United States Heading towards a Depression?

Kinda ironic that one of those same people, Barney Frank, is still holding the purse strings at Fannie and Freddie. The architect of that failure is still in control of it.

When stupid is the majority, what can you do but wait till they do try everything else first before doing it right.

Personally, I'd rather be subjected to a "Clockwork Orange" style gay porn show staring Frank than sit back and watch him fuck with the housing market again.

When are people going to wake up? Hopefully Massachusetts was a wake up call and sign of things go come.

 

Well, according to the first half last night's State of the Union, Pres. Obama seems to agree with you, Mia!

2009 was the year of massive pork spending for the Democrats. Now, 2010 is the year of "We better really fix the economy soon or we're all out of jobs".

 

But his second part of his SOTU was that he was not going to fix shit till 2012.

 

Well, the truth is, 2-year, 3-year, 5-year plans, etc. are forgotten by both the public and the Congress the week after they are mentioned.

Plus, it might be a teeny weenie bit unconstitutional for the Executive Branch to tell the Legislative Branch that is HAS to limit spending? It's that "separation of powers" thing.

So, Pres. Obama's proposal for Congress to limit spending in 2011 has all the force and power of a folded slip of paper dropped in a high school suggestion box.

 

I think that the Democrats have made the decision that they are going to spend there way out of the mess.

There's no way that the US can pay off the national debt. We can't even afford the interest. Obama is asking for a $1.9 trillion increase in the national debt limit to get him through the 2010 Congressional elections.

It really looks like Obama is doing a replay of Jimmy Carter after the 73-75 recession. The money supply had increased 119% at the time. The funny thing is that 1978 and 1979 weren't so bad. Unemployment actually was down to 5.6% in 1979. But the bill became due in 1980 and things got bad. A lot worse that they are at the moment.

The situation right now is critical. 47 cents of every $1 of Federal spending is borrowed. Money supply has increased by 129%. Even social security is now in the red.

Inflation is a tricky monkey. But I guess that some of the statistics will go positive and it will take around 18 months or so for the inflation to start to get felt.

The thing is that Gold wouldn't be over $1000 an ounce if everything was kosher.

The President can veto the spending

I just heard on Fox that Barry Obama is a cousin of Scott Brown

 

People are reading into the Massachusetts election way too much. That came down to just one issue; their state's healthcare program is better than the federal proposals. Seeing as how Massachusetts is already a "giver state" (they pay out more in federal income taxes than the funds they get back), their citizens saw that as a real problem.

 

Having read quite a few of your posts here on DP, you clearly have very little understanding of economics and our government. Both parties love simpleton voters such as yourself.

The admission that we are in a recession may have came only after the Dems took Congress, but the events were set into motion by those before them. To say that everything was fine in the early to mid 00's because fewer were losing jobs and homes is just stupid.

The last time we saw something on this level (politicians inheriting a problem that was brewing, but hadn't blown up yet) was in the 1980's when Reagan took out high interest short term loans to prop up the economy towards the end of his presidency. When it was time to pay the piper, it would be George HW Bush that took the hit and why his "Read my lips..." statement became infamous.

 

Reading your posts you are biased towards Dems and anti Repubs. Once you allow common sense to guide you, you may start to understand. OR maybe not ... no .. probably definitely not.

 

No. It came down to that the economy sucks and Republican Scott Brown was the most viable candidate to fix things.

All Democrat Martha Coakley offered was empty rhetoric. She did what Democrats have always done - tell us what she thinks we want to hear. She ran ruthless attack ads at Scott Brown, but in the end the people here in Massachusetts, who have been on blogs and facebook, are, like the rest of the country, more savvy now when it comes to language .

The game has changed. People are wise to empty rhetoric and Martha Coakley's defeat was a warning shot. Since I live in Boston, you might want to take my word for it.

Everything was fine in the mid 00's because fewer people were losing jobs and homes.

THAT'S THE BASIS OF AN ECONOMY - JOBS AND REAL ESTATE. To claim otherwise is just stupid.

We were about to hit a recession as part of a regular economic cycle. Plus, a presidential election year always sees an economic downturn. But the Democrats turned it into a real depression, where "real unemployment" is now a whopping 17%.

Want proof? One of the first things Pelosi did when she took power was raise the minimum wage. Now, it's an historical economic fact that every time the minimum wage is raised, unemployment also goes up as well. Pelosi took several other steps in a deliberate attempt to crash the economy and if you look at the data you'll see the economy started to decline right after the minimum wage increase. This was done for 2008 so as to make the Democratic presidential candidate look better. But instead it turned into a perfect storm.

The economy was made worse in 2009 when banking special interests forced the Democrats to make gifts of our money to the banks, and the rest of our money was thrown at pork spending, none of which attempted to fix the rusting undercarriage of the economy.

And before you brainlessly blame Bush, let me remind you that the President's authority when it comes to the economy is almost zero, zip, nada. Read your Constitution - the economy is the responsibility of the Speaker of the House.

You can't blame Bush or Obama for this depression. It's all on Pelosi's shoulders. Anyone who thinks differently should go back to school.

There were steps Pelosi could have taken to prevent this nightmare economy. Instead, she deliberately chose to let this happen.

 

~ The Republicans cut the revenues that were balancing the budget under Clinton, replacing responsible management with unfunded earmarks, wars they were unwilling to finance, and a lazy-fair acquiescence to private enterprise foreshadowing the deepest recession since the Great Depression. At least Pelosi was willing to let the little guy reap some little token reward for actual deeds than the others that just stole the purse while riding high on hyperbola.

 

You could also look at a car accident and say that everything was just fine 10 seconds earlier when the car was going 150mph.

That is pretty much what you are saying when praising the mid-00's economy.

I would like to hear your conspiracy theory on why Pelosi would take steps to destory the nation. Obviously she couldn't do it alone either. It would have to be a vast left wing conspiracy involving half of Congress. Do you have any idea how stupid this sounds?

 

The State of the Union was AWESOME! I personally can't figure out why Republicans don't love this guy. He is obviously the most fiscally responsible president we have had in a while, and he highlighted that well in his State of the Union Speech. As he pointed out, he created a huge middle class tax cut, and he has not raised taxes one cent. on one person. He also proposed a spending freeze. At the same time his proposed health care legislation would have been completely deficit nuetral, while insuring millions of currently uninsured. He emphasized green jobs throughout his speech, but kept it fiscally responsible by stating he will use repaid TARP funds to stimulate those jobs. If you look at the statistics, wages and employment have gone up dramatically during his short term in office.

I also loved his education proposal which I thought was very bi-partisan. Essentially, he stated he plans to cap student loan repayments at 10% of income above a base living allowance, with 100% loan forgiveness after 10 years of work in the public sector. This, coupled with equal opportunity policies in our universities, should put a world class education, which can run upwards of $300k, within reach of virtually any American, creating a better educated workforce and a stronger America. I jerked off no less than three times during his speech.

Finally, I thought it was fitting that he used the State of the Union address to call out the Republicans for their "perpetual campaign" activities. Obviously the Republicans need to take a page from his book: Less rhetoric, more action.

 

Who's fault is it that it was going that fast?

All it takes is an act of Congress. No, she couldn't do it alone - all she needs are the committee chairmen. It's easy when the effort has the APPEARANCE of helping the public.

For example, minimum wage. Raising the minimum wage SOUNDS good, right? But the truth is, who hires people at minimum wage? SMALL BUSINESSES. Of course, if a pizza parlor, candy store, burger store, etc. hires five people at minimum wage, it's because they can't afford six people at minimum wage. So, you raise the minimum wage, somebody's gotta get laid off. This raises unemployment and hurts small businesses BUT benefits big corporations who have lobbyists that love it when the minimum wage goes up because it hurts their small competitors.

Why would Pelosi do it? So that her party would win the White House. It's a blatantly partisan act. You may not like what I have to say, but you can't deny the truth of my last paragraph and it's conclusion.

 

Government spending is out of control. That's the reason Scott Snow won in Mass and the Republicans won the Gov's races in New Jersey and Virginia.

The interesting read into the spending is the connections between the Democrats and the Unions. The Unions for the first time in history have a higher percentage of membership in the public sector. At this point and juncture, it will be almost impossible for the Democrats to cut the Unions off and lose their support.

For instance, in New Jersey Gov Chris Christie has called for a teacher salary freeze. The teachers have a contract negociated under former Gov. John Corzine giving the teachers a pay raise of 4% per year over three years. New Jersey is alreading facing record deficits and there is no way that they can afford it.

So, the money that Obama is giving the states ("aid-to-states") is really a union bailout of state workers. At the same time, the private sector is getting bled dry.

Obama's $3.8 trillion budget heading to Congress

President Barack Obama's proposed budget predicts the national deficit will crest at a record-breaking almost $1.6 trillion in the current fiscal year.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100201...jA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yaWVzBHNsawNvYmFtYXMzOHRyaWw-

 

I wish I had done the math on this piece from a few months ago. Lotta work but it is highly relevant:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/10/business/economy/10leonhardt.html

Most of the defiicit that the Right Wing "all politics all the time/all blame all the time" screams about is totally their responsibility: $0.70-0.90 of every dollar.

And that is going forward.

Built in debt created by the Bush administration. (oh did you forget about that--or maybe while it was occurring year after year, Bush expense after expense, GOP congresssional spending year after year)...it wasn't worthwhile for the Right Wing extremists to scream about

33 and 37 percent of every debt dollar going are attributable to Bush policies at the beginning of the decade and the GOP caused horrendous financial recession which their policies caused.

20% of debt is attributable to Obama continuing Bush policies after the recession hit.

Keep acting like Bush and the GOP....and the DEBT gets bigger.

Maybe if that monkey administration, which saw the vicious recession coming, and was quietly preparing for it, but didn't act, because of right wing politics....had acted sooner their wouldn't be this horrendous economic catastrophe.

and $0.10 on the dollar is the responsibility of the Obama administration....basically trying to clean up after the mess caused by the Right Wing.

The Dems should blast this in the media every day...day after day, hour after hour, etc etc etc.

Just like some overly political monkeys from the extreme right wing.

the only difference is that this would strike at the truth....

 

Only right wing simpletons can with straight face claim that you can go to 2 wars, cut taxes and don't increase the deficit.

 

I'm pretty sure I've been very clear with regard to my understanding of the economic meltdown and its origins. It's been something that's been brewing for near 40 years. Not "just after the dems" but during their reign, their control of and creation of things like the CRA, Fannie, Freddie, et all. And likely a great deal of it was inspired by things like the Great Society, and even as far back as FDR.

I've never said everything was ok. What I have said is that the massive reduction in federal income tax resulted in some of the highest revenues to the federal government, EVER - PERIOD.

That's a fact.

However, these large growth spurts in the feds income were not accompanied by equally large cuts in government spending and an unwillingness of democratic members of congress to recognize that giving out loans to people and banks that they know could never pay them back was simply wrong.

I would random a guess that I have a much better understanding of economics than you think. Why? Because I recognize that economics IS simple. It's not something that is complicated and requires no more understanding than that of a 9th grade education, or at the very least the ability to recognize that if you do not have money for something; you do not buy it.

You my friend have a lot of learn about history. Check your facts with regard to both Reagan and Bush. Take a closer look at the source of the 1980's meltdown. I have the unfortunate luxury of having lived it. I'll give you a hint though. Take a look at the CRA and Jimmy Carter. Then start working your way backwards through the senate, the congress and two similar wasteful administrations. The key acronyms here are LBJ/FDR/CRA.

Let me close with one quick question. If you make $50,000 per year, do you spend $500,000.00? Or do you live within your means? Understanding economics and the patterns of waste that have caused our economic downfall can be found by asking yourself what your government thinks the answer to that question is.

 

http://www.buddylogan.com/fed.html

This is a quote from that report:
"100% of what is collected is absorbed solely by the interest on the Federal debt and by Federal Government contributions to transfer payments. In other words, all individual income tax revenues are gone before one nickel is spent on the services which taxpayers expect from their Government."

Income tax revenues amount to around 20% to 25% of the revenue collected by the government. Other funds come from corporate income taxes, imports, cigarettes, gasolene and a slew of excise and other taxes. Further corruption of your tax dollar occurs when the Federal Reserve "loans" money to the government. These "loans" are simply Congress allowing the Reserve to print (spell that "create") money for the government to use. The bankers print these notes, with no value behind them ("fiat currency") , then send us the bill for the interest. Make sense? If so, please re-read the sentence. Due to the fact hat the money has no value behind it, the dollar is degraded and inflation is the result.

MONETIZATION
When the expenses of the U.S. Government exceed the revenue collected, it issues new debt to cover the deficit. This debt typically takes the form of new issues of government bonds which are sold on the open market. However, the debt can also be monetized* by which the Federal Reserve creates an entry on its books to credit the US Government for an amount equal to the dollar amount of the bonds the Federal Reserve is acquiring. The money created in this process not only includes the new dollars that came into existence just to purchase the bonds, but much more because this new money is now sitting in the form of checkbook money at the Federal Reserve.

Under the scheme of Fractional Reserve Banking** this new checkbook money is treated as an asset to lend against. The expansion of the money supply becomes many times the amount of the initial money created, with the exact amount being a function of what percentage of deposits banks must set aside as "reserves". By this system, $100.00 in fiat currency can become $10,000.00 in loans processed to consumers.

* Monetization is the process of converting or establishing something into legal tender. It usually refers to the printing of banknotes by central banks.

Debt monetization occurs when the Federal Reserve buys government bonds. Debt monetization prevents the government from taking capital out of the private market. Since there is a limited amount of capital available in the market, there will be less available to fund business growth if the government takes a substantial portion.

Debt monetization can be seen as a flat tax because the government acquires additional funds while the currency decreases in value.

In some industry sectors, monetization is a buzzword for adapting non-revenue-generating assets into those that generate revenue.

The ultimate consequence of monetizing U.S. debt is that it expands the money supply which will tend to dilute the value of dollars already in circulation. This is the cause of inflation.

** The Federal Reserve defines Fractional Reserve Banking thus: "The fact that banks are required to keep on hand only a fraction of the funds deposited with them is a function of the banking business. Banks borrow funds from their depositors (those with savings) and in turn lend those funds to the banks’ borrowers (those in need of funds). Banks make money by charging borrowers more for a loan (a higher percentage interest rate) than is paid to depositors for use of their money. If banks did not lend out their available funds after meeting their reserve requirements, depositors might have to pay banks to provide safekeeping services for their money. For the economy and the banking system as a whole, the practice of keeping only a fraction of deposits on hand has an important cumulative effect. Referred to as the fractional reserve system, it permits the banking system to “create” money."

 

An ongoing discussion on Facebook for those of you interested http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=989361&id=1315098152

Alinsky had a plan to control the Government, Soros, Has a plan to control our government they both have succeded at this pouint. Here are thier rules, and as you can see this is exactly what Obama has done since day one with Pelosi and Reid. They are puppetts.

Alinsky emphatically states that the end justifies the means but cautions that extreme means are only justified in certain situations. Here are Alinsky's rules to test whether the means are ethical.

One's concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one's personal interest in the issue.

The judgment of the ethics of means is dependent upon the political position of those sitting in judgment.


In war the end justifies almost any means.


Judgment must be made in the context of the times in which the action occurred and not from any other chronological vantage point.


Concern with ethics increases with the number of means available and vice versa.
The less important the end to be desired, the more one can afford to engage in ethical evaluations of means.


Generally, success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics.


The morality of means depends upon whether the means is being employed at a time of imminent defeat or imminent victory.


Any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition to be unethical.


You do what you can with what you have and clothe it in moral garments.


Goals must be phrased in general terms like "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," "Of the Common Welfare," "Pursuit of Happiness," or "Bread and Peace."Alinsky also had rules for what he called "power tactics" or the means used to "take." He described it as "how the Have Nots can take power away from the Haves."

Here are his rules of power tactics.

Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.


Never go outside the experience of your people.


Whenever possible, go outside of the experience of the enemy.


Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.


Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.


A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.


A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.


Keep the pressure on with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.


The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.


The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.


If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside.


The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.


Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

 

First of all, since 2001 the war on terror has cost U.S. taxpayers $1 Trillion. That's distributed over the past nine years. But in the past TWO years, the Democrats have spent 4x that amount to benefit the banks.

Second, just what tax cut are you talking about? Around 2003 Bush moved the tax tables to lower taxes for the "middle" of the middle class, which affected about 5% of the population. I hear people claim that taxes on the rich were cut, but I have yet to see that language anywhere in a bill.

So, gworld, before I accuse you of being a left-wing simpleton, WTF are you talking about???

I used to think that way. Then, one day I came across the following quote:
"The means by which we strive must be consistent with the ends we seek"
- Martin Luther King Jr.

I found Soros' justifications fascinating. But his ideas are not original. I've read them all before. In Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf".

Thanks for the good info, Blogmaster.