So What IS Obama Going To Do About Wall St.????

[USRufnex]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

Actually Conan, after reading the remarks he made, I think they will play well.

Only the truly naive think we got to these crises without Republican malfeasance. McCain is the candidate of the party that did this to us and he can't afford to bluntly tell the public that Bush administration policies and lack of oversight put us here.

And only the truly naive think there is a simple solution thats going to be proffered by any candidate. This might just play well, other than here in Packardville.

I think they will play well too, especially to those who put personality over substance.

What?  Why can't we just blame the Clintons... its always their fault...

I'll take Obama's substance over McCain's flip-flops any day of the week...

Obama is extremely intelligent... which Republicans will gleefully play off as "elitist" and "uppity"...

Obama knows enough from his days working in the shadow of Chicago politics that to be a pragmatist is to be effective.... Republicans will insistently play this off as "corrupt."

Obama knows enough about the working people on the southside of Chicago to know that Wall Street has a part to play but it is far, far removed from the reality of alot of people's lives.... Republicans will revel in playing this off as "marxist."

I hope they don't get away with it again... not this year.

[Hoss]

quote:Originally posted by USRufnex

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

Actually Conan, after reading the remarks he made, I think they will play well.

Only the truly naive think we got to these crises without Republican malfeasance. McCain is the candidate of the party that did this to us and he can't afford to bluntly tell the public that Bush administration policies and lack of oversight put us here.

And only the truly naive think there is a simple solution thats going to be proffered by any candidate. This might just play well, other than here in Packardville.

I think they will play well too, especially to those who put personality over substance.

What?  Why can't we just blame the Clintons... its always their fault...

I'll take Obama's substance over McCain's flip-flops any day of the week...

Obama is extremely intelligent... which Republicans will gleefully play off as "elitist" and "uppity"...

Obama knows enough from his days working in the shadow of Chicago politics that to be a pragmatist is to be effective.... Republicans will insistently play this off as "corrupt."

Obama knows enough about the working people on the southside of Chicago to know that Wall Street has a part to play but it is far, far removed from the reality of alot of people's lives.... Republicans will revel in playing this off as "marxist."

I hope they don't get away with it again... not this year.

Especially since, once again, even after Lehman files Ch 11 and Merrill Lynch is absorbed by BOA, McSame says 'the fundementals of the economy are strong'.

Wow, that sounds an awful lot like Herbert Hoover.  Again.

Wow.

[USRufnex]

What else is he gonna say... he's already flip flopped once on the subject...

Yeah, making the Bush tax cuts permanent in a time of war is a great stimulus to the economy...

And, boy oh boy... I'm sooooooooo glad that we've repealed those oppressive inheritance and estate taxes...

Can't wait to see more plans drawn on the back of bevnaps proposed by the increasing number of Tulsa trust-fund babies growing up with more money to leverage local tax monies.... whoopie.  

[waterboy]

quote:Originally posted by iplaw

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

quote:Originally posted by iplaw

Maybe you can actually try and answer my question this time.  I know it's a lot to ask.

What exactly do Congress and/or the President have to do with Lehman Brothers falling into bankruptcy?  The last time I checked it appeares that it had something to do with the jackasses running the company.

Hey, you guys are the smart ones. I'm just trying to keep up! Lehman Brothers is just the latest group of jackasses to show up. They somehow couldn't talk the feds into saving their butts (finally! Just say no!). Next up is auto makers (we didn't know the public wanted fuel efficient cars, can you help us?) Then credit card companies (you mean 29.9% apr is gouging? Who knew?)

IMO it is the atmosphere of "market rules, government drools" that has proliferated during the last decade that has germinated these seeds. Markets have to have someone watching the till.

I'm not following you.  If we acutally left it up to the market, NONE of these companies would get bailed out.  They all die a much deserved death for ignorant business practices.

The government is the agent that's allowing these jackasses to get away irresponsible behavior.

I agree with you then. The govt. has failed to exercise enough oversight given the powers they possess. That lack of oversight is a function of the Bush l'aissez faire attitude about regulatory agencies. All over the landscape of regulatory agencies an attitude has existed of don't look, don't tell, let the market place rule. Agriculture never made inspections of meat processors that weren't known about in advance. Interior allowed gifts from the very people they monitored. Whistle blowers were punished. Standards and policies were written by industries themselves. Prosecute them? A few but Justice is busy making sure only the right mindsets and political viewpoints were being hired and retained. I think this disease spread to every function of government.

When the financial impacts of these unrestrained players became really big the argument was made, "we can't let them fail". So the taxpayer ends up underwriting the ethical lapses. And it was a good argument. But it has to stop. If not the cycle will continue in every corner of industry. Ford and Chrysler smell free money and are nosing around too.

For instance. In conversations with a friend who is in that business, he tells me that Countrywide knew they were making seriously weak loans and then including them in packages of loans rated as low risk to sell on the open market. It was common knowledge but the risk was assumed to be spread among so many it was deemed acceptable. It was sort of like a Ponzi scheme. Or like mixing oatmeal with hamburger and selling it as extra lean. And if it was common knowledge in the mortgage lending industry how believable is it that regulators didn't know too?

I'm rambling I know. Just pissed at the whole situation.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

I am not disputing that EVERYONE thought increasing home ownership was a good idea in the 1990's. EVERYONE Conan. Did you oppose these reforms in the early 90's? It was supposed to be, and was in fact a successful effort to decrease crime, slums and hopelessness by increasing the stake people had in their neighborhoods. The bonus was that investors and mortgage companies could do well too and during the Clinton years, they did. But most of this assumed that regulatory agencies would not be gutted by neo-con idealogues that let every corner be cut, every opportunity for gouging to be had. If you like I can flood these pages with anti-regulation actions by the Bush administration. Its not that they eliminated positions, they didn't adequately fund agencies or provide knowledgeable leadership for them. Hello? Katrina? USDA? National Park Service? It isn't a secret anymore.

You and your links are TOTALLY ARMCHAIR QUARTERBACKING a game that's already been played by rules that players and coaches agreed upon. Remember, his first term required agreement with a Republican owned congress. His second term was practically lame duck from day one as Republicans solidified their control.

So lead on brothers. If you think you can hang this stinker on Democrats that had to deal with Gingrich head hunting Republicans, or a split congress under Emperor Bush II, the king of vetoes, well, take your best shot. This one is off target.

Man, you are so partisan, I don't think I've ever seen you allow any blame to fall on the necks of Democrats.  Most people use facts to make their point, you seem to ignore facts to make your point.

With a background in consumer finance and credit, I didthink this was a bad idea when it first started.  Government mandating lending to undesireable credit risks and increasing gov't backing of those loans didn't make those people any better of a credit risk.  All it eventually did was to put the government ultimately on the hook for poor credit risks.

Armchair quarterbacking?  No.  I'm Pointing out the uselessness of some liberal initiatives and why they do not work.  While I admire the altruism of President Clinton's home ownership initiative, it's created yet another government money pit which almost rivals the cost of the Iraq war, if not worse.

If we weren't used to so many layers of deft bureaucracy at the federal level (and HUD was worst of the worst for years), you might start to realize this problem, like so many others doesn't begin and end with Republicans or Democrats.  It's the prevailing philosophy in Washington that government should have the solution for every problem, and should intervene when it's a big enough issue that might throw votes one way or the other.  Clinton and Cisneros initiated this and they own their part in it.

If you need something other than an Ambien to sleep tonight, here's a 38 page paper on Clinton's housing record.  It wasn't all bad but it wasn't sterling either.  During his admin, fewer "lowest income" families housing needs were served than by the Bush I and Reagan admins.  In the paper, housing experts share that: "...both liberals and conservatives share a number of basic, flawed assumptions, including a belief in the private housing market as the primary vehicle for providing housing."

http://www.jchs.harvard.edu/publications/homeownership/W02-8_Bratt.pdf

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by USRufnex

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

Actually Conan, after reading the remarks he made, I think they will play well.

Only the truly naive think we got to these crises without Republican malfeasance. McCain is the candidate of the party that did this to us and he can't afford to bluntly tell the public that Bush administration policies and lack of oversight put us here.

And only the truly naive think there is a simple solution thats going to be proffered by any candidate. This might just play well, other than here in Packardville.

I think they will play well too, especially to those who put personality over substance.

What?  Why can't we just blame the Clintons... its always their fault...

I'll take Obama's substance over McCain's flip-flops any day of the week...

Obama is extremely intelligent... which Republicans will gleefully play off as "elitist" and "uppity"...

Obama knows enough from his days working in the shadow of Chicago politics that to be a pragmatist is to be effective.... Republicans will insistently play this off as "corrupt."

Obama knows enough about the working people on the southside of Chicago to know that Wall Street has a part to play but it is far, far removed from the reality of alot of people's lives.... Republicans will revel in playing this off as "marxist."

I hope they don't get away with it again... not this year.

Huh?  Did you bother to read the original article cited?  Obama didn't display any intelligence, just some *****-slapping of McCain with tired DNC talking points.

[USRufnex]

Why would I need to read ANYTHING you post anymore... it will ALWAYS be critical of Obama... HELL YES I read it....

The man is intelligent and hard working.

And you're just being a dick every single time you get a chance to criticize him.

You are BEYOND MYOPIC at this point.
I get tired of hearing from you at every single turn how I've been DUPED by Obama...

You're being a conservative propagandist idiot.

Yet again.  

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080915/ap_on_el_pr/obama

"In 19 months he has not named one thing he would do differently from this administration on the central issue of this election," Obama said of McCain. "Not one thing. And we know that if we go down that path, that the next four years will look exactly like the last eight."

"Can you afford to take a chance on someone who's voted against the minimum wage 19 times," Obama asked a crowd of thousands under a blazing sun at a rally in western Colorado at the start of a swing through contested Western states. "When it was $4, he was against it, when it was $5 he was against it, when it was $6 he was against it."

"Why else would he say, today of all days, just a few hours ago — think about this, we just woke up to news of financial disaster — and this morning he said that the fundamentals of the economy are still strong. Sen. McCain, what economy are you talking about?"

"It's the same philosophy we've had for the last eight years, one that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else," Obama said. "It's a philosophy that says even commonsense regulations are unnecessary, unwise. One that says we should just stick our heads in the sand and ignore economic problems until they spiral into crisis."

"If you think those lobbyists are working day and night for John McCain just to put themselves out of business, well I've got a bridge to sell you up in Alaska."

GOOD ARTICLE.
KEEP SPINNIN' CONAN!

[waterboy]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

I am not disputing that EVERYONE thought increasing home ownership was a good idea in the 1990's. EVERYONE Conan. Did you oppose these reforms in the early 90's? It was supposed to be, and was in fact a successful effort to decrease crime, slums and hopelessness by increasing the stake people had in their neighborhoods. The bonus was that investors and mortgage companies could do well too and during the Clinton years, they did. But most of this assumed that regulatory agencies would not be gutted by neo-con idealogues that let every corner be cut, every opportunity for gouging to be had. If you like I can flood these pages with anti-regulation actions by the Bush administration. Its not that they eliminated positions, they didn't adequately fund agencies or provide knowledgeable leadership for them. Hello? Katrina? USDA? National Park Service? It isn't a secret anymore.

You and your links are TOTALLY ARMCHAIR QUARTERBACKING a game that's already been played by rules that players and coaches agreed upon. Remember, his first term required agreement with a Republican owned congress. His second term was practically lame duck from day one as Republicans solidified their control.

So lead on brothers. If you think you can hang this stinker on Democrats that had to deal with Gingrich head hunting Republicans, or a split congress under Emperor Bush II, the king of vetoes, well, take your best shot. This one is off target.

Man, you are so partisan, I don't think I've ever seen you allow any blame to fall on the necks of Democrats.  Most people use facts to make their point, you seem to ignore facts to make your point.

Now that's just not true. Democrats have had plenty of failures as well and I'm not reticent to mention them. Specifically they failed to accomplish health care changes that the public wanted by foolishly under estimating Republican resolve. And frankly, Conan, facts are grossly overated as any courtroom observer can testify. It was a fact that the world was the center of the universe according to Catholics. Facts change with the political winds and failing memories. I would rather rely on logic, intuition, experience AND facts. Which is what I do.[/

With a background in consumer finance and credit, I didthink this was a bad idea when it first started.

You must have been quite lonely during the nineties. It was well accepted thought.

Government mandating lending to undesireable credit risks and increasing gov't backing of those loans didn't make those people any better of a credit risk.  All it eventually did was to put the government ultimately on the hook for poor credit risks.

They didn't mandate it. Those loans could have been refused as long as they were applied fairly to all applicants. The government didn't force lenders to make money. What makes you think the existing requirements were perfect anyway? Many were designed to keep certain classes of people from home ownership and maximize returns. They were about 60 years old when reviewed and changed. AND, the government under a republican neo-conservative, Bush II, decided to be on the hook for loans that were packaged in with low risk loans and peddled as good investments. Why not blame the president and these purveyors of such fraud? Of course I'm just partisan.

Armchair quarterbacking?  No.  I'm Pointing out the uselessness of some liberal initiatives and why they do not work.  While I admire the altruism of President Clinton's home ownership initiative, it's created yet another government money pit which almost rivals the cost of the Iraq war, if not worse.

Didn't work? Useless? Have you owned any homes since 1994? Take a loss on any of them? Get your boss to fudge an income statement to qualify on any of them? Dude, they worked just fine till unscrupulous lenders realized they could steal and not get caught cause no one was watching! This kind of bi-partisan lending policy was continued through republican congresses and both Bush terms and no one complained. Now its a liberal Democratic failure? Hard to swallow that one even when you dump in Iraq.

If we weren't used to so many layers of deft bureaucracy at the federal level (and HUD was worst of the worst for years), you might start to realize this problem, like so many others doesn't begin and end with Republicans or Democrats.  It's the prevailing philosophy in Washington that government should have the solution for every problem, and should intervene when it's a big enough issue that might throw votes one way or the other.  Clinton and Cisneros initiated this and they own their part in it.

Government's business is business. It gets its players from business and vice versa. Only difference is where the capital comes from. I think Clinton and Cisneros did their job. If Bush had done his no one would ever have made note of whose idea it was.

If you need something other than an Ambien to sleep tonight, here's a 38 page paper on Clinton's housing record.  It wasn't all bad but it wasn't sterling either.  During his admin, fewer "lowest income" families housing needs were served than by the Bush I and Reagan admins.  In the paper, housing experts share that: "...both liberals and conservatives share a number of basic, flawed assumptions, including a belief in the private housing market as the primary vehicle for providing housing."

http://www.jchs.harvard.edu/publications/homeownership/W02-8_Bratt.pdf

Thanks for the link.

[Breadburner]

quote:Originally posted by iplaw

quote:Originally posted by FOTD

Conan....it's hard to look at any postings by people who pass out racist garbarge like you do.

No wonder you are voting for the souless old white guy......

You're a fu$^ing child.  Take your race baiting somewhere else.

That's an insult to kids everywhere.....

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by USRufnex

Why would I need to read ANYTHING you post anymore... it will ALWAYS be critical of Obama... HELL YES I read it....

The man is intelligent and hard working.

And you're just being a dick every single time you get a chance to criticize him.

You are BEYOND MYOPIC at this point.
I get tired of hearing from you at every single turn how I've been DUPED by Obama...

You're being a conservative propagandist idiot.

Yet again.  

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080915/ap_on_el_pr/obama

"In 19 months he has not named one thing he would do differently from this administration on the central issue of this election," Obama said of McCain. "Not one thing. And we know that if we go down that path, that the next four years will look exactly like the last eight."

"Can you afford to take a chance on someone who's voted against the minimum wage 19 times," Obama asked a crowd of thousands under a blazing sun at a rally in western Colorado at the start of a swing through contested Western states. "When it was $4, he was against it, when it was $5 he was against it, when it was $6 he was against it."

"Why else would he say, today of all days, just a few hours ago — think about this, we just woke up to news of financial disaster — and this morning he said that the fundamentals of the economy are still strong. Sen. McCain, what economy are you talking about?"

"It's the same philosophy we've had for the last eight years, one that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else," Obama said. "It's a philosophy that says even commonsense regulations are unnecessary, unwise. One that says we should just stick our heads in the sand and ignore economic problems until they spiral into crisis."

"If you think those lobbyists are working day and night for John McCain just to put themselves out of business, well I've got a bridge to sell you up in Alaska."

GOOD ARTICLE.
KEEP SPINNIN' CONAN!

When they resort to name-calling they've lost the argument.  Are you PWI tonight?

There's no spin.  "...Barack Obama on Monday mocked John McCain..."  That's precisely what he did.  That's the oldest school yard ploy- run down your opponent so it takes attention off your own weaknesses.

Where in that quote did Senator Obama once refer to what his own policies would be??  All he did was spout the DNC talking points about McCain.  NOTHING, NOT ONE THING says what he would do.  He simply impugns what he THINKS his opponent would do.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

Government's business is business. It gets its players from business and vice versa. Only difference is where the capital comes from. I think Clinton and Cisneros did their job. If Bush had done his no one would ever have made note of whose idea it was.

Thanks for the link.
[/quote]

I disagree here.  Government's business should be "less business".  At some point when I have the time, I will cull together information I've got on various departments of government.  I think if the average person realized how many wasteful layers of useless government there is to support the useful layers, they'd crap themselves or be scared *gasp* conservative.

History will be kind to Cisneros.  I'd forgotten he resigned under some sort of personal scandal and really didn't care to look it up.  FAIC, Cuomo did a credible job as well.

I was far more interested in refreshing my memory on what precipitated the housing debacle than Cisneros personal foibles.  It could be said, that without a passionate and skilled bureaucrat like Cisneros, HUD would have been killed off in the mid-90's.  It would not have been for a lack of Congress trying to get rid of HUD.

We can keep beating each other to a pulp on this and get nowhere.  You know where I stand I know where you stand.  

The paper was an interesting read, obviously the writer is pre-disposed to think that GOP was less compassionate to housing needs.  Good points as written, good collection of facts and interviews.  I felt she handled Reagan, Bush, Carter, and Clinton fairly.

[waterboy]

I started reading it but started to fade when the tables appeared.

One thing that concerned me is she never defined "very low income housing" though used the term frequently. Low income was defined as 50% of median income and spending no more than 30% of that income on housing.

Other concerns include the failure to note if that is gross family income or after tax, and to make any adjustments for regional differences in salary and utilities. Very low income in CA is different than OK. Fuel oil in New England is more expensive that NG in Texas. Averaging them together is misleading.

Its possible that clouds some of her conclusions. But maybe she covered that later and who the hell am I to critique a Tufts fellow?

As far as the governments business being business, that isn't my fresh thinking. What it means though is that one of governments prime functions in our system is to facilitate the development and smooth operation of business through its policies. Business depends on government to keep the playing field in good shape and provide the referees. Its a symbiotic relationship. I've never seen a better analogy for business/government operation than the NFL even though I tire of it.

You coming Wednesday?

[Gaspar]

I wanted to post this in its entirety.  This is the best I have ever seen it summed up.

Ticking Time Bomb Explodes, Public Is Shocked
By Robert Higgs on Sep 10, 2008 in Budget and Tax Policy

The failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, setting in motion the biggest government bailout/takeover in U.S. history, brings a grim sense of fulfillment to competent economists. After all, what did people expect, that water would flow uphill forever?

This financial mega-mess is the same sort of event as the collapse of the USSR's centrally planned economy, another economically unworkable Rube Goldberg apparatus that was kept going, more or less badly, for decades before it fell apart completely. Along the way, of course, famous (yet actually unsound) economists assured the world that everything was working out splendidly. As late as 1989, when the pillars were crumbling on all sides of the temple, Nobel Prize winner Paul A. Samuelson informed readers of his widely used textbook, "The Soviet economy is proof that . . . a socialist command economy can function and even thrive."

In the future, we will see a similar breakdown of the U.S. government's Social Security system, with its ill-fated pension system and its even more inauspicious Medicare system of financing health care for the elderly. These government schemes are fighting a losing battle against demographic realities, the laws of economics, and the rules of arithmetic. The question is not whether they will fail, but when—and then how the government that can no longer sustain them in their previous Ponzi-scheme form will alter them to salvage what little can be salvaged with minimal damage to the government itself.

Our political economy is rife with such catastrophes in waiting, yet the public always seems startled, and outraged, when the day of reckoning can no longer be deferred, and another apartment collapses in the state's Hotel of Impossible Promises, loading onto the taxpayers more visibly the burden of sheltering the previous occupants.

Each of these time bombs has at least one element in common: it promises current benefits, often seemingly without cost; but if it must acknowledge a substantial cost, it places that burden somewhere in the distant future, where it will be borne by somebody else. From the standpoint of society in general, every such scheme is a species of eating the seed corn. It satisfies the public's appetite to consume something for nothing right now, with no thought for the morrow. It represents the height of irresponsibility by permitting people to live higher today than they can truly afford, financing this profligacy by borrowing recklessly and by taxing politically weak and ill-organized people in order to shower benefits on politically strong and well-organized special interests.

Call it democracy in action or utterly corrupt governance; they are the same thing.

The architecture of the Hotel of Impossible Promises is not arcane. All competent economists understand these things. Ludwig von Mises explained as early as 1920 why a centrally planned economy could not work as a rational system of allocating resources. The reasons why Social Security, especially its Medicare component, and many other such government programs contain the seeds of their own destruction have been explained time and again. Are the politicians who construct these structures really such idiots that they cannot understand the logic of what they are doing?

Not at all. But they are not striving to create economically viable institutions that serve the general public interest; they are feathering their own electoral nests in the only way they can in the context of our political institutions. As H. L. Mencken explained back in 1940, the politicians "will all promise every man, woman and child in the country whatever he, she or it wants. They'll all be roving the land looking for chances to make the rich poor, to remedy the irremediable, to succor the unsuccorable, to unscramble the unscrambleable, to dephlogisticate the undephlogisticable," because they understand that "votes are collared under democracy, not by talking sense but by talking nonsense."

And are members of the public so dense that they will fall for such promises? Yes. Moreover, they are greedy, impatient, and immoral, because the present benefits they hope to gain via politics, however unsustainable in the long run, come entirely at the expense of the taxpayers from whom the government extorts its revenues.

"Politics, under democracy," Mencken wrote more than 80 years ago, "resolves itself into impossible alternatives. Whatever the label on the parties, or the war cries issuing from the demagogues who lead them, the practical choice is between the plutocracy on the one side and a rabble of preposterous impossibilists on the other." And in a declaration even apter now than it was at the time, he concluded that what democracy "needs beyond everything is a party of liberty."

The trouble is, however, that now, even more than then, the American people have little interest in liberty. Instead, they want the impossible: home ownership for those who cannot afford homes, credit for those who are not creditworthy, old-age pensions for those who have not saved, health care for those who make no attempt to keep themselves healthy, and college educations for those who lack the wit to finish high school. Moreover, they want it now, and they want somebody else to pay for it.

If you think that Fannie and Freddie's bust is a big deal, just wait until Medicare comes crashing down. Then, the wailing and gnashing of teeth will be truly unbearable. As that day rapidly approaches, however, you'll notice that the politicians are doing utterly nothing to forestall it.

[waterboy]

Thanks for the motivational speech.[] Kind of the opposite of Roosevelt's "nothing to fear, but fear itself".

If a leading liberal of the day had written in this manner (I know, indulge me a fantasy) he would have been castigated as seditious and unpatriotic. The writer is angry that so few are as enlightened as himself. Well, he could move to a Scandinavian country where all these things he thinks will never work...are working. Maybe its scale, maybe its education, maybe its heritage, but he draws the conclusion that its system. Or he could note our system has worked with these social programs for close to 100 years.

Rather than point out some other misleading and problematic thinking of the writer, I'll just say that we will endure these failings of our political system. We will not allow old feeble people to suffer because they failed to save or failed to stay healthy. We will provide education for those deemed unworthy of it. We will offer credit to those who haven't learned yet how to handle it. And we will encourage  homebuying for those who don't even know why they should buy a home. Not because we are soft hearted but because it serves the common good, it serves to bolster our economics and because people in our past did it for us until we understood the value of those things.  Our spirituality keeps us from executing a truly perfect economic system but keeps us from hardening into Spartans.

I do agree however that a system with multiple parties that included the Libertarians would be a good idea and worth pursuing. Just like on this forum, being challenged by differing mindsets is healthy for all.

[we vs us]

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

Thanks for the motivational speech.[] Kind of the opposite of Roosevelt's "nothing to fear, but fear itself".

If a leading liberal of the day had written in this manner (I know, indulge me a fantasy) he would have been castigated as seditious and unpatriotic. The writer is angry that so few are as enlightened as himself. Well, he could move to a Scandinavian country where all these things he thinks will never work...are working. Maybe its scale, maybe its education, maybe its heritage, but he draws the conclusion that its system. Or he could note our system has worked with these social programs for close to 100 years.

Rather than point out some other misleading and problematic thinking of the writer, I'll just say that we will endure these failings of our political system. We will not allow old feeble people to suffer because they failed to save or failed to stay healthy. We will provide education for those deemed unworthy of it. We will offer credit to those who haven't learned yet how to handle it. And we will encourage  homebuying for those who don't even know why they should buy a home. Not because we are soft hearted but because it serves the common good, it serves to bolster our economics and because people in our past did it for us until we understood the value of those things.  Our spirituality keeps us from executing a truly perfect economic system but keeps us from hardening into Spartans.

I do agree however that a system with multiple parties that included the Libertarians would be a good idea and worth pursuing. Just like on this forum, being challenged by differing mindsets is healthy for all.

rofl @ "hardening into Spartans."  

Those guys were such jerks.  But totally had six pack abs, though.