[Choux]

We see the unavoidable death of the so called "Reagan Revolution" started in 1980. We are just days of weeks away from having to have our banking system Nationalized(run by the national government) because of the reckless and unregulated fat cats actions leading to our current failing economic system.

Reagan deregulated some of the banking system soon after he was elected President... deregulation was a cornerstone of the Republican Plan, they didn't want any government regulations "hampering" their business practices whether their practices were dangerous or not.

So, here we sit with gridlock in the credit markets and a stock market in turmoil. The fat cats did what they wanted to make money, put commissions and fees into their pockets and to hell with anyone else. The only solution to calming our and world markets is for Nationalization of our Banking System.

So long Republican Party, so long lunatic fringe, into the dustbin of history you go because of grande malfeasance upon our country.

[Galveston1]

Supply side economics work. That has been proven over a long period. Deregulation has not caused this meltdown. What has caused it is government MEDDLING with the system. Those bankers would NEVER have made those sub-prime loans in the first place were it not for GOVERNMENT insisting on it, and ACORN pushing for it. (After all, EVERYONE should be able to live in a nice home, regardless of their income, right?) Without the push to attempt to make everyone equal in every respect (a Communist idea, I believe), the economy would be working just fine right now!
So you want to elect the community organizer to clean up the mess that he helped create. Good thinking!!

[Choux]

Please don't respond to any of my questions, Gal... you don't seem to know anything.

Thanks. :)

[NeedKarma]

He does exhibit some strong bigotry, I'll admit that.

[Choux]

It's a "girl" who is uneducated. :)

[NeedKarma]

No way! I stand corrected.

[ETWolverine]

Hate to tell you this NK and Chou, but Gal was right on the money. In a previous post I explained how the mortgage crisis came to be. The very existence of Fannie and Freddie was unnecessary, a case of Democratic social engineering. The Community Reinvestment Act was another Democratic attempt at social engineering. The goal of both was to entice and FORCE banks to make loans to people who couldn't afford the loans.

Deregulation had nothing to do with it. It was REGULATION that caused this problem... the government getting into the mortgage business with Fannie and Freddie, and then the government forcing banks to make loans to people who couldn't support those loans under threat of penalties and losing their charter to act as a bank if they didn't.

Had we stuck to the Reagan principals of government stating out of business, none of this would have happened. It is only because government decided to get involved in the mortgage industry that this was able to occur.

Elliot

[BABRAM]

Regulatory guidelines are only as good as the oversight making the regulations stick. Predatory lending with no oversight concerns and irresponsible home buyers made for this combustible combination.

In the US our demand side for oil is so great that in the past it lead to lower prices, but now future conditions of oil prices are proven to be determined by supply side economics. Even if we have some lower demand for oil here in the States, we will still have to get products into ports and people still need to get to work. Until we are not oil dependent, or mostly free of the need for oil, we are in a pickle.

[tomder55]

Or it could be that this takeover of the banking ;and insurance industry was needed for the continued expansion of government.

Let's face it . They cannot fund all their mandates by normal taxation anymore .They have maxed that out. Therefore they arrange for the people to reluctantly agree for them to pick our pockets to "save" the economy from collapse.

They now can sell us insurance at high premiums and buy mortgage obligations low and sell them high. It will be very profitable and make the government enough money to pay for their existing long term liabilities... as well as offer us universal nanny health care .According to Obama it's a right.. don't you know ?

[BABRAM]

McCain's on government insurance. Not that I'm strongly in favor of proposed health care systems. However I'm OK with it if the government makes a marginal profit. They have staff to pay, administration, and if it was able to cover most, if not all, it certainly would be no more than that of privatized health care on the percentages.

[tomder55]

I'll add that to my obligations along with my share of the $$ that goes for Obama's refundable tax credits to people who pay no taxes.

What Obama will do is give me the choice of getting into the nanny state insurance plan or continue with a private market carrier that will quickly be crowded out of the system. But Obama's plan will work much better than the almost bankrupt Medicare .

[Choux]

All bets are off... we are facing a problem worse than the crash of 1929.

We are going to have to work together just to save our economy over the next couple of years.

[BABRAM]

Obama's giving us a choice, although it's hybrid of universal health care (or in effect one link closer in the future). The problem I have with McCain's plan is that you come up short, out of pocket eventually.

[tomder55]

Choux ;now it's worse than 1929 ? Aren't you the one who decries fear as a motivator ? I think you forget that Wall Street chicken-littles are not a real picture of America.Markets never act rationally.Those clowns are just going to have to cut back on their cut back on their $4 lattes and sushi lunches and brown bag it for a while like the rest of America.
There were hundreds of bank closures in the 1980s and there has only been a handful so far in this downturn.
I go by the facts. So far the unemployment rate remains steady .The Chicago PMI (manufacturing data)is steady although factory orders were slightly down.The last consumer confidence report was OK . There is a rapid decrease in the price of oil .IBM posted positive earnings.


Look at Warren Buffet. He is on a buying binge on the market. He just announced that he was going to purchase $3 Billion of preferred GE stock. Before that he invested $5 Billion in Goldman Sachs .I read a real estate investors report that said the spring of 2009 will be the time to jump into new real estate investments. That says to me that the recession will last a year ,maybe less before recovery begins.

[BABRAM]

Gibbons: Special legislative session might be needed - Las Vegas Sun

"Tough economic times are ahead for Nevada and they might force more cuts to the state budget requiring a special session of the Legislature, Gov. Jim Gibbons said Friday.

At a press conference, said with the unemployment rate pushing upward the nation and the state “are in an economic recession and we have to deal with reality.”

The 7.1 percent unemployment rate is expected to rise to 7.5 percent or 7.6 percent by January, he said. And an economic turnaround is 18 months away. The last time Nevada’s jobless rate was higher was in January 1983, when it rose above 10 percent."



Obama-Biden try to shrink the margins - First Read - msnbc.com

"Missouri has its highest unemployment rate in 17 years, and median family income is down some $7,000 during the Bush years. That’s in addition to the ever-deepening financial crisis now swallowing up homes and destroying retirement plans and savings."


WEST ORLANDO NEWS 2008

"Florida’s Economic Woes Continues

In a cascade of events that started with a slow down in the construction industry and trickled down to small businesses, the state’s workforce suffered huge blows. Florida’s unemployment rate is at a 13 year high and exceeds the national average."

[Choux]

Tom, Paulson of the Bush Administration just told America and the world that the American government is going to capitalize American Banks that need saving from the credit crisis.

Another topic, The stock market crash is from *fear*... there is no confidence and trust left and that is what is needed to have a confident stock market.

SOCIALISM SAVES THE AMERICAN BANKING SYSTEM AND THE ECONOMY OF AMERICA.

The Reagan Revolution is dead. Regulation of the banks follows the capitalized banks so they don't get into mischief again by loaning waaaay too much money against comparative meager holdings.

THE REAGAN REVOLUTION IS DEAD.

[ETWolverine]

All bets are off......we are facing a problem worse than the crash of 1929.

That's a pretty harsh statement. And an untruthful one.

We do not have 30% unemployment.
We do not have 30% inflation.
We do not have bread and soup lines.
We do not have people committing suicide because they have gone broke.

Yes we are in for some lean times ahead for a while. But to say that things are worse than in 1929... that's just alarmist ranting.

There are a few differences between now and 1929.

We do not have a protectionist policy that prevents trade.
We have not raised taxes and suppressed industry and jobs.
Construction is still strong.
Our economy is no longer industry-based but rather service-based, which means that a decrease in industrial output will have less effect than it did in the Great Depression.
Monetary policy is still helping to promote growth and keep inflation low.
The government is acting quickly to correct the problems (perhaps too quickly) which it did not do in the Great Depression.

These differences and others are important to the overall picture. They paint a much stronger picture than "worse than 1929".

Elliot

[Choux]

It is all over, Elliot.

Unregulated capitalism in the US has caused the collapse of the US and world economies... all the governments in the WORLD are taking steps to halt the credit crunch which is strangling and destroying commerce. And, which is causing extreme fear and hence the crash of world stock markets.

The Reagan Revolution is over as free market, hand-off capitalism has resulted in the world economic morass we see unfolding before our eyes.

[tomder55]

You call what we have "unregulated " capitalism.. Bwahhaahaaahaaa!

Despite all the hard work and good intentions on the part of our public officials, when economists and historians look back on the current financial crisis they are likely to conclude that government intervention prolonged and deepened it. In particular, officials at the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Treasury Department are to blame for publicly losing confidence in the very economic system they are supposed to protect.
The Fed, the Treasury and the SEC appear to be in a state of panic. A crisis mentality led the custodians of the U.S. capital markets publicly to jettison their lifelong commitments to the capital markets in favor of a series of short-term regulatory quick fixes. Even more troubling, for the past several months the doyens of U.S. fiscal and monetary policy have ignored the most fundamental principle of central banking, which is that the primary responsibility of central bankers is to promote stability and to maintain confidence in the capital markets. Our central bankers appear to have suddenly lost confidence both in their own abilities and in the standard tools of fiscal and monetary policy.
The original Treasury plan -- which called for the transfer of virtually unlimited taxpayer dollars and unlimited spending discretion to Treasury with no judicial or congressional oversight -- sent a very bad signal to the markets. Instead of restoring confidence, this approach to the crisis instilled more fear and panic in the markets.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122367942018324645.html

[ETWolverine]

What do you mean "unregulated capitalism is over"? When did it start?

We have never had unregulated capitalism. It has never existed, because there has never been a government in existence that didn't try to control the markets as a way to maintain and increase its power over the people. The USA is LESS guilty of that than any other form of government in history, but it is hardly innocent.

In a truly unregulated capitalist system, there would be no SEC, no OSHA, no department of labor, no labor laws of any sort, no unemployment insurance, no social security, medicare and medicaid, no government housing, no government employment assistance programs, no regulations on banks, brokerage firms and insurance companies, no taxes on sales or income, and no unions. Any and all of these institutions constitute government regulation and government control over the markets.

So before we write off the idea of unregulated capitalism, why don't we TRY it first?

It is true that the system that we had before this financial crisis is indeed dead. But what has died is a system of government OVER-regulation, government intervention and control. At least I hope it's dead, because if it isn't, these problems will merely repeat themselves every few years as the government's interventions screw up more issues than they solve. As they always do.

Elliot