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I stand corrected. It is nice to be among sensible people. But then why this aura of near glee over a problem that has yet to affect any but those on Wall Street? Tell you what, you guys sell your stocks, cash in your 401K's, and bail out of the dollar. I'll go with business as usual. Let's compare our situations in 6 months and see who is better off.
What does increased fuel price have to do with the mortgage crisis? The higher cost for groceries is largely the result of the ethanol mandate nonsense. But I agree that government usually just messes up anything they get involved in.
What does increased fuel price have to do with the mortgage crisis? The higher cost for groceries is largely the result of the ethanol mandate nonsense. But I agree that government usually just messes up anything they get involved in.
Simple. Oil is--at least for now--priced in dollars. Trash the dollar and the price of oil to Americans goes up. I say "for now" because a lot of those American-educated oil minions in places like Dubai, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Russia, etc. know perfectly damned well that America's addiction to debt, imports, and now bailing out bad investments is going to cause bad inflation of the US dollar. When those folks decide that accepting worthless paper for tangible stuff is no longer in their interest, they will pursue de-coupling the price of their commodity--oil--from the no-longer stable dollar. When that happens all kinds of economic hell will break out in the US--because the average American will likely be unable to afford most anything imported, and we don't make much stuff for ourselves in this country anymore. I expect that de-coupling to happen within a year at the longest. That pretty much should end any illusion of American world economic dominance.
The Saudis, the Chineese and the Japaneese (the major holders of our bonds) all have an interest in keeping the US economy running strong. Talk of the dollar taking a back seat has been discussed for years. And it will be for years to come.
Money quote: "A 700 Billion bag of dung has been placed on the doorstep of the taxpayer, the doorbell has been rung, and they actually expect the American People to thank them for it when they get to the door."
The bailout bill as failed. Hooray! Let it crash, I say. The whole idea of the bailout to me is ridiculous.
Hmmm, let's see, the reason we got into this mess in the first place was easy access of the masses to too much credit, which many Americans then used to buy useless junk and overpriced homes with unconventional morgage strategies, thereby consuming themselves into near-bankruptcy. So now, in order to "save" our economy, they want to inject 700 billion tax dollars into the system, thereby freeing up the credit markets, thereby enabling Americans to get easy access to credit once again, thereby once more enabling them to consume more junk and spend more money they don't have? What's wrong with this picture?
Today's Congressional bailout slapdown and 777 point Dow implosion was a thing of beauty. The deniers of financial gravity, as it were, are bouncing nearly lifeless off the concrete floor.
The mushrooming destruction of confidence in the shell game of the overleveraged financial world will have consequences that reach far beyond the present. Who really wants their economic future tied to the lying, thieving, bleating pigmen on Wall Street ever again?? Not I.
Bottom line...no law can fix the problem of a blue-collar worker with a $40,000 annual income trying to pay the mortgage on a $400,000 house. If we use taxpayer money, extracted from that same worker, to recapitalize his bank, he'll just draw the bank right back into the abyss when he inevitably defaults on a mortgage he never, ever, could have been or will be able to afford.
We have a long ways to fall still. Return of capital remains far more important than return on capital. He who takes his money out first, at least gets his money. Not so for those who choose to exit late from a Ponzi scheme, and make no mistake about it, Wall Street is the biggest crooked Ponzi game in town.
What bothers me most is the underlying principle in all this that the USA cannot survive as a nation without continuing to amass massive amounts of debt to fund every aspect of our daily lives and businesses. Until and unless we break that cycle, we're royally screwed, from L.A to Denver to Boston...all across the looted plains.
"Debt is dumb."
Last edited by Bob from down south; 09-29-2008 at 03:39 PM..
I don't think it was a thing of beauty. I don't think too many other people do either.
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