The Bailout

[TheArtist]

Glad I am an independent... unfortunately I still dont have anyone I would like to vote for. Just lessors of 2 evils, both of which are more of the same.

But its our own fault. Politicians dont dare say what really needs to be done or they wont get elected. There are good ideas on the left and right that need to see the light of day, but what happens is neither. We end up locked in battle and dont move anywhere except down the same sad path. If one politician embraced a major idea of the other party, enough of his own party would abandon him that he would lose the election.

Perhaps we really do need a crisis that will cause a "reality check" in this country. We keep trying to maintain the status quo, the way we have always done things and lived... by artificial means which postpone the "day of reckoning" and exacerbates it.

We fight and whine about silly things because we can afford to.

We dont make changes, because we can afford to not make them....

Instead of taking our hand off the hot stove, we take an asprin to relieve the pain, and if that doesnt work we want more of the same. While the other side argues that we should have taken tylenol. Now we are debating a shot of morphine.

[Gaspar]

Well said Artiest.

The problem with our politicians is that they are politicians.

[FOTD]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

FOTD, This flies in the face of the usual schlock you peddle around here.

In your opinion. The devil advocates fairness and objectivity. You are too one sided to see this aspect of the devil's postings.

Try this on for irony....

"It gets me angry," said O'Reilly. "I do talk radio and most talk radio is conservative-dominated ideologues; Kool-Aid drinking idiots. Idiots. Screaming at you that this is socialism, this is this, this is that. 'It's Clinton's fault.' It's Clinton's fault? He hasn't been in office in 8 years. It's Bush's fault! It happened under Bush's watch."

But then O'Reilly's tirade seemed to aim at Rush Limbaugh-without actually naming him.

"But let's get back to this talk radio stuff," said O'Reilly. "These idiots. I mean, they're misleading you. They're lying to you. They're rich, these guys. Big cigars. All of that. 'Yeah, oh yeah, my private jet!' And they're saying, 'Oh, no! No bail out!' Uh, uh, no way!

"Hey! You're going to get it, not them!" O'Reilly continued. "That foreign investment pulls out, we are toast! And they'll pull out if this bailout doesn't happen. Are you getting the message here? Walk away from these liars, these right-wing liars. Walk away from them! They're not looking out for you."



Holy Irony, Batman!

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by TheArtist

Glad I am an independent... unfortunately I still dont have anyone I would like to vote for. Just lessors of 2 evils, both of which are more of the same.

But its our own fault. Politicians dont dare say what really needs to be done or they wont get elected. There are good ideas on the left and right that need to see the light of day, but what happens is neither. We end up locked in battle and dont move anywhere except down the same sad path. If one politician embraced a major idea of the other party, enough of his own party would abandon him that he would lose the election.

Perhaps we really do need a crisis that will cause a "reality check" in this country. We keep trying to maintain the status quo, the way we have always done things and lived... by artificial means which postpone the "day of reckoning" and exacerbates it.

We fight and whine about silly things because we can afford to.

We dont make changes, because we can afford to not make them....

Instead of taking our hand off the hot stove, we take an asprin to relieve the pain, and if that doesnt work we want more of the same. While the other side argues that we should have taken tylenol. Now we are debating a shot of morphine.

Well put.

A successful politician takes care of corporate interests but does it while making individuals feel like they have their best interests at heart.

[waterboy]

quote:Originally posted by FOTD

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

FOTD, This flies in the face of the usual schlock you peddle around here.

In your opinion. The devil advocates fairness and objectivity. You are too one sided to see this aspect of the devil's postings.

Try this on for irony....

"It gets me angry," said O'Reilly. "I do talk radio and most talk radio is conservative-dominated ideologues; Kool-Aid drinking idiots. Idiots. Screaming at you that this is socialism, this is this, this is that. 'It's Clinton's fault.' It's Clinton's fault? He hasn't been in office in 8 years. It's Bush's fault! It happened under Bush's watch."

But then O'Reilly's tirade seemed to aim at Rush Limbaugh-without actually naming him.

"But let's get back to this talk radio stuff," said O'Reilly. "These idiots. I mean, they're misleading you. They're lying to you. They're rich, these guys. Big cigars. All of that. 'Yeah, oh yeah, my private jet!' And they're saying, 'Oh, no! No bail out!' Uh, uh, no way!

"Hey! You're going to get it, not them!" O'Reilly continued. "That foreign investment pulls out, we are toast! And they'll pull out if this bailout doesn't happen. Are you getting the message here? Walk away from these liars, these right-wing liars. Walk away from them! They're not looking out for you."



Holy Irony, Batman!

I would love to see that link. I try to watch O'Reilly but his personality makes me freak. This crisis certainly has made strange bedfellows.

[Hoss]

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

quote:Originally posted by FOTD

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

FOTD, This flies in the face of the usual schlock you peddle around here.

In your opinion. The devil advocates fairness and objectivity. You are too one sided to see this aspect of the devil's postings.

Try this on for irony....

"It gets me angry," said O'Reilly. "I do talk radio and most talk radio is conservative-dominated ideologues; Kool-Aid drinking idiots. Idiots. Screaming at you that this is socialism, this is this, this is that. 'It's Clinton's fault.' It's Clinton's fault? He hasn't been in office in 8 years. It's Bush's fault! It happened under Bush's watch."

But then O'Reilly's tirade seemed to aim at Rush Limbaugh-without actually naming him.

"But let's get back to this talk radio stuff," said O'Reilly. "These idiots. I mean, they're misleading you. They're lying to you. They're rich, these guys. Big cigars. All of that. 'Yeah, oh yeah, my private jet!' And they're saying, 'Oh, no! No bail out!' Uh, uh, no way!

"Hey! You're going to get it, not them!" O'Reilly continued. "That foreign investment pulls out, we are toast! And they'll pull out if this bailout doesn't happen. Are you getting the message here? Walk away from these liars, these right-wing liars. Walk away from them! They're not looking out for you."



Holy Irony, Batman!

I would love to see that link. I try to watch O'Reilly but his personality makes me freak. This crisis certainly has made strange bedfellows.

I hate to be one to inject humor into this thread, but the talk of O'Reilly made me do this:

Lil' O'Reilly

[Conan71]

Heh, Li'l O'Reilly even nailed his delivery.  I like that as much as "Pearl The Landlord" with Will Ferrell.  (If you have not seen that, look it up on youtube).

[Hoss]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

Heh, Li'l O'Reilly even nailed his delivery.  I like that as much as "Pearl The Landlord" with Will Ferrell.  (If you have not seen that, look it up on youtube).

When someone sent that to me I almost fell out of my chair laughing.

Pearl is funny too.

"I gotta get my drink on"....

[]

And actually, the Pearl series can be found easier at http://www.funnyordie.com/search/landlord

[FOTD]

The Hidden Secret Behind the Financial Bailout.

http://www.politicalbull.net/hidden_secret_of_the_financial_crisis.html

"There is a hidden elephant in the economy that is being overlooked in the media but represents the driving force behind the fear in the financial markets. It is well known that the economy is driven by credit. Consumer spending relies upon it and businesses cannot grow without it. However; Americans unable to get credit is not the major issue surrounding the financial bailout.

Prior to 2007 there was a group of economists that saw no problem with this fact. The key to the new economy, they asserted, was not how much the United States was producing, nor how much the United States was spending. The real key was that foreign capital was funding it. In all prior economic environments government spending came at the expense of private spending. If the government had to borrow money it did so by getting it from domestic banks, which removed it from the private sector. In the new economy government spending excess is provided, not by dipping into the domestic money supply, but by bringing in new revenue from foreign capital. In this way government deficits were seen not as a problem but rather a benefit. Essentially the government could fuel the economy with OPM (other people's money). Likewise, banks and lending institutions could do the same and fuel the domestic economy with imported capital. That American assets were bleeding out of the nation was not perceived as a major issue. With $73 trillion in assets the United States could afford this trickle of blood for a number of decades until it had completely restructured the economy to not only stop the bleeding but begin re-aquiring those assets. The economists, bankers, and theoreticians believed they had found the perfect economic system and they knew they were smarter than everyone else.

The crisis in the financial markets puts this entire rationale at risk. The real fear is not domestic bank failures; but rather, that the influx of foreign capital will slow or stop if the government does not buy up the bad debt. If foreign capital is spent elsewhere the American economy will simply not have adequate revenue to maintain itself. Wall Street banks know very well that the bailout is needed to protect the integrity of the United States as a recipient of foreign capital. It is desperate to alleviate the losses to foreign capital suppliers. Otherwise they will simply invest in other regions. The American economy is largely dependent on bringing in outside revenue. If the United States financial system cannot protect the foreign suppliers it is destined to crash. The federal bailout is viewed as absolutely essential to reassuring the international capital markets that the United States is still a safe credit risk. If the American financial community cannot protect its international money flow from bad debt that flow will evaporate and take with it the financial system that has been built up over the past two decades.

For obvious reasons this is an impossible sale to the American public which would never willingly accept bailing out the Saudis or the government of Singapore. However; this is exactly what the bailout is required to do and why it is absolutely necessary. For Wall Street this ulterior need must be kept well hidden or it will never fly. Oops. I think I just spilled the beans."




Well, the devils guess we had better start producing products in this country again....sad that since we don't make much here anymore the broader economy will not recover as quickly because we have gutted the manufacturing sector and even parts of the service sector. The "hollowed out" economy will not be able to support standards of living like we have seen in the past. Hard to find the bright side lately...

[FOTD]

Lost credibility leads to lost leadership
By LEONARD PITTS JR.
lpitts@miamiherald.com

http://www.miamiherald.com/living/columnists/leonard-pitts/story/703139.html


"Memo to the next president: There's an old fable I'm sure you know. It's usually credited to Aesop, and the version I found online at storyarts.org, goes like this:

``There once was a shepherd boy who was bored as he sat on the hillside watching the village sheep. To amuse himself he took a great breath and sang out, ``Wolf! Wolf! The Wolf is chasing the sheep!''

The villagers came running up the hill to help the boy drive the wolf away. But when they arrived at the top of the hill, they found no wolf. The boy laughed at the sight of their angry faces.

'Don't cry `wolf', shepherd boy,'' said the villagers, ''when there's no wolf!'' They went grumbling back down the hill.

Later, the boy sang out again, ''Wolf! Wolf! The wolf is chasing the sheep!'' To his naughty delight, he watched the villagers run up the hill to help him drive the wolf away.

When the villagers saw no wolf they sternly said, 'Save your frightened song for when there is really something wrong! Don't cry `wolf' when there is NO wolf!''

But the boy just grinned and watched them go grumbling down the hill once more.''

You know what happened next. A real wolf slunk out of the woods and the boy cried frantically for help, but the villagers ignored him. At sunset, they realized he hadn't come home and wondered why.

While millions of school children have absorbed the moral of that story, the man you seek to replace was apparently not one of them. Which has led over the last week to a standoff that once would have been difficult to conceive: the president sounding the alarm, declaring the emergency, warning of apocalyptic fiscal consequences if immediate action (defined as a $700 billion Wall Street bailout) is not taken, and lawmakers of both parties ignoring him, making clear that they would act on their timetable, not his.

As Rep. Joe Barton put it, ''Just because God created the world in seven days doesn't mean we have to pass this bill in seven days.'' Barton, let the record show, is a Republican. From Texas.

After almost eight years, then, it has come to this: Not even his own believe him. And he has only himself to blame. As the crisis we face is caused by the profligate way Wall Street has handled money, so President Bush's inability to rally the nation is caused by the profligate way he has handled credibility. Now, like the shepherd boy, he sees the wolf for real and tries to sound the alarm. Unfortunately, like that boy, his believability is spent, his integrity overdrawn, his credibility bankrupt.No one can be surprised. Not after the way Team Bush fudged facts and faked urgency, invoked mushroom clouds and conflated a connection to Sept. 11 that did not exist, in order to stampede the nation into invading Iraq. Not after the way it censored science and politicized truth on every subject from abortion to global warming to education to health. Not after the way it buffaloed its way through whenever reality threatened to intrude, shouldered it aside with a win-at-all-costs brazenness that seemed to ask -- apologies to Groucho Marx -- ''Who are you gonna to believe, us, or your lying eyes?'' Not after it elevated blame shifting and responsibility avoidance to the level of art. And not after the way it was abetted and supported in all this by a corps of sycophantic true believers for whom no lie was ever too big, no intellectual disconnect ever too wide, a cult of personality that could see no flaw in, nor countenance any criticism of, the great and powerful Bush.

Now even they have fled, as evidenced by the president's subterranean poll numbers and near invisibility at his own party's convention. Meanwhile, the rest of us are left to pick up the pieces and pay the bill. And to hope that, at the very least, the moral of the story that so profoundly escaped your predecessor is not lost on you:

Guard your credibility. You never know when you might need it. "

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUujTFwWJhU&eurl

[cks511]

The new and improved(NOT) bail out that the Senate will vote on later today is out...some of the earmarks, beyond our $700bn are:

- Film and Television Productions (Sec. 502)
- Wooden Arrows designed for use by children (Sec. 503)
- 6 page package of earmarks for litigants in the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident, Alaska (Sec. 504)

Tax earmark "extenders" in the bailout bill.
- Virgin Island and Puerto Rican Rum (Section 308)
- American Samoa (Sec. 309)
- Mine Rescue Teams (Sec. 310)
- Mine Safety Equipment (Sec. 311)
- Domestic Production Activities in Puerto Rico (Sec. 312)
- Indian Tribes (Sec. 314, 315)
- Railroads (Sec. 316)
- Auto Racing Tracks (317)
- District of Columbia (Sec. 322)
- Wool Research (Sec. 325)

You can download ALL 451 pages here:

http://michellemalkin.com/2008/10/01/read-the-senate-bailout-bill-here/

Good luck to us all...holy crap.

[iplaw]

[vent]

I have been reading today in EU rags like Der Spooger and comments from Putin about how we're no longer an economic super power, blah, blah, blah, blah.  I'm sick of hearing it.

Who do these assh%les think they are?  They have no idea how dependent they are on our economy to survive, and what an economic collapse here would mean to them.

I say we purposefully tank the economy and in turn wreck their respective economies beyond repair.

We're far more competent at surviving a crisis than these fools.  We can rebuild after irreparable damage has been inflicted against these idiots.

[/vent off]

[FOTD]

quote:Originally posted by iplaw

[vent]

I have been reading today in EU rags like Der Spooger and comments from Putin about how we're no longer an economic super power, blah, blah, blah, blah.  I'm sick of hearing it.

Who do these assh%les think they are?  They have no idea how dependent they are on our economy to survive, and what an economic collapse here would mean to them.

I say we purposefully tank the economy and in turn wreck their respective economies beyond repair.

We're far more competent at surviving a crisis than these fools.  We can rebuild after irreparable damage has been inflicted against these idiots.

[/vent off]

There was never any doubt about Iplawlessness nose snipping to spite his face!

[FOTD]

You don't see this on netwerk tee wee....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il2cZJ8q_zk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xp-tZ2SSlLI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbFfNxk5sJw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG2ojZhDsps


Kinda revolutionary don't you think? Man, what happends when the other shoes drop?
Those New Yawkers.....

[Conan71]

Subtitle B on page 310:

"Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008"

pancakes is crap like this doing in an economic bail-out bill?

Sounds like gotcha crap that will come out as "Senator Blowhard voted against mental health and helping those with addictions" if they vote against this package.

Sweet Jeebus, they are off the hinges in DC....

Edit: It gets worse, I finally had to close the file, I got too pissed.  All I can say as I read each new thing thrown in: pancakes? pancakes?