[Zipperfish]

CaliShark wrote:

"Government is the respectable way to pick a man's pocket."

Realistically, the entire shenanigans here had to do with the government ignoring the reality of nature (There are boom and bust cycles that CANNOT be stopped) and making it worse (By artificially propping up the end of a boom cycle so that when it went bust, it took everything with it). The Fannie and Freddy debacle shows that "enforced low-income loans" championed by liberals can be called "predatory loaning" and blamed on conservatives when necessary, because no one fact checks the Democrats anymore.

We were going to have a recession, it was the frenzied scurrying to prevent it, and then the overly long wait before the response was put into place that made it so bad. Wall Street is a pack of chicken-littles that have no sense of discipline, self-control, or foresight.

As I've pointed out before, it seems a little rich to lay this one at the feet of the liberals when you've had the far-right represented in the White House for teh last 8 years. The fi8rst four of those years, Bush had a Republican Congress too, I believe. That was ample time and ample power to set up any kind of system conservatives wanted. But instead they decided to spend like drunken sailors and start pointless wars.

[Robair]

Pseudonym wrote:

Yeah, I wasn't very specific. I was trying to indicate that it wasn't all about deregulation and free markets, because government was involved. The very existence of the Federal Reserve and Greenspan's job is proof of that.

I would tend to blame bad regulation more than deregulation.

You a fan of Ron Paul?

[Pseudonym]

Robair wrote:

You a fan of Ron Paul?

I liked him, but I wouldn't have voted for him. An admirable stance and very consistent and solid in his beliefs, but impractical in modern society.

[Psudo]

Robair wrote:

Psudo wrote:

Government should not be doing this at all. Not one dollar, not one cent, not one regulation. It's absurd that they even think they can control this mess.

Isn't lack of regulation how Greenspan got us into this mess in the first place?

This mess was because the government took all the risk away from private lenders via FDIC, created incentives for them to give out risky loans, and made no attempt to ensure their ability to remain profitable. They stopped being profitable, started a nose-dive, and the government decided the best way to save them was to create a massive cushion made entirely of money and bad sense.

Of those three areas of possible regulation (risk management, behavior incentives, and oversight) they increased regulation on two of them. To point at the third and claim "See! Free markets failed!" is unreasonable. I reject the assumption that the other two areas of regulation are absolutely necessary and had no magnifying effect on the crisis. But even if I were unsure about that, the system could have been better off with an increase or a decrease of regulation so long as the new plan better addressed then overall industry.

My personal view is that the best way to manage massive, radically complex industries is to let the organizations and experts run themselves to their own best interest. But if you want government to be in charge, it was still a stupid way for government to take charge.

That's all the banking industry generally. As Pseudonym pointed out, Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac specifically are government programs. They were established as semi-independent corporations, but they're hardly examples of under-regulated private industry.

Zipperfish wrote:

As I've pointed out before, it seems a little rich to lay this one at the feet of the liberals when you've had the far-right represented in the White House for teh last 8 years. The fi8rst four of those years, Bush had a Republican Congress too, I believe. That was ample time and ample power to set up any kind of system conservatives wanted. But instead they decided to spend like drunken sailors and start pointless wars.

Has any conservative pundit ever claimed Bush was conservative in his spending? I'd be especially surprised if you could find someone who wasn't part of his official campaign team or a GOP official and, thus, willing to say any stupid lie to get their guy elected.

[PDF] Page 9 has a nice table showing a steady increase in state spending all through Bush's tenure as Governor. No one had any reason to believe he was conservative in that respect. They might try to explain it away, but there's never been any way to argue Bush spending was a politically conservative virtue.

[Les-R]

Bush Jr. and the majority of the Republicans who swept the house and senate with his rise to power were Neo-conservatives, which is to say Democrats who jumped ship from their original party because they thought they weren't hawkish enough but still big-government big-spenders at heart.

[Zipperfish]

Psudo wrote:

Has any conservative pundit ever claimed Bush was conservative in his spending? I'd be especially surprised if you could find someone who wasn't part of his official campaign team or a GOP official and, thus, willing to say any stupid lie to get their guy elected.

[PDF] Page 9 has a nice table showing a steady increase in state spending all through Bush's tenure as Governor. No one had any reason to believe he was conservative in that respect. They might try to explain it away, but there's never been any way to argue Bush spending was a politically conservative virtue.

Sure, but don't address your comments to me. Address them to those who seem to want to lay the current malaise on the doorsteps of the "liberals."

[Psudo]

Les-R: I'm glad of Bush's neocon tendencies when it comes to military action, but not when it comes to spending. The 'neocon' label, like all generalizations, has good and bad in it.

Zipperfish: I'll concede that. Some of the bad banking policies have their roots in the policies of '90s Democrats, but Bush and the congressional Republicans share the blame, too.

Your use of the word 'malaise' reminds me of Jimmy Carter. I'm quite convinced that hitory is repeating itself 30 years later.

[WesterCharcoal]

I'm not worried about the Federal Governments Budget. That moneys already spent. No, this money is all going to be new money, printed just for the bailout. Prepare for an inflation rate that may even exceed 10% (OK, even that's an optimistic appraisal).

Frankly, voting the re-distributor into office as a response to this is just one more step down the road to Serfdom as far as I'm concerned.

Especially because Freddie and Fannie were created by DEMOCRATS! They wrecked our economy, and were rewarded for it!

[CanadianJeff]

Wester you sound just like Hwacker. You both just want to lay the blame at the feet of the "enemy" which is everyone who doesn't think like you do. You just smack one label on them all as "left" and consider yourself supperior.

Don't you forget for a minute that it's been Bush in power for the past 8 years and that the republicans are JUST AS MUCH to blame as anyone. The blame lies with the WHOLE government for pushing too hard getting gdp out the door to increase the economy without thinking of the long term ends.

That goes double for the last 8 years of Republican office. Spending has gone out of control and it's just as much to blame for this as anything. Stop trying to label all offenders into one group to consolidate your stupid hate and call it a day.

Wake up already and start realizing who you should vote for are the people who didn't make the mess no matter what party they belong to plain and simple!

[WesterCharcoal]

CanadianJeff wrote:

Wester you sound just like Hwacker. You both just want to lay the blame at the feet of the "enemy" which is everyone who doesn't think like you do. You just smack one label on them all as "left" and consider yourself supperior.

CanadianJeff wrote:

Wake up already and start realizing who you should vote for are the people who didn't make the mess no matter what party they belong to plain and simple!

Cry some more.

It's a lot easier to attack my character than even reading my statements isn't it? In this case you imply that I'm a straight ticket, close minded, judgmental, elitist. Then, instead of looking at anything I wrote you just focused in on the word Democrat and dismissed EVERY THING I SAID as partisan sniping. You should try reasoning instead of insinuating terrible things about me in a slightly more sophisticated fashion than name calling.

[CaliShark]

Zipperfish wrote:

As I've pointed out before, it seems a little rich to lay this one at the feet of the liberals when you've had the far-right represented in the White House for the last 8 years. The first four of those years, Bush had a Republican Congress too, I believe. That was ample time and ample power to set up any kind of system conservatives wanted.

(Edits for spelling and clarity, Bold Mine)

I don't think we're disagreeing here (except the bolded part), but I want to make my reasoning more explicit:

Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac's low-income loaning program was made by, championed by, and facilitated by liberals. Conservatives, even big-spenders like Dubya, hated it.

The rest of the Wall Street crash? ::shrug:: But the loans were spearheaded and championed by liberal democrats. I find it interesting that the same people who push for low-income loans turn around and blame conservatives for allowing these places to loan to low-income people who can't pay them back. ("I think we can do more to make Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac loan to low income homeowners." Barney Frank)

As for the bolded part: Democrats still had enough of a minority in the senate for filibusters, which they used to block almost anything coming out of congress. While Dubya had a mostly republican congress, the senate wasn't getting anything done. That's what the controversy over the "nuclear option" was about.

I'm not "laying it at the feet of liberals" as much as pointing out something repeatedly forgotten: The companies that started it all, did so because they were pressed by government to give loans to people they knew wouldn't pay them back. Specifically by Liberal Democrats.

There is more than enough blame to go around (Deregulation in an environment of government coercion for low-income loaning is just like throwing people into a shark pool). The Repubs are just getting the blame because they happened to be squatting in Washington when it happened.

[Zipperfish]

CaliShark wrote:

There is more than enough blame to go around (Deregulation in an environment of government coercion for low-income loaning is just like throwing people into a shark pool).

We certainly agree on this part.

Quote:

The Repubs are just getting the blame because they happened to be squatting in Washington when it happened.

This is hardly a ringing endorsement for Republicans. It essentially admits they are feckless in office.

[Firekite]

Who here is attempting to offer a "ringing endorsement for the Republicans"?? The Republicans have screwed up massively, emulating the reckless spending of the barely veiled socialists on the left while failing to force open simultaneously their own eyes and the eyes of jackass self-satisfied Democrats like Barney Frank to the fact that no, Mr. Frank, Fannie and Freddie aren't fine, these forced loans to people who have no business getting a loan is a terrible idea. And now we're all paying the price for putting our faith in politicians and in CEOs who're compensated not on long-term returns and steady growth but in short-term profits-at-any-cost-and-damn-the-future. And stockholders said nothing because they were so damn short-sighted about the whole thing.

Zipperfish wrote:

Oh, I think there's enough blame to go around here. It wasn't like the executive we're on any kind of restraint. Didn't the dude from GM make like $28 million last year?

A pittance. A drop a much larger bucket. And if he's the best man to run the multi-billion-dolllar-many-times-over corporation, then it's worth it.

Zipperfish wrote:

As I've pointed out before, it seems a little rich to lay this one at the feet of the liberals when you've had the far-right represented in the White House for teh last 8 years.

See, that's the mistake a lot of people make. I don't care what shade of lipstick you try to smear over that face, there only thing "far right" or "conservative" about any of it is that the overbearing social legislation came from the Judeo-Christian morality police instead of the leftist morality police. And besides, even though congress has held an even lower approval rating than the president for a good while, Bush doesn't exactly hold a tremendous amount of political capital in his pocket.

[bootlegga]

ShepherdsDog wrote:

How about a major bailout for the middle class. Small and medium sized businesses employ 80% of the work force, yet they bear the brunt of taxes. If the Big 3 car makers go bankrupt - TFB. The factories are still there. They'll be bought up or sold off to other companies that will retool them. It'd be nice to see more companies and more competition and a real free market.

No doubt, I'm tired of seeing BILLIONS going to business that ran themselves into the ground. How about a cash infusion to everyone who charged up too much on their VISA?

[Zipperfish]

Firekite wrote:

Who here is attempting to offer a "ringing endorsement for the Republicans"?? The Republicans have screwed up massively, emulating the reckless spending of the barely veiled socialists on the left ...

Well as one of the "barely veiled scoialists" on the left, I'd like to point out the abysmal record of federal right-wing parties in the US and Canada over the last 30 years, when it comes to fiscal responsibility. I don't think, based on the record, it's fair to accuse the left of "reckless spending."

Firekite wrote:

A pittance. A drop a much larger bucket.

So is the wage of some union guy making $30/hour. Your condemnation of high union wages while supporting high exectutive remuneration strikes me as more as an ideological stance as opposed to a practical criticism of the matter. You know, "Union bad, Exectuives good." I don't think eihter the unions or the executives have done themselves any favours. Also, external conditions have changed. It's hard to compete when you've got a burgeoning Chinese manufacturing sector that pays its workers a tiny fraction of what workers in North America make.

Firekit wrote:

See, that's the mistake a lot of people make. I don't care what shade of lipstick you try to smear over that face, there only thing "far right" or "conservative" about any of it is that the overbearing social legislation came from the Judeo-Christian morality police instead of the leftist morality police. And besides, even though congress has held an even lower approval rating than the president for a good while, Bush doesn't exactly hold a tremendous amount of political capital in his pocket.

yes, it appears that the left and the right major parties in Canada have are socially intrusive. I think we agree on that.