patrick.net

I'm not giving that clown more money to squander then feign a befuddled state whilst his cronies chuckle.

You are only looking at this from your Liberal at the expense of Others point of view. You're loaded, so it's all good to you, if this administration wants to eviscerate the middle class.

The Republicans are only one side of the Vote, why are the Democrats willing to default, because they think the Republicans wont budge? Why should they? They are acting responsible at the behest and outpouring of 67% of the nation that believes in spite of his Usama rabbit trick, he is an ineffective president. We don't want more taxes, and more social services, money to be allocated to Government programs. Then once on the books, have the government spending be politicized to Outsourcing to make more Cronies rich, to laugh at us even louder during National addresses to the subjects, of his Majesty King Hussein Obama, explaining once again. Why his economic policies failed.
We're powerless to make him stop, only John Boehner and rag tag team of Freedom Fighters in Washington can protect us all from the Badman.

marcus says

The democrats could come up with a winning platform now, and they need to. One that polls show to be popular. SOmething like what I heard Barbera Boxer say the other day:
1) End loopholes
2) End all wars
3) Raise tax rates way way up to Y2K levels
At least then they could say, “look at what the republicans were not willing to do.”
Unfortunately too many democrats are either pussies or millionaires themselves (confict of interest).

Too many politicians on both sides have impediment of that conflict of interest.

Dude they already get trillions, thats not enough to feed thier greed - so they print trillions more. Thats not enough now raise taxes more? enough!

The raising of the taxes is whats killing the country IMO. I know the goal: eventually government is 100% of the economony and we are cuba.

tatupu70 says

I wouldn’t argue the Fed doesn’t share some responsibility, but it’s not the primary cause.

The above statement is contradictory to the statement below.

tatupu70 says

The cause was clearly the ability of banks to sell mortgages no matter how crappy the loans.

If banks are responsible, and the bank's bank (The Fed) sets/controls the market interest rate, who's at fault? Remember, there is NOTHING federal about the Federal Reserve. It is basically a consortium of private banks. Answer this question: how do banks make money? Well, through issuing more debt. When issuing more debt is your incentive to earn more, then you will issue debt to infinity. Why would the central bank loosen the noose on monetary policy for the private banks? The TBTF banks own and dictate the monetary policy in this country.

tatupu70 says

Tulips, South Sea Company, Railroads, etc.

South sea company bubble cause: Government war spending by England. (central planning by the government)

RailRoads: The Bank of England cut interest rates, making government bonds less attractive investments, and existing railway companies' shares began to boom as they moved ever-increasing amounts of cargo and people, making people willing to invest in new railways. (central planning by the central bank)

Tulip mania: See this paper (http://www.econ.ucla.edu/thompson/Document97.pdf) as always, Government meddles with the market.

There are three Options:

* Default. Short term pain, hopefully sweep away the deadwood. Might end up sweeping the middle class baby out with the bathwater, however.

* Austerity. There is no way to Grow Out of the Debt, not even a return of the late 90's tech boom will solve it. Austerity will only guarantee the absolute elimination of the Middle Class, as less spending = less business = more layoffs and paycuts = even less spending in a downward cycle of doom. Those who own productive assets will escape largely unscathed and relatively even more wealthy (and thus, powerful) than everybody else. Finally, see THIS. Austerity is seldom apportioned fairly, and the sacred cows often go unbutchered, while the golden goose gets trimmed and stuffed.

* Inflation. Probably the best weapon in the arsenal, but not too wonderful for the babyboomers who will be retiring soon. Continuous downward pressure on wages and high unemployment means that we might end up in the same downward cycle as Austerity, since wages won't rise to match inflation, and Unions are weaker than ever.

Pick one.

austrian_man says

If banks are responsible, and the bank’s bank (The Fed) sets/controls the market interest rate, who’s at fault? Remember, there is NOTHING federal about the Federal Reserve. It is basically a consortium of private banks. Answer this question: how do banks make money? Well, through issuing more debt. When issuing more debt is your incentive to earn more, then you will issue debt to infinity. Why would the central bank loosen the noose on monetary policy for the private banks? The TBTF banks own and dictate the monetary policy in this country.

But monetary policy had only a very small, if any, role in the debacle. And the federal reserve system had no role in underwriting standards. Hell--it was savings and loans that were the worst offenders.

austrian_man says

South sea company bubble cause: Government war spending by England. (central planning by the government)
RailRoads: The Bank of England cut interest rates, making government bonds less attractive investments, and existing railway companies’ shares began to boom as they moved ever-increasing amounts of cargo and people, making people willing to invest in new railways. (central planning by the central bank)
Tulip mania: See this paper (http://www.econ.ucla.edu/thompson/Document97.pdf) as always, Government meddles with the market.

I think it was Twain that said--To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Food for thought.

APOCALYPSEFUCK says

OK, granted - but he did institute beef stew Thursdays at McMurdo Station - and many do indeed argue he was unipolar. Or was he unibrow?
elliemae says

APOCALYPSEFUCK says

Republican?
I thought Lincoln was bipolar.

I don’t think he ever explored the Arctic. His wife, on the other hand, nuttier than a fruitcake.

Eschew Obfuscation

Hmm... yeah the bi-s are getting mixed up here. His wife was the bipolar one, Lincoln was the bisexual.

shrekgrinch says

thunderlips11 says

I see so many Mississippians booking month-long paid vacations to Mallorca and the Aegean every August.

And many Europeans don’t, either. Not the ones who don’t have jobs and hardly any purchasing power at all. Those who get to go are subsidized by those who don’t, essentially.

Unemployed people in the old miss aren't taking vacations on the redneck riviera either. How do the unemployed subsidize the employed? What does that mean? Do you have a point with this at all? How does being unemployed relate to PPP? Try to focus.

shrekgrinch says

bob2356 says

What about the fact that in Europe you don’t pay 12-18k per year out of your take home pay for health care? Or 50-200k for a university degree.

What do you mean “they don’t pay”? It isn’t free. They pay for it in diminished economic opportunities from so much of their income being leeched by the govmnt. If you want that trade off, then by all means move your ass to Europe. Just don’t chant the BS “Hey let’s be more like Europe!”. America is not Europe.

Do you ever stay on topic, or even understand the topic? What does economic opportunities have to do with PPP. There are no lost economic opportunities, you have to pay for health care, education, etc. no matter if it's through taxes or insurance premiums and tuition. Try to remember (I know it's hard but focus, but I have faith that you can do it) that you are the op and the subject is PPP.

I went and read the original carpe diem article that your article is based on. Pretty weak stuff. There are tons of problems with data and methodology. There are lots of methodologies for calculating PPP, almost all admit it's at best a guestimate, but Professor Perry doesn't explain at all which he uses or how. Just trust me I guess.

I never said "they don't pay", I said they don't pay for these things out of their take home pay (that means post tax by the way, have someone explain the difference). Try to focus. Yes the take home pay in the US is higher, but lots of things are paid out of pocket here rather than through taxes (pre tax income). Are you beginning to understand this point yet?

This is the first big weakness of most PPP calculations. How to equalize what is pay and what is a basket of goods (and/or services) to calculate by. The CIA estimate, which is part of what Perry uses, just adds up all goods and services then divides by population with a cost of living adjustment. There is a big disclaimer that Dr. Perry fails to share that these numbers are just estimates at best.

You always scream about reading comprehension, but tell me exactly where I said “Hey let’s be more like Europe!”. I said Europeans have different values. Period. No comment on which was better. There is no better, it's whatever people prefer. Try to focus, it's hard I know.

The value that is most different between the cultures is time. Europeans work a lot less hours and take 6-8 weeks vacation every year. There are a lot less 2 income families. They value having a stay at home parent. This is all a choice, even though it lowers gdp and therefore PPP.

Many europeans I know consider the the 50-70 hour work week for both parents, children at day care till 6, grab fast food on the way home, watch tv for an hour then off to bed lifestyle of many Americans insane. They would rather have more time than a whole house full of walmart crap. Spend 2 hours of family time fixing and eating dinner with local in season ingredients rather than paying for prepared food. Take 4 weeks in the alps and 4 weeks in the south of france every year. Yes most working people in europe do that kind of thing. Try to get a room anywhere south of clermont-ferrand in july or august. or meribel in january. ce n'est pas possible. Most kids take a year or two off after graduating school and travel the world. It's called the big oe (overseas experience) and is pretty much expected. Try that with 100k in student loans. I host these kids at my house frequently. Almost none have expressed any interest in living in the US. They like their countries just fine.

So PPP can't begin to factor these kinds of things in and most honest (not making an ideological political point, thank you Dr. Perry) evaluations admit this openly.

tatupu70 says

But monetary policy had only a very small, if any, role in the debacle.

How? That is the root...without which all the sloppiness at the bank level couldn't have occurred.

tatupu70 says

I think it was Twain that said–To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

I quote actual historical references and you choose to be blind to it...and the ignorance continues.

bob2356 says

Unemployed people in the old miss aren’t taking vacations on the redneck riviera either. How do the unemployed subsidize the employed? What does that mean? Do you have a point with this at all? How does being unemployed relate to PPP? Try to focus.

It's completely relevant. There's a huge difference in driving 3 hours to the coast for a long Memorial or Labor Day weekend in a Motel 6 by the Gulf once a year if you're lucky, and being able to afford a 4-hour flight to the other side of the continent to stay in Spain for three weeks, not to mention the other dozen or so paid holidays spread out through the year.

The conversation was about PPP, and comparing Europeans to Americans. For working class people, Europe is vastly superior. The health care benefits for all, regardless of who you work for, how many hours you have, or how much you make alone is worth hundreds a month - or over a thousand each month, if your employer doesn't offer any medical care.

3-4 weeks of paid vacation is something that the most humble French ditch digger gets, but something only a handful of US workers ever get. That's a benefit also worth over a thousand.

austrian_man says

I quote actual historical references and you choose to be blind to it…and the ignorance continues.

OK--I give up. There will always be something you can blame. Wars caused bubbles before the Fed, but they stopped bubbles after the Fed.

I wonder how many people are on the sidelines that do NOT have 20% down; and after seeing the possibility of them raising it to 20% downpayment, they jump on and purchase a home before they get priced out?

I'm beginning to think Government is fake just like wrestling & WWF when I was a kid. All staged out.

It would be utterly ridiculous for people to jump in to buy before a rule on higher down payments thinking that they would be priced out - given that prices would have to come in line with average ability to save said payment.

Michelle Bachman to announce tomorrow.

Now that we have Male Republican look-alikes, we also seem to have Female Republican Clones.

QUIZ: Can you tell Bachman and Palin apart?

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/take-the-bachmann-palin-challenge-can-you-tell-them-apart-20110609

As a future first time buyer I would much rather pay a larger down payment, but an overall lower price for the home. Home prices will drop to reflect the drop in demand, just as they increased exponentially when available credit expanded in the early 2000's. Home prices falling wouldn't be a bad thing, it would finally make homes affordable once again. Easy access to credit has inflated home prices and pushed the lower to middle income borrowers to stretch as far as possible in their budget to be able to afford the monthly payment. The way to make homes affordable is not through credit, but real drops in prices. In the end we haven’t helped these lower to middle income borrowers, we’ve trapped them under a mountain of debt, but pretended that we helped them because we made it easier to sign a piece of paper.

However, I think the market should set its own rules without government mandates and the government should just exit the market altogether so I fundamentally disagree with the QRM rules, but we live in a market where the government still backs loans at 3.5% up to 729k, and the fed meanwhile is keeping interest rates artificially low extending easy money to the banks. In a truly free market I don’t think the banks would even consider less than 20%, or if they did as during the housing boom, they would be allowed to fail. But we don’t live in that world.

shrekgrinch says

elliemae says

People don’t trust Mormons as a whole.

You mean LIBERALS mostly when defining ‘people’. Hell, LIBERALS don’t trust many people who are religious, period.

You say that like there are no religious liberals. Or that it is not the right wing christians most opposed to mormons. Sounds like someone has linked...
shrekgrinch says

false facts with even worse bullshit

...whatever.

Transparent

Please specify the bullshit you mean. Otherwise this thread is just a personal insult, not a discussion.

Well said AF. And for future reference, PLEASE, if you can't be bothered to eat me in a polite and orderly manner, then don't bother to eat me at all.

And we should Bomb Libya, while acting polite while watching Bahrain act out even more horrid atrocities on their citizens. And we actually occupy a military presence in Bahrain.

We dont have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. Its about time we made cuts.

The democrats had OVER 700 DAYS to pass a budget when they controlled both houses. They failed. Why? Because they are worse than the loser republicans that controlled everything for a few years before them.

When Obama was elected, the dems won both houses and the economy started to tank on Bush's way out I had a mental picture of a hole in the bottom of a canoe. During the Obama mania crap I saw all over the place I thought to myself, "They are going to solve this by blowing a bigger hole in the boat."

Sure enough...

It's Fox New's fault.

P.S. I taste fouler than I sound.

You left out Rick Perry who will probably run. I'm visiting family in Texas and asked my brother in law what he thinks of him:

"I don't know how he keeps getting elected!"

Same question to my Dad:

"Well, Arkansas got rid of Clinton that way"

I'm positively sweet. Eat me!

Where is Apocalypsefuck? There should be a comment about the rise of the New Cannibalistic Dawn since the Republicans are Hell bent on bringing about economic armaggedon in order to win in 2012. Win at any cost.

As the Good Book says, "Eat thy neighbor as thou wouldst eat thyself."

Most Americans are content to play the part of Penelope Pitstop and play into the hands of the Republicons.

APOCALYPSEFUCK says

It’s all very Osmond Mormonism, no savage group copulation and good stuff like that. The Mormon candidates might as well be Catholic.

No, if the Mormon candidates were Catholics they'd be able to drink alcoholic and caffinated beverages, dance, smoke, and gamble. I think you might have meant to say that they might as well be Southern Baptists.

leoj707 says

APOCALYPSEFUCK says

OK, granted - but he did institute beef stew Thursdays at McMurdo Station - and many do indeed argue he was unipolar. Or was he unibrow?

elliemae says

APOCALYPSEFUCK says

Republican?

I thought Lincoln was bipolar.

I don’t think he ever explored the Arctic. His wife, on the other hand, nuttier than a fruitcake.
Eschew Obfuscation

Hmm… yeah the bi-s are getting mixed up here. His wife was the bipolar one, Lincoln was the bisexual.
Cute Ganesha

Are you sure? I grew up in The Land of Lincoln and I was taught that he was fruitier than a nutcake and that the missus was bi-curious.

Let's just nuke all of them until they glow. We could use a few new glass ashtrays here in the Land of Kush.

APOCALYPSEFUCK says

OK, this sounds like a contemporary conservative: Closeted gay runs around with guys while his wife melts down at home alone in a crushing descent into madness, pretty much a working definition of a Republican congressman.
leoj707 says

Hmm… yeah the bi-s are getting mixed up here. His wife was the bipolar one, Lincoln was the bisexual.

Wow, that is the most compelling argument yet for what political party Lincoln would fit in today.

Yeah, on the olther hand, modern Democrats send dirty pictures to and have affairs with consenting adult women. Oh the horror and shame!

simchaland says

Are you sure? I grew up in The Land of Lincoln and I was taught that he was fruitier than a nutcake and that the missus was bi-curious.

Well, I was saying that kind of tongue in cheek, running with the "bi" theme.

So, I would not say that I am "sure", but I think that often people like to put absolute labels on others (particularly important historical figures), laying "claim" that they are one of their own (aka = the log cabin republicans). Sexual identity can be a complicated thing, and I think that bisexuality often gets shorted by both gays and straights.

Lincoln was most likely into guys at a higher degree than he was into women, and I think that he was perhaps bisexual rather than "gay" or "straight", but I am not sure.

Just for full disclosure I am not a bisexual and trying to "lay claim" to Lincoln, that is just what I see as the most likely scenario.

Leoj708, I was being tongue in cheek, sort of. Lol...

I was building on our humorous digression. Don't ruin it with serious historical analysis.

You are encouraged to continue with hysterical analysis.

If Lincoln was as bisexual as he was bipolar, then Mrs. Lincoln was bi-curious.

I don't think either one of them was bi-coastal.

If you ever drove A20 (thank god they finally finished the Millau viaduct, no more 20k+ traffic jams at the gorge du tarn) or A7 in the summer you would quickly realize very few people fly. Makes memorial day driving at the Jersey shore seem like a walk in the park.

I don't think it's better or worse, just different. Most Americans have the option of simpler less materialistic lives if they really wanted to.

Ever watch the show where they clean out peoples houses after people just walked away and let the bank have the house? Just amazing. Closets full of expensive cloths, every electronic gadget know to man, every top end kitchen appliance ever made, 4000 sq feet of high end furniture, etc., etc.. You have to work really hard to actually pay for that stuff, or even to make the credit card payments after you charge it all. It's a choice people make.

simchaland says

APOCALYPSEFUCK says

It’s all very Osmond Mormonism, no savage group copulation and good stuff like that. The Mormon candidates might as well be Catholic.

No, if the Mormon candidates were Catholics they’d be able to drink alcoholic and caffinated beverages, dance, smoke, and gamble. I think you might have meant to say that they might as well be Southern Baptists.
I’m a proud Gemorran

You forgot about catholics and little boys. Mormons are restricted to molesting little girls, but they supposed to marry them first.

shrekgrinch says

While most small business owners are not in that category, most of the people who will get hit at $250,000 are small business owners.

Statistics or proof of any kind that this is true or is this just more shrek verbal flatulence????

wormwood says

Global Warming = Climate Change

I think that was for the dimbulbs who think one day of snow or cold weather disproves global warming. And, it is a fact that weather systems are complex; ie general warming trends impact other aspects of weather, such as hurricanes, and other the duration and severity of other storms.

wormwood says

Liberal = Progressive

Rebranding makes sense. You have proven in another thread that there are many who have no clue that liberal is a more nuanced and general term than the right would like it to be. They have spent billions trying to convince the idiot masses that lberalism is about weak defense, and free handouts for the lazy - when in fact it has always been about progress.

wormwood says

Illegal immigrant = Undocumented Worker (yeah right, more like another Democratic voter)

Last time I checked, these people don't vote. But yes, their children, their grandchildren, their great grandchildren, their great great great grandchildren and so on, do vote.