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The Republican disaster

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The Republican disaster

Greed on wall street

from JoeUser Forums

The melt down on wall street is exactly what happens when you have a Republican and a Republican congress. Their faith in letting the market decides means that everyone else, the hard working Americans who make life in this nation possible, suffer the consequences for the greed at the top.

Republicans always claim that communism doesn't work because it doesn't work with human beings. Humans are too greedy and selfish for communism to work. But Democrats never argue in favor of Communism. They argue for a mixed economy.

By contrast, many Republicans loudly and frequently talk about the merits of "letting the market" decide.  What they don't realize is that laissez faire doesn't work either. We don't have anything approaching that but plenty of right wingers think that the solution to our economic problems is less regulation which just results in the mess we're in.

In reality, greedy people who know how to game the system tend to work with like minded allies. The result is you get greedy CEOs who protect one another and collude to enrich themselves and concentrate wealth not based on merit or "market forces" but through pure manipulation or gaming of the system.

So much of the wealth in this country is taken not by those producing a product or service but by people who just know how to manipulate the market, play the system, and skim off the labor of the millions of Americans who ultimately pay the bill when their short-sighted schemes fall apart.

McCain and his Republian allies don't understand this. They sometimes call for more oversight but it's a bandaid. What America needs is leadership from people who understand that the strength of our nation isn't just from the top 1% but by the hard working men and women of the entire nation.

democrat
30,916 views 34 replies
Reply #26 from PolMach Forums Top

But as far as THE FED being blameless of blameful, you have to ask yourself a question. Is it the bartender's fault that he served a drink to the alcoholic? If the answer is yes, then sure, you can blame the Feds. If not (and I do not blame the bartender), then the answer is no. The Feds made a mistake in making money too cheap. But they did not force the lenders or borrowers to take that drink.
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sorry for the double post, ignore this one.

Reply #27 from PolMach Forums Top

But as far as THE FED being blameless of blameful, you have to ask yourself a question. Is it the bartender's fault that he served a drink to the alcoholic? If the answer is yes, then sure, you can blame the Feds. If not (and I do not blame the bartender), then the answer is no. The Feds made a mistake in making money too cheap. But they did not force the lenders or borrowers to take that drink.
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But if the bartender knows that the person is an alcoholic and continues to lower the price of the booze so that the alcoholic will stay and drink longer that is the fault of the bartender for preying on the alcoholic.  And that is essentially what the Fed was doing.  Interest rates too high so you can't afford to borrow money to loan out to people, no problem we'll lower the interest rate for you.  I'd say that gives them a share of the blame, again I'm not saying it's all their fault but they do have to accept some of the responsibility.  I mean even the bartender has the responsibilty to cut off a patron before they get too drunk and should take away the drunks keys if they are obviously too drunk to drive.

Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #28 from JoeUser Forums Top

True, the blame falls on neither democrats no republicans (at large)... it falls on 2 SPECIFIC democrats who abused the system. And are now on Obama's team.

Reply #29 from JoeUser Forums Top

But if the bartender knows that the person is an alcoholic and continues to lower the price of the booze so that the alcoholic will stay and drink longer that is the fault of the bartender for preying on the alcoholic.
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So you are saying the We are all Alcoholics?  It is clear the Feds do not know us from Adam, just like the bartender does not know the drunk from Adam.  SO they must then assume that either we all are - and then the issue of intention comes into play - olr that they were acting on good faith (if wrongly IMHO) to address a problem.

But you are treading close to a personal pet peeve of mine.  Nanny state.  Yes, we all know that some people are alcoholics (which ones are the $64 question), and we know that some cant manage money to save their lives.  But why should WE ALL suffer because some people are candidates for Darwinism?  I say we should not.  The Pursuit of Happiness and all that jazz includes the possiblity of failure, not guarantee of success.  It is a pursuit after all, not an end point.

 

Reply #30 from PolMach Forums Top

So you are saying the We are all Alcoholics?
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Nope I'm saying the banks were the alcoholics.  That saw that easy money that the Fed had to lend out and the gobbled it up and lent to anyone who walked in their doors.  Some loan officers purposely falsified loan applications so that the applicant would be approved to get a loan they couldn't possibly afford.  Yes the person getting that loan certainly should have known something was up, red flags should have gone off.  I put a lot of blame on those people, but we aren't debating a bailout for those people, we are debating a bailout for the banks that were lending money to people who shouldn't have had money lent to them in the first place.

But you are treading close to a personal pet peeve of mine. Nanny state. Yes, we all know that some people are alcoholics (which ones are the $64 question), and we know that some cant manage money to save their lives.
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I don't like a nanny state anymore than you do, trust me.  But there should have been some oversight here.  It's not like the banks had no idea that these people were risky investments, they had bad credit.  Think of it this way with your analogy: a drunk stumbles into a bar and the bartender can clearly see that this guy has already had too much to drink yet like I said before the bartender continues to lower the price of the booze to keep the drunk drinking.  There is some amount of responsibility that falls on the bartender, an alcohol license can be pulled for not cutting people off when it is clear they had too much to drink, and the same should be said for the banks.

The banks took a risk lending money to far too many high-risk individuals and it shouldn't fall on the tax payers to take that burden over.

Reply #31 from JoeUser Forums Top

The banks took a risk lending money to far too many high-risk individuals and it shouldn't fall on the tax payers to take that burden over.
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Congress forced them, but they were smart enough to sell the stupid things.  So now we are going to ask the people who got us into this mess to "fix" it?  Yea, right!

Reply #32 from JoeUser Forums Top

the bartender MALICIOUSLY... LOWERS! the price to pray on the alcoholic?

I think you have a mistaken understand of what the word ADDICTION means.

Lower prices appeal to casual users. The addicts will pay anything, if you have addicts you jack up the price and constrict supply and make a killing.

Also you apperantly hate bartenders.

Reply #33 from PolMach Forums Top

See I have problem with liberals like you who try to paint republican polciy as bad.  The truth is this, you can cut spending and cut taxes, or raise spending and raise taxes, it makes no difference from an economic view.  The problem really is this, running on a platform that says I will cut of your kids subsidize daycare, or medicine, or farm equipment isn't really something thats going to get you elected.  This is why Republicans ie. Bush and Reagan who run on conservative principles, almost always end up destroying the economy.  Why? Polityicans are up to their cuticles and folicies in political dept to people who got them elected.  So Conservatives face the reality of deciding between being corrupt (by  telling the public they believein cutting spending while giving their political allies hand outs) or not getting elected.  So you cut taxes for rich people, and increase spending for rich people.  so either you get a deficit or an increase in taxes (like reagan), which the rich never pay, so you have a reverse robin hood process.  Steal taxes revenue from the middle class, social programs from the poor and give all that money to your rich buddies.  That is what Republican practice IS that howevere is not what conservative tax policy SHOULD BE.  This is why Republicans destroy the economy and dems get the rep for being a good with the economy.

Reply #34 from JoeUser Forums Top

this is also a pack of wild lies Jmac8