It is no wonder our economy is failing. When Bush Sr. left office our “Individual Debt” or money owed to banking institutions by every citizen in housing, auto or private loans, was equal to our Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Today our “Individual Debt” is 4 times larger than our GDP. We created an economic bubble based off of credit rather than real value.
Here are a couple of good clips from a Congressman from Michigan Regarding the “Bail Outs”.
This is still by far the best place in the world to live. We’ve let individual greed get us into one helluva jam but collectively we have the intelligence & plain old GUTS to pull ourselves through this mess. Now, if Pres. Obama & his Sec. of State want to come after my guns, they’d damn well better send some that are willing to take life & die to get them.
Unfortunately guns are the least of my worries, just try to take my guns…My biggest concern is the economy and these bailouts. If a company cannot produce a profit then why should we give them our money to sustain themselves? There are alot of foreign based companies with factories here in the US that are doing just fine. If you ask me American industry leaders have gotten greedy, presidents, ceo’s, etc with multi-million dollar bonuses on top of their salary, expensive trips, fancy hotels, etc. while Joe Worker man does his best to provide for his family. The economy went to crap due to several reasons and coincedences, forget Joe Worker, what are we going to do about our bonuses? Perhaps a bailout? Two things I can’t stand…politics and religion. Throughout the centuries people have died for both, now it’s about money…
Marriage is a MAN and WOMAN. Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. If 2 dudes want to get it on or 2 women, let 'em tear each other up! I have a problem with a legal certificate stating they are “married”.
As for his name, that is what i will call him.[;)]
I think the problem with our country has nothing to do with Bush, or Obama, or Clinton. The problem is Bill, and Steve and Chuck. And every one of us who think that our collective moral consciousness is not rotten and coroded to the core. We live in the greatest country in the world. Were we have the right to say what we want about anything. We can own guns. We can make our own way. But in my opinion we have turned our free will over to a small handful, top 2%, of us to morguge all of our futures for there “quality of life”. The all mighty dollar has proven to be a judgemental God. I also think that if we do not find ourselves soon we will be the next great empire to fall, regardless of who is at the wheel. Just my 2 cents…
It started with Carter in 1977, community reform act. And reinacted in the Clinton erra in 1994, and inforced by congress there after. This forced the banks to loan money to people that could never pay it back, all for political gain “EVERY ONE CAN NOW OWN A HOME” Fannie and Freddy are goverment owned, they bought all the bad debt, loaned by these banks. Here’s your massive debt increase. Congress passed leg. that allowed “funny” accounting by lenders, which gave incentive for ceo’s to bundel these bad loans for Fanny and Freddy to buy, and they got very wealthy form this ( Obama advisors- Jim Johnson, Franklin Raines.
a little late but i will have to strongly disagree. it doesn’t matter whether we elect democrats or republicans. the government has become corrupt mainly because of the money involved. somehow they’ve managed to either scare us or convince us to become apathetic. it’s OUR right as well as OUR resposibility to keep the government in check. The government should be eleceted to serve and represent us. they should fear us. peoples fear of losing their guns shouldn’t cause them to run out and buy as many guns as they can. that fear should drive the people to assemble and send a message that they refuse to let their rights be taken away. while i don’t think the country’s dead, i do think it’s a titanic headed for an iceberg. however, the people steering the ship into the iceberg are we the people. that iceberg is a depression and a collapsed society that if it doesn’t end up happening in this recession it will happen in the near future. in past recessions we’ve been able to spend our way out. with lower and lower wages and increasing personal debt it’s only a matter of time until it all comes crashing down.
the government hands the country over to corporations leading to rules, regulations and tax breaks benefiting large corporations and damaging middle america. and we just stand by and watch.
the government takes power away from the unions http://www.dickmeister.com/id89.html leading to lower wages and fewer benefits (from union jobs as well as companies trying to compete for employees and companies trying to prevent unions). and we just stand by and watch.
healthcare costs reach an unaffordable level or at least near an unaffordable level. premiums and copayments continue to go up while coverage continues to go down. yet politicians who accept money from healhtcare companies as well as healthcare insurance companies claim that this is they way our healthcare system should be. they throw out scare words like socialism to keep us scared. it doesn’t matter to them they have great healthcare benefits which oh by the way are paid for by you and i. and we just stand by and watch.
These are just a few of our problems that **WE **are responsible for.
Obama will enter the White House at a moment of economic crisis worse than anything the nation has seen since the Great Depression; the old assumptions of free-market fundamentalism have, like a charlatan’s incantations, failed to work, and the need for some “new machinery” is painfully obvious.* *the new yorker
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while Joe Worker man does his best to provide for his family.
Not really. Many Joe Workers have been buying homes they can’t afford, after signing mortgage contracts they didn’t read, all the while sipping $5 latte’s from Starbuck, while in their high-priced cars wearing high-priced clothes all bought on credit.
There’s a lot of blame to go around; including Joe ‘immediate gratification of material wants” Worker.
I am simply amazed that the focus of Mainstream Media has been the greedy CEO, and that most have bought in. It’s become a trendy national pity party to feel sorry for the guy who might have his house foreclosed on. Variable Rate Mortgage contracts start showing on page 2, PAGE 2!, what your rate and new payment was gonna be in 18 months after the teaser expired.
But then again, doing a 30 minute back of the napkin calculation of personal financial planning would have interfered with knowing who’s gonna get bounced off of Dancing With The Stars, now wouldn’t it?
This feel sorry for the poor distressed homeowner crap really chaps my butt. And now, the mentality is starting to bleed over to people with high credit card balances.
Suicide on No 4th? I don’t think an Obama reign is death for this Country, but even if it is, the victim started slitting his wrists back in 2001, when the stock market crashed and Alan Greenspan kept interest rates artificially low and rolled the bubble into real estate.
The strengthened Community Reinvestment Act was dad, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was mom, Alan Greenspan was the boyfriend, and guess who now gets to take care of the socialist baby?
I gotta agree with a lot of what you have to say. Our government has kinda rotted from the core out & we’ve let it. Dunno what the solution is. A lot better minds than mine have contributed to this mess. I think a good starting point to cleaning up our government might be to implement term limits. Congressmen get two terms, Senators and the President one term or something like that. Now that might be tough to get done but we can do it if we all just decide that the first qualification for our vote is the candidate who favors term limits.
One of the biggest problems with our government from local to national level is that those in office spend too little time & effort on doing what is best for the country & way too much doing what will get them re-elected.
WE THE PEOPLE can get this mess fixed! It might not come about for ourselves and maybe not even for our children but if we get to work right away, our grandchildren might have a shot at it.
You took that out of context. I’m not defending the person who spends more than he can afford. To me, that is not Joe Worker. Joe worker (me) has a job. His wife has a job because in reality to properly raise a family and be financially secure both ‘mom and dad’ have to work. (That’s another subject…) I’m a foreman for a mechanical contractor who is a member of Local #140 (Union Pipefitters, Plumbers, Welders, HVAC), I make pretty good money but if ‘they’ are not building then I am not working. My wife manages the place she works at and has a decent salary. Do we have debt? Yes, it’s the American way. A fact of life. I re-financed my house from 27 years to 15 years and am going to save a bunch of money because interest rates were so low. I drive a nice truck, I make loan payments. Boat, loan payments, I have a Cabelas Visa. (reward points for money spent on the card which equals credit towards purchases at Cabelas, pay the full balance every month $40-$150 or so). I’ll stop by Starbucks every now and then. High priced clothes are not my thing unless it’s camo. If I can’t pay cash for something then I don’t have the money, period. (the Cabelas card is an exception, I feel I have the top hand on that). To me that is Joe Worker.
This is just my opinion and I hate politics and religion so I’m on the outside of the box looking in without much of a background to support my opinions so I may be full of crap . lol
You make it sound like this ‘recession’ that we are in is to be blamed on the average worker and the companies deserve no blame. I do agree that Joe ‘immediate gratification of material wants” Worker does exist but only because it’s America, the land of opportunities and credit…I’m not going to point fingers.
You talk of Joe Worker being in debt and spending money on credit. What do you think GM, Chrysler, and Ford are doing right now? The Union workers and their business managers are tweaking their contract to lower wages to keep the companies alive, it’s Joe Worker who just might save their butt. Fannie May, Freddie Mac, American International group,BAC, JP Morgan Chase,Goldman Sachs Group, etc. have recieved federal government ‘credit’ to survive lately. I saw in the paper that the ceo’s of AIG went on a very pricey ‘business trip’ shortly after the bailout hmmm..
If live on credit ‘Joe Worker’ can’t afford to pay his bills how are these GIANT companies going to pay thier bills? Nobody is going to bailout your version of Joe Worker, the fed. gov. can’t bailout every company that Joe Worker works for, hence, the downward spiral. I don’t have any answers, I’m nobody to point blame. This economy has been a long time in the making. It hasn’t affected me (yet) like alot of others but I’m sure in due time in some way I’ll get mine.
So, who does get to take care of the socialist baby?
Toyguy, I’m not arguing with you. I appreciate your post and it makes me think. As much as I hate politics it is interesting the different views that are out there. I could be totally misguided on my thinking of politics but recently it has become a concern. I’m going to grab a beer and watch the outdoor network…
You Wrote::“Joe worker (me) has a job. His wife has a job because in reality to properly raise a family and be financially secure both ‘mom and dad’ have to work. (That’s another subject…)”
I take offense to that comment. My wife has not worked in 5 years since my son was born. She is a stay at home mom and does a damn good job of keeping up on that kind of stuff. She also brings in small amounts of income with her coupon bonanza but it’s only a couple hundred a month. Our grocery bill is 1/8 of a normal family because of what she does. Even on my small income, we live plenty fine. I have a $640/month truck payment, $1190 house payment, $195 4-wheeler, $150 boat payment, $200/month hunting addiction, and insurance for all of that plus normal monthly bills.
One of the main reasons i am ok with it is the dangers in having your children at daycare. Have you seen that BS on the news? I can’t handle that kind of crap. We do just fine with 1 parent working.[;)]
I’m with Brody. I take offense to that statement as well. By your estimation I am not properly raising my family and am not financially secure. I guess I could make a similar (and just as stupid statement) and say, If both parents work then they would rather have a bigger house and more toys then raise their own children. Both statements are just stereotypes that have no factual basis. They are just as wrong as the Joe the worker statement was that you thought was taken out of context.
I agree If more Joe the workers treated debt like your version they would not be losing their houses and we wouldn’t be seeing the economic problems we have today. But the reality is there are far to many people that spend more than they earn. The part that most people have wrong is its not just Joe the worker. There are people from every tax bracket that make stupid financial decisions. It is those people who to put it in your words, are not properly raising their family’s and are not financially secure. For their greed and mistakes we will all end up paying in one way or another.
I have family that is able to watch my kiddos so I don’t have to worry about daycare. Thank goodness…
I meant no offense to anybody but my statement was not referring to you, your neighbor, or the guy down the street. I was talking about society. Financially secure (imo)is having a retirement plan for both of you, college money for your kids, money for emergencies, health insurance,what happens if you lose your job and your wife does not work?
I wasn’t pointing at individual families, I’m glad things are working out for you but as a general rule in this society both parents have to work to make things meet. I was not trying to single anybody out and I’m sorry if offended you Brody but it’s just a in general opinion.
Cableguy, you don’t deserve an apology. You can’t say I offended you and then call me stupid. I found that offensive…
. lol