Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche
"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke
"Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas
"Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex
We.Are.So.Screwed.
Somewhere around 40 or 50 years of chickens coming home to roost. I can tell you that on the front lines of the economy I am seeing the real life signs that it might just be coming undone. I have no more confidence in our political system to forge a solution than I have in Osama Bin Laden to become baptized a Christian.
As much as I believe a positive attitude is important to deal with adversity I increasingly find less and less to be positive about.
The clueless looks in the picture and the scripted for the camera responses from a group who basically have lived on the government dole sends shudders through my spine.
A portrait of the inmates running the Asylum.
Webster’s definition of Asylum : “an inviolable place of refuge and protection giving shelter to criminals and debtors”.
Byron beat me to it.
So, someone in the White House found a wallet on the train, and intends to bailout economy by forging checks?
That picture doesn’t look real. Obama and Pelosi look like waxed figurines…
Oh wait, that is reality.
I also read that the discourse in that meeting wasn’t quite civil, with Obama reminding the room that “I won.”
Heh,
I wonder what’s in their glasses? I thought it was water, but if you look at Pelosi’s, there seems to be an olive floating in it.
Explains a lot of their glassy-eyed stares.
yeah, and in 7th grade i was confident i could forge my father’s signature on a report card…
..and we all know how THAT turned out.
Something about that picture makes me want to grab my wallet and hold on to it as tight as I can.
Tim,
That glassy eyed stare is Pelosi’s normal look.
She has always been the deer in the headlights.
Yeah, what Byron said.
We. Are. So. Screwed.
Wall Street Journal had a good editorial on government spending and voodoo economics yesterday by Robert Barro.
If he’s right…well, we’re up a creek with no paddle courtesy of Team Obama. And we won’t come out of it for decades. We’ll suck the globe down with us and be lucky to come out of it in our lifetimes, if not our children’s lifetimes.
It’s a big and scary world out there.
Letting that group “solve” things is like letting the cockroaches control the light-switches.
I have no doubt that they can forge a plan. I also have no doubt that they will pass it.
I cannot help but note, though, that they did not say anything about forging an effective, affordable, actually-better-than-a natural-recovery, non-porked plan.
Hell, give me a few billion to throw around with no expectation of ROI or accountability and I could forge a plan. It’s the development of a plan that will actually work that presents a serious challenge.
I don’t believe they’re up to that challenge.
Kinda like the “click on the pic and it screams at you” gag…
Except this is no joke scary.
Arsonists, playing with matches.
And gasoline.
Again.
And half the country thinks it will bring rain and cure global warming. Making it safe for the rainbows and unicorns to come out.
Byron nailed it.
We. Are. So. Screwed.
How can we protect ourselves, or even slightly minimize, the inevitable damage from their coming conflagration?
And then I look at the gutless Republicans who just want to make nice and get along (for their share of the pork, don’t you know).
We. Are. So. Screwed.
We. Are. So. Screwed.
We. Are. So. Screwed.
Kris,
Re: your comment #6 has been on my mind all day concerning what’s- his- face’s comment where he felt he needed to remind people: “I won.” I believe we are seeing the first evidence of his megalomania right there. That and his narcissism will become more apparent as time goes on. IMHO. No Slack.
geo6
My, my, such cynicism. Or is it some snarky delight?
OldT6Flyer was correct in that our current, “we are so screwed” situation has been many years in the making. In fact, we have now been in an official recession for over a year! And it will get worse before it gets better. It took many years to arrive at this juncture, and will require a number of years to rectify.
Those in the picture are not economists. They will have to demure to a group of the President’s economic advisors, who are not only economic experts, but mostly non-partisan.
Hopefully, we are not “so screwed.” But if we are so screwed, it is because of the profligate policies of the Bush (and somewhat to the Clinton) administrations that have put us inevitably in this massive financial crisis.
Let us pray that the people in the photo are bipartisan enough to do what the expert economic advisors recommend, despite some who seem to want them to fail for their own selfish purposes. And we all need to prepare to suffer the painful medicine necessary to put our nation once again upon sound economic footing.
Flit, you don’t even have a clue as to what is going on if you think this gang of thieves is going to do anything beneficial for the USA.
If the crooks were not bad enough, the involvement of “economists” brings their own set of flammable materials to the bonfire.
Unfortunately, economists come in all sorts of flavors, and the ones being listened too are the ones who have been consistently wrong.
You cannot spend your way out of debt, and nationalizing every aspect our our life (let alone merely the economy) imposes a snowball of disasters on top of the existing problems.
Read the Dick Morris piece from yesterday. He pretty well sums up all the glorious possibilities to contemplate.
http://thehill.com/dick-morris/the-obama-presidency–here-comes-socialism-2009-01-20.html
Yup. Byron nailed it.
Flit, it’s in the US Constitution. All spending must originate with the House. Show me one place in the US Constitution that it says Congress can bestow millions upon a wind farm factory, or even tell me what blend of gasoline I need to put in my vehicle.
When theft under law, also known as earmarks, are provided for then the only choice for the elected is to grab as much graft for their constituents as possible. No longer is theft illegal, and if they do not participate their constituents will not see their tax burden decrease.
We have legalized robbing Peter to pay Paul, and for any elected officer the robbing of Peter is the only way to keep the money coming and no t screw over his electorate. Which may include Paul, but his is only one vote.
Anybody else see a spiraling circle around a drain here?
– Max, who has land in Bolivia now.
Max/
Given any thought to takin’ on boarders down there? We’ll pay for our food, I’ll help with the chores, and my wife’s a helluva Cajun-Creole cook. Plus as a bonus she’s an RN and I’m a well-armed helluva shot–should be able to live off the land…
not so good a fisherman tho…you’d best recruit someone else
for that job…
Seriously flit, do you take time off in your dotage to join us here? Since your generation has proven incapable, in peacetime, of paying its debts as it went along and has insisted on passing those debts down the generations so that it can enjoy $94,000 carpets, $50 billion dollar Ponzi schemes et al, when do you suppose the revolution will come? As I recall one director of OMB quit shortly after realizing that the US was broke and that was almost a decade ago. My daughter is 5 and in her lifetime the national debt hovered at, what, $7 trillion and now in just one year it is going to go up $2 trillion? She’s going to be a lot like you and me and make 6 figure salaries. She’s smart. But she won’t make a dent in that debt and neither will my grandkids and every day that debt will consume a larger and larger share of the government budget until the US defaults on it. If Barry was smart (and there is no evidence that he is), he would just default on the whole debt once he gets Congress to pass his pond scum support bill. Global world collapse is inevitable now. He and his socialist partners can take care of each other with a $trillion and ride out the inevitable collapse. Given his background, friends and socialist tendencies this creates the conditions for a proletarian revolution.
Anybody with anything won’t have anything left after the declaration of national emergency when barry and friends decide to collapse society and announce that the US is defaulting on its loans. Position yourself wisely.
P3W-
Bit early to go blaming the current mess on Obama isn’t it….?
You think the Post photoshopped Obama’s head to make it look that big?
it is because of the profligate policies of the Bush
This is what we can expect, I suppose. A democratic congress taking advantage of a situation decades in the making, a situation caused by liberal idiocy that holds the tenet that “economically disadvantaged” people (aka those facing the consequences of their own poor decision making and financial illiteracy) should be given the opportunity to fail economically at our expense, by forcing through billions upon billions of dollars of unaccountable and undebated spending to be directed to their pet liberal agenda is, as always, Bush’s fault.
For the credulous and Obama worshiping crowd, everything under the sun can be couched in the language of being Bush’s fault for so long as no one holds these contemptible idiots to any kind of meaningful standard at all. It’s the get-out-of-jail-free card of the millennium, and it appears to have no expiration date whatsoever.
It would help if those that feed off the public trough had a grasp of running a business. Would they even recognize a good business plan if one smacked them upside the head? How many have run a business, made a business decision or even held a real job? Is there any more dysfunctional organization on the planet, any that more desperately needs a solid business plan, than our government in Washington?
I know. I know. The new administration is “confident it can forge a recovery plan”. I hope for it, but my confidence level isn’t quite there yet.
Can you say “unindicted co-conspiritors?”
If “we are so screwed,” perhaps it is because we elected a man whose sole qualifications for the challenging job ahead are his massive ego, his speaking style reminiscent of a drunken southern baptist minister, and his unjustified self confidence. Oh, and the highly applicable experience of having run a campaign funded by unaccountable millions in donations. Unaccountable millions/billions pretty much moot the need for intelligent planning.
Everyone other than those blinded by Bush/Clinton hatred, the sycophants in the media, and those gullible enough to still lend even a modicum of credence to their reporting knew that Obama was decades short of the experience that would be required to intelligently lead the country through these challenges.
Instead we will get reactionary and wasteful spending pushed through by the world-renowned genius Nancy Pelosi, herself and her myrmidons advised by such economic luminaries as Paul “Enron Advisor” Krugman.
1457
If we want to play the blame game for the economic mess there is enought to go around for all.
When I reflect on this and feel the bile rising in my throat I get more exercised at Congressional Members of the GOP. The revolution (and it was that at the time as nobody gave them a chance) when they toook over the House in ‘94 was largely to stop the kind of fiscal nonsense that had been stock and trade for Democratic led Congresses for decades.
Then they got Potomac Fever, elected a Bug Killer Speaker, and lost all pretense of carrying on the legacy of Ronald Reagan.
In short I blame them more because I expected more of them, therefore more culpability is heaped.
The Democrats have always demonstrated this belief that tax revenues were somehow gifted to them to waste as needed to appease their loony constituant elements.
And before I hear from their defender’s that “but didn’t Clinton balance the budget?” let me remind those that was, in no small part and therefore not to be discounted, made possible by an economic boom driven largely by the tech bubble of the 90’s. Such bubble whould have been a warning shot for things to come.
In short the party of fiscal responsibility wasn’t, leading us to depend on the party of fiscal irresponsibility as our hope for redemption.
Where exactly do we get that PayDay loan when the Chinese and others decide we might just be a sub-Prime Mortage in disguise?
Ron Paul for all his creepiness probably will be proved the true prophet crying in the wilderness. If he’s John the Baptist I wish I knew who he will baptize, and soon.
::Running to the hills and shrieking emoticon::
I fear you gentlemen and ladies aren’t going back far enough in your search for who’s to blame for the current economic mess.
The Democrats own this mess, by tampering with the rules of the banking industry so that they couldn’t protect themselves from bad mortgages. It intensified back in the 70s when the Democrats passed the Community Reinvestment Act, which took away from banks the right to investigate applicants for mortgage loans. Most banks have always done a ‘due diligence’ investigation when a mortgage loan is applied for, to learn if the applicants have large outstanding debts, if they have ever taken bankruptcy, if they have ever defaulted on previous loans they have taken — in short, whether they pay their bills and live up to their promises. Jimmy Carter and the Democrats decided that this traditional bank investigatory power wasn’t necessary. These nice people should be loaned money to buy houses they couldn’t afford to pay for so that the Democrats could feel good about everyone being able to buy a home.
Predictably, this didn’t work the way they planned it. Families who made $40,000 a year bought $240,000 houses with variable rate mortgages and then couldn’t pay for them when the rates went up. [Don't worry, I blame the banks too, for, predictably enough, trying to protect themselves from defaulted loans].
This ‘mess’ is not the Bush administration’s fault. It is the fault of the Democrats. Carter’s administration passed the Community Reinvestment Act and the Clinton Administration enlarged its scope.
Put the blame where it belongs, Fliterman. Extend your research. And stop blaming everything on Bush. That’s the “coward’s way out,” as my Dad used to say, back before the Fall of Rome.
Marianne
MM -
If one were to limit their research to the National Review or the WSJ editorial page, they likely would arrive at the same flawed conclusion as you – that the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) was to blame for our current economic mess. Indeed this is a partisan political position rather than a plausible economic cause.
First, it needs to be pointed out that the CRA applies only to depository banks. But most of the institutions that spurred the massive subprime growth were not regulated banks; they were unregulated lenders like American Home Mortgage and Argent. These lenders, along with Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, while compounding the subprime problem, operated freely outside of any CRA compliance. Nor did the CRA force the credit-rating agencies to foolishly slap AAA ratings on subprime debt.
Following substantial empirical research, in December, 2008, the Federal Reserve stated that, ” Contrary to the assertions of critics, the evidence does not support the view that the CRA contributed in any substantial way to the crisis in the subprime mortgage market.” Link
“Those who continue to blame the CRA, Fannie Mae, etc. reveal their fundamental misunderstanding of how credit operates in general, what the financing process was like from 2002-07, and how this situation came to pass. Or worse, they understand it, and choose to lie about it anyway for partisan political purposes.” (Big Picture)
Oh to go back to a time when we had politicians who thought like this:
“Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.”
I really wish we could get rid of them all and just start over. Power and greed have corrupted most, and the ones who know better get out when they can.
The issue is corruption. You say that word and images of paper bags being passed under the table at seedy restaurants ending up in politician’s freezers come to mind. As recent events show that happens on both sides of the aisle. I think the greater issue is the broad corruption of what is thought to be acceptable as far as acceptable behavior.
We read of earmarks and think, well that is the way it has always been done. Well, not exactly. The Washington Post ran a series in its Sunday Magazine not too long back documenting the creation of the modern earmark in its profile of Cassidy Associates – a premier lobbying firm. The growth in number and amount over the last thirty years has been staggering. This leads, of course, to the “well everybody’s doing it” justification and its twin the “if I don’t get some my constituents will think I’m a chump”.
The net is things are not debated on the merits with the welfare of the whole the driving concern. It comes down to each group, region, or cause having to fight to take from the many to give to the few. I’m not naïve enough to think this sort of horse-trading has not been part of representative government since the dawn of time but I think this corruption of a concept where representatives are elected to enact laws enabling executives to create policies that benefit the whole rather than selected interests has reached it’s the point of no return. Representatives are not even ashamed of exacting a price for their vote in terms of special interest earmarks. While perhaps not lining their pockets literally it seems to me a rather blatant form of bribery – the corruption of the noblest form of government attempted in history – IMHO.
Virgil, take a look at Zimbabwe for an idea of what can happen to self-reliant and successful people when the government decides to appease a government-reliant voting majority with a scapegoat and arms.
If you can shoot, you’re welcome — we’re going to need you. Eventually. Either here or there.
Your wife will be going up against mine, a gourmet with a flair for the Italian. I say we lock them in the kitchen and let them fight it out, last woman capable of leaving the table under her own power loses. I fully intend to be elsewhere while this happens, unless of course it involves them running out little samples of their wares while we eat chips and salsa on the sofa watching the Super Bowl and drinking beer.
Yeah, I know — pipe dream. But I can dream, can’t I?
— Max
Fliter, the base problem was that mortages were classed AAA, in spite of the fact that during the issuing of them junk bond status would have been seen as generous. The bond traders and rating agencies didn’t do their homework to evaluate these loans, nobody originating the loans made any effort to inform others of the slight changes made to the standard mortage repayment scheme…
In short, what was rated as solid as gold as an investment was, actually, about 4% crap. It’s going to take a while to figure out which part of it is crap and which part is gold.
Markets have been doing this for hundreds of years, and they take a bit of time to adjust.
My government just told me it was going to take care of the problem by injecting trillions into wind farms, prophylactics, and any green energy that isn’t nuclear. And I have to pay for it.
No mention at all of examining payment histories on mortages.
If you want a scapegoat it’s the rating agencies who didn’t do their due diligence, and it’s the banks who bought mortages in bulk without doing their due diligence to understand the nature of those loans.
Bottom line, people got lazy and there’s hell to pay.
Government getting into the mix didn’t cause this problem, but those policies exacerbated it.
Enough blame to go around.
Any time you hear the words “Free market,” assume the speaker is an academic and speaking of a fantasy world, because truly free markets don’t exist when government is your partner.
– Max