not ignore the truth among ourselves, that we are the aggressors and they defend themselves. The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down."
David Ben-Gurion (the father of Israel) "When fascism comes to America it will be draped in a flag and holding a cross." Sinclair Lewis I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands. One nation, indivisible, with liberty, and justice for all.
If AIG had gone under the next thing would have been General Electric. Saving AIG is what saved "main street", in his words. Very interesting indeed.
But did we save Main Street? Or did we just delay an inevitable catastrophe?
When I hear that argument, it just confirms the idea that our system is broken. Capitalism isn't broken. The system is broken because there is too much government (and Federal Reserve) interference. It's broken because we don't let failure work. If we reward the same practices that already failed, the next failure will only be bigger. It's coming, and it's gonna be ugly...
^
It may be a temporary save, I don't know, but I've heard enough people say similar things that I consider 20+% unemployment a distinct possibility. So, in that light I'd say that Main Street was indeed saved. But who knows for sure.
Another thing that they talked about, and I don't know how I forgot to mention it because this is one hell of a stinker:
Henry Paulson,
the man who took the job as Secretary of the Treasury in 2006 made the deal of a lifetime but almost no one knows about it. Before becoming secretary he led Goldman Sach's. During that tenure he collected an enourmous number of stock options.
Anyone who takes the job of Secretary of the Treasury must divest themselves of all stock holdings. When you do that you get a letter of divestiture from the federal government. The mega perk that goes along with that letter is that all proceeds from divestiture go untaxed. Well, good ole' Hank sold a whopping FIVE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS worth of stock. That means he saved TWO HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS in taxes! And get this, HE ONLY LED THE TREASURY FOR TWO YEARS! Can you believe that? Talk about something that needs to be changed!
Here's another thing that needs changing:
Bear Raiding. People with too much money for our own good (and greed to equal that) buy stock options (or something similar - not sure) in a target company. Then they do whatever they can to drive down the value of that company. I'm not sure how they do that but Mr. Brinker said it is all too easy to do and it has happened rather frequently of late. Then, once the company is in trouble, employees are being thrown out on their keester, and the stock price is in the dumper the raiders exercise their options, reaping huge profits while everyone else suffers. This practice is illegal in principle but in reality there are ways to do it without getting pinched. It seems you never have enough regulation to deal with the extreems of human greed.
__________________ "...let us not ignore the truth among ourselves, that we are the aggressors and they defend themselves. The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down."
David Ben-Gurion (the father of Israel) "When fascism comes to America it will be draped in a flag and holding a cross." Sinclair Lewis I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands. One nation, indivisible, with liberty, and justice for all.
But did we save Main Street? Or did we just delay an inevitable catastrophe?
When I hear that argument, it just confirms the idea that our system is broken. Capitalism isn't broken. The system is broken because there is too much government (and Federal Reserve) interference. It's broken because we don't let failure work. If we reward the same practices that already failed, the next failure will only be bigger. It's coming, and it's gonna be ugly...
Wow, that sounds like something that might happen in New Orleans. Bad on them.
__________________ "...let us not ignore the truth among ourselves, that we are the aggressors and they defend themselves. The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down."
David Ben-Gurion (the father of Israel) "When fascism comes to America it will be draped in a flag and holding a cross." Sinclair Lewis I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands. One nation, indivisible, with liberty, and justice for all.
So what about that dickwad Henry Paulson? Doesn't anyone care about that?
__________________ "...let us not ignore the truth among ourselves, that we are the aggressors and they defend themselves. The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down."
David Ben-Gurion (the father of Israel) "When fascism comes to America it will be draped in a flag and holding a cross." Sinclair Lewis I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands. One nation, indivisible, with liberty, and justice for all.
So what about that dickwad Henry Paulson? Doesn't anyone care about that?
I think you summed that one up nicely. I don't know anybody who thinks he did a good job. I mean, he's always done a good job for himself and his friends, but...
...but the divestiture rules need to be changed. That's what I'm getting at. Maybe give them a ten percent tax break but no damn way it should be 100%. That's just stupid. There are plenty of qualified people who will take that job for a 10% tax break.
How many ways can we get ripped off by the elite class?
__________________ "...let us not ignore the truth among ourselves, that we are the aggressors and they defend themselves. The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down."
David Ben-Gurion (the father of Israel) "When fascism comes to America it will be draped in a flag and holding a cross." Sinclair Lewis I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands. One nation, indivisible, with liberty, and justice for all.
My wife got up much earlier than normal at 5:30 and I hear her clanking around in the kitchen. I asked her what she was doing.
"We have to get working earlier now to pay for everyone's health insurance. For all those women who decided to spit out kids rather than go to college and learn how to do something that would get them a decent job, for those lazy losers who want to work three hours a day when they feel like it, now it is our problem to pay for all of them. Medicaid for everybody who doesn't feel like working hard like we do, all of us can pay for all of it!"
Her caustic tone made me proud. Becoming more like me, only took 12 years.
Dude, newsflash, you already pay for those people. And it costs a lot more to pay for them at the emergency room than at a clinic. If they don't have insurance they don't play by the rules...and it costs us more in the long run. Tell your wife to stay in bed.
__________________ "...let us not ignore the truth among ourselves, that we are the aggressors and they defend themselves. The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down."
David Ben-Gurion (the father of Israel) "When fascism comes to America it will be draped in a flag and holding a cross." Sinclair Lewis I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands. One nation, indivisible, with liberty, and justice for all.
The threshold for medicaid will be raised to a max income of around $30,000 for a family of four. Many more working families now will receive this "entitlement". If a family cannot afford insurance that make a bit more, taxpayers will pay for theirs as well.
This will do nothing to lower costs, you assume because someone goes to a clinic because they now have insurance. Wrong. It just subsidizes their emergency room care.
The problem with this bill is that it dictates an expense but does nothing to control costs on this expense. I fully expect my insurance rates (and yours) to rise dramatically, fraud to increase, and the government to have opened the door to even higher taxes in the future.
My only hope is that in the long run we do move to an acceptable socialized system where the profit motive is removed. But before that the insurance industry will have to be destroyed, and all of us are in the middle.
As of last night we have the worst possible scenario.
The threshold for medicaid will be raised to a max income of around $30,000 for a family of four. Many more working families now will receive this "entitlement". If a family cannot afford insurance that make a bit more, taxpayers will pay for theirs as well.
This will do nothing to lower costs, you assume because someone goes to a clinic because they now have insurance. Wrong. It just subsidizes their emergency room care.
The problem with this bill is that it dictates an expense but does nothing to control costs on this expense. I fully expect my insurance rates (and yours) to rise dramatically, fraud to increase, and the government to have opened the door to even higher taxes in the future.
My only hope is that in the long run we do move to an acceptable socialized system where the profit motive is removed. But before that the insurance industry will have to be destroyed, and all of us are in the middle.
As of last night we have the worst possible scenario.
With the bolded paragraph, all your transgressions are forgiven.
Everyone knows the health bill is not THE answer. There is no one in Washington that would vote for THE answer if there even was one. We are doomed to eternal negligent malfeasance no matter who or what they are. That's just a given. I'm just glad they did something so they can get on to something else. I sure as hell am convinced that this bill is so complex that absolutley no one knows what will come of it. No matter what they say on television, not one of them can predict the future. It's all conjecture and theory whipped up with hysteria and threat. The usual junk analysis.
__________________ "...let us not ignore the truth among ourselves, that we are the aggressors and they defend themselves. The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down."
David Ben-Gurion (the father of Israel) "When fascism comes to America it will be draped in a flag and holding a cross." Sinclair Lewis I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands. One nation, indivisible, with liberty, and justice for all.
The Democrats are daring the public to vote them out.
Yeah, by giving the Republican'ts their public option wishes and by guarenteeing no funding for abortion. Just face it everyone, Republican'ts didn't want any health bill until they got in power. Then their lobbyists would write the bill instead of the Democrat's lobbyists. That's what really was going on in Washington.
__________________ "...let us not ignore the truth among ourselves, that we are the aggressors and they defend themselves. The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down."
David Ben-Gurion (the father of Israel) "When fascism comes to America it will be draped in a flag and holding a cross." Sinclair Lewis I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands. One nation, indivisible, with liberty, and justice for all.
give me 10 minutes and i to can come up with a site to refute that the earth is round...which right about now it would not surprise some of you would argue, given some of the shit you guys believe.
I sure as hell am convinced that this bill is so complex that absolutley no one knows what will come of it. No matter what they say on television, not one of them can predict the future. It's all conjecture and theory whipped up with hysteria and threat. The usual junk analysis.
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