John F. Kerry

tis a good question.


now, you have the class warfare fight between the haves and the have nots...etc etc..

but , the question i have is, how did we let it get this far advanced without solving the problems and how did we get to the point where the only way to fix our situation is to screw people, either, the rich, or everyone.

it seems to me that a responsible president would have not let things get this far, to the point where unless everyone takes a hit, the economy is going to collapse.

now, some of u dont want to blame obama. for whatever reasons. but look at the facts. last year, obama and his party when they had control of both houses of congress- and a supermajority in the seante.... they were able to do SOME things (like force thru obama care), which proves they could get some things done, with their supermajorities.... but one thing they didnt do all last year, was PASS A BUDGET. now , if they had enough people to vote for obamacare, but not enough people to pass a reasonable budget, what does that say to you?

it says to me that their priorities were totally misplaced and fucked up, because they had the clout to pass a liberal social wellfare entitlement expansion... but to actually pass a budget for our country, which is far more important, they simply couldnt agree on the difficult parts (as opposed to the easy parts of obamacare where they got to give out free money to their base of support)... so in the 2 years obama and dems were in charge.... we got a couple of stop gap measures to keep the economy going... and today, we have the result- essentially we are 2 weeks away from something that has been building for like the entire 3 years of obamas presidency... he has to make these decisions sometime, but like the pathetic president he is...ok, sorry, like the inexperienced and foolish manager-president he is, he kicked the can down the road so many times, (even when he had a democratic supermajority) that now we all have to take these various hits and hes making us fight amongst each other about whos hit will hurt the worst...

a responsible leader would have seen this comming, not 5 months, or 1 year, but 3 YEARS in advance...and instead of hiding and demagoging people by using poll tested partisan language about fatcats and corporate jets.... he would have gotten an agreement together a LONG LONG time ago.


but in the end, when u think about his views. he realized that when the dems were in power, if they did the responsible thing and put us on a fiscally sustainable path. that it would be unpopular for his party... so like a true cynic he waited for the gop to be partially in control...not so he could get a better deal....but so he could blame the other side for the deal... even tho he was supposed to pass a budget years ago, when the gop wasnt even in power.... and couldnt get his own party to do the things he wants the gop to do now...like raise taxes.... dems wouldnt even do that when they had 60 senate seats... so why does obama expect republicans to do it? answer: HE DOESNT. hes just playing chicken and political games with our entire economy.

what a joker.




"but they’re being much quieter about the fact that President Obama’s budget was defeated 0-97. "

http://www.freedomworks.org/blog/dea...yan-40-obama-0

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Nasa under Obama

The Rev

Anything that gets fucked up beyond the point where everyone says, "WTF?" yet doesn't fix the problem is generally a situation where the problem can't be fixed without it hurting someone, or many people. In this case, the economy was fucked up by normal market forces, supercharged by expanding bank credit, and a corporate system that pushes toward profit maximization at the expense of all other things.

Since corporations (including banks) are set up, legally, to remove accountability from their owners, it is much easier for corporate management to push the envelope of ethics to attain ever growing profits. And since those managers/board members will lose their jobs if they don't keep the stock price ever higher, there's a lot of pressure on them to do whatever they can to maximize profits.

Banks, in the subprime stupidity, for example, could have put the brakes on, but who's going to be the one to do it? If banks A, B & C are making riskier and riskier loans to keep profits up, and bank D says "No." then it's profits aren't as high, and the stockholders jump ship, or fire the board. So they kinda have to keep up, which means an accelerating race to the edge of a cliff.

And with the banking system, through the Fed and member banks, continually inflating the money supply to keep this system from crashing, also exacerbate the problem so that when the bubble DOES finally burst, everyone gets uber fucked, instead of just mildly fucked with lube.

It's an insane system, with no one who can really stop it. It has to collapse on its own, unfortunately. This is how empires grow and die.



The Rev

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HTAM

John, if you truly want to understand how the economy ended up where it is today, then you need to go back about 21 years, and start reading through information you don't seem to want to acknowledge.

Roach

It's quite simple John, If you remember your history.

The "haves" have always known that to "rule" the masses , money is the best tool to use.
This will never change, until the entire corrupt system crashes....and is overthrown by ...something different. And that in no way implies that the "something different" would be better or worse. It's this fear of change , in part, that keeps the masses in order along with of coarse , good old economic manipulation.

It has little to do with Obomba, brain dead Bush, Clinton, Nixon, Eisenhower....
It goes back to the creation of society, and the poor choices made then.

and please don't quote me

SageTree

How about Capitalism without ethical business practices?

There was a day and time business and people to some extent really didn't know the impact on the environment and human well being...
but there also became a day when business and people simply didn't care...

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kamikazi89

exorbitant borrowing and attempting to maintain an unsustainable lifestyles of the middle class (real estate and petroleum)
plus more and more food is grown for the benefit of the automobile..and that is just plain dumb

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katie west is the best

Waves

im willing to bet that j-wonders version of how we got here promotes republicans as good guys and democrats as idiot pussies who dont know what they are doing. democrats will tell you republicans are idiot tough-guys who dont know what they are doing.

a bunch of people pointing fingers at each other while the old white dudes get filthy rich behind the scenes is what happened. distractions, deception, and illegal actions are what got us here. being greedy bitches who drive huge suvs who cant cut themselves off the oil is what happened. america being america happened.

you can rationalize it all with your psuedo-intellectual political talk if you want, but it wont change america from being america. we still drive huge cars and we still use tons of gas and its still being funneled from countries we invaded illegally.

TL DR- what you are doing here is what happened to america. people thinking they have a clue about whats going on, meanwhile all they are doing is agreeing with what they are told and pointing the finger at the other side, thus continuing the charade that there is not a group of people in power who will do what they want despite all the fancy "constitutions" and "rights" you think you have.

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On this life that we call home
The years go fast and the days go so slow

Waves

yep. tried reading j-wonders post and its just more obama bashing.

surprise!

what kind of solutions or positive energy does he offer?

ZEROOOOOOOOO

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On this life that we call home
The years go fast and the days go so slow

The Rev

As a CEO, if you don't exploit an advantage which involves polluting the environment, the next guy will, and he will keep his job and you will lose yours. That is why we have corporations raping the environment. It's not because people don't care, it's because they CAN'T.

If you want ethical capitalism, you have to have a system that begins with the idea that your life is yours, and that you own what you do with it. If you make money, no one (not even the tax man) can take it. If you do something that harms others, then YOU are the one who has to pay to fix it (not TARP or whatever).

To do this, America has to make the owners of corporations responsible for the actions of the companies they own. That means no more corporate "personhood". In that case, the CEO who exploits an advantage which involves pollution could cost his shareholders millions in fines, and could still lose his job. He must operate legally, or he will be fired. It becomes about more than profit that way. Shareholders have more at stake than whether they will make money or not.

We can tell people to be ethical, and even berate them when they aren't, but we all know it's the very rare individual who will make his own self-interest subservient to "the right and ethical". We do what's right when it's the easy way, most of us, and that's not going to change anytime soon. You have to change the broken parts of the system which stand in the way of people doing the right and ethical, then you'll achieve something.



The Rev

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Waves

Take a look j-wonder. This is a post that involves something beyond just blaming obama. this post offers a solution or a change that can be made to fix the situation. this post requires critical thinking skills. you can disagree with anything we say on yahooka if you have those skills. you should work on them.

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On this life that we call home
The years go fast and the days go so slow

farmergiles

We spent a load of money on stupid wars and gave loads of money to irresponsible bankers.

Our industries have been largely asset stripped so we are no longer producing enough capital, the attempt to skim capital from the world market will only succeed so long.

Also the current model of fractional reserve banking encourages spiralling increase of use of resources but with peak oil now having passed the economy cannot continue like that, at least not without major restructuring.

This has all being going on at least since Reagan's and Thatcher's governments.

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Cultivate a stoic calmness

Canuck Wisdom

That was my first thought for a response after reading J's original post. It goes beyond that too, of course, today's events are a summary of all sorts of historical influences and decisions.

But the Reagan/Thatcher era was a clear turning point, where instability and financial disparity stepped up.

Anyways... as to blaming Obama and wondering whether or not he's doing a good job, I don't know, but his government is certainly not the cause of this situation; the big picture of how the US economy works in relation to the world, or the smaller picture of the sub-prime mortgage meltdown and subsequent recession.


(Aside from bankers/the debt as money system) Accountability for the recent recession can very clearly be directed towards the Bush government and their deregulation of banking practices at the behest of financial institutions such as members/ex-members of the Federal Reserve.

The Obama government (success or failure) is the reaction/clean up regime, not the cause/origin regime.

But I agree, without having followed it too closely, I suspect they have done and are doing a shit job of dealing with the situation. The status-quo just tastes so good, those who like it work hard to maintain it.

http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/meltdown/videos.html

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1645089/

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-Knowitall A&P type-

farmergiles

Do you mean senior or dubya? I thought a lot of deregulation went on under Clinton tbh.

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Cultivate a stoic calmness

Canuck Wisdom

Dubya. Yea, Clinton was a Neo-liberal (deregulator, just like GWB's 'Neo-Cons'), but near the beginning of the G.W. Bush presidency they specifically deregulated the sort of trading that was so dangerous and contributed to the sub-prime mess.

I don't really know about trading, but yea, they legalized banking and trading practices specifically that led to this.

Not to derail (Cnd politics never does....) but its interesting that in Canada, after a Progressive Conservative (right wing federal big-tent party) majority, it was the succeeding Liberal (center/left of center) government who did massive deregulation (in addition to those of the past gov) and eliminated the deficit. They (Chretien) were in power at the same time as Clinton.

Oh and also, for J-Wonder, I like to envision the government as steering a big ship (the economy etc). You can turn the wheel, but it takes a while to get the whole ship turned around (in reference to blaming Obama). An example is what I mentioned above. The Liberal government eliminated the deficit and tightened regulations on banks, and the current Conservative government likes to talk as if they saved Canadians from a horrible fate and how they need more seats to continue such awesomeness.

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-Knowitall A&P type-

zerodown

How did we get to where we are economically? Thats an easy question: 1913

Thats the short answer, the long answer is written in the book; The creature from jekill island

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"I've seen people so poor all they got is money."

We have to learn to unlearn
Its not contradiction, its amendment
Not everything we see is reality
Not everything we hear is the truth
Not everything we're taught helps us grow
~Cultura Profetica

"La locura se lleva en la cabeza y las drogas en los bolsillos"
~Roberto Iniesta

John F. Kerry

interesting replies guys.

they pique my curiosity for shizzo, il try to come up with a more coherent response at the appropriate time

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Nasa under Obama

kamikazi89

if you compare quality of life from 1913 and present day
..give me present day every day

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katie west is the best

mothernature

Regan and Bush Sr., deregulated the Savings and Loan Industry and caused the S&L Crisis. By then Bush Sr. was president. Neil Bush (son) was all over the news at the time for all the money he made off the deal. A short time later we were invading Iraq and Neil Bush's name was forgotten.

That's the way I remember it and it's been more of the same ever since.

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Sometimes sleep is the best revenge- Luke

kamikazi89

it wasn't much different before that, North ran slush funds through BCCI, which owned
First American Bankshares, whose chairman was Clark Clifford, who was involved in Democratic politics from the fifeties onward(he served as johnsons secretary of state(vietnam) and as a special advisor to Carter, who initially funded the mujahideen(9/11&Afghanistan)

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katie west is the best

~1~

read: Hmmm, didn't think it'd go like this, let's let this die in obscurity.



Look man, how we got here is beyond the government and who is running the show.

It's called greed. Plain and simple, greed.

How to get as many for me as I can and if that means everyone else doing without, well then that is just fine.

Once we get over ourselves then maybe we could truly be wealthy on this planet.


I really dig whoevers quote that is by the way, the one that says "I know some folks so poor, all they have is money."

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