Conspiracy or State's preparing for the worst?

I found this very interesting. All these states are sending legislation to committee to actively declare sovereignty under the 10th Amendment to the Constitution. I read most of them and put some for you to see. This is starting to get scary honestly I have never heard about this.

Missouri

http://www.house.mo.gov/content.aspx…ills/HR212.HTM

HR 212 Declares Missouri’s sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment and urges the United States Congress to reject the passage of the federal Freedom of Choice Act which prohibits regulations on abortion

Washington bill sent to committee

http://apps.leg.wa.gov/documents/bil…overeignty.pdf

TO THE HONORABLE BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, AND

2 TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE AND THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF

3 REPRESENTATIVES, AND TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE

4 UNITED STATES, IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED, AND TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE

5 SENATE AND SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF EACH STATE’S

6 LEGISLATURE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:

7 We, your Memorialists, the Senate and House of Representatives of

8 the State of Washington, in legislative session assembled, respectfully

9 represent and petition as follows:

10 WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United

11 States specifically provides that, “The powers not delegated to the

12 United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States,

13 are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”; and

14 WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of federal

15 power as being those powers specifically granted to it by the

16 Constitution of the United States and no more; and

17 WHEREAS, Federalism is the constitutional division of powers

18 between the national and state governments and is widely regarded as

19 one of America’s most valuable contributions to political science…

Montana

http://data.opi.mt.gov/bills/2009/billhtml/HB0246.htm

Oklahoma

http://webserver1.lsb.state.ok.us/We…atus/main.html

search for HJR-1003 in the ‘Measure Number’ entry

Michigan

http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(s0k…aspx?page=home

New Hampshire

http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legi…9/HCR0006.html

Arizona

http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument….s/hcr2024p.htm

Why you insist on posting politics to a text game website is equally as interesting and scary.

Honestly….

Actually, I’m glad it was posted..I’m aware of alot of things and try it follow what I can and sort out what I can..that is useful info and I’m going to research it and pass it along. Main thing I’ve heard is regarding Texas but that is Firebrand’s backyard and she’d know more on it that what I could post. What’s scary is how people are chomping at the bit to close down all forms of information in their lust for power (read:Osama and Nancy Pelosi,Harry Reed). They don’t want you to know the slippery slope they are working.

Look, I’ve boned alot of fat chicks in my time, sure, but ugh as far as I can recall I’ve never fornicated anybody- Willie > Bad Santa

bad links

I think this was the article you read:

<LINK_TEXT text=“http://www.infowars.com/increasing-numb … vereignty/">http://www.infowars.com/increasing-number-of-states-declaring-sovereignty/</LINK_TEXT>

The links in the article work.

I’m rather surprised that this kind of stuff is happening now, rather than when the patriot act was passed.

Strange about the links, I checked the all out before I posted. Some of them do work, ill check out the rest later.

Are there rules for this message board? Do I have to stay on the topic of muds here? Is the only thing I am allowed to post is rants and whining about classos or eq?

Or am I free to talk about what I want when I want. Strangely enough at the current point in history Democrats are in a huge push to shut everyone up. Now coming from the party that supports freedom of speech and the common man I find it interesting that they want to shut down any real discussion of impropriety in politics. Honestly Broc the real question is why do you post here? You routinely complain about the game and don’t even log in. So the real question is what are you doing here? Oh wait maybe trying to stifle political discussion?

Don’t ask don’t tell is your policy?

Why did my links get cut with with … when i pasted them directly from the url. Hell with it, happy slavery.

Ahha I figured it out. I copy and pasted this from my other msg board, that is why my links got hosed. Thanks to Poggle for posting an article with working links. BTW I did not read this on Alex Jones’s website. His material gets attacked too much for being conspiracy minded. That was the reason I posted the direct state legislature urls that I found in a video about the matter.

I just read part of the stimulus bills that states the government will means test your medical treatments against your average life span. If your treatment is above a certain ratio you will be denied medicine. This will effectively end govt subsidies of new medicines, which in my mind is a very good thing. However anyone on govt run health care will be left to die if they contract a serious illness.

Now I only thought that the evil corporations made decisions that valued human life against monetary cost. For example the Ford Pinto. It was determined that the amount of money to fix the Pinto would be more than the amount paid out in wrongful death lawsuits against Ford. Now it seems that the govt will be in the business of telling you what treatments you receive (if any) and placing a fiat monetary value on your life. So in the future what would stop the govt from taking DNA and determining whether or not your genes would be strong enough to live in their health care system. What if your family has a strong recurrence of heart disease or cancer? Will the govt be able to tell you that you cannot procreate because your child might be a possible burden on the health care system? I know you think I am going too far, but what about China? They already have death squads for forced abortions of more than one child per family. Why not go farther and say you peasants are not fit to reproduce. Only the Bushs, Obamas, Pelosis and Reeds of the world will be seen fit to have offspring.

I remember before the election when I made a prediction that we would all be sorry for our love affair with Obama and that I would be laughing in the end when he self-destructs. Well the time is here and I am not laughing. In fact I am concerned that within 10 years I will be working for 1/2 as much as I currently do. Inflationary spending didn’t work during The Great Depression and it won’t work now.

You know what got us out of the Depression?

War, huh, good god ya’ll what it is good for?

Economies.

I read an interesting thing put forward by someone last night.

They predicted America will eventually go bankrupt, (partly on the back of the other countries defaulting on the money they owe… Brazil/Mexico/Argentina) The banks will declare a bank holiday and freeze people from withdrawing their money in panic. As a result riots and mass looting will take place all over America, as people take out there frustration over whats transpired and there inability to withdraw funds.

We recently had the worst bush fires in Australia’s history last week. 181 people (still 80 missing) died in firestorms moving as fast as cars up tinder dry valleys, scorched in the recent multiple days of weather in the low 40’s (Cecilius.) I can’t help but think in the same way… the “weather” at the moment is drying out the economy… just waiting for that one event that’s going to induce some of the worst scene’s we have ever seen.

To me it seems like a good thing that the states are asserting their sovereignty. It implies that they won’t lie down as the federal government continues to tighten its grip.

Even the almost worst case future scenario, the peaceful or semi-peaceful collapse of the United States into a large group of individual nations, could be the one of the best things that could happen for the people of the States, and the world as a whole.

It’s debatable whether even with a civil war it would be worth it in the long run. Probably, as long as the no one got desperate enough to drag out the nukes/bio/chem, or turn the US into one big minefield.

I read an interesting thing put forward by someone last night.

It’s coming. Before they even got elected, Biden put his foot in his mouth (as usual) and made a mysterious warning that, once elected, they were going to do something that Americans wont like at all.. he then realized what he said and refused to elaborate. The media glossed it over, as usual. I have not forgotten that ominous warning, and nor have many others. It’s coming.

RIP to the bushfire victims, and condolences to their friends and family.

[url:18z6nx62]http://www.infowars.com[/url:18z6nx62]

or if that’s a bit much to chew on at once…I like this guy

[url:18z6nx62]http://www.glennbeck.com[/url:18z6nx62]

War did indeed end the great depression in the US.

But not particularly because of the military actions of the US.

The US became an international arms dealer, and many of our big companies (like US steel and the rockefeller oil cartel), began large amounts of raw materials to countries who needed them to produce weapons.

The US at that time was similar to China now, large amount of resources, highly export dependent.

In addition, as the revenues arrived from this sudden international trade explosion, the US began making hefty loans to foreign nations, cementing our 20th century role as the Top Dog in terms of economy.

So yes, war helped us last time, but this time things are very different.

The sky is falling :!:

Guys, I know you think we’re the bad guys in Iraq, but terrorism really has to be stopped, and I think we should all get behind that.

Agreed the sky is falling.

[img:lwst56qy]http://www.penguinpetes.com/images/L_Ron_Paul_Hubbard_art/Ron_Paul_baby.jpg[/img:lwst56qy]

Yeah, I think the sky is falling… falling… as in the process of… I don’t think it’s dooms day to say so, it’s just more fact. Countries are in/heading for recession and things are getting worse by the day… there is no need to start preparing food and water for your nuclear bunker… but no need to put your head in the sand either.

You only have to look at aspects of America, nationally and internationally, and you know that a lot of issues are like a keg, waiting for ignition. Imagine what would happen if Obama got assassinated, economic crisis fallout, race relations, housing crisis, bank freeze… what ever it is… everything you hear from over there seems wound tight and ready to pop.

Some days I think if we stopped talking about the crisis would there be lesser of one. Like climate change… and all this talk about temperatures rising… Australia’s officially dropped last year… 7 year cycle maybe? heh shrug

Anyway, back to the topic…

Missouri’s reason for threatening to declare sovereignty appears to be that they want to retain the right to pass laws against abortion…something which the Freedom of Choice Act (currently in congress) would prohibit.

This incident clearly demonstrates how tense the politcians are about life, the universe, and everything these days.

Abortion has been an issue/talking point/overblown fiasco for ages upon ages now.

So why, all of a sudden, is it so important that people are threatening civil war?

roe v wade

For all the world to hold “Americans” as being lazy and idiotic, basically many “American’s” are not going to stand idly by and let a would-be-dictator take control..I expect skirmishes to happen..hell i’m kinda looking forward to it.

No matter how hard left they push, it will swing back right in 2010. History shows that.

I can’t believe that you’re being like this after Obama has been president for a mere few weeks. Have you forgotten what a disaster the last administration was? Have you forgotten that the Republican party is a mess? Who you gonna run in 2012? Huckabee/Palin?

It’s hard to say what movies will be hits in that time… and which of the actors will switch to politics… :twisted:

Seth Rogen 4 President

[img:1rch2y8x]http://www.canmag.com/images/front/people2/sethrogen2.jpg[/img:1rch2y8x]

I guess you forgot I voted for Ron Paul.

You know personal liberty, less war, less taxation. Stuff that Democrats don’t understand.

We are getting more of a tax break then Bush gave us. He is “trying” to

create more jobs for ppl. Since ur in construction (if i recall) thats more

business for u and ur company.

Yes our kids, kids will most likey pay for it in the future. But then again

the war that Bush “tried” to finish for his father already cost over 1trillion.

Not including all the disable ppl that the country need to help for the rest

of their lives.

Give the man a break Mikey, like what Jonny said. He’s only been in the

office for a few weeks. He didn’t cause this mess, so its not his fault.

That’s the positive aspect of it all..he didn’t cause this mess…and by the time he’s done with it, we would have appreciated what we had…on a completely un-related note.. Pelosi .more or less, demanding that fellow democrats vote yes for a bill before they are allowed to see and having republicans told outright, no..they can’t see the bill before hand..yeah….

expect this to be news for next 2 weeks like a hot potato

Why should Democrats release the bill before it is being voted on. You act like this is a Democracy or something. Here is a cool quote from Obama.

From the politico.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/18441.html

â€œToo often bills are rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them,â€ the Obama-Biden campaign website states. â€œAs president, Obama will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.â€

I know I know, this is a dire emergency.

In the words of Nancy Pelosi “Every month the stimulus bill is not passed 500 million Americans lose their jobs.”

The whole idea of bipartisanship is a joke.

And Will do you know exactly what that tax cut is? Are you sure that it is still part of the package…

bill is over 1000 pages, you can grep through it if you like

bill is over 1000 pages, you can grep through it if you like[/quote:3bot6fn1]

When was the bill released? When is it being voted on? Why the big rush when most of the money won’t even be spent until right before the next election.

Just to clarify I believe the final bill was released at 11pm last night. The House already voted on it and the Senate will pass it (within 24 hours) with the 3 RINOs that will lose in the next primary.

Will the President wait to sign it? I think not.

Australia has just passed a 42b stimulus package… we aren’t even in recession yet… It feels like we just react to every “world outlook” report that crosses the desk, when a country like Australia should be looking at things in more of a local context. Things are still steady in my industry, and the only downturn is people being scared by world hype… I just wish the people in my government would recognise we aren’t like everyone else that our economy deviates from the european and american norms.

<LINK_TEXT text=“http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/1 … 66793.html”>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/13/houses-passes-stimulus-no_n_166793.html</LINK_TEXT>

Hey Reboog!

When i see your nick-name i can has a picture in my mind of an 7-years old boy with beanie-propeller hat!

Your nick-name is not of an heavy metal style.

You be no great anymore.

I find neo-conservative Republicans amusing, when they keep pretending to be progressive centrist voters.

[quote:1g4tmv8s]You know personal liberty, less war, less taxation. Stuff that Democrats don’t understand.[/quote:1g4tmv8s]

Republicans have trashed personal liberty over the last 8 years. For sure.

Less taxation, perhaps for the wealthy. I didnt see it in my paychecks.

The wealthy got the largest tax breaks from the Bush tax cuts.

Less war? Republicans love war. They can grease the hands of their buds in Haliburton and Blackwater with no-bid contracts wasting tons of taxpayer money.

I guess Republicans dont understand that either. More like stuff Mike tries to sound off about, just to prove his Republican point of view. Has nothing to do with issues. If it were about real issues, Mike would have been speaking up about lots of stuff for the past 8 years. But instead Mike has been quiet as a mouse until Obama started running for President.

You voted for Bush before this last election Mike, so you dont fool anyone there with the Ron Paul stuff. And when Ron Paul was having his convention in Minneapolis, you were sitting online playing sloth that night not contributing.

Talk talk talk, no action. Just a full of complaints Neo-Conservative Republican.

Why is it then every time a Republican leaves office the country is in a recession?

Bush, Bush Sr., and Reagan. Even Reagan ran the debt up to over 6% of GDP. Recent Bush ran the debt up to 10% of GDP. Trickle down economics is a total joke. It doesnt work. The wealthy keep the money because they are wealthy. They dont need to spend it like the middle and lower class do.

Bill Clinton Right? You hate his guts. Blowjob, disrespect of the oval office.. etc etc. When he left office we had a budget surplus. Knucklehead president? Sure. But at least he didnt bankrupt the country. And the Republican leading the charges against him? Speaker of the house….Newt Gingrich. And in his own book, he wrote. A book that NEWT GINGRICH REPUBLICAN wrote he admits to a lengthy affair he was having on his wife at the same time he was running Clinton through the mill for his blowjob.

I dont like Democrats or Republicans. They both generally do bad things given time. So go yell yourself silly till you turn red in the face, trying to label people things they are not. But this nonsense of ONLY bashing Democrats is political Rush Limbaugh style BullSh*t.

While I do respond from time to time. I really still fail to see the necessity of posting policital rants to a text-game website. You must have no-one else that will listen to you Mike. Thats sad. You start far too many of these bash threads.

Maybe an admin would like to take note of this thread, and wonder why it might contribute to the decline in voting, player base, and rank for Sloth III. Who the hell wants to log onto a game or a website with sh+t like this. People want to game to relax and get away from all this trash.

I dont play much anymore, if at all. Last time I logged on some knucklehead tried to pkill the tank and ruined the group. Somehow he still has a char.

Good Luck

I really still fail to see the necessity of posting policital rants to a text-game website. [/quote:3foinv9b]

LOL.. and did you also fail to see the irony in saying that immediately after writing the longest political rant on the thread so far?

:roll:

.[/color:3foinv9b]

I guess this means Broc is in favor of a bill that we don’t know the contents of? And he is calling me fascist? If you think either party gives a damn about you then wake up. They care about power and control. You bitch and bitch about Cheney and Haliburton, but have nothing to say about Jeff Immelt and GE.

As far as railing on Bush. You guys did not need any help with that. Plenty of times in the past I have been critical of Bush. Over the war, increased government and the attack on civil liberties.

Trying to correlate lower player base with a few political posts on our message board is an amazing tactic. You want admin to shut me up? Just like you want the government to shut up people like Limbaugh. Look just because you don’t agree with someone does not mean you can use government/admin power to shut them up. There is something called the First Amendment to the Constitution. Democrats would just love to pass a “fairness doctrine” that applied only to talk radio. They love freedom of speech when they want to talk about killing babies or taking away guns. But oh no do not oppose them, or else your mouth will be forcibly clammed.

Broc I have read part of Saul Alinsky’s book and I know your tactics. They are weak at best.

<LINK_TEXT text=“http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php? … geId=88851”>http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=88851</LINK_TEXT>

Federal obligations exceed world GDP

Does $65.5 trillion terrify anyone yet?

“As the Obama administration pushes through Congress its $800 billion deficit-spending economic stimulus plan, the American public is largely unaware that the true deficit of the federal government already is measured in trillions of dollars, and in fact its $65.5 trillion in total obligations exceeds the gross domestic product of the world.

The total U.S. obligations, including Social Security and Medicare benefits to be paid in the future, effectively have placed the U.S. government in bankruptcy, even before new continuing social welfare obligation embedded in the massive spending plan are taken into account.

The real 2008 federal budget deficit was $5.1 trillion, not the $455 billion previously reported by the Congressional Budget Office, according to the “2008 Financial Report of the United States Government” as released by the U.S. Department of Treasury. "

At least black people won’t be the only ones complaining about slavery. We’re all going to be slaves to the State. Our current obligation per person is already over 36,000. If you take into account the fact that only 50% pay taxes that boosts you up to around 70,000 in tax liability to the federal govt to balance our budgets. Where will this money come from. If it is so bad for Republicans to run deficits then why are we starting the first 100 days of the new presidency with the biggest government spending package to date. Let me guess. The whole thing was G W Bush’s fault right? He was the last monarch and all.

I really still fail to see the necessity of posting policital rants to a text-game website. [/quote:23aflfnk]

LOL.. and did you also fail to see the irony in saying that immediately after writing the longest political rant on the thread so far?

:roll:

.[/color:23aflfnk][/quote:23aflfnk]

I don’t really see the harm. We’re a group of friends who’ve been hanging out here for over a decade? :)

My 2 cents is that the economic stimulus plan is no the right track. We have to create employment and get demand for goods and services back up. We have to get these empty houses off the market and back onto the tax rolls. We have to reduce energy consumption by improving efficiency.

Inflation is the pill we’re going to have to swallow. Cutting spending would push demand down further and throw us into a severe depression.

Whats funny to me is that the right is placing the blame on the left. Whatever.

I am placing the blame on both of them. What is the point in creating a few jobs when your going to make the other 95% of people pay twice as much for goods. Inflation really hurts the poor and old people on fixed incomes. I thought we were trying to help these people. So we are going to create government run programs to help people and we are directly taking half their money through inflation. Who benefits other than government?

When u steal from the poor and give to the rich for 8 years, you have to redistribute somehow. Inflate the currency and pass out money.

I know you hate that idea because its socialist, but what else you gonna do, ask the corporations to please give back all the money they stole from the treasury under Bush?

The money gets spent and the stuff gets built. Then when the money and jobs are over the inflation is still present. You can’t raise minimum wage fast enough to keep up.

Clue: Zimbabwe

So we are going to create government run programs to help people and we are directly taking half their money through inflation.[/quote:1cje1ycd]

The Guardian magazine thinks that’s what exactly has been done during Clinton’s and Bush’s presidency: to help poor people get their own homes, so banks carelessly started to give a low % credits to “poor ppl”, but the poor ppl suddenly appeared to be unable to return not only the %’s, but even the initial credit. Why? That’s rhitorical. [u:1cje1ycd]They are poor for a reason.[/u:1cje1ycd]

Then, the world financial system collapsed, but those who started it didn’t suffered the loss what they must’ve been thanks to re-finance programs etc. The ones who actually lost was the people who deserved it the less - me, for example. In almost 2 months my savings was cut [u:1cje1ycd]in half[/u:1cje1ycd], thankfully i’m unreplacable at work so i wasn’t fired. Still, i must wave my hand goodbye to the Cisco Academy i was aiming at this spring, not saying that everything got as twice as expencive compared to before the crysis, so my future is kinda blurred atm. But it’s OK, i’m glad your [u:1cje1ycd]lazy unsmart uneducated naggers[/u:1cje1ycd] have their own homes now to hide crack, dance hip-hop and play basketball and breed their own kind w/o any contribution to the civilization.

You want to start it over again? Thank you very much. Think about why all the world hates you.

This thread is a cesspool… and I am trolling… :twisted: Thanks for stopping by. Have a nice day.

Oh btw, just to clarify - i don’t have any grudge towards any of living being.

As The Pope said, it’s the Greed who cause all this crap.

[img:cqjlsuyb]http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l30/AbsinthMonster/rock1.jpg[/img:cqjlsuyb]

Just exactly as I expected… :D

I believe this is what Mikey was lookin for. Whats in this stimulus?

<LINK_TEXT text=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090214/ap_ … _gets_what”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090214/ap_on_go_co/stimulus_stakes_who_gets_what</LINK_TEXT>

Sorry..how is 300 million dollars allocated to an exhibit out west help someone on the east coast? And 50 mil set aside for “green-energy” golf carts? umm if you want to bail me out..just send me the cash..I’ll handle it from there…Govt on both sides have sucked at running it’s own affairs and now they deem it necessary to handle the citizens affairs as well? There’s a reason while China stop investing in our debt….you did hear the story how California is giving itself a loan by buying it’s own debt because no one else would…..that’s just hilarious on a whole other scale

Obama is a SOCIALIST. I hope you guys are happy that you got your pinko commie nation!

This stimulus bill is loaded with pork. What did you expect from a president who followed a anarchist who hated America?!

He is stealing money from right out of your pockets, and everyone is letting him. I bet Monica Lewinski is sucking him off too, cuz she has a thing for communist pinkos.

America deserves what it’s got coming.

ps we are in DEFLATION, NOT INFLATION

ps we are in DEFLATION, NOT INFLATION[/quote:1tijkk5j]

[img:1tijkk5j]http://yasik.kiev.ua/4chan/All_my_base_belong_to_you.gif[/img:1tijkk5j]

I’m not excited about our new socialist majority. I’m a taxpaying US citizen and it upsets me that Obama and his party want to redistribute my (very limited) wealth. I’m a conservative, not a Republican – and I think the country would be in a lot better shape right now if we’d had any conservative leadership since before Bill Clinton.

As my taxes increase though, it will become increasingly difficult to break even without taking advantage of stupid government programs. Congress just decided to hand me an $8000 check this year because I did my ‘civic duty’ and bought a house for the first time.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. I would have bought the house anyways – without a ‘stimulus’ and without giving my children an extra 2 trillion dollars in debt to pay off. But I’ll take the money, because I’m going to need it to pay my taxes when they go up next year and my salary doesn’t.

ps we are in DEFLATION, NOT INFLATION[/quote:d77wykia]

True true, but I can’t imagine it will be long b4 inflation hits. I just don’t see how they can print money and spend it without causing inflation.

Right now..most [working]people pay between 33 and 42% of their salary in taxes..by 2012/2013 it will be around 60-70%. Hopefully by 2011 people will realize and revolt.

Have a nice day.

[img:36if5nr6]http://www.boom2bust.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/stimulus-package.jpg[/img:36if5nr6]

I could be wrong, but the gov will give u $8k. However its not “free” money.

Every yr when u do ur taxes, you will receive ~$500 less. If u sell the

house, then u would pay back the amount minus the yrs u been there.

So ppl who lives there for several yrs it will “pay” itself out.

I brought a house a couple of yrs ago, and my uncle is a CPA didn’t sign

me up for a “First time home buyer”. His reason was because I didn’t need

the money that bad, and since I’m only planning to live here for 5yrs. There

wouldn’t be much of a point, because when I sell the house. I would need

to pay back ~$4.5k. Better to not have spent something if you don’t know

u have it. Or something like that… :)

[quote:1wu0i75x]I could be wrong, but the gov will give u $8k. However its not “free” money.

Every yr when u do ur taxes, you will receive ~$500 less. [/quote:1wu0i75x]

You are correct. They are giving you cash back, but increasing marginal tax rates (this means more of your income will go to Uncle Sam, and you are not really getting any cash back at all in the long term)

[quote:3onohg28]

True true, but I can’t imagine it will be long b4 inflation hits. I just don’t see how they can print money and spend it without causing inflation.[/quote:3onohg28]

If you are referring to the stimulus, then maybe. It is not “timely, targeted, and temporary” as Larry Summers is so famous for saying. The money is going to be spent slowly, and I’m not convinced that this is going to stop deflation. If it does, it will simply reverse when the government cannot find any more holes to dig and holes to fill and infrastructure ends.

If you are speaking of the bailout money (we inflated the currency in 4 months what it would normally take us years to reach), that does not have any effect on the value of the dollar. Bonus points: why?

I am not a financial expert, but I would guess it’s because the banks are deleveraging.

[img:1dg8unrs]http://www.sceneherd.com/images/timelife2.jpg[/img:1dg8unrs]

This infomercial was brought to you by timelife. We now return you to your hosts goober and boogle for there breakdown of the global economic crisis.

Back to you in the studio…

[img:1dg8unrs]http://www.traeblain.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/nerds.jpg[/img:1dg8unrs]

Poggle: you left out the words “very” and “severe.”

The financial sector is deleveraging at a huge rate, no credit is coming out, so no one is spending. Nobody would anyway, because debt accumulated is so high that they would save to try to cover that.

Juggleblood: I read some of your posts earlier about how the stimulus bill is on the right track. I think the idea of the stimulus bill is comforting, but both the idea and the execution are flawed. I’m posting this to you because you are not a racist like Yasik and not a partisan hack like Weasel.

I’m not going to touch into this, but the stimulus bill is part tax cut (but not really tax cut, I explained a post earlier), part stimulus to be spent slowly on infrastructure, and part… investment!? This is bad.

When the government invests, you have to ask what both the benefits and the costs are. It crowds out private sector. It increases deficit.

How do you offset this? Well, maybe government is more efficient than private sector. Maybe the money we get back is more than we put in (Keynes’ idea of a multiplier… you put in $1.00, you get back $1.50 of output.) These are pretty easy to consider.

So… is government spending efficient? I think they have proved that the answer is no. 700 billion TARP (REPEATED financial bailouts, about to repeat an auto industry bailout), moratorium on foreclosures, loan modifications (homeowner re-default rate is high, as expected).

Is the multiplier good? Planned production by government has rarely (if ever, I don’t know), proved to be good. Billions in subsidies are going into cellulosic ethanol, an alternative green fuel source. These research firms are a financial black hole, and they are nowhere to solving the problem, even with billions of free (taxpayer) dollars from Congress. Japan also suffered from planned production, and there was something here domestically about investment in DRAM. I don’t know the specifics, but I know that they didn’t work.

If you assume that government spending is efficient, and that it is better than private sector, then yes, the stimulus… I mean, investment, is good.

I fear this post is getting too long for people to read, so I’ll stop here.

I didn’t get a mention. :evil:

On the infrastructure part (ala FDR):

Here are some questions. We had a housing bubble. Oversupply of construction workers. We are sending them back to work. Is that really what we want, a continuation of construction? How are we going to ensure that all these dollars help the currently unemployed, and not currently employed? (7% unemployment means 93% employment.) Also, half of wall street is laid off. How does this create new jobs for them?

When the holes are dug and filled, what jobs are they going to do?

Is getting 100% employment the ideal goal? I can achieve 100% employment. Get rid of machinery. Hire manual labor. Is this good?

I am proud to see this thread turn into a serious debate. I will add more after work. It is good to have real discussions and not mud slinging.

I don’t know wut deleveraged means, but assuming you are correct and we won’t experience inflation, whats the harm in government spending that stimulates demand?

I don’t believe that we are as taxed as Tap says we are. A good portion of the population gets all their income tax dollars back. Even when you add in all the extra fees and hidden taxes we pay, those numbers look too high.

Getting mad about pork seems unnecessary if you consider that government stimulus is pretty much pork by definition.

I don’t know that the free market model is even the paradigm of success anymore. The countries that are expanding the fastest have centralized control over the economy and poor regulation is exactly what got us in this mess to begin with.

I’m posting this to you because you are not a racist like Yasik and not a partisan hack like Weasel.[/quote:1eoxk0u7]

LOL.. always the same. Because I didn’t support Obama, I must be a partisan hack. Do you know what that statement makes you? A partisan hack. Ironic isn’t it.

.[/color:1eoxk0u7]

Say you have a million bucks and you are in the business of lending money. You could loan out your million dollars to a few responsible borrowers and expect to make a decent return.

However, you could also use your million bucks to borrow ten million, and then loan that out to a bunch of borrowers. Now you’re making way more than you could with your piddly million. Congratulations, now you are leveraged.

Leverage is great. It stimulates economy and production to an amazing degree. However, it is also risky, and if it is used irresponsibly, people tend to go bankrupt.

For a long time, banks have been leveraging way way up, huge leverage. This is awesome, but they have also been making really shitty loans, which is not awesome. Now people are defaulting, and banks getting screwed from every direction (like they deserve).

So they ask for bailouts (which they don’t deserve).

But what do they do with their bailouts? Sit on it, pretty much. Pay off their debts. And it makes sense. They don’t want to repeat themselves by making a bunch more shitty loans.

So you have a bunch of banks which should be bankrupt (just like anyone should be if they make bad investments while leveraging). Congress continues to funnel money into the banks, which continue to deleverage.

Eventually the banks will leverage up again, which might be a crazy crazy time.

Juggleblood: Poggle described leveraging.

Tap is (probably) making up numbers. Tap, if you work in finance and know that this is what’s going to happen, I apologize. You probably know more about the crisis than I do, then. But what I described about the tax rebate + marginal tax rate increase is true. It’s written in the bill.

I’ve argued why I think the investment part of the stimulus bill (lol) is stupid, and why the tax cut is non-existent, so the only question that remains is whether or not the actual stimulus part of the stimulus is good.

It’s directly tied to the questions I posed in the last post.

[quote:28mqsfeu]LOL.. always the same. Because I didn’t support Obama, I must be a partisan hack. Do you know what that statement makes you? A partisan hack. Ironic isn’t it. [/quote:28mqsfeu]

Weasel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

But what do they do with their bailouts? Sit on it, pretty much. Pay off their debts. And it makes sense. They don’t want to repeat themselves by making a bunch more shitty loans.

[/quote:3s1q2n11]

We would also have accepted “pay themselves bonuses,” “implode their balance sheets to ask for more bailouts,” and “continue acting irresponsibly because the government has shown that they will bail us out.”

[quote:3uun4568]LOL.. always the same. Because I didn’t support Obama, I must be a partisan hack. Do you know what that statement makes you? A partisan hack. Ironic isn’t it. [/quote:3uun4568]

Weasel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man[/quote:3uun4568]

LOL.. you [i:3uun4568]do[/i:3uun4568] realize you just did it yourself, don’t you?

.[/color:3uun4568]

I’m not sure what countries you’re talking about. China is extremely capitalist, even if they don’t want to admit it.

No country is healthy now economically. The Euro is crashing, Europe’s banks are insolvent, US’s banks are insolvent, Japan is spiraling into depression, and China is directly pegged to the US.

Also, communism/fascism doesn’t work. Despite all the failures of free market, the alternatives are worse.

I’m not sure what countries you’re talking about. China is extremely capitalist, even if they don’t want to admit it.

No country is healthy now economically. The Euro is crashing, Europe’s banks are insolvent, US’s banks are insolvent, Japan is spiraling into depression, and China is directly pegged to the US.

Also, communism/fascism doesn’t work. Despite all the failures of free market, the alternatives are worse.[/quote:2r9ag6ue]

Rep

The ‘capitalist’ nature of China is debatable given that 90 percent of investment assets are held by state banks. They are moving towards privatizing it, but to me it seems obvious that the success of their economy is due to good government planning rather than ’the invisible hand of the market’. Capitalism there flourishes within the confines of state control over the economy. This seems to be the direction we headed under Bush when the government bought out the banks. Same deal with the government trying to rescue the auto industry. If the auto industry is allowed to die, it’s not going to come back without serious government intervention.

To me, it seemed the neoconservatives (Republicans) were pushing classical economic theory, the idea that markets regulate themselves. I think this was/is an outdated notion and we’re seeing a return to Keynesian economics which operates from the premise that hat private sector decisions sometimes lead to inefficient macroeconomic outcomes.

This is why we’re seeing such an emphasis on stimulating demand. The Republicans are holding their ground and saying that we should just continue cutting taxes because taxes are holding back the potential of the free market. Personally I think they’re doing it for political reasons, not because they still believe in outdated economic models.

I don’t know enough about China to reply, only that I’ve heard that they are probably the most capitalist nation in the world. If I have time, I can try to substantiate some of those claims.

I don’t like to drag politics into this. Republicans always talk about tax cuts. I don’t know what the democratic panacea is, but I suspect it’s equally based on belief and political ideology and not on fact. People in politics just stick to what their party says and worry about being popular, not about doing what’s right.

[quote:nz74erdl]To me, it seemed the neoconservatives (Republicans) were pushing classical economic theory, the idea that markets regulate themselves. I think this was/is an outdated notion and we’re seeing a return to Keynesian economics which operates from the premise that hat private sector decisions sometimes lead to inefficient macroeconomic outcomes. [/quote:nz74erdl]

Now this is a very interesting point. The trigger of the whole crisis was mortgages and their securitization. Government actually had a huge part in this, in promoting home ownership (subprime and alt-A) and lowering interest rates. In a healthy, non government interfered mortgage market, subprime and alt-A should never have left the ground. This topic is huge and should probably be dedicated in another post.

About the Keynesian part, you still have to answer those questions I posed. :)

[quote:nz74erdl]This is why we’re seeing such an emphasis on stimulating demand. The Republicans are holding their ground and saying that we should just continue cutting taxes because taxes are holding back the potential of the free market. Personally I think they’re doing it for political reasons, not because they still believe in outdated economic models.[/quote:nz74erdl]

I agree.

Taliban: You have two cows. You load them up with explosives and herd them onto your neighbor’s property where you blow them up. Your neighbor dies. You starve to death.

Totalitarianism: You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.

Terrorism: You have two cows. You blow them up.

Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.

Republican: You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. So what?

Mafia: You have two cows. The Mob kills one, leaves the head under your bedsheets, and makes you pay protection with milk from the other.

Luddits: You have two cows. You milk them by hand.

Fundamentalism: You have two cows. The government kills you for owning cows, confiscates your cows, and then kills everyone who suggests that the government should be killed for owning cows.

Fascism: You have two cows. The government takes the cows, shoot you and sell the milk to your widow.

Dictatorship: You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.

Democracy: You have two cows. A vote is held, the cows win.

Communism â€” Soviet: You have two cows. You count them and realize you have four cows.You drink more Vodka. You count the cows again and realize you have eleventy six cows. You drink even more Vodka. After a while, you realize that eleventy isn’t a real number. You count the cows again and have two cows. You open another bottle of Vodka and try to drown the loss of eleventy four cows.

Anarchy: You have two cows. They run away.

Britain: You have two cows. They are crazy. You try to sell them in Europe.

Florida Corporation: You have a black cow and a brown cow. Everyone votes for the best looking one. Some of the people who like the brown one best vote for the black one. Some people vote for both. Some people vote for neither. Some people can’t figure out how to vote at all. Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which is the best looking one.

French Corporation: You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows.

German Corporation: You have two cows. You reengineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

Hong Kong Capitalism: You have two cows. You kill them because of bad feng shui.

Indian Corporation: You have two cows. You worship them.

Japanese: There are two cows left in the world. You kill one for scientific research on how to breed them. You conclude that the first one was rather tasty.

New Zealand: You have two sheep.

Australian Film Industry: Two New Zealand cows star in an award-winning film. They are granted Australian citizenship.

Art: You hire two cows to model nude. You paint a triangle and do an interpretave dance.

[url:nubpsg62]http://everything2.com/e2node/Two%2520cow%2520economics[/url:nubpsg62]

Weaselism - Your friend has more cows, you take his cows and stab him in the face!

Tapism - You spend your time trying to convince others they are better off murdering their cows.

Truthism - You gather everyones cows together and attack an elephant.

Mediosism - His cows are better than yours.

Akashaism - You have two cows, they yield 0.51 % per annum.

Heckism - All your cows can belong to him!

Apprenticism - You sell your feed for money.

Virusism - You make a spirit watcher to watch everyone elses cows.

Nomicism - You thank God for the good news about your cows.

Assirianism - You help everyone else with there cows.

Rovenaism - Everytime your cow gets big, you start a calf.

Reboogism - You have 2 cattle. Cattle: Good nick length.

I’m not in finance at all. What i’ve stated is only speculation . I would only state to look into such matters for yourself and try to sort truth from hype. I actually thought China was more like North Korea. But I see that it is not.

Not something that I’ve said negative about it so I don’t know how I even got on that train of thought. Someone posted earlier that Republican’s didn’t really care about tax cuts and that they were only taking that stance for political reasons aka votes. That’s probably true, however look at the people who are casting their votes for them. It’s the same people that don’t want to pay more and more taxes for wasteful spending. It’s the double standard that the government does that is finally catching up to them. They can NOT pay you your tax refund but you try not to pay them taxes..you’ll go to jail. They tell you you are wasting energy and fuel..then fly around the country in private jets and preach about global warming in 30 degree weather. It’s the same reason Osama, yes OSAMA, wants to clamp down on talk radio…they hate when issues are broadcast and politicians exposed. America is quickly becoming Cuba. Or trying too…I firmly believe that something is going to make the straw break the camels back and bring this all to head. And it’s sooner than later I’m afraid.

Jezerism - You have two cows but you don’t realize it because no one told you.

Little disappointed about Jezerism there Tap, I expected a little more impact. :evil:

Juggleblood: I did a search for china capitalism and this is what I got.

<LINK_TEXT text=“http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB … 70423.html”>http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB117673497322471299-n8ITJ4fSumSS90MHLNNK4x3W_BQ_20070423.html</LINK_TEXT>

Wall Street Journal is a reputable source. I haven’t read any articles past the first one yet.

Actually i read some where that China is hurtting right now with the US.

Since US owns China 1.7 trillion dollars on borrowed funds already. But

thats not the reason why China is hurtting. Look at everything that you

own. I bet 75% of them were made in China. If the USA ppl r not buying,

then China doesn’t need to “make” more products. So currently they have

millions of unemployeed ppl too.

I also wanted to add this link. I’m sure A LOT of ppl have saw this video.

But if not, watch it. Its about 8mins long. But alot of this story makes

sense….

<LINK_TEXT text=“http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid … 8700958565”>http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1954933468700958565</LINK_TEXT>

China controls their inflation by locking their money into US Treasuries.

Yes, China is hurting. They depend on exports to sustain their growth. It has fallen by 17.5% (that is a big number!) as US and Europe are no longer looking for their goods.

Yeah everyone talks up china and japan… but they are export economies… look at them now…

Prediction: Economic crisis will see China look internally at there markets… allowing a new middle class to arise, with less emphasis on exports… with huge demands for goods internally they will become the new world economic power. America is/will fall away.

Reboog, I don’t see the point of that question. The currently unemployed vs. the currently employed? Preventing unemployment just as good as making new jobs. What to do when all the holes are filled? I think there’s more to the stimulus package than filling potholes. Hopefully the stimulus puts the economy back on positive growth and those pot hole fillers go to work fixing stuff in the private sector, building new walmarts and starbucks, all the same old stuff they did when the economy was working.

Don’t hold your breath..America will either change for the worse or they will be a dramatic uprising. In any case, it will be dramatically different within a short period of time. I’m leaning towards the later…the “changes” coming about are from a minority of people.. I quickly see the wall approaching where unless the current course of action doesn’t change direction, it will smack itself straight in the face.

re: filling potholes - That’s what infrastructure is about. I’m using that term tongue in cheek, but construction work is construction work.

We’ve seen consumers cut down on spending because they have tons of debt. If they are not spending at Walmart and Starbucks (okay Walmart continues strong, Starbucks however is suffering big time), why would these companies build new buildings?

I know you are just giving examples of businesses, but here are some facts.

Restaurants are suffering. They have lost tons of revenue, and places are starting to cut their prices (deflation).
Retail sale is falling apart.
Auto sales are falling.
Hotels are losing tons of customers.

Once the infrastructure is complete, where will they go next? The economy was only working because people were spending beyond their means. Surely you’re not suggesting that we go back to that, or that people are willing to go back to that? (It’s a fact that people are not willing to go back to that; this is also what is known as a credit freeze, a credit crisis, a credit squeeze)

Now that the consumer and the State’s are in debt, they look to the Federal government for a bailout. Who will the Federal government turn to for a bailout? The taxpayer is who. All the money the government prints or borrows will be paid with interest in the form of massive inflation or a raise in taxes. The only way the government can keep this ponzi scheme going is to make our money worth less. That reduces debt obligations by making our debt worth less. However once the other countries catch on it will be hell because they will stop buying our debt and look to other places to invest their capital. Once Treasuries peak and collapse we will see the government rush to find “new money”. Remember Treasury bonds were supposed to be used to fund wars not budgets. With a contracting GDP the amount of money needed just to pay the interest on debt increases. They can’t keep borrowing the way out.

One problem with free markets is that when you have governments of countries doing massive growth projects(China,India,UAE,etc) the cost of commodities will briefly rise due to supply and demand. We had a period of low supply for commodities and it hurt our economy through rising prices. Couple that with ignorant consumers that already have debt and you got a powderkeg waiting for someone smoking to toss the butt. The inflated commodity prices took its toll on finished goods(gas,food,etc). The people that were already stretched thin took a hit on these staples. Plus due to Alan Greenspan and his idea of having low interest rates for years(which led to massive bank over leveraging) the amount of risk in the market was huge. When people can borrow money for free, they don’t put as much planning into things as they would if it was their own money. So how do we fix this problem? We are going to borrow even more money and lower interest rates even further.

I don’t think there is an answer. All one can do is ride it out.

It’s what Keynes described as the paradox of thrift. To get out of a recession, you have to increase aggregate demand. I am not an economist, but on what grounds do we believe that this will work?

Jezer: Yes, we have to ride it out. What we don’t have to do is lengthen that ride, which is exactly what this particular stimulus and bailouts do.

Jezer: Yes, we have to ride it out. What we don’t have to do is lengthen that ride, which is exactly what this particular stimulus and bailouts do.[/quote:1dwcym6s]

Yeah, I get the picture of a motor not working… (wow that’s an awesome picture jezer, tell us mores!)… so you go to it and try and restart it all the time (stimulus)… but that’s not going to work… cause it’s broke! You have to take time out, rebuild the engine before you start it. It takes time and money and there are going to be consequences, things aren’t going to be the same anymore.

It’s kind of funny how everyone is trying to cast ‘phase door’ at the moment… heh, you sowed crap, now your reaping it… you can’t reload your game… you can’t just phase door out of the mess… there are consequences! All you can do is face them, life will go on, economy or no economy. I really don’t think there is a magic bullet… I mean you could say worldwide debt cancellation… but that’s not realistic.

This thread is depressing.

Might be a bit old but still:

Marc Faberâ€™s comment on the US economy

September 11, 2008

The federal government is sending each of us a $600 rebate.

If we spend that money at Wal-Mart, the money goes to China.

If we spend it on gasoline it goes to the Arabs.

If we buy a computer it will go to India.

If we purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala.

If we purchase a good car it will go to Germany.

If we purchase useless crap it will go to Taiwan and none of it will help the American economy.

The only way to keep that money here at home is to spend it on prostitutes and beer, since these are the only products still produced in US. Iâ€™ve been doing my part.

Vixn

Vixn’s post brings up an interesting point. The fact that we get our goods from overseas may sound like a bad thing, but it’s not. Enacting protectionism would be the bad thing to do here.

Enacting protectionism would be the bad thing to do here.[/quote:1nq1dti6]

Probably but it’s too expensive to fly to Thai and buy slut there with just $600, eh? I’d ask gov to give more cash!

You don’t want to do that in Thailand.

Ever hear of the ladyboys?

<LINK_TEXT text=“http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/photo/2007 … 465187.jpg”>http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/photo/2007-02/15/xin_59020415202076465187.jpg</LINK_TEXT>

(not ladies)

your MOM is a ladyboy (owned)

Speaking of lady boys… our new next door neighbor is friends or related to one… :oops:

I was out playing cricket in the street one night… (cricket is a popular British sport for all you uncircumcised) and there is this stiletto of this lady walking towards us. They aren’t walking normal, it’s a real “show” kinda walk. A feminine type of overdone “swagger.”

The boys I’m playing cricket with start laughing, and they say to me… that girl is actually a guy… I’m like no flippin way! They said yeah he is, he used to go to our school. :shock:

So we are all laughing about it after he goes inside. A little later one of us hits a tennis ball over there fence. Of course, no one wants to get it. But “he” was out the back and heard the tennis ball drop. “He” appears at the fence line, and chucks it back to us… It was a man’s throw… :shock:

I still can’t believe it… :D

PS Economy stuff…

You left out the part where you tea-bagged and found true love.

I wouldn’t want that though for your mom….

your MOM wouldn’t want that for your mom (owned)

reboog: hi (owned)

reboog: hi

Threads don’t die, they just fade away….

Might be a bit old but still:

Marc Faberâ€™s comment on the US economy

September 11, 2008

The federal government is sending each of us a $600 rebate.

If we spend that money at Wal-Mart, the money goes to China.

If we spend it on gasoline it goes to the Arabs.

If we buy a computer it will go to India.

If we purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala.

If we purchase a good car it will go to Germany.

If we purchase useless crap it will go to Taiwan and none of it will help the American economy.

The only way to keep that money here at home is to spend it on prostitutes and beer, since these are the only products still produced in US. Iâ€™ve been doing my part.

Vixn[/quote:1fs5gcm1]

personaly as I see it the only way to fix our economy in the US is to close the borders on trade and immigrations. yah I know I sound prejudis or how ever you spell it but I’m not unless you are illegally here then we’ll talk but at any rate yah that is only 1 mans oppinion.

this is ftl

Despite problems, there is optimism in Beijing. “Our common interests are much bigger than our differences,” says a government official who asked to remain anonymous. “We don’t see either side making significant shifts in policies.”

Meanwhile, China analyst James McGregor already notes a shift in tone: “The U.S. used to come here and lecture China,” he says. “Now the US is coming here to kiss up to China.”[/quote:15ilt4ax]

[url:15ilt4ax]http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/20/clinton.china/index.html[/url:15ilt4ax]

Would be very “hillaryous”. It seems that Clinton gonna trade democracy and freedom for Chinese cash.

What’s next? Would she try to find a human soul in Putin’s eyes?

:wink:

Vixn

<LINK_TEXT text=“http://www.treas.gov/initiatives/eesa/h … tSheet.pdf”>http://www.treas.gov/initiatives/eesa/homeowner-affordability-plan/FactSheet.pdf</LINK_TEXT>

The new “reward” ignorant consumer bill.

Here is a snippet.

“Who the Program Reaches:

Focusing on Homeowners At Risk: Anyone with high combined mortgage debt compared to income or who is â€œunderwaterâ€ (with a combined mortgage balance higher than the current market value of his house) may be eligible for a loan modification. This initiative will also include borrowers who show other indications of being at risk of default. Eligibility for the program will sunset at the end of three years.

Reaching Homeowners Who Have Not Missed Payments: Delinquency will not be a requirement for eligibility. Rather, because loan modifications are more likely to succeed if they are made before a borrower misses a payment, the plan will include households at risk of imminent default despite being current on their mortgage payments.

Common Sense Restrictions: Only owner-occupied homes qualify; no home mortgages larger than the Freddie/Fannie conforming limits will be eligible. This initiative will go solely to supporting responsible homeowners willing to make payments to stay in their home â€“ it will not aid speculators or house flippers.

Special Provisions for Families with High Total Debt Levels: Borrowers with high total debt qualify, but only if they agree to enter HUD-certified consumer debt counseling. Specifically, homeowners with total â€œback endâ€ debt (which includes not only housing debt, but other debt including car loans and credit card debt) equal to 55% or more of their income will be required to agree to enter a counseling program as a condition for a modification…”

Here is the part I really like

How the Program Works

The Homeowner Stability Initiative has a simple goal: reduce the amount homeowners owe per month to sustainable levels.[b:2fohm3t9] This program will bring together lenders, servicers, borrowers, and the government, so that all stakeholders share in the cost of ensuring that responsible homeowners can afford their monthly mortgage payments [/b:2fohm3t9]â€“ helping to reach up to 3 to 4 million at-risk borrowers in all segments of the mortgage market, reducing foreclosures, and helping to avoid further downward pressures on overall home prices. The program has several key components:

Explain to me how “responsible” homeowners got in this problem? Why should lenders, servicers, borrowers, and the government all be responsible? It sounds to me like the borrowers are the ones responsible for upholding their contractual agreement under the rule of law. I noticed that you can get $1000 credit to your principal just for paying on time. What about my principal payments? I bought a home that I knew I could pay for even after losing my job. So why should “greedy” people who bought more than they can afford be bailed out by the rest of us. How come I cannot get a $1000 credit on my loan, I have been paying on time since the start of the loan. Not only that I made over $12,000 in extra principal payments. As Rick Santelli put it, Why are the losers being bailed out, while the responsible people get it shoved in their face. This is a moral hazard and we don’t need to be reinforcing bad behavior.

You have it all figured out.

Please then run for political office and fix it.

Complaining to 50-100 people on a text-mud game website isnt going to get you real far in life Mike.

You should trying visiting this game to relax sometime. Its a great game.

I do come here to relax and I don’t spend much time here on the board compared to in game. You should try it. If your letting this discussion get you worked up then maybe your Dr. can prescribe some Zanax or Valium. I wouldn’t want you to stroke out over my discussions of politics on a text based game with 50-100 people.

Love you, bye now.

A New Way to Backdoor a Gun Ban: Onerous Insurance

Posted by Warner Todd Huston (Profile)

Thursday, February 19th at 6:40AM EST

Want a gun in Illinois? Fine. Then youâ€™ll be forced to carry an expensive, million dollar insurance policy to be â€œallowedâ€ to observe your Second Amendment right. At least, that will be the law if lefty gun-banner Kenneth Dunkin has any say in the matter.

Dunkin (D, Chicago) has made this attempt to undermine the Second Amendment even worse than a mere â€œinsuranceâ€ policy. He has also slipped into this unConstitutional morass a provision that says gun owners will be liable if their gun is used in a crime after it has been stolen from them. The bill also authorizes the State Police to confiscate the firearm ownerâ€™s ID (FOID) from any citizen that doesnâ€™t comply with purchasing the hefty insurance policy.

Rep. Kenneth Dunkinâ€™s bill seeks to amend the stateâ€™s Firearm Owners Identification Card Act to provides that any person who owns a firearm in the state maintain a $1 million or higher policy of liability insurance â€œspecifically covering any damages resulting from negligent or willful acts involving the use of such firearm while it is owned by such person.â€

A gun owner would be responsible after a firearm is lost or stolen until the loss or theft is reported to the police department or sheriff of the jurisdiction in which the owner resides.

Police would be empowered to pull the gun license of anyone who does not submit evidence of having the required insurance.

Now this stolen-yet-liable idea is one that the city of Philadelphia dealt with not long ago. It passed there so apparently it has given other cities the idea to pursue this back door demonization of gun owners.

Dunkin has introduced HB 687 in the State House in Springfield supposedly to assure that firearm owners are â€œlegalâ€ in the Land of Lincoln but as gun owners continue to point out legally owned guns are rarely connected to crimes of any kind.

Obviously, though, this has nothing at all to do with public safety, legality, or the Second Amendment. This is but one more backdoor attempt to make owning a gun so expensive, fraught with regulation and difficult that more and more people will simply give up their rights. It is a backdoor banning plain and simple.[/color:1le4otmf]

I heard this mentioned on Glenn Beck, a national talk-radio program that Osama wants snuffed out. This is perfect example of information that otherwise I would not have found out until it would have been too late. Now I am doing my part to research and confirm and spread the word to any who will listen.

When water is illegal, only criminals will drink.

This thread need more tits.

This housing bill is garbage, will keep housing prices artificially high, and will have no positive effect.

A poll showed that public opinion is against the bailouts and against the housing bill.

Prepare for another Citigroup and AIG bailout.

nods.. can’t believe how much AIG has sunk in the last couple of weeks..

Obama is going to have to buy AIG with all the talk of insuring. I bet he said he was going to insure us about 20 times tonight in that speech. I thought insurance was when you paid someone to prevent future losses. Is that why we elected Obama? So he can take the money now and the we’ll have to fight and claw our way into a claim?

[quote:62gcunn5]â€œThe outcome of the stress test is not going to be fail or pass [for banks],â€ Benrnake told legislators, but to â€œget a clear estimate of their capital needs.â€

Thus far, the Treasury has only said that: a) the tests would be applied to banks with assets over a $100 billion, which is essentially the top 20; b) banks found lacking would be told they needed to raise private capital; c) if they were unable to do so, they could apply for government funds under the newly created Capital Access Program, CAP, … d) funding would come from the second tranche of TARP.[/quote:62gcunn5]

This explains why they sent only 100 regulators to Citigroup to perform a “stress test.” 100 is a joke number, this is purely theater. In 2004, it took 161 regulators to stress test Citigroup’s mortgage securities ALONE.

[img:112hiu1z]http://www.thesunblog.com/sports/super_high_me.jpg[/img:112hiu1z]

I think if you didnt pay any attention to the last 8 years, really you have no grounds to start paying any attention now. Dont bother to start now just because a Democrat is in office.

Make sure you mail back Bush’s stimulus check from a few years back while you are at it. $600 per individual, $1200 per couple. Im sure you Republican die hards had no problem cashing that check on the american taxpayer. That was several hundred million taxpayer dollars down the tubes.

Roll another doobie and relax already. Enjoy sloth and play the game.

I think if you didnt pay any attention to the last 8 years, really you have no grounds to start paying any attention now. Dont bother to start now just because a Democrat is in office.

Roll another doobie and relax already. Enjoy sloth and play the game.[/quote:1g5snd14]

Stimulus check my ass, I consider that a tax cut for myself. The people that should send it back are the ones with zero federal tax liability.

Tax cuts are always one thing I agree with… Why would I mail money back to the Federal Govt when I actually have to pay taxes, unlike many Americans who get money when they didn’t even pay? I wasn’t nearly as happy with Bush as you say. If it wasn’t for the war Democrats would be slobbin his knob for all that entitlement spending.

[img:3elhezpg]http://yasik.kiev.ua/Obama.jpg[/img:3elhezpg]

[img:3qandbxs]http://www.apcmag.com/images/apc/news/xpdeadend.jpg[/img:3qandbxs]

Bernanke assures us that the depression is canceled.

Sorry guys, gig’s off.

Reboogism - You have 2 cattle. Cattle: Good nick length.[/quote:1yh8nf0k]

EXTREMELY good point

Brief history of leadup to the mortgage crisis, starting from the 70s

Savings and loans (commonly referred to as thrifts) originate mortgages.
Inflation takes place. The thrifts have to recognize losses because the money is not worth as much anymore.
Government opens FRE (Freddie Mac) and FNMA (Fannie Mae) with their programs (Guarantor and Swap) to “help” the thrifts.
Thrifts trade one bad holding for another. Government makes a ton of money, S&L collapses.
Lew Ranieri and Bob Dall at investment bank Salomon Brothers lobby and make mortgages a tradable asset.
Government promotes home ownership. American dream is to own a home. Make homes affordable. No down payment, ARMs. Alt-A and subprime loans.
Securitization (CDSes (credit default swaps)) to guarantee MBS (mortgage backed securities). Mortgages also wrapped into assets such as CDOs, CLOs, alphabet soup, blah blah blah
Regulatory anomaly. A 3% down payment is rated safer than a 20% down payment.
No down payments and easy credit cause a housing market bubble.
lol guys we fucked up need bailout… and we can’t eat just one

Not even 24 hours after the government reassures the markets they will not nationalize any banks under any circumstances, they make a deal with Citi which will give them 36% ownership..

Going to be yet another bad day for the DOW today quite likely - may even fall through that 7,000 floor (or 740 on S&P)…

It won’t be pretty if it does. Watch the last half hour or so…

Not even 24 hours after the government reassures the markets they will not nationalize any banks under any circumstances, they make a deal with Citi which will give them 36% ownership..[/quote:1yge1yz0]

If this were a fair trade, the government would have 50.3% ownership of Citigroup, if my math is correct.

If this were a fair trade, the government would have 50.3% ownership of Citigroup, if my math is correct.[/quote:2ih1r3gn]

Nods, they’re effectively paying way over market value for converting those pref shares to common (and that’s based on market value even before it took a dive this morning).. so it’s effectively another bailout at the expense of the taxpayer, yet again… and it virtually gives them a controlling stake, considering that other publicly owned shares now amount to only about 26% apparently. For all intents and purposes, that almost [i:2ih1r3gn]is[/i:2ih1r3gn] nationalized.

Not to mention that the conversion severely dilutes existing coomon shares, and it seems Citi have also agreed not to pay dividends as part of the ‘deal’.. and of course the shareholders didn’t get a say in the matter.. I can smell a major shareholder class action lawsuit in the works for that alone..

If the government did its job, the shareholder value would be zero.

If the government did its job, the shareholder value would be zero.[/quote:2eo0krwp]

lol.. I trust you’re being sarcastic.. one can never be sure these days..

When an institution is bankrupt, how much are that institution’s stocks and bonds worth?

When an institution is bankrupt, how much are that institution’s stocks and bonds worth?[/quote:1v40ahyp]

heh true… but Citi aren’t [i:1v40ahyp]officially[/i:1v40ahyp] bankrupt [yet], that’s the difference.

I wonder.. since banks (and lending institutions), car manufacturers and mortgage defaulters are being bailed out for bad decisions, where’s the bailout for those who suffered capital losses in the markets as a result of those bad decisions?

Normally I’d say that I took a chance and lost, so I have to wear it, but apparently taking responsibility for one’s actions went out the window some time ago..

Maybe I should ring those guys on tv with the really annoying adverts.. you know the ones; “I want my money, and I want it now!”

..ack those ads make me sick.

IT’S MY MONEY AND I NEED IT NOW!!!!!111

Call J.G. Wentworth and Associates…etc.

I like the version that’s an opera.

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what is for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote” Benjamin Franklin

“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety” Benjamin Franklin

Whats the difference between a liberal and a communist?

The communist will wait until after your born to try and kill you.

Whats the difference between a republican and a socialist?

The republican will wait til your 18 to try to kill you while the socialist will wait til your 50.

Whats the difference between a libertarian and all other politicians?

The libertarian will let you kill yourself how you see fit.

Whats the difference between southern voters and the green party?

Nothing they both wipe their ass with corn cobbs.

What did Buddha say to the hot dog vendor?

Make me one with everything.

heh true… but Citi aren’t [i:21bg6aeq]officially[/i:21bg6aeq] bankrupt [yet], that’s the difference.

[/quote:21bg6aeq]

I could [i:21bg6aeq]officially[/i:21bg6aeq] call myself not great, but that doesn’t make it true.

I think Pete Sessions Republican from Texas sums it up pretty well.

The republican party should use the Taliban tactics as a model for the party.

Good to have goals for your party that involve ideas from a terrorist group.

This is Pete Sessions audio clip link below

[url:2uf22w35]http://lostintransition.nationaljournal.com/sessions_2.mp3[/url:2uf22w35]

When I reload the homepage the crier doesn’t show on the homepage any more. Good idea… If we could all just let go of flaming our opinions, might do the game some good. I’m wondering if this is deliberate… I think wise move if so. Lets face it, we just crap on and on, and mostly at each other… I like to make fun of it all… but I guess my satire of how the game works, and the relationships between certain players… is only actually adding to it. :evil:

Guess I’ll reflect on my signature some.

I think this sums it up better

<LINK_TEXT text=“http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/artic … E_ID=45735”>http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45735</LINK_TEXT>

Should Democratic Party merge with Communist Party?

“No doubt such a question will immediately raise the hackles of those who belong to the Democratic Party, but I believe this is a valid question considering the Communist Party USA and the Communist Party of Red China endorsed John Kerry

for president in the last pretend election. They wouldn’t endorse him unless they felt he would continue to further the agenda for world communism via the official Democratic Party. "

I think Pete Sessions Republican from Texas sums it up pretty well.

The republican party should use the Taliban tactics as a model for the party.

Good to have goals for your party that involve ideas from a terrorist group.

This is Pete Sessions audio clip link below

[url:2nru18hh]<LINK_TEXT text=“http://lostintransition.nationaljournal … ions_2.mp3”>http://lostintransition.nationaljournal.com/sessions_2.mp3</LINK_TEXT>[/url:2nru18hh][/quote:2nru18hh]

Wiki calls this an insurgency.

An insurgency is a rebellion against a constituted authority (for example an authority recognised as such by the United Nations) when those taking part in the rebellion are not recognised as belligerents. Belligerents being hostile.

So basically he is saying that when the Dems get out of control they will have to rebel. You had your fun during the last 8 years making fun of Bush and now the medicine isn’t tasting good. If you sit around and think that everything Obama does is of godly magnitude then your clearly brainwashed. I am sorry that you can blindly let him do whatever he wants, but some people will point it out no matter if you like it or not. The facts are the facts, read the news. Even NBC is now lambasting the president for the pork that he clearly said was not in the stimulus and omnibus bills. Any moron can read them and know that its pork. When you take money from one person and spend it on a butterfly museum for your constituency or whatever other nonsense then its stealing. The federal government was never intended to “rob” citizens of their property and distribute to other States. It is clear if you read anything from our history. If you want to give more of your money to someone else then do it, but don’t force it on everyone. Class envy is weak.

Again I never fully supported Bush like you support Obama. I have my problems with him that I have pointed out in the past. Whenever I did point it out you call me a names or make unsubstantiated claims. You made fun of my support for Ron Paul, who clearly was against the war, fiat currency, and the assault on liberty. Your arguments are weak at best.

Thomas Jefferson, quotes about Patriotism:

God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. … And what country can preserve its liberties, [b:2nru18hh]if it’s rulers are not warned from time to time[/b:2nru18hh], that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? [b:2nru18hh]The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants[/b:2nru18hh]. It is its natural manure.

Henry Brooks Adams, quotes about Patriotism:

Politics, as a practise, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.

Ulysses S. Grant, quotes about Patriotism:

If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon’s but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and [b:2nru18hh]superstition, ambition and ignorance[/b:2nru18hh] on the other.

Elmer Davis, quotes about Patriotism:

The republic was not established by [b:2nru18hh]cowards[/b:2nru18hh], and cowards will not preserve it.

Henry Steele Commager, quotes about Patriotism:

[b:2nru18hh]Men in authority[/b:2nru18hh] will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.

Robert A. Heinlein, quotes about Patriotism:

Love your country, but never [b:2nru18hh]trust[/b:2nru18hh] its government.

Justice Louis D. Brandeis, quotes about Patriotism:

[b:2nru18hh]The constitutional right of free speech has been declared to be the same in peace and war.[/b:2nru18hh] In peace, too, men may differ widely as to what loyalty to our country demands, and an intolerant majority, swayed by passion or by fear, may be prone in the future, as it has been in the past, to[b:2nru18hh] stamp as disloyal opinions with which it disagrees[/b:2nru18hh].

Dr. G. Brock Chisolm, quotes about Patriotism:

To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men, their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism and religious dogmas.

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong. ~Voltaire

You’re not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it. ~Malcolm X

Disobedience, the rarest and most courageous of the virtues, is seldom distinguished from neglect, the laziest and commonest of the vices. ~George Bernard Shaw, Maxims for Revolutionists

Every actual state is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Why We Can’t Wait, 1963

Amen. Well spoken.

Nice post Medios. Unfortunately it is an exercise in futility trying to convince a fanatical Obamessiah zealot anything that may in any way discredit or contradict the teachings of The Big Zero, or their irrational interpretations of such. [b:26e6hk74]*[/color:26e6hk74][/b:26e6hk74]

Continued attempts at rational reasoning with an Obamessiah zealot will only result in your being labeled a racist, nazi, Bushitlerite, card-carrying fascist (even f you’re a black democrat and despise Bush.. of course that would just mean you’re also an Uncle Tom).

If the Obamessiah says that a padded cell is not a padded cell, then a true zealot will firmly believe it, even if they are locked in one for the rest of their life. This is clearly demonstrated in The Big Zero’s “No Pork, No Earmarks” stimulus bill, which actually contains approximately 9,000 earmarks.. not that anyone’s counting.

[b:26e6hk74]*[/color:26e6hk74][/b:26e6hk74] ..although it can be fun to poke them with a stick now and then. :twisted:

jezer: your nick length sure is wrong

I apologise reboog… some of us just aren’t as greating as others.

Tap: your nick length is only half right.

One of your quotes disturbs me greatly…

Dr. G. Brock Chisolm, quotes about Patriotism:

To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men, their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism and religious dogmas.

If you remove these things, what is left in the minds of men?

And is individualism something to be cast aside so lightly?

With regard to this “insurgency”…it is completely unnecessary and irresponsible.

This election was won by quite a healthy margin, both in the electoral college and in the popular vote.

The congressional election results also reinforce the validity of the presidential election…the overwhelming majority of democrats clearly demonstrates the republican lack of popularity.

Even when Bush Jr.’s approval rating plummeted to 30% or whatever it was, there was not widespread talk of this sort.

It is shameful, empty talk, born from bitterness and designed to exploit an unhappy minority. (yes, vocal republicans are a minority)

It is a government by the people, for the people.

This administration was elected by the people, and so was the last one, and all the other ones.

So regardless of who you personally might fanatically support, it really doesn’t matter…unless you have the backing of a large media corporation capable of telling millions what they’re supposed to be thinking and feeling.

Even when Bush Jr.’s approval rating plummeted to 30% or whatever it was, there was not widespread talk of this sort.[/quote:1h8nhbl2]

ORLY???

[img:1h8nhbl2]http://www.benmautner.com/widerangle/bush_stamp.jpg[/img:1h8nhbl2]

[img:1h8nhbl2]http://www.flipsideshow.com/images/Bush–KillTShirt.jpg[/img:1h8nhbl2]

[img:1h8nhbl2]http://files.blog-city.com/files/A05/107842/p/f/beheadbush_sm.jpg[/img:1h8nhbl2]

[img:1h8nhbl2]http://thepeoplescube.com/images/images_working/Hitler_Muslims/Bush_Hitler_sm.jpg[/img:1h8nhbl2]

There are hundreds if not thousands of much worse things written about Bush from deranged liberals. The double standards since Obama took office is astounding.

On Wednesdays I am made of sodium

I assumed that this Pete Sessions fellow is a person of some importance, since he is apparently worth talking about. I guess this might not be the case.

The list you provided clearly contains no one of importance.

In any case, seriously talking of insurgency is well out of line, arguably worse than the figurative symbolism you presented.

And of course there’s a double standard, it happens whenever you change presidents so I would expect it would be more pronounced when you change from a white neo-con to a black demo.

People always have trouble seeing the flaws in their chosen champions.

And for the record, I am not an Obama zealot.

The best I can say of Obama is that he appears to be genuinely trying for the transparency he promised.

The best I can say of Bush is that it’s quite impressive that he managed to be elected and re-elected, considering his overall approval rating and his touch-and-go relationship with the english language.

My ideal candidate: none. I want so much power to be stripped from the federal government (particularly the executive branch) that the election becomes a non-issue.

Edit: “Paul fellow” was actually supposed to be “Pete Sessions fellow”

To those concerned:

My nick length is only half wrong.

Dr. Ron Paul is a champion of liberty. He even turned down his congressional pension. He doesn’t want your money. He wants everyone to be free from the tyranny of government.

Remember Obama is the one that said our Constitution is a document of negative liberties. Unlike past presidents he is going to skip right to Amendment one and work from there. If everyone is scared to speak against him he can surely do anything he likes. I for one refuse to allow the govt to tell me where to work, how much to make, and what I do on my free time. If you guys like having your hand held and having big brother pour your tea that is fine as long as it is not in America. If it is so damn good to be Communist then why are Russia and China fleeing it like rats off a sinking ship? Central planning does not work. Joseph Stalin does not work. Intimidation through threats does not work.

Freedom works.

If it is so damn good to be Communist then why are Russia and China fleeing it like rats off a sinking ship?[/quote:2nftv7s5]

As I know China is still under the control of CCP (Communist Party of China). And central planning still works there.

Central planning does not work.[/quote:2nftv7s5]

Agree. At least in USSR it gave dreadful results.

Joseph Stalin does not work.[/quote:2nftv7s5]

Sure he doesn’t. He died like 55 years ago. Seriously the problem with Stalin wasn’t that he was a communist, but the problem was with his tyranny.

Freedom works.[/quote:2nftv7s5]

I hope so. But as it seems to me people all over the world still should fight for their own freedom. No doubt there is no freedom in Russia, neither in China. But also there is just a bit better situation in America and you guys keep loosing freedom every year. You went too far away from the freedom that Founding Fathers were dreaming about.

Vixn.

The best I can say of Bush is that it’s quite impressive blah blah blah[/quote:2l76oj03]

Huhuhuh he said ‘bush’

China is not communist.

Central Planning works in China? China sets record growth numbers? Business is booming in China?

Uh huh. When the government has total control of the media, how hard could it possibly be to set new records and have a booming economy year after year? You don’t even need factories, just a central news agency with a government mandated script.

You really think China would admit they have a problem? The word ‘problem’ barely exists in their language; it’s synonymous with ‘question.’

I can’t believe you guys point the finger at political systems and blame them for there roles in world turmoils. It’s the greed in man that’s the problem. Communism actually has some great ideas. There is no perfect political system… because there is no selfless man…

This talk going on about freedom is crap as well… once again… personal freedom is amoral… it’s both good and bad, and it’s working out is decided by man. The world situation is not solved by man having more freedom… when he would exercise this freedom against others because of his selfishness.

It all comes down to this… you’ve been behaving like a piece of crap trying to gain advantages over everyone around you, you’ve made it a dog eat dog society because your all full of your self importance over everyone else. Blame Obama, blame Bush, blame communism, blame conservatism… but when it comes down to it, it’s all about the attitude you’ve been having and your “rights” to crap over other humans to your own advantage. What ya sowed you reaped… enjoy dessert.

Any other excuses? :!:

jezer: I think we’ve had this conversation before. Greed is everpresent. You can’t get rid of it. It’s here during the boom years, the bust years, always and forever.

I agree that the political mudslinging is stupid and pointless.

wow Jezer. just… wow.

So if greed is so rampant, then how does letting these “greedy” rulers decide more of your life help.

Do you think that government should decide my life? Should they force me into a job determined by some government test? Should they tell me where I can go and who I can see? Should they tell me whether I can have children or not? Should they tell me I shouldn’t drink alcohol or smoke cannabis?

Explain to me how any of these decisions negatively affect your life. You want to tell me what to do to save yourself from decisions? The principle is the same no matter where you are. When a small percentage of people must work to support the majority the system will collapse. It happened in Rome. Price controls also do not work. You cannot take the fruits of one man and give them to a non-producer. This creates a moral hazard where everyone feels entitled to things that they should have to gain. The end result of a welfare state is much worse than the “poverty” from lack of government.

To Edd

I am deeply troubled that our country has went so far from our Constitution. I fear that one day if the people do not stand up to the Federal Reserve that we will all be slaves. USA media is obviously controlled and manipulated from both sides towards the common goal. One world currency and no country will be able to stop the multinational army. We are not headed into this utopia socialist state that everyone thinks. It has become a fascist state where anyone questioning authority is immediately attacked. They will legally start a world war if we disobey.

Do you think that government should decide my[/color:105see2o] life? Should they force me[/color:105see2o] into a job determined by some government test? Should they tell me[/color:105see2o] where I[/color:105see2o] can go and who I[/color:105see2o] can see? Should they tell me[/color:105see2o] whether I[/color:105see2o] can have children or not? Should they tell me[/color:105see2o] I[/color:105see2o] shouldn’t drink alcohol or smoke cannabis?[/quote:105see2o]

It’s always about you isn’t it… See with that attitude your no different than these politicians you don’t agree with, legislating there own desires… the wall street fat cats hooked on money… different outworking, different circumstances… same attitude. You talk of freedoms and liberties, but it smacks of your desire to just do what you want… that’s just unadulterated selfishness… There will be a price if you choose to live your life like that. I think your example of Rome is perfect. This fairytale has been worked out before, just substitute Rome with America. It’s just a dream… and it’s no utopia… true strength actually comes through character. Mother Teresa, Ghandi… these people died hero’s and gave up themselves for others… your Rome people who chased your dream, just crapped out on the fruit of there own moral decay… talk about history repeating.

Factual Comparisons of America and Rome would be interesting to explore actually. Style of Government, Motivations, Outcomes etc etc

Your example about the rich giving to the poor not feeling right, only serves to expose your own selfish feelings. Some people do this willingly without bad feelings! If you can conquer this, your actually a bigger man than you were before. I dare ya! Sure other people will never be like this, but why should this be a reason for you to give up and be like them? I’m not talking socialism or communism here… I’m talking about personal character.

[url:1in90217]http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0910-10.htm[/url:1in90217]

This article talks about comparisons between America and Rome, mainly in regards to area’s relating to foreign policy… I haven’t looked hard… but in any case… I’ll admit there will be huge differences in how “things are taking place.” However I would argue that the attitudes that bring these calamities are actually the same. Arrogance, Pride, Selfishness, Greed etc. It’s happened time after time in history, the mighty collapse under there own weight, falling short of the very principals they said they wielded.

Why can’t we learn from history… it’s not about being great… and trying to be great only ends up undermining what we say we stand for. In the end each person can only stand on the merits of there own character, not what they achieved and who they conquered, and how rich they got.

Jezer,

You are truly a dingleberry. You have no idea what your’e talking about. Charity is one thing but that’s why it’s called charity. I’ll admit class envy is a big problem in the US and perhaps all over the planet however, as someone who makes less than 40k a year, I don’ care to have someone else give me “stuff”. It’s all in how one is raised perhaps, but I don’t fall into the entitlement mentality. I’d say a lot of American’s fall into the same. That is what is making this a powder keg. You have the limited few wanting and demanding to be “given” money, privilieges etc etc. It will only last so long before people will stop giving. That’s why now as we speak 20+ states are positioning themselves to secede from the union. There are al ot of America- bashers now, like before, and they are all coming out of the wood works like little roaches. Over here in the states we call it penis envy, playa-hatin etc, Point being, the ones that like to bash US do so, because Americans have enjoyed the freedom and liberties that most of the world have don’t have a clue what it’s like.

Now that Americans are starting to wake up and realize what is happening and the downward spiral that we are headed for..well…I don’t want to go down that road just yet. I’m confident that if and when the time come, America will once again unite and defend herself from the enemy, even from within.

I understand what your saying Tap. There are kind of two problems… greedy people and lazy people. Whats the point in greedy people giving over there wealth to lazy people…? Essentially both parties are at fault and the common fault is selfishness. The greedy person must learn to give. The lazy person must learn to work. Both are as bad as each other.

This is kind of “dog” capitalism seems to be biased too… it favors the hungriest and self serving mouths, it builds class divides until you have the extremes like you have now. You can’t really blame capitalism though as only humans have morality and it’s a problem of selfishness. As much as communism goes against the grain of this, it doesn’t work either because people are still the same. It’s not about government… it’s about the morality of your people.

I see America as having a morality problem, and no bailout, or governmental system is going to conquer that. Socialism/Communism is not going to work either… because at the end of the day the majority of your people still have a selfish attitude problem, fueled by years of crap.

See the words America needs to kick around at the moment is community, brotherhood, respect, humility, sharing, caring… instead you got people calling for more freedoms? That’s nonsense against this problem… that’s a truck load of crap! That’s a continuation of the vicious cycle of “rar rar that’s not fair, I want that, I demand my rights” etc

Unless you get together and unite and rebuild your communities… Quite often unity comes in the midst of the aftermath of disasters. Maybe the best thing that can happen to America at the moment is a total collapse and a foundation rebuild.

Jezer, your position seems to be that ambition is bad. (greed)

But also, lack of ambition is bad. (sloth)

So are you saying there’s a perfect middle ground where all people should be? I think so…it’s in line with your social ideas.

So you’re arguing for homogenization of the human race, as well as arguing for a complete change of human nature.

By removing self-interest, you essentially remove all interest and turn people into insect-like drones.

All actions would be dedicated to maintaining the community, maintaining the status quo, keeping everyone happy and comfortable…but there would be no opportunity for individual creativity, no opportunity for pursuing individual interests.

It just doesn’t work, because the foundation of human thought really is in the self. If you want to figure out how to make someone else happy, you pretty much have to start by thinking about yourself.

What makes me happy? Food I like to eat? Compliments? A well-paying job that’s also fun? A house to live in? Oh, maybe I better help build them a house.

And why do you even want to do this? Because it’s the right thing to do, right?

Sure, but how do you define the right thing to do? Someone told you what was right, you weren’t born with that sense. They also told you that doing good things was something to be happy about. So voila, you do good things because they make you happy. If someone had taught you your whole life that the only way to be happy was to keep your left index finger on your right elbow, you would friggin do it every chance you got.

And by the way, when you argue for a focus on community and pooling of resources, you argue for communism. That is communism. So when you say communism isn’t going to work, then go ahead and advocate communism, it’s a bit disconcerting.

So: bottom line. Human beings operate on self-interest. That’s how we’re built, that’s how we hit the top of the food chain, that’s how we managed to accomplish so many incredible things that ants and honey bees will never even begin to grasp.

Communism will never work. It destroys the self. Without the self there is nothing.

I’ve kind of made my point… as non-political and idealistic as it is. It’s ok with me if people don’t agree.

Poggle your post suggests I don’t differentiate between “self” and “selfishness” - but I do and there is a difference. Selfishness is self out of control, and out of focus. Self is ok. There is primal functions in the body that protect self… closing your eyes for instance when a foreign object nears them… the fact the body does that is NOT selfishness. Selfishness is a moral thing. It’s a conscious decision to put your self first over the well being of others without concern for how they are effected.

There are higher things in life than “stuff” and “me”… Having stuff and doing things for myself aren’t necessarily bad… but they are when they get out of hand when they become my primary focus, and negatively effect others. And for the record… I feel like a drone working for my capitalist employer… which is a feeling you’ve placed under communism? What’s the difference?

The core of my argument is about honouring and preferring one another, it’s about respect. It’s about having a right attitude. I’m no communist nor have I lived under it, but I see the wisdom in a few of it’s ideals.

Lowliness is young ambition’s ladder,

Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;

And when he once obtains the upmost round,

  He then unto the ladder turns his back,

    Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees

      By which he did ascend.

Lowliness is young ambition’s ladder,

Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;

And when he once obtains the upmost round,

  He then unto the ladder turns his back,

    Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees

      By which he did ascend.

Virtue is choked with foul ambition

And charity chased hence by rancor’s hand;

Foul subornation is predominant

  And equity exiled your highness' land.

How can you argue that anyone other than the person should decide these things. You talk about greed and selfishness and then in the same sentence assume that government knows better. When has the government ever known better? How often have politicians lied to us? Seriously how can you sit here and say that they should be running our lives.

In a free country if you don’t like your job get a new one. If you don’t like your hair get it cut. The downfall of our country will be the redistribution of wealth to the non-producers. You cannot punish the producers while encouraging the non-producers. You end up with Rome and 50% of the population depending on the other half.

The main reason that America is great(in my eyes) is that we reward hard work. We don’t tell you how many hours you can work or what your maximum pay will be. If you want to make a million dollars that is your business , we won’t stop you.

Explain to me why someone would go to school for 10 years and accrue a quarter million in debt to be a doctor, lawyer, rocket scientist if they will “earn” as much as the guy hauling the trash. It takes away from achievement when you claim everyone has the same earning potential. You don’t see any correlation with welfare and the ongoing group of people who refuse to work? Why would someone work at McDonalds and be broke all the time when they can sit at home and draw part of my check. Then when they are at home they can sell drugs or do some other illegal untaxed activity to take even more from my community. If these people were not hand fed they would be forced to produce. Produce or starve. Sure this is harsh but at what point to we realize that we cannot reinforce sloth or greed for that matter.

You talk this stuff about greed and my desires for freedom being selfish. You act like I am the destroyer of worlds.

I want everyone in the world to afford the freedom I have and more. Without freedom how can anyone be happy. They would not be able to fulfill what they see as happiness(touched on in another post). [b:leofj9ls] Unless you think the government should tell us what makes us happy then pay for those items I don’t see how you can argue this.[/b:leofj9ls]

Oh wait Obama is doing this.

I, for one, welcome my dollars being sent to irresponsible bank executives and people who can’t afford their homes.

That is what makes you great.

HARRY POTTER HINTING AT WHAT ALL OF YOU WILL NEVER GET ![/size:1tfergmc][/color:1tfergmc] (if you keep posting in this thread)

[img:1tfergmc]http://yasik.kiev.ua/Harry_Potter_gesture.gif[/img:1tfergmc]

A guy on our other board posted this.

Whats the difference between Jesus and Obama?

Jesus could assemble a cabinet.

your very faces are the shutting up, please

[img:othdyt77]http://www.freewebs.com/fame-us/yoda.jpg[/img:othdyt77]

Wow, Tap, you’re hairy!

Yes, but not too hairy wink

[img:1cp8eke7]http://www.haisentito.it/img/_pillole-Viagra.jpg[/img:1cp8eke7]

Nationalizing insolvent banks is GOOD.

Some people are calling for nationalization of our banks, and others are vehemently against it (like some of our senators.)

The word has a negative stigma to it. People think that nationalizing the banks means that the government will run the banks, handle daily transactions, and loans will be made based on politics (aka having connections) instead of profit (aka based on merit.)

This is NOT true.

In America, when we say nationalize, we mean that the FDIC takes over the bank on Friday and carves up and auctions off the assets over the weekend. This is why all bank failures are on Friday.

Notice that in this scheme (which is one of the FDIC’s main jobs, by law), the taxpayer absorbs the losses of the bank, but it also gets the upside, in the process of the auction. Right now, we are socializing the losses and privatizing the gains.

So far in 2009, we have nationalized 16 failed banks.

Citigroup’s operations are tremendous, and it may take more than a weekend to figure out how to unwind it, but if you believe that a bankrupt bank should be shut down (crazy, I know!), then you are FOR nationalization. Call it receivership or preprivatization if you want.

So the next time someone tells you that nationalization is bad, educate him.

Sorry Reboog but once again, you are wrong, still great, but wrong

Go to Canada or any other country with NATIONALIZED health care. You are “fortunate” to get cancer or some disease… first you have to wait to see what doctor you will eb allowed to see….then you will wait to see what the government will allow the doctor to do..then you will wait to see if the prescribed medicine/treatment is approved by a panel who then advises the doctor to either go ahead and treat or deny treatment..oh usually after all that waiting, your either dead or alot further worse off than you would have normally been.

Too easy..

NATIONALIZED Unions

You’d like to start a business or maybe hold a nice office job. You’d especally like to fire that piece of crap that won’t do his/her job. Nope..you can’t do that..oh by the way… you make too much money… we are just gonna lower it a bit so everyone else doesn’t feel left out…Have a nice day

Again too easy of an example….

You know who liked NATIONALISM?

[img:23qp9gy9]http://www.indiadaily.org/images/nazi_hitler.jpg[/img:23qp9gy9]

[/quote:mohdzfdc]

Word.

Check out the link. They even have maps of North American Union and the Super Hub in Kansas City. I really can’t believe that the government is moving this quickly. Ron Paul voters are terrorists? Hahahaha

More like weed smokers.

<LINK_TEXT text=“http://www.infowars.com/secret-state-po … errorists/">http://www.infowars.com/secret-state-police-report-ron-paul-bob-barr-chuck-baldwin-libertarians-are-terrorists/</LINK_TEXT>

Secret State Police Report: Ron Paul, Bob Barr, Chuck Baldwin, Libertarians are Terrorists

The MIAC report specifically describes supporters of presidential candidates Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, and Bob Barr as â€œmilitiaâ€ influenced terrorists and instructs the Missouri police to be on the lookout for supporters displaying bumper stickers and other paraphernalia associated with the Constitutional, Campaign for Liberty, and Libertarian parties.

In September of 2008, Missouri sheriffs and prosecutors organized truth squads to intimidate people opposed to Obama and threatened to arrest and prosecute anybody who ran â€œmisleading television ads.â€ Missouri governor Matt Blunt eventually denounced the use of â€œpolice state tacticsâ€ on the part of the Obama-Biden campaign.

In order to artificially heighten the perceived threat threshold, MIAC rolls in Christian Identity, white nationalism, â€œmilitantâ€ anti-abortion activists, opposition to illegal immigration, and income tax resistance. MIAC deceptively blurs the lines between these disparate political ideologies and underscores the possibility for violence in a summary of the organizational structure of the militia movement and a section describing how members strive to train in â€œcombat readiness.â€

[b:3fprgeyn]According to MIAC, opposition to world government, NAFTA, federalization of the states, and restrictive gun laws are a threat to the police. â€œThe militia subscribes to an anti-government and NWO mindset, which creates a threat to law enforcement officers.[/b:3fprgeyn] They view the military, National Guard, and law enforcement as a force that will confiscate their firearms and place them in FEMA concentration camps,â€ the document claims in a section entitled â€œYou are the Enemy.â€

The award-winning film Zeitgeist, featuring Alex Jones, is also mentioned as terrorist material.

[b:3fprgeyn]MIAC is attempting to radicalize the police against political activity guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.[/b:3fprgeyn] If Missouri police indoctrinated by MIAC propaganda overreact to political activists and supporters of Ron Paul in their state and injure or kill people involved in entirely legal and legitimate political activity, MIAC, the governor of Missouri (his name appears on the MIAC document), and the DHS and federal government should be held directly responsible and prosecuted the fullest extent of the law.

Tap: If you’re not going to read a single word I wrote, don’t bother replying.

[img:slkhxytr]http://totallylookslike.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/ron-paul.jpg[/img:slkhxytr]

Poggle is great.

And you guys thought were going to fight Russia!!!

Here is Obama deciding that Iraq and Afghanistan are not nearly enough to table. After campaigning on no intervention and bringing our troops home it looks like the cat is out of the bag on the real fascism.

<LINK_TEXT text=“http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w … 898650.ece”>http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5898650.ece</LINK_TEXT>

US warships head for South China Sea after standoff

A potential conflict was brewing last night in the South China Sea after President Obama dispatched heavily armed American destroyers to the scene of a naval standoff between the US and China at the weekend.

Mr Obamaâ€™s decision to send an armed escort for US surveillance ships in the area follows the aggressive and co-ordinated manoeuvres of five Chinese boats on Sunday. They harassed and nearly collided with an unarmed American vessel.

Bet the US would have a problem with a Chinese “surveillance” ship near their waters.

I love this too:

“and to deploy a high-pressure water hose to deter the Chinese ships.”

They really should start making those warships waterproof.

Stock market continues rally. No bank failures last Friday.

Depression is off.

Stock market continues rally. No bank failures last Friday.

Depression is off.[/quote:18psvw5t]

Good we can finally raise taxes then.

Why does San Francisco have so many homosexuals, while Washington has so many politicians?

San Francisco got first choice.

In 1994, George Akerlof (nobel prize winner) and Paul Romer wrote a paper called “Looting: The Economic Underworld of Bankruptcy for Profit.”

It documents how financial institutions go bankrupt and then loot the public purse, using complex methods and terms to hide it.

Translation: Bailouts need to stop.

I’m all for bailouts being stopped..just as soon as I get mine.. still here waiting holding the bag

The thing that stuns me the most is how bailed out institutions are paying corporate bonuses with bailout money with the government holding its hands up saying theres nothing it can do because these guys have contracts.

Of course theres something they can do. They can refuse the money!

In 1994, George Akerlof (nobel prize winner) and Paul Romer wrote a paper called “Looting: The Economic Underworld of Bankruptcy for Profit.”

It documents how financial institutions go bankrupt and then loot the public purse, using complex methods and terms to hide it.

Translation: Bailouts need to stop.[/quote:28e5eeur]

Of course theres something they can do. They can refuse the money![/quote:sp7rk9jg]

Congratulations, you are now smarter than all of the administration.

The crisis is very easy to handle… just not for politicians.

On a side note, Congress’ grandstanding is pretty funny. Paulson specifically wanted no restrictions to be made on the funds, and they go and pay themselves bonuses (now that bonuses are capped, they are looking at raising their base salary), and we are somehow surprised by this?

Andrew Cuomo (NY attorney general) is actually making good headway into accusing the guys at AIG for fraudulent conveyance.

I should also mention that the failure of AIG will not be the end of civilization, as the guys in the White House and AIG want you to believe.

Price controls may be making a comeback in certain states.

It looks like rent control has already passed the NY assembly. They’re trying to get rent control in SF as well.

Super edit: Price controls may be coming back to all states except Vermont.

Speaking of people in the dark….

Banned hyperlinks could cost you $11,000 a day

Asher Moses

The Age

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

The Australian communications regulator says it will fine people who hyperlink to sites on its blacklist, which has been further expanded to include several pages on the anonymous whistleblower site Wikileaks.

Wikileaks was added to the blacklist for publishing a leaked document containing Denmarkâ€™s list of banned websites.

The move by the Australian Communications and Media Authority comes after it threatened the host of online broadband discussion forum Whirlpool last week with a $11,000-a-day fine over a link published in its forum to another page blacklisted by ACMA - an anti-abortion website.

ACMAâ€™s blacklist does not have a significant impact on web browsing by Australians today but sites contained on it will be blocked for everyone if the Federal Government implements its mandatory internet filtering censorship scheme.

Banned hyperlinks could cost you $11,000 a day. But even without the mandatory censorship scheme, as is evident in the Whirlpool case, ACMA can force sites hosted in Australia to remove â€œprohibitedâ€ pages and even links to prohibited pages.

Online civil liberties campaigners have seized on the move by ACMA as evidence of how casually the regulator adds to its list of blacklisted sites. It also confirmed fears that the scope of the Governmentâ€™s censorship plan could easily be expanded to encompass sites that are not illegal.

â€œThe first rule of censorship is that you cannot talk about censorship,â€ Wikileaks said on its website in response to the ACMA ban.

The site has also published Thailandâ€™s internet censorship list and noted that, in both the Thai and Danish cases, the scope of the blacklist had been rapidly expanded from child porn to other material including political discussions.

Already, a significant portion of the 1370-site Australian blacklist - 506 sites - would be classified R18+ and X18+, which are legal to view but would be blocked for everyone under the proposal. The Government has said it was considering expanding the blacklist to 10,000 sites and beyond.

Electronic Frontiers Australia said the leak of the Danish blacklist and ACMAâ€™s subsequent attempts to block people from viewing it showed how easy it would be for ACMAâ€™s own blacklist - which is secret - to be leaked onto the web once it is handed to ISPs for filtering.

â€œWe note that, not only do these incidents show that the ACMA censors are more than willing to interpret their broad guidelines to include a discussion forum and document repository, it is demonstrably inevitable that the Governmentâ€™s own list is bound to be exposed itself at some point in the future,â€ EFA said.

â€œThe Government would serve the country well by sparing themselves, and us, this embarrassment.â€

Last week, Reporters Without Borders, in its regular report on enemies of internet freedom, placed Australia on its â€œwatch listâ€ of countries imposing anti-democratic internet restrictions that could open the way for abuses of power and control of information.

The main issue raised was the Governmentâ€™s proposed internet censorship regime.

â€œThis report demolished the Communications Ministerâ€™s contention that Australia is just following other comparable democracies,â€ Greens communications spokesman Senator Scott Ludlam said.

â€œWe are not. The Government is embarking on a deeply unpopular and troubling experiment to fine-tune its ability to censor the internet.

â€œI agree with Reporters Without Borders. If you consider this kind of net censorship in the context of Australiaâ€™s anti-terror laws, it paints a disturbing picture indeed.â€

EFA said the Governmentâ€™s â€œspin is starting to wear thinâ€ and it could no longer be denied that the ACMA blacklist targets a huge range of material that is legal and even uncontroversial.

The Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, has repeatedly claimed his proposed mandatory filters would target only â€œillegalâ€ content - predominantly child pornography.

â€œAs time goes on, pressure will only mount on the Government to expand the list, while money and effort are poured into an enormous black box that will neither help kids nor stem the flow of illegal material,â€ EFA said.

â€œIf the minister truly believes that children are seeking out, or being bombarded with, child pornography, then thereâ€™s a dearth of both common sense and proper research in the ministerial suites.â€

Already, the head of the Australian Christian Lobby, Jim Wallace, has said he hopes the sex industry will go broke as a result of the censorship scheme.

Independent Senator Nick Xenophon previous expressed his desire to have online gambling sites added to the blacklist but has since withdrawn his support for the scheme, saying it was dangerous and could be â€œcounter-productiveâ€.

The Greens and Opposition also oppose the scheme, meaning any legislation to implement it will be blocked.

The Opposition has obtained legal advice that â€œlegislation of some sort will almost certainly be requiredâ€, but others have said it may be possible to implement the scheme without legislation.

Speaking at a telecommunications conference last week, Senator Conroy urged Australians to have faith in MPs to pass the right legislation.

Despite previously saying his scheme would be expanded to block â€œrefused classificationâ€ content that includes sites depicting drug use, sex, crime, cruelty and violence, he said opponents of his plan were spreading â€œconspiracy theoriesâ€.

The Governmentâ€™s internet censorship trials are due to begin shortly but critics have said they may not provide much useful data on the real-world implications because none of the major ISPs were chosen to take part.

I’d really like to know what leverage these jokers at AIG have that they can get away with collecting bonuses from bailout money, even those who left the company. These were supposedly retention bonuses.

The administration knew this would be a stink bomb. This was a known issue. The bonuses were public information. So by what logic does the administration decide to play dumb and let the bonus checks be written?

Even moreso, by what logic is AIG ’too important to fail’. They were the biggest part of the financial problem? They took a bunch of turds, wrapped them in gold wrappers and called them gold brick? er bundled high risk loans, relabeling them as triple a credit or something? By what logic

is this institution crucial to the recovery of the economy?

Not only is the institution important to the success of the economy, the people who drove it into the ground are fundamental as well. Without these guys, the world would end!!!!

Unless AIG declare bankruptcy, they [i:1cnkmjtp]have[/i:1cnkmjtp] to pay many of these bonuses. The retention bonuses, as I understand it, are being paid out to those who have now [i:1cnkmjtp]completed[/i:1cnkmjtp] the contract term - for example: a year ago they were offered $ if they agreed to stay for another 12 months. They have now done that and are being given the bonuses that were agreed to contractually, and they are moving on, as per the contract.

AIG is still bound legally to pay, and much of this stuff in the news is just politicians grandstanding for votes and telling half-truths, along with the media (what a surprise), and putting the blame on AIG instead of their own corrupt and failed policies. Not that AIG is free of blame, but this is just ridiculous.

I don’t agree with public money being used this way, but the govt knew about this beforehand. Trying to stop them will only result in those employees suing AIG, which will cost AIG twice as much, which will come out of taxpayers pockets.

This was all in place before Liddy was there, so media and politicians going bananas at him just proves this is nothing but grandstanding.

As I said, the only legal way out of paying would be to declare bankruptcy, wind everything up, and still these employees would get some if not all of their bonuses, up to whatever is left in the AIG coffers.

Again, I don’t like this any more than anyone else here, but I’m not letting these a55hat politicians and media pull the wool over my eyes once again. In fact it was the politicians who voted for these bailouts, so that’s where the blame lies, if you want to blame someone.

Actually, they’re trying to get the money back by finding AIG guilty of fraudulent conveyance. In short, because the company is bankrupt, those bonus contracts are not worth the paper they’re written on.

Of course, all this could’ve been avoided in the first place had we not bailed out AIG. Even despite that, after the bailout, the government holds ~80% of the company. It could choose to exercise its will, but it won’t, because that would be… NATIONALIZATION (oh my very noes.)

I admit that I was unsure what to think of the AIG bailout when it first occurred. But now it is clear that continuing to pour money there is the exact opposite of what needs to happen. And how the politicians are allowing this, in opposition to the public outrage, is unthinkable. How blind/corrupt is this administration?

Yeah I realize what the govt are trying to do, but AIG have not declared bankruptcy, and until they do, they are NOT legally bankrupt, even if their balance sheet says they are technically. Therefore they cannot be found guilty of fraudulent conveyance (at least with the contractual retaining bonuses anyway) in the way you outlined the govt is trying to do.

The govt know this very well - this whole thing is just a big political show. Hauling Liddy in for a grilling in pointless, this is all to get the public on the govt side and distract the public from the outrage at the bailouts the govt are spooning out. The MSM media are totally in bed with the govt on this (yet again) - they have become little more than a propaganda mouthpiece for the govt now, it’s just sickening. Unfortunately most of the population is swallowing this cr@p hook line and sinker.

Again, I’m not saying these people deserve this money, but that’s not the point. They have a contractual rights to it, as much as that sucks.

The govt may force through some law to somehow get money off these AIG employees, but those people WILL get it back (and then some) in court, any lawyer can predict that one, but of course that will be old news by then and you’ll never hear about it, which is exactly how the govt will try to play it. Get the public on their side, and direct the outrage somewhere else.

More likely the govt will try to tack the total amount paid in bonuses onto whatever AIG already owes the govt, that way on paper the bonuses were paid by AIG and not us (even though effectively that’s a load of cr@p), because trying to recoup it from the employees is only going to cost us a lot more in the long run.

Either way, they’ve created a very convenient distraction from the increasing public dissatisfaction at what the govt is doing.

Have you heard about the increasing ’tea party’ protests that have been going on around the US against the govt recently? Probably not, even though some of them have had 15,000+ attendances - the MSM are for the most part not covering it. They turned up to one protest apparently, focused on the lone pro-Obama counter-protester there, interviewed that person, and left. Most of the country has no idea what is being done to them. You think the patriot act was an infringement - LOL you ain’t seen nothing yet.

There is a huge upside to this. The administration is spending so much time on this that they are unable to enact other stupid and damaging policies to our economy.

Oh wait, price controls are coming!

Edit:

Weasel: AIG is OFFICIALLY bankrupt. There, I have declared what everyone in the world knows already.

Wherever you go, whatever you do, I will be right here bailing out you.

Whatever it takes, or how the dollar breaks, I will be right here bailing out you.

Every buck you take

Every move you make

Every bond you break

Every single date

I’ll be funding you

Weasel: AIG is OFFICIALLY bankrupt. There, I have declared what everyone in the world knows already.[/quote:3vs9uebx]

Sorry, but the US Justice System, for some strange reason, fails to acknowledge your declaration. Legally AIG is still an operating concern.

[i:3vs9uebx]Legally[/i:3vs9uebx] is the key word there, not [i:3vs9uebx]officially[/i:3vs9uebx].

Nice try though. Wish it was that easy, then we could all just get on with it.

How about declaring the US government morally and ethically bankrupt?

I am so proud of this thread.

Juggle is actually admitting that Obama messed up!!!!!

It’s worse than that. I’m furious.

I don’t get so riled up when the gov occasionally robs a lil from the middle class to give to the poor as they are sometimes inclined to do.

But to give these truly vast sums of taxpayer money to corporate criminals.

It’s time for a tax revolt.

edit: not to mention the fact that the government and the president himself are pretending they didn’t know about bonuses when the bailout was made. This is a plain lie, and so is the morale outrage they are playing to the camera.

Heard several interesting talking points on the radio today that some have already pointed out. Specifically,

Yes, this was a known fact that the commissions were going to be paid and voted for by all the democrats. they can spin this all they want, but when you vote on a bill that has over 1000 pages in it and don’t even take the necessary time to debate NOR read it..expect shit to happen.
The reason for the hush-hush of course is the kickbacks Osama and others were getting towards “campaign contributions” . Now that the smoke is settling, panic is beginning to set in and the pointing of fingers begin.
Although not a popular side to take, I think they should be allowed to keep

the money. If they decide to return a portion or all, then that is their choice, however, giving that the Guv-ment can come in a re-negotiate a contract as it sees fit will only allow it to do so again in the future. Consider the possibilities of Osama and his cronies taking that much power to start re-writing laws as they see fit.. I think a revolution would loom even closer.

On a side note- I’m looking into how Missouri is giving out fliers to its local law enforcement giving details of what a “domestic terrorist” is and to take extreme caution when dealing with “suspected terrorist”..the suspects….those with Ron Paul For President bumper stickers.

Can you say FEMA camps?

When they put me in Gitmo for openly supporting Ron Paul I wonder if they will let me have a Koran.

Good times ahead.

<LINK_TEXT text=“http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corr … 40410p.pdf”>http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/140410p.pdf</LINK_TEXT>

“Department of Defense Directive

DoD Civilian Expeditionary Workforce

Reissues DoD Directive (DoDD) 1404.10 (Reference (a)) under a new title to establish the

policy through which an appropriately sized subset of the DoD civilian workforce is preidentified

to be organized, trained, and equipped in a manner that facilitates the use of their

capabilities for operational requirements. These requirements are typically away from the

normal work locations of DoD civilians, or in situations where other civilians may be evacuated

to assist military forces where the use of DoD civilians is appropriate. These employees shall be

collectively known as the DoD Civilian Expeditionary Workforce.”