[paraclete]

That's the problem Oliver, you have an education system that turns out humogenised graduates, no one is allow to be smarter than anyone else and any head that pops up gets slapped with a PHD and winds up teaching. The smart ones don't go into politics and so you get the hacks who are there for privilege and position.

200 years ago men couldn't afford to spend their lives in politics, the distances were too great and there was money to be made. They devised a system where nothing radical could get done. Your system is 200 years old and in that 200 years the volume of legislation is immense and every bill has to be tome because some vested interest wants to staple something to it. You could stop thnt and make every provision face debate, then the politicians would have to work for a living. I notice you have stopped debating the ACA, maybe someone actually got around to reading it.

You want to up the pay, your President gets paid $400000 and found, a corporate president gets paid many times that often with a share of the business. You pays peanuts you gets monkeys. How high can you go for someone who has to sign what someoneelse thinks up when some of the best minds only make a fraction of that. The system is upside down. Yes term limits would be a great start, you limit the term of the President why not every other political appointment right down to local. Lots of shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. No tenure in Universities another good idea. Here's an idea. Limits on campaign funding so a position can't be bought. But all of this is pie in the sky because no one wants the system to change

[Oliver2011]

We all want the system to change. We just file it in the "it's too hard" pile and do nothing. Sad. As far as the Affordable Care Act if this Government runs it, it's anything but affordable. The solution to all of these issues can't be raising taxes and growing the size of the Federal Government. The President had a great idea in every high school graduate should get community college paid for. Just show me how it's done without raising taxes. Big Government kills growth. You made comments earlier how incentives don't work and the wealthy don't spend. I respectfully disagree.

[talaniman]

If a rich guy can buy a politician to grease the wheels of his profits then he can darn well afford to contribute to roads, bridges, and schools that his workers need, all of which creates jobs for ordinary people to make money and buy stuff.

I find it fascinating those that defend the big money banks, and their rich people friends, who crashed the global economy, displaced MILLIONS, destroyed the lives of hard working people, kept us at war defending foreign interests of rich guys, and then claim how hard they worked to earn what they got but don't have to support the needs of the HARD working people who helped them get it.

Rich guys holler about taxes, regulations, and government, and turn around and buy government officials to write the rules they like and cut taxes, and the facts of history says the last 10 years they have help build NOTHING, create nothing, but suck all the cash from everyone's pockets. Still they holler!

Naw, can't listen to hungry kids, but a rich guy gets all your time and attention... and MONEY, while you barely raise a peep about the extra chapstick you buy to kiss their rich butts! Respect is one thing but do you have to slob all over them too?

You want answers and solutions to problems yet it's right in front of our face... make the rich guys work as hard as the rest of us who are trying to survive, as hard as they SAY they work, and not settle for the lip service.

If you think you can teach a guy to fish, and send him to a pond of piss with no fish in it, and expect him to be grateful, then you better think again. Or maybe that's the problem, Americans just ain't thinking anymore.

[tomder55]

Hard to argue with class warfare babble .

who crashed the global economy

no you know better . The government forced them to make home loans to folks that could not afford them . That's the root cause of the financial collapse. Even liberal Rolling Stone Magazine got that one right.

[talaniman]

Now that's babble, since no one forced the bank to make loans they knew people couldn't afford, or forced them to forge ownership documents either.

Big Banks Fined Mega-Billions; CEOs Remain Untouched, Above the Law | NationofChange

Initially the Fed's purchase of these securities was $85 billion per month, a staggering amount, and then in the spring of 2014 it was reduced to $45 billion. What a totally misguided plan that was; it has been called “one of the greatest giveaways” of taxpayer money in U.S history. Now after 5 years and $4 trillion dollars pumped into the banking industry we find that the banks largely sat on the funds instead of initiating the loans as was the intention.
Banks used the funds to nearly triple their stock prices through issuing larger dividends and stock buy-backs. And so the banks made out like bandits and the American people have been the big losers - again. You can get an idea of just how big a failure this Quantitative Easing program has become from this article by a former Federal Reserve executive who managed the program when it was instituted and then walked away after being thoroughly disillusioned by the entirely disingenuous process.

Tell me how hard rich guys work again Tom.

[paraclete]

He can't Tal, he has swallowed the bait hook line and sinker, he truly believes his employer will put his interest first, after all he is a business man. We haven't heard much about the US debt how large is it now? How many times GDP does it represent? The analogy between Greece and the US is not lost on some of us, keep going down the path you are going, it is the path to pain and austerity

[talaniman]

Relax Clete, the US can manipulate currency better than any country in the known world. A lesson Greece has yet to learn.

[tomder55]

no one forced the bank to make loans they knew people couldn't afford

I'll correct myself ... it was the even more progressive 'Village Voice ' that first exposed the REAL reason. Keep in mind that this was written at the height of the melt down when il Duce Cuomo was NY Att General and not our infamous Governor with Federal prosecutors breathing down his neck.

There are as many starting points for the mortgage meltdown as there are fears about how far it has yet to go, but one decisive point of departure is the final years of the Clinton administration, when a kid from Queens without any real banking or real-estate experience was the only man in Washington with the power to regulate the giants of home finance, the Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC), better known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.Andrew Cuomo, the youngest Housing and Urban Development secretary in history, made a series of decisions between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country's current crisis.

Andrew Cuomo and Fannie and Freddie | Village Voice

He turned the Federal Housing Administration mortgage program into a sweetheart lender with sky-high loan ceilings and no money down, and he legalized what a federal judge has branded "kickbacks" to brokers that have fueled the sale of overpriced and unsupportable loans.

According to the article Cuomo used heavy handed methods to brow beat lenders into making loans for the unqualified . He did more to set these forces of unregulated expansion in motion than any other secretary and then boasted about it, presenting his initiatives as crusades for racial and social justice.

While many saw this demand for increasingly "flexible" loan terms and standards as a positive step for low-income and minority families, others warned that they could have potentially dangerous consequences. Franklin Raines, the Fannie chairman and first black CEO of a Fortune 500 company, warned that Cuomo's rules were moving Fannie into risky territory: "We have not been a major presence in the subprime market," he said, "but you can bet that under these goals, we will be." Fannie's chief financial officer, Timothy Howard, said that "making loans to people with less-than-perfect credit" is "something we should do." Cuomo wasn't shy about embracing subprime mortgages as a possible consequence of his goals. "GSE presence in the subprime market could be of significant benefit to lower-income families, minorities, and families living in underserved areas," his report on the new goals noted.

You can read the rest and weep that your progressive goals have unintended consequences that they never take blame or responsibility for .... Instead they go to their tried and true demagoguery of demonizing the rich.

[paraclete]

Relax Clete, the US can manipulate currency better than any country in the known world. A lesson Greece has yet to learn.

Yes Tal size does matter but when that house of cards comes crashing down you take the rest of us with you as the GFC demonstrated. Greece suffers from trying to play with the big boys. Tom is back on the old line of blaming policy and not greed for the GFC, he forgets it was those worthless bonds that destroyed the system, a system based on lies

[tomder55]

like I said .... I'm sourcing one of the most progressive publications in the world as my source.

[paraclete]

Progressive, that's a word I never expected you to speak

[tomder55]

I say it in the pejorative.

[paraclete]

I notice you didn't use the word prestigious.

This is what you really need over there

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-1...elcome/6544434

[paraclete]

The latest news is this crisis is yawn. After all we are only talking about a few billion and what does it matter in the big picture?

[paraclete]

The first stage of default is when you close the banks and restrict access to funds

Greek debt crisis: Banks to remain shut all week - BBC News

This is what the Greek government has reaped by defying its creditors. Political brinkmanship is not pretty when it begins to affect the general population. The calculation is that as the Greek people move to referundum they will do one of two things; rebuke the government for allowing this situation to develop or endorse a break from Europe. This is a people who want to do things their own way. They have lived on OPM so long reality just doesn't exist

[tomder55]

Greece and its principal creditors should acknowledge that Athens will never be able to repay the $ multi-billion it owes, write down its debt and let them exit the euro gracefully. As for the people ; they want lots of government jobs, with early retirement ages, sizeable pensions, and no chance of a reduction in their cost of living....with the rest of Europe picking up the tab .
They vote for politicians who have promised them all that . The US people should take a long hard look.

What is happening there is the inevidible outcome to our progressive policies .The only difference between is that we are bigger and can manage to hang in for a little longer. But the ignorance and stupidity are about the same.

[NeedKarma]

I see Puerto Rico is about to go bust as well:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/29/bu...able.html?_r=2

[paraclete]

ignorance and stupidity are about the same.

Yes Tom it is in the genes, this is where your massive migration from Europe got you, so it is no surprise that the grandchildren are doing exactly the same to you. But don't worry there will soon be a mass exodus back to Greece because it is cheaper to live the good life.

The only reason the greeks should get a write down is fair war reparations from Germany, otherwise you encourage the westrels and cheats

[tomder55]

I see Puerto Rico is about to go bust as well:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/29/bu...able.html?_r=2

Same issue;Puerto Rico’s biggest problem lies with the public sector. When growth was high, the public sector grew too much. They borrowed money to pay for all of that and that’s why they are in they position they are in.

Yes Tom it is in the genes, this is where your massive migration from Europe got you, so it is no surprise that the grandchildren are doing exactly the same to you. But don't worry there will soon be a mass exodus back to Greece because it is cheaper to live the good life.

The only reason the greeks should get a write down is fair war reparations from Germany, otherwise you encourage the westrels and cheats

Yes the best business minds have already gone 'Galt' on the country .

[paraclete]

$72 Billion so Puerto Rica has been doing what any latin country does, spending money. If it is a US territory why hasn't it had the benefit of US largesse? Well the bailout has to come from the US, no one else is responsible and no one else should foot the bill

As to Greece, It is an outpost of the EU, so losing it doesn't affect anything