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Post by mikemarshall on Jan 6, 2009 19:09:44 GMT
Is the current economic crisis in which we find ourselves largely the result of stupidity and chance or is it in reality the result of a carefully planned hidden agenda?
Has the tumbling world situation happened simply through greed and mismanagement or is it something that was positively desired and worked towards by people who knew exactly what they were doing and are delighted by their success?
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Post by mcgruff on Jan 6, 2009 19:21:47 GMT
I voted for incomptence but as I think about it some more it could be a mixture of things
The goal of the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01 wasn't really to kill all those people but to wreck not only the U.S. economy but globally as well
That coupled with America's knee jerk reaction to the attacks by invading a country that never attacked us added to the stupidity
Jeff
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Post by beth on Jan 6, 2009 23:13:54 GMT
Is the current economic crisis in which we find ourselves largely the result of stupidity and chance or is it in reality the result of a carefully planned hidden agenda? Has the tumbling world situation happened simply through greed and mismanagement or is it something that was positively desired and worked towards by people who knew exactly what they were doing and are delighted by their success? I think incompetence is the best of the choices, but it also stemmed from the usual right-wing priorities - greed and an agenda that focused on shoring up the corporate wealth. Loosening regulations and getting rid of guidelines set up to prevent the rape of the nation were clues to what we could expect. I also agree with Jeff that the WTC was chosen for the 9/11 attacks as a signal that the target was the U.S. economy. One has to wonder if those behind that knew the neo-con goals and arrogance would lead us deeply into a middle east quagmire that would drain us.
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Post by cammie on Jan 7, 2009 4:26:40 GMT
Illegal immigrants not paying taxes and overburdening our US welfare system has played a big part in our economic downslide. Spending 10 billion a month to rebuild Iraq is a total waste of money- while Americans go hungry and homeless. The three Bushwack stooges blew the hinges off the border doors welcoming anything that could swim, walk, crawl or creep onto US soil stay and partake of benefits.
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Post by drewsmom595 on Jan 7, 2009 11:19:44 GMT
I think the reasons for financial crisis are more than just misfortune and incompetence, but that's what I voted for. Greed is a big factor that wasn't an option. Political pressure to relax housing loan standards that goes back several presidential administrations (at least to Carter) is another. The out of whack executive pay vs. regular joe pay is another here in America.
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Post by sandywinder on Jan 7, 2009 12:11:36 GMT
I think to imagine that this was intended in anyway is granting far too much intelligence to our politicians. They are clueless and I genuinely believe you could pick any five people up off the street and they couldn't do a worse job than most politicians. We should bypass the political system and give people the vote on all the major issues, as long as there is a fair but thorough televised debate beforehand.
How many people would vote to shackle their children with huge debts and swingeing taxes as politicians are so eager to do?
And if the people got a decision wrong they would have nobody to blame but themselves.
People are naturally greedy and they are also criminal if allowed to be so but most people would vote for banks, for example, to be properly regulated (unlike our lobbied politicians) so there would be much less chance of fraud and this highly risky financial dealing.
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Post by iamjumbo on Jan 7, 2009 15:47:23 GMT
Is the current economic crisis in which we find ourselves largely the result of stupidity and chance or is it in reality the result of a carefully planned hidden agenda? Has the tumbling world situation happened simply through greed and mismanagement or is it something that was positively desired and worked towards by people who knew exactly what they were doing and are delighted by their success? I think incompetence is the best of the choices, but it also stemmed from the usual right-wing priorities - greed and an agenda that focused on shoring up the corporate wealth. Loosening regulations and getting rid of guidelines set up to prevent the rape of the nation were clues to what we could expect. I also agree with Jeff that the WTC was chosen for the 9/11 attacks as a signal that the target was the U.S. economy. One has to wonder if those behind that knew the neo-con goals and arrogance would lead us deeply into a middle east quagmire that would drain us. true. the blatantly immoral laizze faire attitude is the sole reason for the problem. of course, the stupidity of the masses in allowing government to propogate it also contributed. the trash behind 9/11 are not intelligent enough to foresee the invasion of iraq and plan on it. the wtc attack was an effort to hurt the economy. the pentagon attack was trying to show power that they never had.
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Post by iamjumbo on Jan 7, 2009 15:51:23 GMT
Illegal immigrants not paying taxes and overburdening our US welfare system has played a big part in our economic downslide. Spending 10 billion a month to rebuild Iraq is a total waste of money- while Americans go hungry and homeless. The three Bushwack stooges blew the hinges off the border doors welcoming anything that could swim, walk, crawl or creep onto US soil stay and partake of benefits. you're right about most of it, but the FACT is that illegals have NOT been able to get welfare or food stamps since the welfare reform act was passed. they do manage to get medical care though, because it is illegal for an er to just turn anyone away, as it should be
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Post by iamjumbo on Jan 7, 2009 16:30:57 GMT
I think to imagine that this was intended in anyway is granting far too much intelligence to our politicians. They are clueless and I genuinely believe you could pick any five people up off the street and they couldn't do a worse job than most politicians. We should bypass the political system and give people the vote on all the major issues, as long as there is a fair but thorough televised debate beforehand. How many people would vote to shackle their children with huge debts and swingeing taxes as politicians are so eager to do? And if the people got a decision wrong they would have nobody to blame but themselves. People are naturally greedy and they are also criminal if allowed to be so but most people would vote for banks, for example, to be properly regulated (unlike our lobbied politicians) so there would be much less chance of fraud and this highly risky financial dealing. the politicians did not create it, they allowed it. the simple fact is that the perversion of capitalism is what happened. ken lay and dennis koslowski are the rule rather than the exceotion. instead of properly regulating corpoations, as is the function of government, the rightwing lunatics who have controlled the country for most of the past three decades have unraveled what little regulation was in place and allowed corporations to run rampant. allowing exxon mobil to make $50 billion quarterly profit while outright robbing the people with four dollar gas is a classic example. allowing ANYcorporate ceo or manager to get 2 or 3 million plus, while laying off thousands of real people and running companies into the ground is another one
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Post by sandywinder on Jan 7, 2009 18:23:09 GMT
Yes it was the abuse of capitalism - just as rape is the abuse of sex. Let's hope governments don't deregulate sex crimes. In the US the worst deregulation of banks was the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 by the Clinton Administration. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass-Steagall_ActThis was not just allowing abuse it was positively encouraging it. In the UK the worst deregulation was carried out in 1997 by Gordon Brown (a socialist) when he took powers away from the bank of England and handed them over to a worse than useless FSA.
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Post by iamjumbo on Jan 7, 2009 18:42:47 GMT
Yes it was the abuse of capitalism - just as rape is the abuse of sex. Let's hope governments don't deregulate sex crimes. In the US the worst deregulation of banks was the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 by the Clinton Administration. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass-Steagall_ActThis was not just allowing abuse it was positively encouraging it. In the UK the worst deregulation was carried out in 1997 by Gordon Brown (a socialist) when he took powers away from the bank of England and handed them over to a worse than useless FSA. for sure, bill pulled the biggest betrayal of the american people by passing nafta, which is the most unamerican legislation ever passed. of course, it was a republican idea. however, he also built the largest budget surplus in history, which dumbya turned into the biggest deficit
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Post by DAS (formerly BushAdmirer) on Apr 11, 2009 0:23:47 GMT
This is a worldwide recession. You can't blame President Bush for this one.
Any time there is a big bubble (as with real estate prices going up much faster than general inflation) you can bet that the bubble is going to burst. That's exactly what's happened.
Prices of flats in London and houses in San Diego need to come down another 30 to 40 percent for this to balance out.
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Post by Liberator on Apr 13, 2009 0:39:15 GMT
It should have happened 30 years ago. It did not because Reagan-Thatcher gave an outdated system a false lease of life and stranglehold over the population. It could have been avoided if a lot of 60s ideals that the Women's Movement added to Socialism had ever come to pass.
Up to a point, traditional Capitlism did a fine job of satisfying needs and improving conditions. Then it got that development becomes prohibitively expensive and almost certain for somebody else to make minor improvements and overtake you. If products are too good you can't keep on selling them. By the early 50s, General Motors was reducing production quality and making cars subject to fashion, while the US government realised that the only way to stimulate research was through the military and later NASA. Japan was and is operating a 100-year plan for economic world domination - a sort of national paranoia that only in domination lies safety. I guess that's how you feel lying offshore of the Great Chinese Dragon.
By the 70s a lot was going wrong. There was less need for a labour force to fulfill needs than ever before and it had just been swollen with women who would never have previously expected to work. The obvious thing would have been to take vast amounts of necessary services over as Socialist provision and reduce the labour demand for them so that necessary work became negligible and then increase social provision and scientific research to develop the leisure society.
Instead of supporting traditional mass employment that took no account of family commitments and women had spent from about 1860 to 1960 extricating themselves from, it should have been replaced altogether with a society that gave equal value to women's concerns concerning home life and children and made them equally men's concerns, indeed the [u[central[/u] concerns that everything else exists to support.
Of course the opposite happened and those aspects of Feminism that brought women into the status quo were encouraged while those that threatened change and brought men out were ridiculed. The dying dragon kept itself alive by eating itself. Emphasis shifted from wealth to money. Seeds for the present disaster were sown in the asset-stripping financial fiddling 80s Yuppy period backed up by property inflation. Emphasis shifted from expecting to make a profit from fulfilling needs and demands to creating demand or playing the Exchanges to make a profit. At the same time, the need to be employed increased even though most of the employment was unnecesary make-work.
Whatever we imagine about Communism, the only real difference between the Soviet requirement to be employed (if only in a labour camp) and extreme Rightist loathing of social security (which was unnecessary in the USSR as none may be parasites) is that the former was a much more rigid version. Since it was more rigid, it faced the problem of putting the employment cart before the productive horse earlier and could not cope. 'We' bent the system and invented ways to make money that did not make wealth, so took longer to reach the same crash.
It was going to happen anyway. It was overdue. The later it happens, the worse it is. It may not have happened yet. This could be only the start of a process unravelling the whole Vicctorian edifice. We depend for real sustenance on cheap imports from distant poor nations. They could decide that it's more worth their while to keep it to themselves.
Societies do not usually change. Looked at closely, what looks like change is much more often replacement. The old carries on withering away slowly while the new grows over its ashes. Marx was dead wrong about that one! The reality of revolution is that it more often obstructs change than promotes it, by imposing ready-made ideas of its time rigidly that become increasingly out-dated. Orwell was right, perhaps for the wrong reasins: it is the nature of people to continue with the familiar but under new revolutionary slogans, so that those slogans lose their progressive sense and instead become used to oppose true evolution because it has already been achieved.
We can expect the new society (if one develops) to value production over earnings, to emphasise the local and personal, to expect 'work' to be responsive to personal needs and commitments, both in what it provides and in how it is organised. We can hope to regain our humanity. Or perhaps we can't, but developing countries can seee where we have gone and avoid it.
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Post by chefmate on Apr 13, 2009 5:16:28 GMT
Illegal immigrants not paying taxes and overburdening our US welfare system has played a big part in our economic downslide. Spending 10 billion a month to rebuild Iraq is a total waste of money- while Americans go hungry and homeless. The three Bushwack stooges blew the hinges off the border doors welcoming anything that could swim, walk, crawl or creep onto US soil stay and partake of benefits. you're right about most of it, but the FACT is that illegals have NOT been able to get welfare or food stamps since the welfare reform act was passed. they do manage to get medical care though, because it is illegal for an er to just turn anyone away, as it should be I don't believe we owe them anything and certainly no medical; there are far to many ER rooms closing in California because of the illegal problem. I don't care if they die in the streets.....I would step over the dead worthless bodies and be glad it is one less illegal we have to support.
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Post by mouse on Apr 13, 2009 15:55:00 GMT
you're right about most of it, but the FACT is that illegals have NOT been able to get welfare or food stamps since the welfare reform act was passed. they do manage to get medical care though, because it is illegal for an er to just turn anyone away, as it should be I don't believe we owe them anything and certainly no medical; there are far to many ER rooms closing in California because of the illegal problem. I don't care if they die in the streets.....I would step over the dead worthless bodies and be glad it is one less illegal we have to support. me too.. but for the poll i have ticked deliberate..in that corrup practise and out right greed are a deliberate road that some chose to follow also our uk gov sat back and did NOTHING...HANG THEM AND THE ILEGALS WITH THEM
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Post by trubble on Apr 13, 2009 20:24:59 GMT
deliberate in that corrupt practise and out right greed are a deliberate road that some chose to follow very true imo. But I have ticked incompetence. The choice was deliberately engineered action and I don't think this particular recession was intended.
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Post by june on Apr 13, 2009 21:24:11 GMT
I don't believe we owe them anything and certainly no medical; there are far to many ER rooms closing in California because of the illegal problem. I don't care if they die in the streets.....I would step over the dead worthless bodies and be glad it is one less illegal we have to support. me too.. but for the poll i have ticked deliberate..in that corrup practise and out right greed are a deliberate road that some chose to follow also our uk gov sat back and did NOTHING...HANG THEM AND THE ILEGALS WITH THEM Quite, how dare they try and improve the lives of themselves and their families. Even better let's just exterminate anyone we don't consider 'quite right'. I vote for women over 59 - I mean they will only be claiming pensions that us tax payers have to support and dithering about in Supermarkets and the post office. What have they done for the economy lately? Take take take that is all they will be doing after 59
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Post by Liberator on Apr 13, 2009 21:42:44 GMT
You'll have to raise that age June - now that we have ever-increasing automation and less need for productive labour, women can damned well work as long as men and let's extend the age for both to 70. In fact let's offer the opportunity to work till they drop if their life job has paid too little to afford a decent private pension (or the boss made off with it). After all, the Old Age Pension was 100 years old last year, so surely it's out of date by now?
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Post by june on Apr 13, 2009 22:13:48 GMT
You'll have to raise that age June - now that we have ever-increasing automation and less need for productive labour, women can damned well work as long as men and let's extend the age for both to 70. In fact let's offer the opportunity to work till they drop if their life job has paid too little to afford a decent private pension (or the boss made off with it). After all, the Old Age Pension was 100 years old last year, so surely it's out of date by now? good idea Rat! ;D
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Post by mouse on Apr 13, 2009 22:17:50 GMT
me too.. but for the poll i have ticked deliberate..in that corrup practise and out right greed are a deliberate road that some chose to follow also our uk gov sat back and did NOTHING...HANG THEM AND THE ILEGALS WITH THEM Quite, how dare they try and improve the lives of themselves and their families. Even better let's just exterminate anyone we don't consider 'quite right'. I vote for women over 59 - I mean they will only be claiming pensions that us tax payers have to support and dithering about in Supermarkets and the post office. What have they done for the economy lately? Take take take that is all they will be doing after 59 ehh!!!how are greed greed and corruption tied into ""anything we dont consider quite right"""and how is ilegal entry tied to womens pensions??
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