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I am well aware of and annoyed by the acceptance of corporate contributions and the extraordinary number of Wall Street insiders in this administration. I only support the Democrats because the Republicans would add racism, sexual suppression and religious repressions to the evils of government.
What we need is a government that is free of the Banksters, the women haters and the Churchsters.
Yep. Just remember, it's NEVER the fault of we the people whom live wayyyy beyond our means buying crap we don't need and so on and so forth.
One gal in FL with a 150k mortgage kept refinancing over the years to pay off racking up her credit cards. She finally lost her house with a 350k mortgage to the evil banks because she was sunk with other debt and the market had stopped balooning so she could no longer refinance.
Yeah, 20+ years in a house and you wind up owing TWICE what it initially cost and that's the Banks fault. lmao.
Here lies personal responsibility. RIP.
Since I consider idiots part of the firmament, I do blame the banks for issuing credit to them. Think someone's new bride can't find someone to do on the bus? None of them took a vow but she did.
Banks are given the power to issue credit. To make certain that this credit is issued for the purposes of advancing commerce, they must make good on bad loans. That's the deal. You print money, but you need to collect it back. Anything else is counterfeiting.
Who issued that power to "gal in FL" ?
I am not worried about her. The banks helped destroy my buying power and screwed me.
I am well aware of and annoyed by the acceptance of corporate contributions and the extraordinary number of Wall Street insiders in this administration. I only support the Democrats because the Republicans would add racism, sexual suppression and religious repressions to the evils of government.
What we need is a government that is free of the Banksters, the women haters and the Churchsters.
I disagree. The way to stop this is to separate the Government from corporate money. IMHO money is NOT free speech and never has been. We have to stop corporate political contributions, corporations providing jobs for ex-congress critters and supplying personnel to regulatory agencies or employing regulators after they leave the government. These are just a few of the necessary steps. The main thing we have to do is stop worshipping corporate greed.
We actually need much more government regulation and control of business to create and protect free open markets from domination by any single investor or group of investors. Without government control all markets are eventually controlled by crony capitalists and destroyed by unchecked speculation. Banks are very useful businesses. Banks operated by gangster criminals are not.
Greg some things I disagree with you on, but I'm agreeing with you here. As far as those books you mentioned in a previous post, there's also a movie narrated by Matt Damon about the financial collapse called "The Inside Job"
We actually need much more government regulation and control of business to create and protect free open markets from domination by any single investor or group of investors. Without government control all markets are eventually controlled by crony capitalists and destroyed by unchecked speculation. Banks are very useful businesses. Banks operated by gangster criminals are not.
Government regulation and control destroys free markets. A regulated market is by definition not a free market. Government creates crony capitalism. GE helps elect Obama. Obama bans incandescent light bulbs. GE is a leading manufacturer of flourescent light bulbs. GE makes money, and contributes back to Obama's re-election campaign. Obama and GE win, consumers and other companies lose. That's crony capitalism and a regulated market for you.
Government regulation and control destroys free markets. A regulated market is by definition not a free market. Government creates crony capitalism. GE helps elect Obama. Obama bans incandescent light bulbs. GE is a leading manufacturer of flourescent light bulbs. GE makes money, and contributes back to Obama's re-election campaign. Obama and GE win, consumers and other companies lose. That's crony capitalism and a regulated market for you.
You make a very valid point. The problem with the free market though, while it has worked well for so many years it has recently become like a rebellious teenager. Because of greed. When a teenager becomes rebellious a good parent grounds the teenager, and creates and/ or enforces rules. Which is what needs to be done with the free market. I will say this. Many like to think that abortion, the acceptance of homosexuality, violence, drugs, terrorism, children out of wedlock, lack of religion, poor education, etc., will be the downfall of this country. Not close on any of them. If there is one thing that can destroy the USA as we know it, it's greed!
To the OP, I hate to say it, but I don't think we ever will. Big business, whether it's banking, pharmaceutical, automotive, has too much of a stranglehold. Big business is what's running this country, NOT the politicians. The politicians, all of them, got their pockets lined by business and special interest groups.
Of course the bail-outs were totally wrong, but hey "I scratch your back you scratch mine" right?
Mathguy you pointed out people walking from homes they were upside down in. There is no way many of these banks didn't know before the loans were signed that some of these people couldn't afford these homes! True the feds kept lowering interest rates, but there's an underlying reason credit became so easy in the late 90's and early 2000's. I know of a local car dealership that did this. People that were poor were getting financed for new Ford Explorers. Don't worry, most of them got re-possesed. Many in the finance industry saw big profits and nothing else.
Something else to consider is that debt, or keeping a person in it is a billion dollar industry. Why do you think the CC companies want to keep you in debt? I remember getting a letter from Chase that they were increasing my credit line by $7,000, and I didn't even ask. The more credit you use, the more your monthly payment, which if you're just making the monthly minimum it's mostly going towards interest. They like that. Then when the card is maxed out and you can no longer afford the monthly payment the CC sells the debt to a collection company for pennies on the dollar. Now, not only is the debt off their books, but they've also made a profit! See how nice that works! Now I agree people need to be fiscally responsible. I mean you shouldn't be out buying an iPhone when you can't pay your electric bill.
I don't believe our country was set-up to run this way. It wasn't founded on the Wal-Marts, Home Depots, Chases. It was founded on the principles that those willing to do an honest days work would recieve an honest days pay, that you could survive on. It was built upon the "mom-n-pop" small businesses. It was built upon the principle that those businesses could expand with hard work too. That the hamburger stand could become McDonald's, that the Walton's Five and Dime could become Wal-Mart. Sadly, the huge amount of greed has taken root. The CEO gets a two million dollar pay raise, while the company posts a yearly loss, jobs are sent to China and employee benefits are slashed. Big business controls the Senate and The House. It controls state and local governments as well. Wages stay stagnant while the cost of living goes up, and the middle class continues to get squeezed out of existance. See the ones at the very top, snorting the coke, dinning in the finest restaraunts, that's who's really pulling the strings. America being sucked dry is the furthest thing from their minds
Many who could afford those homes left because they are no longer worth what they paid. Human history of all modern societies reaching back 2-3 thousand years is chock full of the very wealthy grasping at-controlling the purse strings of monarchs-tyrants-democracies. We are no different in regards of the well placed taking control while politicians take the blame. The very wealthy do this because they have the power and money to do it. The French got it right and lobbed the heads off of the investment class who owned the crown and forced the poor to bankroll themselves and the crown. Lets hope this does not happen in the US in which I think laws will change to ward off such a drastic remedy.
It's called Crony Capitalism and BIG GOVERNMENT. Government rewards the losers, both corporate and individual.
The only way to stop this is to downsize government. We should end ALL government bailouts and subsidies. If government cannot bail out the losers, corporations will have less leverage over government. There will be less money to fight over.
History dictates that when a government becomes weak it is then the vultures, greedy bastards swarm in and find ways for the masses to feed them. If smaller equals weak then your solution is the absolute wrong approach because history dictates otherwise. Now that does not mean a bloated government is the answer either.
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