What are you...

[blacknblue]

Everything is all about greed. Just about any system can be made to work if everyone is willing to accept responsibility and play by the rules. And any system can be corrupted when people break the rules in order to get more than their fair share. Capitalism isn't the problem in the case you describe. Dishonesty is the problem. Lying is the problem. The managers broke the rules of the game by lying to the stockholders about the profit to be expected. In a communist system, the same kind of thing could happen if the supervisors lied to the party bosses about expected productivity, and then worked their people like slaves in order to meet quota. It isn't the system itself, it is attempting to game the system, it is corruption that makes the problems.

Like on wall street now. It isn't the loan system that is the problem. It is the greed, lack of judgment, and lack of honesty that has caused our US economy to become built up on a house of cards that is sitting on a sand dune in the path of a hurricane. There is nothing wrong with lending money for a profit. The issue is that people lent money under false pretenses, for unrealistic rates, and then escaped the consequences of the bad decisions over and over and over until the goose that laid the golden eggs finally squawked for the last time and fell over. Even an economy as huge as the USA is finite. And we have hit bottom. We, the American people, are TAPPED OUT. We have borrowed and mortgaged ourselves until we cannot borrow or mortgage anymore. We have bought the worlds products until it doesn't matter how low the world sets their prices, we can't buy anymore.

No matter how low Asia or Europe drops the price on their toys, or cars, or travels packages, or fine wines, or computers, it doesn't matter anymore. WE CAN'T AFFORD TO BUY ANYTHING. We are broke. Busted. Empty pockets. Tapped out. Other countries have been protecting their own industries while we opened up our markets (with rare exceptions) and now we have no more industries. Without industries, we have nothing to sell. With nothing to sell, we have no way to generate new capital. With no way to generate new capital, we have been drawing down the stockpile of the past. And now its just about gone. We is busted.

[CX]

Wait until he eats the MREs.

I actually like MREs, personally. Except the beef patty and the meatloaf (which are actually the same thing), those suck.

[panyasan]

[quote="blacknblue"]Everything is all about greed. Just about any system can be made to work if everyone is willing to accept responsibility and play by the rules. And any system can be corrupted when people break the rules in order to get more than their fair share. Capitalism isn't the problem in the case you describe. Dishonesty is the problem. Lying is the problem. quote]
Well, you put it better in words then I could!

[Alelou]

And now its just about gone. We is busted.

I hope it's not truly as dire as all that. The US economy has come back from worse a number of times.

If I were conspiracy-minded, I could see this as a perfect economic storm created by a certain philosophy. It's called "bankrupt the government so it can't do any of that crap the liberals want to do." This is accompanied by, "If our friends make a ton of money in the process, all the better -- they'll take care of us once we're out." Of course, they let it get so out of hand, some of their friends are going down too.

I'm not ready to assign QUITE that cynical a motive to the fiscal and regulatory mismanagement of the last eight years, but it wouldn't take much evidence to persuade me.

[enterprikayak]

I love this chart. It just quietly says a whole lot about that darn Bush family.



And that was 2004. Hmmm...wonder where that line'd be today?

[blacknblue]

I am interested in where that chart came from EK. Seriously, where did you get it?

I am NOT questioning YOU! Please don't get offended. I am sure you posted it in good faith. I just want to see who used what numbers to develop it. I believe you. I don't believe the chart. But it has nothign to do with you.

I don't think that us conservatives are quite stupid enough to cut off our noses to spite our faces. bankrupting the country doesn't help anyone, right wing or left wing. It's like liberals who accuse conservatives of being against environmental protections. that's foolish. Nobody wants to breathe poisoned air or drink poisoned water, not even conservatives. It's not a case of different goals. It's a dispute about methods.

But I acknowledge the incompetence of the Bush administration. Satisfied? Conservative or not, that bunch should have been drowned at birth, IMO.

But I still don't trust that chart. I want to see its origin and the raw data that it is based on. It doesn't match my personal recollection fo the reagan years. Or the Nixon years for that matter. Or the Johnson years either, come to think of it. I remember as a kid hearing a lot of griping about the economy back then. And I KNOW for a fact that the economy stunk to high heaven during the Jimmy Carter depression. I graduated college at the tag end of the Carter depression, and with my brand new degree ended up doing farm labor to piece out the family budget for quite a while until Reagan go the unemployment rate back down and I could snag a job where I was able to use my degree for something besides a wall decoration.

[enterprikayak]

Hmmm...can't remeber where that one came from it's a few years old.

But it's only specifically for US deficit vs surplus...not any other form of economic measurement. It's similar to the Andex chart in my financial advisor's office.

I just find it an amusing graphic.

[panyasan]

Well, economies come and go. Like in the 80-ties economics were bad, but after that they recovered. And in the 90-ties there was a big economic bubble, that went to bust, because like we say it in my own language it was "backed air". And you can't make bread out of backed air, you can't buy things when you don't have the money, which I think is the main cause of the current crisis. Just MHO of a economic illeterate.
But hey! maybe this will lead for some one to start inventing a new enery source or creating new markets. People are creative...

[Alelou]

Actually, I don't think it's fair to tar George Bush the elder with that first dip -- that was in fact created by Reagan's trickle-down economics tax cuts, and when Bush had to deal with the reality of what that did to the deficit, he did the responsible thing, raised taxes, and promptly lost the next election.

His son apparently watched that debacle and decided he would never try to be fiscally responsible.

[panyasan]

AHA! That explains why the line READ MY LIPS NO MORE TAXES..! became so famous

[Alelou]

You got it.

Sometimes a little bit of political pandering can really come back and bite you on the butt.

[dark_rain]

I don't mean to pester guys, but as per site rules pull this away from the politics please.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

....watching?

A documentary about "Who killed Stalin?" The answer, even if Beria was highly suspect, is Stalin himself. Thanks to his paranoia no one wanted to check in on him. And all the good doctors had been purged.

[TPoptarts]

Watching: Indiana Jones and the crystal skull thing

[Reanok]

I'm watching McGyver season 7 finale.