Opinions on the president Bush''s speech?
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strmrdr
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My opinion of him has changed somewhat.
I thought he was a decent guy who had anything he may have wanted to do for the country derailed by 9-11 and while not the best president he was far from the worst.
Tonight I feel he is much closer to the worst and this blunder will be right up there with the ones that Carter did.
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agree!!
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I heard about the speech for the first time here, Karl. So I went to read about it at the website for, "The New York Times". Here is an excerpt from their lead article on the speech:
September 25, 2008
President Issues Warning to Americans
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
WASHINGTON —
"President Bush appealed to the nation Wednesday night to support a $700 billion plan to avert a financial meltdown on Wall Street, and he invited both major presidential candidates to join him and Congressional leaders at the White House on Thursday to forge a bipartisan compromise.
Warning that 'a long and painful recession' could occur if Congress does not act quickly, Mr. Bush said the consequences could play out in 'a distressing scenario,' including potential bank failures, job losses and inability for ordinary Americans to borrow money to buy cars or send their children to college.
'Fellow citizens, we must not let this happen,' he said."
I was stunned to read the president making such a speech. He has been running this economy! He came up with the strategy of tax cuts for the wealthiest citizens while spending like a drunken sailor! (At least he spent freely on wars that could provide lucrative contracts to Halliburton, not on social programs-including medical care for veterans or renovations at Walter Reed Army Hospital where patients had to trek around in the snow!) I mean, this economy has been under his care! Now he's telling us that unless we support a rescue package for the big financial institutions that we will be unable to borrow money to buy cars or send our children to college because banks will fail? I mean, excuse me? Whose fault is this? Shouldn't we be looking at the guy who was at the helm for the past eight years?
Deborah
movie zombie
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and i thought 9/11 gave him the the opportunity to do just what he wanted to do all along.
the goal of the neocons has to been to break this democracy and restructure a government to their own liking. here''s the next opportunity to do so: hand over more power to an unelected offical with no accountability to anyone.
this president has lied repeatedly to us on so many issues.....and now for months re our economic situation. how much will it take to recognize that this man is not a friend of democracy or its institutions?
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C''mon Deborah, you know that personal responsibility is completely passe, especially for the very rich.Date: 9/24/2008 10:56:59 PM
Author: AGBF
I heard about the speech for the first time here, Karl. So I went to read about it at the website for, ''The New York Times''. Here is an excerpt from their lead article on the speech:
September 25, 2008
President Issues Warning to Americans
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
WASHINGTON —
''President Bush appealed to the nation Wednesday night to support a $700 billion plan to avert a financial meltdown on Wall Street, and he invited both major presidential candidates to join him and Congressional leaders at the White House on Thursday to forge a bipartisan compromise.
Warning that ''a long and painful recession'' could occur if Congress does not act quickly, Mr. Bush said the consequences could play out in ''a distressing scenario,'' including potential bank failures, job losses and inability for ordinary Americans to borrow money to buy cars or send their children to college.
''Fellow citizens, we must not let this happen,'' he said.''
I was stunned to read the president making such a speech. He has been running this economy! He came up with the strategy of tax cuts for the wealthiest citizens while spending like a drunken sailor! (At least he spent freely on wars that could provide lucrative contracts to Halliburton, not on social programs-including medical care for veterans or renovations at Walter Reed Army Hospital where patients had to trek around in the snow!) I mean, this economy has been under his care! Now he''s telling us that unless we support a rescue package for the big financial institutions that we will be unable to borrow money to buy cars or send our children to college because banks will fail? I mean, excuse me? Whose fault is this? Shouldn''t we be looking at the guy who was at the helm for the past eight years?
Deborah
As Goldman''s chief, Paulson himself received an $18.7 million cash bonus for the first half of 2006, and in 2005 he was the highest paid chief executive officer on Wall Street, reaping $38.3 million in salary, stock and options.
He had also accumulated 3.23 million shares of Goldman''s common stock worth $492 million, plus restricted shares worth $75.2 million and options to purchase 680,474 shares, according to a Goldman regulatory filing on July 2, 2006.
Paulson wasn''t required to pay a 20 percent tax penalty on some of his compensation from Goldman under an Internal Revenue Service rule that waived the tax on executives forced to sell stock to comply with government ethics rules.
Makes ya sick, tis true. But nothing will change until we as a society, decide that NO ONE should be able to amass money like that, when we quit defending the amassing of truly obscene amounts of wealth because deep in our hearts we want justification for our own greed, else why do so many churches get upset when an outsider wonders why their pastor is living fat when his parishoners are tithing and starving. Hey, if I defend this, then maybe one day, in this life or the next, I''LL be that rich.
And honestly, is any single person worth that? Is his contribution to anything worth that? Doubt it. He and his ilk have run this country and its economy into the ground, and we''re supposed to trust them with our tax dollars now? Yeah right. Like many angry folks I''d like so see him and the other CEOs who are whining about "unfairness" to be stripped of their personal assests, slapped in sackcloth and ashes, and thrown into the stocks (the wooden kind) where people could spit on them. Oh...and GW and every member of Congress who deregulated banking can take their turn in ''em too...
movie zombie
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ah, another very angry soul!
i''ve got the wood if you want to start building that wooden stock..........or maybe we should take a lesson from the french revolution: guillotine!
this bunch has pretty much said that they''re above it all and shouldn''t have to pay a price, much in the vein of sayiing let them eat cake.
movie zombie
i''ve got the wood if you want to start building that wooden stock..........or maybe we should take a lesson from the french revolution: guillotine!
this bunch has pretty much said that they''re above it all and shouldn''t have to pay a price, much in the vein of sayiing let them eat cake.
movie zombie
diamondfan
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I think that ship has sailed. I doubt many would look at Bush's legacy with admiration, but the issue is he is leaving office and leaving this on our doorstep. Finger pointing is not of use, we need to stop the free fall and make sure whoever wins in November makes this is a huge priority. Sadly, neither candidate is a great economic strategist so hey, it is really going to be interesting.
I get looking at Bush and scratching your head, he steered the ship into the rocks and is now jumping ship and complaining about the state of it, when he is the cause on many levels. But he also was not the one spending each person's money and people were able to buy homes when they really could not afford them and run up huge bills, which is not his fault totally. Yes, making it easy breezy to do it does not help those with no fiscal discipline, but again, we cannot always be thinking about those who might not be able to handle paying their loans back etc. Personal responsibility does come into play here too. If you cannot afford it, do not buy it.
ETA: that said, I think the ramifications of doing nothing here are too great, and we must allow the government to help. This is not minor stuff here and our economy might never recover. It is a bitter pill but one we must take, but I do agree about executives not getting huge payouts on taxpayer money when a company fails.
I get looking at Bush and scratching your head, he steered the ship into the rocks and is now jumping ship and complaining about the state of it, when he is the cause on many levels. But he also was not the one spending each person's money and people were able to buy homes when they really could not afford them and run up huge bills, which is not his fault totally. Yes, making it easy breezy to do it does not help those with no fiscal discipline, but again, we cannot always be thinking about those who might not be able to handle paying their loans back etc. Personal responsibility does come into play here too. If you cannot afford it, do not buy it.
ETA: that said, I think the ramifications of doing nothing here are too great, and we must allow the government to help. This is not minor stuff here and our economy might never recover. It is a bitter pill but one we must take, but I do agree about executives not getting huge payouts on taxpayer money when a company fails.
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Not defending lack of personal responsibility, but given the proper marketing and inducement, almost anyone can be fleeced. We don''t get all PO''d at the elderly when they are trusting. Why are we so angry at those people who were genuinely too dumb to know what was going on? The people selling these hideously complex and opaque loans were CON MEN no matter what nice mortgage company or bank they worked for, in many instances marketing HARD, selling the American dream to people who probably never had a hope of every having anything let alone a home, many of them. Those con men...companies...did not do even the lightest due diligence to make sure these people could afford the loans - - why should they? They didn''t have to actually KEEP any part of them! I even read of one guy who worked for Countrywide, who tried to do that very thing - to tell his bosses that hey! this or that guy can''t afford this loan! He was FIRED. Heck, some of them got loans with no income whatsoever. When one party is stupid or deceived, and the other party is amoral or just plain evil, who bears the greater burden? The person with the greater knowledge in my book.
movie zombie
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ah, but you see ksinger, the trickle down theory does work: greed from the top trickles down to the bottom. of course, the amount of greed at the top is enormous and doesn''t allow for much at the bottom. those at the bottom wanted a better life and to have a part of the american dream. the banks said it was ok, they qualified those people, they pushed loans on some of them, they told us we were stupid to have equity in our homes, that it was stupid to not make that money work for us and to enjoy life now, that to be a real american means to shop til you drop, and that the terrorist had won if we didn''t get back out there and shop right after 9/11, an economy means growth and the only way to have growth is to spend, consequences can always be deflected onto our grandchildren long after we''re gone. bitter?! angry?! all an understatement and NOW he wants a bi-partisan solution?! he''s run this country into the ground economically and morally.
while the roots of these problems go back a ways, there is no taking away from bush and this administration their acceleration of the dismantling of our way of life, their disregard for the US Constitution and our laws, and their utter contempt for democracy. yes, he is in fact the worst president this country has ever experienced and i hope and pray there is never another like him.
movie zombie
disclaimer: i mean no negativity towards any poster. this is merely my rant in reaction to his speech.
while the roots of these problems go back a ways, there is no taking away from bush and this administration their acceleration of the dismantling of our way of life, their disregard for the US Constitution and our laws, and their utter contempt for democracy. yes, he is in fact the worst president this country has ever experienced and i hope and pray there is never another like him.
movie zombie
disclaimer: i mean no negativity towards any poster. this is merely my rant in reaction to his speech.
diamondfan
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K, it is simply a huge cluster. This begat that and here we are. Who would not want to be a home owner, and all it takes is unscrupulous con artists to put the plan into motion. I am not saying who is all to blame, it took two to be in that dance. But I agree that the cons took total advantage of people perhaps being naive and gullible.
movie zombie
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ah, diamond, you have hit the nail on the head!
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Well in my opinion, the banks making the loans bear by far the the greatest chunk of the burden. They were the people in possession of more knowledge, both specific and general, about loans and what WERE sensible industry guidelines for making them. (Anybody here who ever bought a house ever feel a bit overwhelmed at the time, by the info coming at ya? The process? Could YOU, educated YOU...(I go on the observation that most here are above average in education and savvy)...have been misled at all at any time by a predatory lendor? I know I sure felt a bit shaky at times, and I knew much more than some of these folks I'm certain.) They made them full well knowing that the people they made them to had not the smarts to know what they were, nor the means to pay them. I'm not a loan officer and I know that. The fact is, if they had had to keep those loans on their OWN books after making them, they'd not have made them. Period. They were making bad loans while saying "Whew! Better unload THAT hot potato!!" I can't think of a better and more crystal clear example of predatory capitalism than this whole subprime loan mess.
ETA - hmmm...we've gotten off topic. Just like a real conversation. Go figure. I didn't watch Bush's speech. I have never EVER been able to watch that man without experiencing intense personal embarrassment that we as a people elected such a moron. So I don't put myself through it. He's proven daily that he can be an utter idiot with or without an audience. Self-indulgent coward that that I am, I am content to let someone else shoulder that particular burden, of watching him... I can always read a transcript the next day if I need to.
ETA - hmmm...we've gotten off topic. Just like a real conversation. Go figure. I didn't watch Bush's speech. I have never EVER been able to watch that man without experiencing intense personal embarrassment that we as a people elected such a moron. So I don't put myself through it. He's proven daily that he can be an utter idiot with or without an audience. Self-indulgent coward that that I am, I am content to let someone else shoulder that particular burden, of watching him... I can always read a transcript the next day if I need to.
MoonWater
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Deborah, that''s all I could think when I heard him talking. I got so angry listening to him in the car that every other word that came out of my mouth needed to be censored. I can''t believe this crap.Date: 9/24/2008 10:56:59 PM
Author: AGBF
I was stunned to read the president making such a speech. He has been running this economy! He came up with the strategy of tax cuts for the wealthiest citizens while spending like a drunken sailor! (At least he spent freely on wars that could provide lucrative contracts to Halliburton, not on social programs-including medical care for veterans or renovations at Walter Reed Army Hospital where patients had to trek around in the snow!) I mean, this economy has been under his care! Now he''s telling us that unless we support a rescue package for the big financial institutions that we will be unable to borrow money to buy cars or send our children to college because banks will fail? I mean, excuse me? Whose fault is this? Shouldn''t we be looking at the guy who was at the helm for the past eight years?
Deborah
Anna0499
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http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=16&artnum=1&issue=20080918
GREAT article from a finance publication on the blame game - this problem didn't start with Bush, as much as some like to make him the end all be all of all the nation's problems. He has his fair share of blame, don't get me wrong, but this started back with Carter & expanded grossly under Clinton. Bush and other Republicans, including McCain, were accused of trying to keep poor minorities from getting loans when they opposed this expansion. Banks were actually rated based on the number of loans they made to poor people - yes, poor people deserve loans if they can afford them, but not to this point. Freddie & Fannie lobbied members of Congress to make sure heavy regulations were not approved; there is a table of top contributions Freddie & Frannie made to Congressional members and low and behold there is Barack Obama coming in at #3! I smell a rat.
ETA: I agree that more easy credit is not the answer.
MoonWater
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I smell a rat too, it's called lack of details: http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/09/update-fannie-mae-and-freddie.html
Oh, and he's the second largest recipient...let's get scared...but wait: http://wire.factcheck.org/2008/09/19/freddie-fannie-and-barack-%E2%80%94-corrected/
"According to CRP, Obama’s total contributions from the FMs work out to $126,349. Of that sum, $6,000 comes from the FMs’ political action committees, and the rest from individuals who work for one of the two companies. Obama’s FM contributions account for about 0.03 percent of his total contributions to date. McCain’s FM haul is a smaller $21,550, all from individuals. That’s about 0.01 percent of his total contributions. We stand by our doubts that either candidate will be much swayed by numbers of this size."
Oh, and he's the second largest recipient...let's get scared...but wait: http://wire.factcheck.org/2008/09/19/freddie-fannie-and-barack-%E2%80%94-corrected/
"According to CRP, Obama’s total contributions from the FMs work out to $126,349. Of that sum, $6,000 comes from the FMs’ political action committees, and the rest from individuals who work for one of the two companies. Obama’s FM contributions account for about 0.03 percent of his total contributions to date. McCain’s FM haul is a smaller $21,550, all from individuals. That’s about 0.01 percent of his total contributions. We stand by our doubts that either candidate will be much swayed by numbers of this size."
Anna0499
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Everyone knows that almost every member of Congress has received money from Freddie & Frannie at some point in their careers, that's how these organizations operate within the federal government. However, it very clear that this mess was not started by Republicans, namely, Bush, although it has not been stopped by them. Hopefully the next President will do something to make sure this doesn't happen again - I bet Congress is listening now.
MoonWater
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Maybe I need to re-read this thread but I don't recall anyone claiming it was started by Republicans. The point is HOW the survey was done, meaning if the same was done for my firm, it would appear that they donated to Obama through me, an individual citizen. It seems more than a little ridiculous to report "such n such recieved this amount from X corporation" as if it was PACs or something equally influential. It is especially silly with someone who has recieved such an enormous amount of donations that it pales in comparison with the corporation in question.
Anna0499
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Yeah, I would suggest scrolling up a few posts to where people claim that Bush is the reason for the crisis because he was the one "running" the economy (that's why I said "namely, Bush" was not the target to blame. Everyone knows that the state of the economy doesn't just happen overnight (even if it seems that way) and it hasn't even been happening only in the last eight years - this has been brewing since Carter. Good intentions? Sure, but lousy execution. It's your opinion that the numbers are insignificant, but if you combine the number of contributions given to people specifically linked to supporting increased loans to highly unqualified poor people and fighting against regulation of F&F it is quite telling IMHO.
Anyway, again, I agree with Karl that credit needs to be taken AWAY, not increased. Giving people too much leeway/money was the problem to begin with.
Erin
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I had a friend who worked in the car business. Let''s say a couple came in with low income. The man gets money from the government due to his disability or injury. The woman collects child support and earns a little over minimum wage. The car they currently own, is behind on payments and is worth less than they owe.
In the car business, a salesperson, though not morally ethical but nonetheless legal, can advise this couple to let their car be repossessed. It will take at least a month for this scar to affect their credit score. Besides, they cannot afford their current car so you might as well buy one you can actually make the payments on. So they tally up the the earned wages, the child support, and the disability income and they come up with a monthly income. Regardless of their rent or mortgage, heck regardless of any bills they have, THIS is their monthly income. They submit it to a bank, rack up the interest to the maximum percentage rate which I believe is 3 points above what the bank will buy the loan at, and send it to the bank.
Voila, if they can fudge the numbers enough, they''ve provided a case for a buyable sales loan. Now, who is getting screwed here? The bank that owns the loan on the first car that is about to go into default? The new bank buying the new car loan when they have no idea that this couple may or may not be able to afford it? The couple, for crying out loud, who aren''t diligent enough to figure out on their own whether or not they can afford this new car payment? I mean, the sales person crunched the numbers. He told them they can afford it and the bank bought the loan so they must be able to. Nevermind the load of crap the sales person told them about what would happen to their credit once the original car gets repossessed. All they know is, if they''re gonna do this deal, it has to happen before the original car''s missed payments start to affect their credit rating - where they''ll never be able to get a loan so Act Now!
Does the car salesman or dealership hurt at all during this process? No. In fact, the salesman gets a commission. The dealership sells another car and any repercussions never come close to haunting them. My point is, there is no ACCOUNTABILITY in this whole process. I believe on a small scale, this is this mindset that is happening all over the country on a larger scale.
How do we make people and companies and government accountable? Just because you can doesn''t mean you should...
In the car business, a salesperson, though not morally ethical but nonetheless legal, can advise this couple to let their car be repossessed. It will take at least a month for this scar to affect their credit score. Besides, they cannot afford their current car so you might as well buy one you can actually make the payments on. So they tally up the the earned wages, the child support, and the disability income and they come up with a monthly income. Regardless of their rent or mortgage, heck regardless of any bills they have, THIS is their monthly income. They submit it to a bank, rack up the interest to the maximum percentage rate which I believe is 3 points above what the bank will buy the loan at, and send it to the bank.
Voila, if they can fudge the numbers enough, they''ve provided a case for a buyable sales loan. Now, who is getting screwed here? The bank that owns the loan on the first car that is about to go into default? The new bank buying the new car loan when they have no idea that this couple may or may not be able to afford it? The couple, for crying out loud, who aren''t diligent enough to figure out on their own whether or not they can afford this new car payment? I mean, the sales person crunched the numbers. He told them they can afford it and the bank bought the loan so they must be able to. Nevermind the load of crap the sales person told them about what would happen to their credit once the original car gets repossessed. All they know is, if they''re gonna do this deal, it has to happen before the original car''s missed payments start to affect their credit rating - where they''ll never be able to get a loan so Act Now!
Does the car salesman or dealership hurt at all during this process? No. In fact, the salesman gets a commission. The dealership sells another car and any repercussions never come close to haunting them. My point is, there is no ACCOUNTABILITY in this whole process. I believe on a small scale, this is this mindset that is happening all over the country on a larger scale.
How do we make people and companies and government accountable? Just because you can doesn''t mean you should...
MoonWater
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Interesting, I must have missed a few words in Deborah''s post because what I got out of it was how ridiculous his urgency appears to be considering he was the leader of the nation for the last 8 years. If he saw all of this happening, he could have pulled this stunt BEFORE it happened instead of telling us all that now, after the crap hit the fan, that we need to pay attention and chip in our tax dollars. If he knew all of this was happening, he should NOT have given out those tax breaks which benefited the wealthest of us (seriously, that $600 was great but I would not have missed it knowing our country needed it), while also spending billions on a war that never should have been started. So pardon if some of us are highly annoyed at his urgency now as if this happened all of a sudden.
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MoonWater, I appreciate your support. You certainly have a grasp of how I see the big picture
.I don't want anyone to defend me from the charge that the current meltdown is entirely the fault of the administration of George W. Bush, however, because it is. Indygirl is just plain wrong to say this goes back to Carter. I am going to include some excerpts from an Op-Ed piece from today's, "The New York Times". It was written by Ron Susskind, the biographer of Paul O'Neill, Mr. Bush's first Secretary of the Treasury and it describes how Mr. O'Neill and Alan Greenspan, then Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, tried to force regulation of Wall Street onto the Bush administration's crew during the 2002 Enron crisis...to no avail.
Mr. Bush and his super wealthy Republican, big business cronies didn't have the same values that the regular businessmen that rose in the ranks the way Mr. Greenspan had. They were irresponsible and heeded no one. They were warned. It is on the record. It was printed in, "The Wall Street Journal".
September 25, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
The Crisis Last Time
By RON SUSKIND
Washington
"THE Federal Reserve chairman and senior economic officials of the Bush administration solemnly filed into the large conference room of the Treasury Department. There was a sense of urgency, an understanding that drastic action — restructuring the financial landscape of corporate America — was desperately needed.
Last week? Last night, as the president and his advisers prepared for his address to the nation? Hardly. It was Feb. 22, 2002. The officials were President Bush’s original economic team, including the Securities and Exchange Commission’s chairman, Harvey Pitt; Glenn Hubbard, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers; and the senior White House economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey. The Federal Reserve chairman, of course, was Alan Greenspan.
The crisis of that moment was the implosion of Enron, Global Crossing and other companies. Along with conflicts of interest and criminally creative bookkeeping, the culprit was often a combination of financial complexity and insanely expensive compensation packages.
(snip)
The meeting, recounted to me by Paul O’Neill, Mr. Bush’s first Treasury secretary, and several other participants, was something of a showdown. Everyone came armed for battle, none more than Mr. Greenspan and Mr. O’Neill, who railed that day like a pair of blue-suited Jeremiahs. Their colloquy on economic policy and corporate practice, which began when they were senior officials in the Ford administration, had evolved over three decades.
To the surprise of many younger men in the room, the duo opened by reminiscing about a bygone era when the value of a company’s stock was assessed by how strong a dividend was paid. It was a standard that demanded tough, tangible choices. Everything, of course, came out of the same pot of cash, from executive compensation and capital improvements to the dividend — which could be spent by a shareholder or reinvested in more company stock as a show of support.
In contrast to dividends, Mr. Greenspan intoned, 'Earnings are a very dubious measure' of corporate health. 'Asset values are, after all, just based on a forecast,' he said, and a chief executive can 'craft' an earnings statement in misleading ways.
Speaking with a hard-edged frankness rarely heard in public — and seeing that those assembled were not sharing his outrage — Mr. Greenspan slapped the table. 'There’s been too much gaming of the system,' he thundered. 'Capitalism is not working! There’s been a corrupting of the system of capitalism.'
Mr. O’Neill, for his part, pushed to alter the threshold for action against chief executives from 'recklessness' — where a difficult finding of willful malfeasance would be necessary for action against a corporate chief — to negligence. That is, if a company went south, the boss could face a hard-eyed appraisal from government auditors and be subject to heavy fines and other penalties. By matching upside rewards with downside consequences — a bracing idea for the corner office — Messrs. O’Neill and Greenspan hoped fear would compel the titans of business to enforce financial discipline, full public disclosure and probity down the corporate ranks.
But they were in the minority. Mr. Pitt, the S.E.C. chairman, voiced concern that creation of a new entity to assess negligence by corporate honchos might draw power away from his agency. Lawrence Lindsey said, “There’s always the option of doing nothing,” that the markets are “already discounting the stocks in companies that show accounting irregularities.”
An article about the meeting appeared a few days later in The Wall Street Journal. The next day, Mr. O’Neill was in Florida addressing chief executives of America’s top 20 financial services companies. They piled on. One told the Treasury secretary that he’d 'rather resign' than be held accountable for 'what’s going on in my company.' A phalanx of outraged financial industry chiefs, many of them large Republican contributors, called the White House. Real reform was a political dead letter.
A presidential speech that followed was toothless, mostly recommending that chief executives personally certify their companies’ financial statements. Earnings per share remained the gold standard. The Sarbanes-Oxley bill, signed into law a few months later, largely focused on the auditors, and actually increased the complexity of reporting practices. As for lawsuits? Not to worry. No significant rise.
At issue, of course, were those twins, transparency and accountability. The years since have shown that the first one is meaningless without the second. With a world financial crisis upon us, the president and his economic team are forced again to talk about accountability. Let’s hope this time they mean it.
Ron Suskind is the author of 'The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House and the Education of Paul O’Neill' and 'The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism.'"
Deborah
mrssalvo
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I think there is enough blame to go around. From Bush to Barney Frank. If Bush didn''t start the mess he sure didn''t do anything to stop it and is making a worse mess of it now. and I voted for him. I''m disappointed to say the least. I honestly don''t agree with Obama or McCain either on the bailout
Anna0499
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Yeah, there is a bunch of blame to go around. I say that it's not all the Republicans' fault and then I get a reply saying that no one is saying that but then right after someone says exactly that! Haha classic.Date: 9/25/2008 3:54:08 PM
Author: mrssalvo
I think there is enough blame to go around. From Bush to Barney Frank. If Bush didn't start the mess he sure didn't do anything to stop it and is making a worse mess of it now. and I voted for him. I'm disappointed to say the least. I honestly don't agree with Obama or McCain either on the bailout
ETA: Like I said earlier, GREAT intentions, but lousy execution.
diamondfan
Super_Ideal_Rock
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2005
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- 11,016
Moon, therein lies a huge issue. Credit is a beautiful nuisance on some levels. Anyone can be seduced into wanting all sorts of stuff, but reasonableness would say not all people can afford all the things they want. Credit just sucks you in. I am sure a lot of these people who work on the loans get a fee, so what if they lie, right?! Long after the person they lied about to get the loan approval has defaulted, they have gotten their points and spent them.
I agree people need to spend to spurn growth in the economy but within reason. Over reaching and defaulting only hurts us all. The whole thing is chicken and egg to a point. You can cannot earn credit without being given it. Some people are uber careful. We NEVER run a balance on a card. Period. My husband hates paying interest. Not all people can do that, I know. But when you only make X and need to pay rent or mortages and food and gas etc, maybe you have to be more discerning about the goodies you buy. But we all want it all, that is America! I know it is tough to resist the pull.
I agree people need to spend to spurn growth in the economy but within reason. Over reaching and defaulting only hurts us all. The whole thing is chicken and egg to a point. You can cannot earn credit without being given it. Some people are uber careful. We NEVER run a balance on a card. Period. My husband hates paying interest. Not all people can do that, I know. But when you only make X and need to pay rent or mortages and food and gas etc, maybe you have to be more discerning about the goodies you buy. But we all want it all, that is America! I know it is tough to resist the pull.
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