Obama lifts 20 year ban on US entry for those with HIV
- Thread starter Floptical
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I think you guys are confused between debt and deficit. And unless you're reading websites from radical right-wing conspiracy nut jobs, it's pretty well known that the Clinton administration ran the largest surplus in the history of the United States. The size of that surplus depends on whether or not you credit the accounting with Social Security taxes. If you do, then the budget surplus was enormous. If you don't, then it was only ~$2 billion in surplus. Still pretty impressive. The first thing Dubya did when he got into office was propose tax cuts to the tune of our surplus to make sure we were operating in deficit again. Hoo boy!
Clinton also pushed laws late in his second term to deregulate the mortgage lending industry so you could possibly blame him for the predatory practices of mortgage loan officers -- of course those laws were passed through a predominantly Republican Congress.
What blindsided this whole operation was the practice of bundling up bad loans with decent loans and selling them as securities. The sale of these securities allowed lenders to manipulate their balance sheets; taking known liabilities and recording them as assets. What we lacked was proper action on the part of Congress and the President (Dubya) to foresee, or even at least react to this practice. And here we are now bailing out all these institutions who burned our houses down using our own money as kindling. Woot!
The dot com bust also happened shortly after Dubya was elected. Which was also because of the financial industry, regulation etc and you could blame Clinton for it. I dont like blaming presidents for economic issues that they dont directly influence. Clinton or Bush, it's finger pointing at best.
Bailing out the auto industry directly with government money is pointable though, and the airlines with Bush >.> Both bad ideas.
thats my point exactly, quit sucking some pres's cock and throwing another under the bus when both suck.
'omg obama is our golden boy all problems he's causing is just cause he's trying to fix bush's fuckups'
but hey, we elect presidents so we can blame one person becuase none of this shit is obviously our fault. ok, maybe YOU didn't vote for bush, but did you vote for any of congress? did you actively campaign for gore or that other fucknut? did no democrats have money in the dot com market when it bust, are no democrats in foreclosure becuase they accepted stupid loans they knew they couldn't possibly pay back? or where they deceived by bush personally who sat them down and told them to sign the dotted line... and they listened even though they knew he was evil and out to kill everyone?
nah, none of this shits our fault. it's the presidents fault. what this debate is about, is identifying WHICH president caused WHAT problem.
I'm not confusing debt and deficit. While different they are invariably connected. Social Security wasn't the only shady accounting done and there still wasn't a real $2 billion surplus. At no point was the budget not operating in deficit.
And generally I would applaud the idea of a president thinking "holy shit, we have all this extra money where should it go? oh right, BACK INTO THE HANDS OF THE PEOPLE VIA TAX CUTS"
That's the way it should have happened. What really happened wasn't even close.
And of course no one thinks to blame the idiots that took out loans they couldn't afford. Oh no, it was "predatory lending". These poor folks were forced to sign these contracts.
The banks can fuck themselves but don't let the idiotic public off the hook either.
It didn't go back to the people. It went back to the corporations, which only moves as far as the already deep pockets of the top 2% of wealthy Americans. I wish we could give up on the trickle down method. It doesn't work, no matter how many times it's tried. Never has. Never will.
The poor folks were not forced to sign the contracts, however blaming the mortgagors for their ignorance is offensive to the point of hyperbole. The average American is not an expert in credit conditions and lending requirements. They rely solely on the advice of their loan officer, who is supposed to be working with the best intentions. That is clearly not the case. The mortgagees need to be held accountable, not the Americans who were lied to about their actual buying power.
dude it's not who the money was lent to it's that it was lent to buy property that was never in reality worth near what the prices were inflated to and i'm pretty sure the major problem had nothing to do with individual loans but the loans made to the builders that were hundreds of millions of dollars a pop and the banks are now begging for 20 cents on the dollar for the the land and projects that just got handed back to them when the shit pile fell down.
lay off the rush limbaugh man, excuse the lack of punctuation i'm baked
Oh I know. I'm saying it should have. Tax cuts in general are a good idea, especially when they're aimed at small businesses since they happen to employ most of the country.
but no, that's not what happened. which was my point; having a budget surplus should mean that money goes right back to the people via tax cuts. it just didn't work out that way
No, it didn't just go to "the corporations". That's one of the most asinine hyperbolic phrases out there.
That's not true. It may not be ideal but it does work. It has its pros and cons like everything else.
It's not. Yes, people ought to be blamed for their ignorance, especially when its inexcusable ignorance. Sorry but agreeing to spend more than you earn even when the economy is in great shape is not acceptable. You don't get away with that saying you just didn't know.
You don't need to be an expert to understand the basics of personal finance.
People who rely solely on the advice of their loan officers are idiots. They are just as much to blame as the loan officers.
dude it's not who the money was lent to it's that it was lent to buy property that was never in reality worth near what the prices were inflated to and i'm pretty sure the major problem had nothing to do with individual loans but the loans made to the builders that were hundreds of millions of dollars a pop and the banks are now begging for 20 cents on the dollar for the the land and projects that just got handed back to them when the shit pile fell down.
lay off the rush limbaugh man, excuse the lack of punctuation i'm baked
Who the money was lent to was part of the problem. The inflated prices were another part of the problem. There were many parts of the problem but anyone trying to blame a single president, administration or even the government as a whole is a fucking moron.
I don't listen to limbaugh.
I honestly don't even know what his voice sounds like.But I do love how anyone that suggests something other than the standard liberal talking points might be worth considering is assumed to listen to rush limbaugh.
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dude it's not who the money was lent to it's that it was lent to buy property that was never in reality worth near what the prices were inflated to and i'm pretty sure the major problem had nothing to do with individual loans but the loans made to the builders that were hundreds of millions of dollars a pop and the banks are now begging for 20 cents on the dollar for the the land and projects that just got handed back to them when the shit pile fell down.
lay off the rush limbaugh man, excuse the lack of punctuation i'm baked
Market value is determined by the interaction between buyers and sellers. On the most basic level, a property is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. The underlying problem here is that we legislated deregulation and proceeded to over leverage thanks to actions by the Fed. The high prices you're talking about are largely due to the credit conditions in the past few years, by which banks were able to turn people who would typically not be home buyers into home buyers. It's supply and demand at it's finest -- given a fixed supply, more demand leads to higher prices. The problem here is the misunderstanding of credit and how it works, and failure on the part of those who do or should know how it works to prevent abuse by lending institutions.
My basic feeling is this: There will be a large group of home buyers who are so badly over leveraged they should not be allowed to keep their homes. If you look at the default rates after refinancing, you'll see that it is strikingly high. Refinancing doesn't help -- in fact nothing will help these people -- they must lose their homes, and the sooner they do it the better off they will be. As for the surviving bad loans, the only thing that will cure them is time.
Well, my father has his own business with several employees. None of the employee's paychecks rose. Where we're going to disagree the most is that I feel the money stops when it hits the pockets of people who are wealthy enough to afford to save. Saving ability is solely based on your income potential.
I would been much happier with tax cuts that went to individuals. But we don't typically do it that way. Building on my above comments, if I had to choose between giving the money to business (on any level) and government spending, I would rather have that money stay in government.
You're going to have to give me an example of when the trickle down system worked. I can't think of any.
The people making bad loans didn't agree to spend more than they earned. They agreed to spend what their ARM told them they could afford. People are definitely ignorant of basic financial principles, but that's why we have paid consultants and experts to assist. They shoulder most of the burden, IMO. The way I'm reading you, you're basically of the opinion that people who never graduated from high school, or never went to college, or never took any real estate courses aren't good home owners because they may not understand the finances behind it. They shouldn't have to!
But unless he took his businesses tax cuts and put them directly in his own pocket it's safe to assume he put the money back into the business in order to help it make more money which in turn increases the odds of keeping the company in business and thus keeping his employees from ending up without a job. It's silly to think that tax cuts for businesses should mean bigger employee paychecks across the board.
That's something we'll never agree on, I guess. I don't believe government should have any more money than it needs to operate. Anything extra needs to go back into the market because that's what does the people the most good.
This is basically suggesting that people should be excused because they were too stupid to find out what the "A" in ARM stands for.
You don't need a fucking financial expert to know that "adjustable" means it can go up or down.
For starters, people that didn't graduate high school probably shouldn't be homeowners. There is sure to be numerous exceptions to the rule but on the whole a high school dropout should not be trusted to make sound financial decisions until he's proven himself over a longer period of time than the average bear.
None of this stuff was complex. You didn't need a financial consultant to understand that "wait a second...adjustable rate? doesn't that mean that I might have to pay more later? hmm...this mortgage is pretty close to my spending limit, maybe this isn't the best idea".
They shoulder no less burden than the people that gave them the paperwork.
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so having a little extra laying around so like when terrorist attack the united states and your shithead president declares war on everyone and ya know the troops need to be properly equipped not out in the desert ghetto rigging armor on hummers and whatnot, it's not a good idea to be prepared financially for these things, better to send ill equipped troops into the field and make unnecessary sacrifices of those troops lives, because the money belongs in the market?
The extra money shouldn't be "kept" by the government, it should be spent! Energy, health care, infrastructure, national parks, even war, it doesn't really matter. The point is that surplus gives flexibility to allow us to push the issues that are important to us. That's how Keynesians would put money back into the market. Tax cuts don't work how they are intended. And, I.C, all financial consultants will tell you that sitting on cash is probably the worst investment you can make.
I can tell me and Mr. SemperFly won't agree. And that's cool too.