User	Comment
Iseult	posted 3-Oct-2008 11:05pm   I guess I'm not allowed to have an opionion... But anyway, no, I don't think they should be doing that. I know it's under the pretense that they're helping the future of the economy, blah, blah, blah, but seriously, the money shouldn't be coming from the taxpayers. I realize I not fully 100% informed on the issue as I haven't been folling politics for last few days, but I've been hearing disucssions around me.
southernyankee	posted 4-Oct-2008 12:47am   No, I don't think we should. However, I would be ok with a compromise of a bailout with restrictions. Also, your comment is somewhat biased about this survey.
bill	posted 4-Oct-2008 8:24am   I think it was probably a mistake and the added "pork" shows just how broken our legislative process is. I think the bailout is preventing a market correction that is needed. I think the government shouldn't react to market problems. Markets should deal with their own problems, otherwise they are not real markets. I especially don't like when law-makers point to the stock market going up or down as proof of reason to pass some bill. If that's the basis for making laws, we're setting ourselves up for a major disaster. I would have been more in favor of a limited bailout that just bought the bad mortgages/properties and not the exotic investment vehicles (e.g. derivatives). Though, even that is just another form of tinkering, just milder. I don't just blame wall street for the crisis. I think blame can be spread out at many levels. At the base of it all, we have many people who bought a house, signed a mortgage that they would not be able to afford and defaulted. That was irresponsible of them. Then we have mortgage brokers who created mortgages that were very high risk (e.g. no down payment or even cash out, so the buyer had little reason to stay; plus variable rates that whack the buyer a year or two later with a much higher monthly payment). The wall street blame comes in with how they wrapped and hid these high risk mortgages into complicated financial packages. Also, the people responsible for assigning risk failed by giving this packages a low-risk rating when the opposite was true. Wall Street tricked itself, since they bought these securities too. There are signs that the government is also responsible for passing laws that required Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac to give loans to lower-income / minorities despite the higher financial risks. ... I'm sure there are more things we could point our fingers at too. My wife and I recall rolling our eyes at the crazy exotic mortgages that were being advertised a couple years ago. They seemed crazy to us. I remember thinking that it shouldn't be allowed, that it was just going to get too many people in trouble. I was just thinking about home-buyers at the time. I didn't think it would spread to all parts of the market. I didn't realize how many people were getting in over their heads. I assume most people would reject the crazy loans. I think we all had clear warning of something bad about to happen, at a minimum a lot of people getting over their head with mortgages they would not be able to afford after a couple years. So, we're all to blame for not raising the alarm. I'm generally against laws, but I would have supported laws to disallow such mortgages. Even now, I'd like to see laws that require 10% deposit (or more) and elimination of variable rate loans (or at least significant limits on how much they can adjust). American consumers are just too easily tricked or perhaps too greedy for more an unable to be prudent about finanacial risk. I think we need to curtail credit-cards too (enforce spending limits and limit interest rates to 10% or less). Those are out of control too, we just haven't at that crisis yet.
Enheduanna	posted 4-Oct-2008 9:05am   I don't claim to fully understand the bailout, but it doesn't sound to me like you do, either. I think something had to be done to avoid a major economic catastrophe. From what I've read, written by people I respect, this plan is better than nothing although not ideal. It's true that some people who don't deserve saving will be saved by it, but the alternative would be a lot more people who don't deserve it losing everything they have.
they	(reply to bill) posted 4-Oct-2008 9:54am   I'm a little unsure about the terms of my loan. Maybe I'm one of those stupid Americans that took loans they couldn't pay..... I don't know... I just pay it each month. My ex made the financial decisions at the time we agreed to it. So now that everything seems to be hitting the fan, I feel like maybe I should call my mortgage company and ask for details about my situation. And I would. But they outsourced to India.
romkey	posted 4-Oct-2008 11:35am   It's really a very complicated issue. If it were just a matter of "should we save companies that invested in very high risk debt instruments", then the answer would be no. If it were just a matter of "should we save homeowners who knew that they were taking on loans that were more than they could afford", then the answer would be no. People behaved badly at every level of this situation. Some homeowners took on more debt than they should have, and they knew it. Some homeowners were lied to about what they could afford. Some mortgage companies were lied to about what the people taking out loans could afford. Some financial companies were lied to about the riskiness of the debt they were trading. Some financial companies took on more risk than they were legally allowed to because the SEC waived regulations that they should have enforced. There are liars and victims at every level of the problem. You might want to help out the victims. You might want to punish the people who took advantage or lied. The bigger question is, what happens if you let these businesses fail? What happens if you left the homeowners lose their homes? The belief is that sources of credit are drying up because, as a result of this situation, loaners are no longer trusting that they'll be paid back. And when I say credit, I'm not talking about people buying plasma TVs on their credit cards, or even people taking out mortgages. I'm talking about all credit. There are a lot of businesses that utilize credit in a very healthy manner. Credit allows new businesses to start up, and allows current businesses to keep operating. The concern is that if credit becomes simply unavailable that many businesses - healthy businesses - will no longer be able to operate and will go under, putting more people out of work and making an even bigger mess of things. And these businesses may be things like energy companies, food companies, supermarkets. Things people really depend on. Despite it being called a "bailout", I believe that the focus of it is to try to restore confidence in the credit markets so that those scenarios don't play out. Because unless you really want a lot of Americans to suffer, you don't want credit to just dry up today. And I hope that the next time McCain or Obama goes on a rant about earmarks, someone will shove the bailout legislation up their nose.
romkey	(reply to they) posted 4-Oct-2008 11:39am   Do you have the loan papers, or can you get access to them? It would be a really good idea to know what the terms are. You probably get a monthly bill for the loan. Is the payment all interest or is part of it called equity or principal? If it's all interest then it's a "teaser" style loan where you don't have to pay off any of the amount you borrowed for a few years but you end up paying more interest overall. Also, if you can afford to pay a little more equity or principal every month, in the long term you'll save yourself some money. If you call your mortgage company they should be able to simply describe the terms of your loan - most likely a 30 year loan at whatever percent, or a 5 year adjustable at whatever percent, and to start adjusting on a certain date. If it's adjustable then on that date you may be in for a bad surprise.
bill	(reply to they) posted 4-Oct-2008 1:32pm   You might have the terms already, on the original paperwork or even on the monthly or yearly statement they send you. Maybe you can get the info over the web. Has you monthly every gone up? How long have you had the mortgage? If it has never gone up and you've had it a while, it may just be a fixed, which is probably best since that means it wont change. Some variables take a few years to start changing. Also, interest rates have actually been low for a long time, so it shouldn't go up that much. But, it could if the rates go up. If you find out that it's going to go up, it might be worth considering a re-finance into a fixed. Though, that can cost. I think doing a re-fi can be a problem now that the housing market has gone down. Your house may be worth less than what you paid for it, so banks wont give you a loan unless you cover the difference... blah blah blah... I'm really not an expert or anything, but it shouldn't be too hard for you to figure out what you got. It would be good for you to know that, though.
Melf	(reply to bill) posted 4-Oct-2008 1:43pm   'Another $100 billion of pork included in bill'
bill	(reply to Melf) posted 4-Oct-2008 1:48pm   What can I say? pork is delicious *BURP*
Melf	(reply to bill) posted 4-Oct-2008 1:50pm   It is and all.
meowry	posted 4-Oct-2008 4:30pm   NO! But, unfortunately, the bailout is official.
RainingFeathers	posted 5-Oct-2008 11:27am   Yes, lend (not give, that has never been the intention) the banks the money. It's not just a matter of helping the banks, everyone needs this. If the banks don't have enough money to lend businesses, then businesses don't have enough money to run, and then people lose jobs, and there's even less money. It'll all be one big downward spiral.
LJD	posted 5-Oct-2008 11:12pm   Either way folks, we're in trouble financially, as a country. The evil ones that planned the first depression, are planning another one for us. IN POLITICS, NOTHING HAPPENS BY ACCIDENT. The one worlders are just wanting to lead to a communist world government. Everything centralized. We can't take in the world, and support it, but the one worlders are trying to. Illegal aliens are flooding this country, getting loans, and we end up paying for this....= communism.
JessicaWoman99	posted 6-Oct-2008 12:33am   Who knows Bush is a dummy and a complete lunatic!!!
Matty	posted 6-Oct-2008 8:04am   but the current plan sucks. Fortunately, no money has been appropriated yet; this will be where the real battle beins
Kristal_Rose	posted 6-Oct-2008 10:01am   The collapse was inevitable. The bailout serves little purpose but keeping China from liquidating our assets, and can only hold the problem off a few more years anyhow. The reasons it collapsed, a pyramid capitalism scheme based on ever increasing over-evaluation, ever increasing production/consumption, ever increasing empire conquest class exploitation, and ever increasing debt musical chairs, have not been changed. This is a class war between owner/investors and labor/debtors. No matter what we do, half the nation will suffer. The only halt to this is to wipe out theoretical debts and savings assets, and start society over on a cash purchase basis. Even then, there will be so little purchasing power and therefore so few productions jobs, that recovery will be quite slow. In the meantime we should launch a new New-Deal/WPA style program to rebuild energy infrastructure to keep labor working on something useful to our future economic stability and current economic volume of liquidity. Congressman Kucinich warns that such national debt puts us at risk of appealing to the IMF for a meta-bailout. The IMF already blackmails entire nations into altering their constitutions and altering their production priorities to pay bills with foreign trade before investing in domestic social programs or even domestic agriculture. That so many congressman switched positions on the bailout because their favorite lobby/constituency interest like race-tracks, arrows, or bicyclist taxbreaks was included in the latest package is a testament to how broken our system is.
Kristal_Rose	(reply to bill) posted 6-Oct-2008 10:06am   Back in the 30's most states had credit interest limits around 6% or less. I think it was a good idea.
bill	(reply to Kristal_Rose) posted 6-Oct-2008 10:33am   I saw a good Frontline (PBS show) about it. It all changed in the late-70s early 80s... Usury has long been something human culture has struggled with.
LJD	posted 6-Oct-2008 12:49pm   Check this out.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZVw3no2A4&eurl=
dab	(reply to bill) posted 6-Oct-2008 1:12pm   One of the interesting things about Islamic law is that charging interest is illegal. Maybe they're not all wrong.
bill	(reply to dab) posted 6-Oct-2008 4:01pm   Yeah, it's interesting to consider it. Though, I think it's probably too extreme. Loans can be a really good thing. Simply limiting the interest rates is probably the best solution.
Irene007	posted 6-Oct-2008 5:32pm   Fudge no! Let 'em drown in their own crap for once! They never bail us out when times get tough - they just rob us of our homes and etc...
Kristal_Rose	(reply to bill) posted 6-Oct-2008 7:07pm   That's about when stores gave up on lay-away too and issued department store cards. In the early 90's buying groceries with a credit card was still questionable. In the early 80's, working at Jack-In-The-Box, I had the brilliant sleazy brainstorm of competing by offering credit. That's probably common these days.
Kristal_Rose	(reply to LJD) posted 6-Oct-2008 8:10pm   Federally insuring the loans itself was not a problem in itself. That's how our checking and savings banks remain stable. If the mortage loans were based on true equity, there would be neither defaults, nor even a collapse if there were defaults. The problem was that gov't sponsorship ended at insuring the loans. FannieMae/FreddieMac were otherwise private. The problem was that once out the door, the private banking industry created a bubble of inflated real-estate value and profited off these imaginary assets. Presumably they also gave out second mortgages based on these inflated values as a means of offering credit to people who couldn't afford credit, and exploited gov't housing loan insurance to cut their losses. The gov't plan (as best I understand it) was a decent one to get people owning homes. It's private corruption exploiting the government offer which ruined it. If Obama got $40k in campaign contributions, I'd hardly say he was sold out. Every industry offers every candidate that sort of money. We're not talking the billions private bank CEOs walked away with. If McCain tried to regulate the industry, and some democrats blocked him, Kudos to him and shame on the democrats. Usually it's the other way around. Unfortunately such things aren't a matter of pure party ideology, or McCain would have said deregulate; If a party backs any industry at all, the reps act as insiders, investing in the industry because their power can insure it's success. What we really need are strong absolute conflict of interest laws preventing any candidate from profiting at all from any legislation. As is, there's hardly a law that can be made which won't favor or hurt an industry (like making aspirin a prescription, forcing recycling, limiting interest), and you can be sure that almost every rep has a financial stake in these matters. Unfortunately today, not being rich is taken as being a sign of economic incompetence in politicians. For the most part, I'd say wealth is proportional to corruption and self-interest, and McCain has a lot more of it than Obama. Because these reps operate by trading favors (as quite evidenced by the bizarre bailout package), the only way to prevent conflict-of-interest would be to prohibit reps from owning any stocks at all, which then alas make it appear that they didn't represent half the nation, those who run business or in any way invest in the economy. It would also result in a house which was more ocialistic than aything you've ever heard of. You pretty much have a choice, socialism or profiteering corruption.
LJD	(reply to Kristal_Rose) posted 6-Oct-2008 9:11pm   I believe there should be open PUBLIC HEARINGS discussing how and why the financial meltdown. Every taxpayer, should be able to hear it all. Prosecute those responsible. All assets, properties, confiscated. Pretty sneaky of the thieves, giving houses to illegals. I heard today, the bailout really didn't help matters, as far as the American taxpayers, but it did help the thieves.
dab	(reply to bill) posted 6-Oct-2008 10:22pm   You're probably right. It's just something I wonder about from time to time.
Kristal_Rose	(reply to LJD) posted 7-Oct-2008 10:23am   I heard today, the bailout really didn't help matters, as far as the American taxpayers, but it did help the thieves. - Yeah, essentially. It gives them a chance to steal just as much again before a total nearly-inevitable meltdown. It did nothing to cure the causes, nor anything to prevent the causes or symptoms from happening again. That's not to say though that aren't any reasons it was still a public benefit. Society will collapse if we stop offering credit or instantly have to pay off foreign creditors. Some democrats like Kucinich wouldn't pass the bailouts because they had no regulation to prevent this again (besides the fact that it was mostly just pay for pirates). AIG has already accepted some $60 billion which they have no public accounting for. There isn't any house/senate hearing on the matter as there should be, but at least it's opened up an FBI investigation. Bush's cousin was involved in the recent Lehman corruption, and also ran security for the WTC just before 9/11. "Pretty sneaky of the thieves, giving houses to illegals." - That may well be, but I'm sure they simply see it as 'Consumers are consumers', and that's how it should be. Private companies like grocery stores or car salesman have no business checking to see if I'm an immigrant before they sell to me, as long as my money's good. Unfortunately I think it's roughly pretty well understood what caused the collapse, and very little of it was illegal. Immoral, negligent, reckless, or agressively uncompassionate, sure, but illegal, no. In fact it's the system most people wittingly or unwittingly have supported up till just now. I'm hoping peoples attitudes might change, enough to change laws even. Half of how the stock-market operates could be called corrupt by such standards, and yet a huge chunk of america subscribe to the stock-market.
LJD	(reply to Kristal_Rose) posted 7-Oct-2008 3:26pm   You're correct there were no safety nets involved with the bailout. I think people should demand a public CONGRESSIONAL MEETING, on the causes, and who did what. I say hang every last traitor in the White House. WAKE UP AMERICA
Kristal_Rose	(reply to LJD) posted 8-Oct-2008 12:42am   The problem is that congress (most of them, at least) is part of the very same system they'd be investigating. The problem is unregulated capitalism. Congressmen/senators also prefer to be unregulated capitalists making backroom deals on everything, so what could we expect them to do about it?
LJD	(reply to Kristal_Rose) posted 8-Oct-2008 12:50am   You're right Kristal Rose...good point. We need an unbiased, if there is such a thing, committee to investigate everything. I agree there needs to be checked capitalism. I can see a revolution in the making...Americans have to stand up and say we're FED UP!
Kristal_Rose	(reply to LJD) posted 8-Oct-2008 2:54am   Unfortunately I see little hope for something within the system working unless we have some means to vote everyone out of office, which at least meanns taking over the media. As I've said, neither am I hopeful about outcomes of revolutions. It looks like a choice between liberty or poverty, but what sort of liberty is there in poverty?. For what' it's worth though, guidebooks to revolution and insurrection are beginning to emerge. I was listening to a lecture from some Naomi gal about the ten seps to becoming fascist, and how we've crossed them already, especially with arrests of journalists at party conventions and an army directly under presidential control now on domestic soil to prevent insurrections. What could a revolution really do? Nothing can be achieved without planning and collaboration, and nearly all communications can be turned off on a person for person basis. Even if people managed to gather in the streets anyhow, what could such a gathering directly affect? Even if we physically dismantled congress and the white house, fought tanks, the same people and corporations could and would still control society by remote control. It's a different world than 70 years ago when a physical revolution was still possible. We could loot department stores and put an end to all corporate capitalism, but then we'd immediately have to form a communist government to control food distribution. I think our only hope is in enforcing power to the people within the existing system. Our only hope of that is probably to push for what we were discussing when we first met, to restore local community/city/county power over that of national/global entities. County institutions are about as large as the public can physically storm if their needs aren't being met. ..and that's the thing, for the most part people won't act (except as sheep) because so far our needs HAVE been met. In spite of all the corruption and corporate overlord tyranny, most of us live rather well compared to most of the world. As always, as long as you are thinking in terms of revolution, I urge you to find common ground with the ethical lefty socialists who are also fighting corrupt tyranny that threatens the public welfare for the sake of a few. That would make a great t-shirt slogan for local/state rights activists 'FED UP', or perhaps 'FED up the rear'. Too bad the Supreme Court is not a citizen trial hearing court, and it's appointees are not unbiased. One subject I heard about on the topic of revolution was national citizen referendums. ERA never even passed though, so I wouldn't expect much hope there either.
LJD	(reply to Kristal_Rose) posted 8-Oct-2008 9:02am   You're right Kristal Rose. We have to work with what we have, or we'd be walking right into the hand of government being able to call martial law. I do not want communism, but this is what the filthy vermin want, world communism. We have not been good shepherds of the land God blessed us with. Americans have put their heads in the sand, either by design, or by themselves, have been dumbed down by the system without knowing it. Our GGMM group has been trying to change local government. We have a couple people running for City Council/mayor. We are asking for ordinances trying to protect our jobs. One of our really well spoken men, is trying to talk the people into townships, several smaller city governments as this city used to have. With smaller governments, the people have more control, the bigger voice we have. Where I live, there used to be four smaller townships, then several years later, someone wanted all into one, with one city council. This has been a problem, because the power has been centralized...easier for special interests to get their bidding. I see the same people, connected to special interests. Most of those running for city council, are directly tied to special interests of one sort or another, either those on government dole, or business development. I'm tired of those trying to use my property to have more tax revenues. We're just living on fixed wages, yet they're always picking at our property, and wanting to withdraw Prop. 13, which saved us from being forced from our home in 1978. The enemy does not want private property rights, except for themselves. Talking of food, the filthy vermin "world organizers" want us to be dependent on other countries for our food supply. The people involved are pure evil to me. After reading the book "Ill Fares the Land", I can see their filthy plan to enslave us to the world for our food, when we have the richest soil, we can support our own people. The government has helped to hurt our farmers. I got furious after I read the book. They've depleting our silos of food. They're selling our produced food to other countries. I feel when they started concentrating people into cities, there is more control over peoples existence, it was the beginning of the end. You wouldn't believe how many higher concentrated living quarters are being built in this city, lots and lots of them. Our city planners are causing the quality of life to go down. The traffic is horrendous, and now with all the new building, it will be even worse. Now put all this together with less food grown by us, and no place for individuals to grow their food. I see a bleak picture emerging, the same people who caused the 30's depression, causing the up and coming one....the filthy vermin. The problem is, in the 30's many people were able to grow their own food. And what about WATER, so vitally needed? They've been shifting our water down south. I see a mess on the horizon, I only wish I could be here to help in the fight for recovery. Americans voices have to be heard. In our city we have a newspaper, and one of the reporters is so biased against our group, he's with the special interests. Whatever happened to unbiased newspaper reporting? The enemy vermin said to take over a country, you need to get control of their money supply, and the media....how true. You're right about the media Kristal Rose, they help to control, manipulate public opinion.
cloudhugger	posted 8-Oct-2008 10:35am   I don't know. There is so much evil outside my door. I felt a little high pressured into giving an answer to this survey. Yes or no! Are you with us or a terrorist!!
Kristal_Rose	(reply to LJD) posted 8-Oct-2008 11:20am   Not one single one of those corporate CEOs or politicians want communism. They'd get nothing out of it. They want one of two things, pure capitalism, or what we have now, mixed socialism/capitalism. In pure socialism or pure communism there would be no greater wealth for them, which is mostly their only motive. Also, their wealth depends on the relative wealth of the masses. The only other thing they might care for is fascism or some new form of corporate royalty/dictatorship. There are probably only 200 really serious communists in the country, and maybe another 200,000 who think it 'might' be better a better idea than what we have now. Probably not even one of them even owns their own home or has more political power than an email newsletter with a readership of 1500. Your own motley John Birch crew is a way more serious political force. I myself am probably representative of the greatest communist threat this nation has, and all I aspire to is creating a large corporation with total profit sharing, which is probably more realistic than any plan any official leaders have. "filthy vermin"? Your picture of communism cleary comes from 1950's newspaper depictions of Trotsky and 1960's outdated forms of bomb carrying anarchists (which are actually ideologically much closer to libertarian capitalists than communists). Those people don't even exist anymore. The 60's was a period of diverse tumultous experimentation. Most of the 60's hippies either became the greedy capitalists we face now or got practical and formed foundations to save things like forests. Bush and his cronies don't want to decree martial law either. It's just their back-up plan because they fear the vengeance of the public more than the public fears them. They might not even fear vengeance, so much as know the masses historically get violent when the regime in power has driven the economy into the dirt. What does GGMM stand for? "The enemy does not want private property rights, except for themselves. Talking of food, the filthy vermin "world organizers" want us to be dependent on other countries for our food supply." On those points there is some truth. The government doesn't want your property. They are only trying to regulate proportional wealth for taxes (where those taxes really originate from and where they really go is another matter). They presume, as is generally true these days, that homeownership is indicative of greater proportional wealth. What is true is that a ton of corporations want to make money on however people interact with the world. They would sell you your own air and the genes for your own kids if they could. Products and services are what these people profit from. If your grapes are coming from Argentina instead of locally, they are profitting from the shipping. "when they started concentrating people into cities" - That trend pretty much began at the beginning of civilisation. We couldn't have such a vast population, and might not even have survived at all if that wasn't how we worked. You don't see hermit chimpanzees either. We are social critters. Just a century ago Los Angeles was a few blocks of pueblos. It's not like 40 million people moved away from elsewhere to get here. Everywhere else on the planet has a denser population now too. The media are owned by the same conglomerates who own the defense industry, banking industry, pharmaceutical industry, everything substantial really. The media controls who wins elections, and big business owns media. Big business is in turn controlled by people mostly out to compete with each other, but agreeing on some ground rules for a fair fight. In a sense, they are regular people, but I'm sure they are aware that they are aristocracy too. Some are intelligent, some are brilliant. Some care about the world, but most of them are simply more concerned with furthering their personal fortunes than anything else. That's how they got where they are. I wouldn't even be surprised if some of them figured out mid career that wasn't creating any more happiness for them, and yet really had no other familiar life pattern to take up, so continued doing what they know how to do best. I'm guessing that the most accurate metaphor for how they feel is like chess players or gamblers. Wealth and power has to be pretty abstract at that level. Getting 10 million new customers subscribing to their cell phone plan probably means no more to them than getting a new car, planting a rose garden, or getting A's in college means to you. I think that you forget that people are people. True evil monsters don't get far, probably not past their first job flipping burgers, without compromising by offering others what they want. If you want to figure out what conspiracies exist, just consider the range of people you've already met, and which of them could reach any level of power, and what they'd do with it. There's a show I've been watching this past dozen years which would really benefit you. It's Charlie Rose, on late nights on PBS. He interviews CEOs, congressmen, prime ministers, football coaches, movie directors and such.. basically the movers and shakers of the world. He interviews with heart-felt integrity on what their driving philosophy is, their take on the hopes and fears, highs and lows the world will likely be facing, and what they hope can be done to change it. No one on this planet operates in some secret vacuum. There are 2-500 people who profoundly regulate this planet, and their successes are in large part as fickle as the fortunes of anyone else, and their ethics and ideologies not really any different than those of persons runnning activist groups or companies with 25 members or employees. Most of them in power probably also have the notion that it's really someone else in power. As organized as this planet is, it's still rather like a chicken running around with it's head cut off.
LJD	(reply to Kristal_Rose) posted 8-Oct-2008 4:39pm   Kristal Rose, I find no problem with checked capitalism, or honest business. I believe there were people that were given the wealth, through blessings. But, then we have those that make money unscrupulously. We need creative minds to create business for jobs. I don’t like Wall Street, which is nothing more than a gambling casino, that is gambling with someone elses money and lives. It would be different if we had honest people at the helm. Wall Street, unchecked opened the door to unscrupulous people. My son said something that made sense. He said Wall Street could have been a good idea, in building our infrastructure, but unfortunately, again, it can invite unscrupulous people. I do not believe in “free” trade with other nations. From what I read not long ago, communism is alive, but told through the media it’s dead. I don’t know. The John Birch Society is a political force, for information. But Americans are asleep at the wheel. They’ve been telling people of the voting records of those people in Congress that are up to no good. They give good information, but do Americans always listen? No, not until a problem is upon us, such as the one we are facing now. The Birch Organization investigates, learns of different things, tries to warn the public, and not many, only those “with eyes to see, and ears to hear” heed the warning. Kristal Rose, you have to know there are those people that are creative, and those that are not. Some have no drive, some do. Most people, I hope, have something to bring to the table, however, little or large, they are valued. I do not care if others have more wealth than I, or material things. I do resent the way the tax system is with all the writeoffs. We do need a tax system that is good for business, and the working man. I think a flat tax is good. Kristal Rose, in theory some may say communism is good, BUT it is NOT WORKABLE. Look at China, there is an enslaved class, and a wealthy leader class. But, then again, who said every person on earth requires or deserves a silver spoon? I am not envious of those with great wealth, I do not have a love of money. Of course, I want to make ends meet. God blessed some through the birthright, while others were not given the wealth. I guess there is a purpose for everything. The whole thing is that those that were given wealth, those that remain honest, should use their monies wisely. It’s always said, there is always a struggle between the have’s and the have nots. I, as well as others, just want to be treated fairly. We cannot save the world. The world has to help themselves, possibly with those given the creativity, and wealth to teach them how to help themselves. GGMM stands for the Golden Gate Minute Men. Recently I went to the city budget meeting for the state. They want to take away Prop. 13 to make the budget. Sorry, I’ll fight that tooth and nail. I say, stop giving benefits to illegals, and we’d then have enough in our budget to pay for legal citizens. (Prop. 13 has to do with property taxes, and appraisal values). I say the government STOPS OVERSPENDING. I still say no more large cities, it is unhealthy. I agree with you about the media. I have listened to Charlie Rose on occasion in the past. I will be watching and listening to his show more frequently now. I want this country to keep its sovereignty, I like small. I don’t like the idea of a global government. I say stop legal immigration PERIOD.
Cain	posted 8-Oct-2008 5:48pm   I don't live in the US. However, my feelings on the bail out are that regardless of where the money actually ends up, perhaps the gesture will be enough to restore faith in the system and stop people panicking.
Kristal_Rose	(reply to LJD) posted 8-Oct-2008 11:04pm   "He said Wall Street could have been a good idea, in building our infrastructure, " - I've often said that if the founding fathers were to create the US constitution today, business/Wall Street would be the fourth house in our checks and balances, much like the old theoretical division between labor and aristocracy in parliament. If communism is alive in the US, there is no indication of it. It's surely not a politicl group of any significance that one could join. I think I've probably already met and talked on the phone to the West Coast's top communists. They are people like me. The height of their power is joining other activist groups and unions so they can voice their opinions. They are totally distinct from legislators who believe in socialism, who are usually the only legislators who care what happens to poor americans. A lot of groups form their identity by fearing some other group. Sometimes, as with gays, those groups actually exist (although their threat is greatly exagerated), and sometimes, as with communists, the threat is almost totally invented. Communists are more of a zeitgeist (a spirit theme floating around a society), not unlike americas fear of martians in the 1950's. Lots of sci-fi and our space program created the martians. The communists actually did exist in other nations, and as a small political party here, but mostly they were an exagerated invention of McCarthy and the religious comic book publications of Chick Corea. It was a fear campaign created to build political power, a tactic Bush still uses today, though today the enemy is 'terrorists'. The communist party was strongest here at the turn of the century when the Soviet Union formed. It didn't take long for those here to observe life in the USSR and realize it wasn't such a good idea after all. I know communism has flaws. The only model of it which strikes my fancy is a democratic version in which everyone has a christian work ethic of service to society. I wouldn't want to make a nation communist. It's not for everyone. For a corporation though, commitment is voluntary, and anyone unwilling to pull their weight is free to leave. The benefits of sharing resources in an organization where everyone operated in harmony for the good of all would be high though. China is wierd. They are expanding their private global capitalism, but still aren't even a democracy. Gradually though they are becoming more like us. It would be tough today to use China as a means of explaining communism. What your group wants is theoretically no different than the corrupt CEOs. They want relative wealth at the expense of the working class. You want relative wealth at the expense of immigrants. Either way, it's an arbitrary distinction between haves and have-nots. "I still say no more large cities, it is unhealthy. " - what would you propose instead? living in the desert or on ocean rafts? creating 1000 times more aqueduct plumbing and trucking distribution lines? There are a few laws on civil behavior, but for the most part our lives are about working and buying groceries and video games. Those business/consumer things are those which mostly count as far a our quality of life is concerned. If republican deregulators had their way, all that would be at the mercy of global corporations. Corporate regulation and national trade barriers are forms of socialism. Controlling immigration for the sake of current residents is also a form of socialism. I'm just saying this so that you realize it's not black and white, that each issue is it's own case, and that you are as much socialist as anti-socialist, so it would cloud you mind to believe you are anti-socialist. You use the term 'balance' yourself. That's what's required. The problem with a flat tax is that it stops the poverty class from buying shoes, stops the middle class from putting more in their 401k, and has no impact on the lives of the wealthy at all. As far as a revolution here being communist, I don't mean formally communist. If money collapses we could have 10000% inflation (it's happened to places like Germany in the past, and is happening now in Africa). If people had to compete for rare groceries, A cart of food could cost $2000, maybe $10,000 , something 1/4th of the public could afford for awihle (but not you or I). On behalf of starving neighbors, I think some concerned citizens would gather, create a database of everyone in their own neighborhoods, and distribute groceries equally to each person. That's communism. These distribution volunteers would be equivalent to party members, and probably eat all they wanted while having jobs of distributing other jobs and consumer goods to people. It wouldn't be the result of any filfthy vermin conspiracy. It would be how any decent church going person who didn't want to see his neighbors starve would react. That's really how most communist revolutions started, because those in power before that didn't have a system which took care of everyone. The communist revolution was a result of czar aristocracy and industrialisation destroying jobs. As a result the russians put a 'right to work' in their constitution. The perceived enemy of the communists were the industrialists who were putting everyone out of work. Their answer was to cripple industry and put people to work on small collective farms, kind of like what appeals to you, I think, localization, bottom-up, not top-down. We had the same industrialisation problem here in america at the turn of the century. At first our solution was to export heavily around the world, so we could still employ everyone here in spite of automation. Eventually other nations weren't such an option as they developed their own economy, and so we invented the system of perpetually increasing credit debt. As you see though, that's recently unraveling. We need a new, more sustainable economic system, but no one has invented one yet. These last systems lasted 50-100 years each. Unless you and your groups want to be part of the headless chicken problem, you need to calculate the ultimate sustainability repurcussions of any policy you want to back. If an economic system is sustainable, it will work scaleably for 100, 10000, or 300 million people. Immigration is not the economic problem. You could very briefly bolster the relative wealth of citizens at the expense of increased poverty for immigrants, but five years later you'd be faced with deciding which citizens to do the very same thing to. The only valid reason to pick on immigrants is pure racism. It's not an economic issue. You group lives with a have & have-not model, and for the moment, immigrants are the handiest targets to be have-nots. What you need to do is find a have & have model, otherwise one day you will wake up to find yourself one of the have-nots.
LJD	(reply to Kristal_Rose) posted 9-Oct-2008 10:57am   Which group are you referring? I’m assuming you’re talking of the MinuteMen. All the Minutemen, I know, are people like myself. They are average people, many are losing their jobs to illegals to start off. We see our government subsidizing big business with our tax paying dollars. We spend billions and billions of dollars on illegals education, medical, housing, food, the crime they commit, the list goes on. We recently had a big San Francisco Rally against sanctuary cities. We had many families of fatal victims, killed by illegals come forward. All the while we were having our rally, many illegals were booing the parents of these victims, saying “boo hoo”, they had no compassion. They acted as savages. Illegals come into this country to sell their drugs, launder their money. I’ve been face to face with M-13 gang members telling me they bring in their drugs, to make a living, I told them to go back home, and not to peddle their poison here. The illegals I’ve met are savages, nothing more, nothing less. Locally, at a rally, I had a Mexican fascist come in front of me, and just couldn’t understand why we don’t want them in our country, our home. I try to talk to the people, but they haven’t a clue, they feel they can trample on anothers home, and people are not to react. I went to a rally in a nearby city, which is a sanctuary city, and you see these people take over the city by crime, destroying the city. I’ve seen what used to be decent neighborhoods, turn into slums because of the illegals. If you think I’m wrong to not want these elements in our neighborhoods, …so be it. Big business is benefiting from illegals, not the average people, they’re being hurt and their hard earned wages being extorted, supporting the illegals. I’m looking out for our future generations..and I‘ll fight to the end to stop them, and big business. What I see are world elitists corralling people into big cities, better to be controlled, like cattle. I say STOP developing big cities. Create, little townships. The people then have a bigger voice. I don’t think trade barriers from outsiders is socialism, it is protection for the people inside set borders. I believe in the sovereignty of a nation, being protected. Do you believe that anyone should be able to come into your home without being invited? I believe in peace, harmony. What do you propose, if not a simplified tax system? Evidently, our tax code system is almost 68 feet high in paper now. Why so complicated? Recently, I heard from a man on TV, on Hannity, that the reason our companies are going abroad is the tax system in this country, not necessarily entirely for cheap labor. I understand what you’re saying about industrialization. I still say overpopulation is the seed of poverty. The third world nations are overbreeding, and now coming into this nation and doing the same. Allowing more than one can sustain a decent lifestyle breeds poverty. If you call my wanting to preserve my heritage, culture, and language, peace and harmony in this land as racism…so be it. I ask this question to many that think as you do. Can you personally afford to take in 100 people into your personal home, pay for their housing, food, education, medical, crime they inflict? I have not received an answer from not one person, to whom I asked the question. Yet those people expect us American taxpayers to pay billions and billions of dollars to pay for illegals, and many legal immigrants in our home, America. The American lifeboat is full, we can‘t take in anymore. There will always be the poor, according to the Bible. We are to be compassionate, but it does not mean we have to take them in and crush our own house. I am not a person of means. We own a little home, bought 45 years ago. I know I could be out on the streets one day, but I do know, I would never impose myself on another, never invade another’s home, as I was taught better. I know what tough times are like, I’ve lived them at times. After my divorce, my husband didn’t help with our daughters, I had no car, no one really to help. I rented a little duplex. I went days without eating to feed my daughters. I had no refrigerator, used blocks of ice in my sink, until my mother found out, and bought me a small refrigerator, but I paid her with my next paycheck…I think it was $50.00. I earned the average secretarial wage. When I went to the store, I had to carry my daughters, they were so young, thankfully, the store was about a block away. To travel to work, I was in a carpool. There were times, I was looking in the gutter for coins. So don’t think I don’t understand…most people have had hard times. I was not born with a silver spoon, but I always lived comfortably in a home my dad built, we always had clothes on our backs, wonderful home made food, we had family life, with good friends…and we had our church family…with wonderful memories. Wealth can mean different things to different people. We were and are average people, and I feel we were blessed by God. I thank God all the time for his blessings and protection. But, it is time for citizen soldiers to rise up and defend their home. I believe the churches in the lands the people left, missed their calling, in helping their people in their countries. I’m a very compassionate person, but who says a Christian has to be stupid, we are to be smart. A person, country can only do so much without they themselves becoming a cesspool. This country cannot save the world, but we can help others, in THEIR COUNTRY, by showing them how to be self sufficient within their country. It boils down to, I call it as it is….some filthy vermin knowingly caused the problems we have today out of greed. It has been a well orchestrated plan to destroy this nation…I call them the evil ones.
Kristal_Rose	(reply to LJD) posted 10-Oct-2008 12:43am   "They are average people, many are losing their jobs to illegals to start off." - That's where the flaw in your perception is. They aren't losing their jobs to illegals, they are losing their jobs to other people who happen to be immigrants. If you sent all the immigrants away, next you'd be complaining that "They are average people, many are losing their jobs to the poor to start off". The problem isn't 'who', the problem is that for every 100 persons here, only 80 jobs exist. The problem would be identical if we cut the population in half or doubled it, with or without immigrants. I might also add here that what you are saying here rather goes against what you've been saying about welfare. In the case of welfare recipients, you claim they should be creative and invent jobs rather than become dependent on the system. Shouldn't your 'average people' be doing the same then? Of course they can't though, not in this age of automation and job exportation (and if job exportation weren't permitted, you can be assured those jobs would be automated too). I do have a solution though, and it has nothing to do with the irrelevant immigrant issue. People should take up cottage industry self-employment. For instance they could knit custom sweaters on commission to national clients over eBay. Of course who would pay $200 for a sweater when you can one knit by a korean sweat shop or machine for $20? There is an answer to that; Make self-employed/cottage-labor persons tax exempt (Los Angeles has been intelligent enough to do this, as long as they are one-of-kind artistic products), and tax export-labor products and machine products very heavily, like $150 tax on those $20 sweaters. The result is people working again, and no more billionaires controlling commerce. The tax can be adjusted yearly as necesary to balance societal efficiency with job availability/prosperity. Perhaps only a $70 tax on commercial sweaters would be enough to shift the balance. We could then dispense with income taxes entirely. In fact, we could probably replace all taxes with duty/automation taxes and be left being able to afford sweaters hand-knit in the USA. "We spend billions and billions of dollars on illegals education, medical, housing, food, the crime they commit, the list goes on." - We spend that on 'people' who happen to be immigrants (presuming we do spend that). Again, if it werent the immigrants, it would be the poor, or the blacks, or the leftists, or something. These people are our population. Our population needs taken care of no matter how large it is, or who it contains. We spend money educating everyone. The only theoretically just complaint you could make, except that I doubt it's true, is that we are paying for the education or health of some sector of society which isn't carrying it's share of the load. As is, a disproportionately great chunk of our physical labor comes froms immigrants, so we can't really make such a claim. "I don’t think trade barriers from outsiders is socialism, it is protection for the people inside set borders." Key phrase - "THE PEOPLE", not just 'some' people, THE people. That is what defines socialism. Closing trade barriers hurts people here who make their living importing fruits of foreign labor. Socialism says they are not allowed prosper at the downfall of others. "I still say overpopulation is the seed of poverty." - The world is overpopulated, but not so much so that their isn't plenty to go around for all, at least here in the US so far. We can all have food, water, and shelter. Poverty here is a class issue. It's about education and opportunity. It's also about disproportion. No matter how educated any class of people becomes, we have a system here which nurtures some people profiting from a 100 or million other people. This will always create poverty. Note, poverty is relative. Even most of our poor own tv sets, eat, and own cars. In the 1500s every single intelligent person on the whole planet would have called you nuts if you though this planet might one day sustain 10 billion people. I expect that with much creativity and time to adapt, that it could probably support 10,000 billion people, or perhaps even a million times that. It is well within the realm of scientific possibility to cover the entire planet with a single 10,000 story tall skyscraper, and recycle every stray molecule for producing food. Recall E=MC^2. As long as the surface of our planet is insulated, or takes in more energy than it loses, everything inside it is a self-contained eco-sphere, where no loss of light, heat, motion, energy, or mass occurs, except as converted from one of those forms to another. There is enough mass at the core of this planet to form a trillion more people than exist now, the food to feed them (which only needs done once, after which it's all recycling), and of course the shelter for them. Immigrants are not the problem. "It boils down to, I call it as it is….some filthy vermin knowingly caused the problems we have today out of greed. It has been a well orchestrated plan to destroy this nation…I call them the evil ones." - I'm still waiting for the day you can point out those evil ones. Do they live on Jupiter perhaps? What you have are people, real people, like Bush, Turner, Gates and such, who are a mixed bag of decency and corruption. Are these the 'Evil ones' of which you speak? As long as these 'evil ones' are some force from the ninth dimension, there's not much we can do to change the world, so there's not much point being concerned about it. If people like Bush and Gates though have policies which make life harder on the public than it has to be, then perhaps we can do something about it. You think they want to destroy this nation. Has it not occurred to you that nations for them are precisely like what you say of big cities being used to corral people? We can take Iraq's oil or Koreas's labor, but the folks living there are not so free to come here where the profits of their exploitation end up. For that matter there are few nations like Sweden or New Zealand willing to invite us unless we are already millionaires, should we wish to escape US media/capitalism/education/pharmaceutical-policy etc etc. Pay attention to this. The people are hardly free to move. The governments can't move. ..and yet corporations are free to inhabit and trade between most any nations they feel like, shift resources from one nation to another, play the currencies of nations against each other... This makes them powerful above and beyond any government in existence. They can make or break any nation which relies on trade. They are somewhat like Blackwater soldiers, above any national law or geneva convention, free to economically kill, blackmail, or hold hostage any nation they wish. All that is possible because there is NOT a one-world government by the people to keep them in check. That leaves them as the only One-World government, one which we have no vote in at all. The only vote we have at all is to vote for presidents which claim to favor or oppose things like NAFTA or the IMF. The world would be different if NAFTA, the WTO, & the IMF were controlled by a global democracy. Unfortunately, good as that sounds in theory, I'm not suggesting it, because it would be no less corrupted by big business than our US legislature is now. You're an anti-union person, aren't you? If so, that's a shame, because they are pretty much the only entity would could be both powerful enough and have motive enough to bring back trade barriers. I'm an anti-unionist myself, but for completely different reasons. I oppose them because they are factions and don't represent all working people, either of all profesions, nor of all nations. What good does it do to raise the wage of janitors, if the burger chefs and seamstresses will then have to raise their own wages to keep up their relative standard of living? Has it not occ
LJD	(reply to Kristal_Rose) posted 10-Oct-2008 2:54am   Do you not believe in the law? There are illegal aliens, and legal immigrants. Illegal aliens should get in line like many other people around the world that are doing it legally. So you think we owe it to illegal aliens all the free benefits they ask for? I don’t think so. These people have invaded my home. They need to go back to their countries. They are not our population, they are invaders, that need to be deported. BTW, you haven’t answered my question, but I have a good idea Kristal Rose, you and others that feel we owe the world a free living, each of you need to take in 100 illegals into your personal home and give them all the benefits you expect American taxpayers to pay. You are avoiding my question, the same as everyone else…they wouldn’t, and couldn’t. When I said “THE PEOPLE“, I MEANT legal citizens. Personally, I don‘t think we need to trade, we have enough in this country to take care of our people. You are talking of communism….spread the wealth. The filthy vermin are live people, I have a book on them, names, names. Check out a book called the “Insiders”. Your comment “Pay Attention to this”. Check out a book called “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”. I am against one world government. Less voice of the people. I’m not necessarily anti union. My husband and sons are in unions. My father was in a union. What I am concerned about is the higher ups in the unions. I don’t think they’re looking out for their people. My father-in-law was once the president of a union for 11 years. I have a fantastic article by one of our MM people. I think you’ll like this one. It’s about labor and wages. It’s just too bad labor and management can’t come to the table and be fair to one another.
Kristal_Rose	(reply to LJD) posted 10-Oct-2008 10:04am   My mom came from Ireland when she was seven, during WW2, and didn't become a citizen until the late 80's. I didn't really see it as any distinction. Her older sisters (which were actually her aunts) already owned and ran a sheep ranch in Oregon at the time. My father came from Germany as a teen. I don't know if he ever became a citizen either, but he did die as a volunteer US Vietnam vet. I would prefer people follow laws. I really don't know that much about how many people immigrate though entirely legal channels vs. how many are evading any legal attention. Unless our nation is involved in emergency refugee relief, I can't see letting them on welfare until they become citizens. I presume for the most part they can't anyhow. I don't have a problem with them receiving emergency medical care or education for the kids even if they are illegal though. That's just general humanitarianism, and the education is better than not if they'll end up being here anyhow. I don't see that having a kid here is an excuse to become a citizen though. I think everyone in the world owes everyone in the world a living. Maybe not free, but at least the same chance everyone else gets. When I had a car I picked up all the hitchhikers I could, and have over the years taken in homeless people as best I could, even if it involved having to step over someone sleeping to the kitchen, as it did for the five people who stayed here free in my current studio apartment. So yes, within reason, I prove out my belief that people should accomodate each other. Of course I also expect them to get jobs and pay their share of groceries as soon as possible, because I'm having to buy groceries on credit myself already. "When I said “THE PEOPLE“, I MEANT legal citizens." - In that context, I did too. THE legal citizen PEOPLE of the united states, in their SOCIALIST common interest, prevent other legal citizens from getting wealthier by importing the fruits of foreign exported labor at the expense of citizen jobs. "You are talking of communism….spread the wealth." - I have no idea what paragraph you even refer to there. "The filthy vermin are live people, I have a book on them, names, names. Check out a book called the “Insiders”." - Well, that's good to know. You speak of them like extraterrestrials. "Your comment “Pay Attention to this”. Check out a book called “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”." - I was going to recommend the same to you, or at least it's form as embedded in the movie Zeitgeist which explains things like the Fed Reserve. It's a favorite of my progressive activist radio station. Katherine Fitz is another you would appreciate. She used to be Clinton's head of HUD. She moved on, at war with th SEC, trying to establish community development banks, urging people to invest in gold before our money collapsed, and speaking about the 'Ice Cream Index' - can your child bicycle safely to buy an ice-cream, and explains how companies like Wal-Mart drain that from communities by diverting community labor/wealth to distant investors. She was all about local communities helping to build themselves without big business profiting instead, and thus became an enemy of our government. The Securities Exchange Commision managed to find her concept of communities keeping money within their own communities, for their own communities, without big bankers investing and profiting, to be a breach of fed law, and sued her for $8M. "I am against one world government. Less voice of the people." - Well yeah, but against transnational corporations, that's better than no voice. The problem with all this labor and management stuff is that it's all competitive. In a socialist country every on can work in harmony to vote on what's in the interest of everyone. It's not a constant shifting battle of diverse collective-self-interests. My ex's (great?)grandfather was part of the notches in the shotgun crowd during the mining town union battles.

 
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