My post on another forum - feedback?

[rp4prez]

So below is my post on another forum called constantchatter.com. These people I really don't think get it and besides they are fairly rude with some of their responses. I don't really mind I really think they should hear a different point of view. What would be totally awesome if someone(s) joined the forum and supported me!

I hear ya Miel. My great aunt lived during the depression and wonders if we're heading there again. Even if we're not, she thinks this is going to be the worst recession since then.

The depression was unnecessarily long due to government intervention like this bail out is a huge intervention. Just think what we could do with $700 billion instead of giving it to businesses who made poor choices and should go out of business.

If you look back at history there have always been "super power" countries. But they don't remain super powers. Some of them are #1 (or #2) for mere centuries. I am wondering if our children and grandchildren will witness America becoming a second world power. Who will overtake us? China? I honestly don't know enough to guess, but I'm curious as to what other people think.

In my opinion instead of wondering who will over take us maybe asking the questions as to what the reasons were behind the fall of super powers and what are the reasons behind the fall of the US as the only super power.

Yes, it will be China. In some ways, they have already put the ball in motion.

No thanks to our monetary policy they will be able to over take us.

The thing is, it's not so bad not to be a superpower country if one is not engaged in mass wars or shortages. People in France might have a chip on their shoulder but they are doing OK. My main worry is really about the ecological issues and the fight for resources that will result. This will be a while from now--40-70 years. We'll be old and it will be gradual. I hope it settles out in a way that leaves everyone here with enough to get by and not suffering from deprivation or violence.

In my opinion if the government would get out of the market place there would be much more innovation and America would be the innovation king in the up coming green revolution. The free market is a great thing but when government gets involved it become socialist and fascists, which is not good for the market as we are seeing.

The U.S. is not going to remain the world's greatest power for long. That's just how it is. It really is due to our own actions. We might want to blame others but it is the result of U.S. choices, U.S. hubris, U.S. shortsightedness. Ask anyone who's read a lot of history what they think is going to happen and this is what they say. Nothing gives you a greater ability to see the future than looking at the past.

So change our actions! Get out there and vote for people that aren't going to institute huge government programs, spend more money on wasteful government departments, and a foreign policy that has already bankrupted our country.

Yes, largely by buying up our massive national debt. Being anti-war is not only about being anti-war, it's also about stopping the insane spending that is massively increasing our vulnerability.

Being anti-war is a lot more to me than just not going to war. It's a whole foreign policy issue. I don't believe in having our troops all over the world. Just imagine if we let the world do things for themselves and we took care of ourselves first? Just think of all the money we would save! Would the rest of the world resent us for leaving their country? I would imagine they wouldn't. They might actually LIKE it. Then we could take the trillion or so dollars that is spent all over the world and spend it here on Americans! Just think of all the bad ass stuff we could do with a trillion dollars a year to spend on us? No more taxes! How awesome would that be?! No more income tax. Just think of what YOU could do without having to pay all those taxes. Holy cow!

I will say that I have never really not trusted my bank accounts, but even with my basic savings / checking, I am starting to have small bits of doubt. It makes me start getting mad that there is even a slight risk that I might lose my money due to the bad decision making of others. I don't like government bail outs, but I get that they probably have to happen to avoid catastrophic scenarios.

Love to learn more & hear more thoughts...

Knowledge is your best friend in times like this. There are a TON of resources out there on the net for you to look up and read more about alternatives to the monetary policy that we have and why our financial system is crashing and how to avoid it. The coming melt down, although not a good thing, is IMO unavoidable and a good thing! This bail out is horrible. They just want to re inflate the bubble with the same practices that inflated it the last time. What good does that do? The market needs to liquidate before anything starts to turn around. The market is WAY bigger than the government and no matter how many bail outs there are we are in for hurt. More money that is thrown at this problem devalues our dollar, we lose the right to be the reserve currency of the world, and we get into an even bigger problem. You can’t always throw money at something to solve it.

Look at the downturn after WWI. Nothing was done after that bubble bursts and in a year things where back to normal. Then came the roaring twenties with easy money and then the big bust in `29. It lasted over 10 years because of the government's intervention keeping prices high. Just like now they want to pass this bail out to keep housing prices high instead of letting the market correct its self.

You won't lose the money in the bank. But there could be large scale unemployment at some point. The economy might become unable to grow. Prices will go up. So you will lose money that way. Your money is protected. Now, if the government is unable to live up to its FDIC promise, that's a catastrophe beyond even the worst projections. But that probably won't happen.

Be glad that JP Morgan bought WaMu otherwise you wouldn't have seen a dime as the FDIC didn't have enough money. Sure they would have printed it but by the time you would get your money it would be worth less than it was a few days before because they would have had to print billions more.

Gramm essentially had a massive deregulation party - which is the main reason we're drowning in the subprime mortgage mess.

Someone said there could be a huge debate about regulation vs deregulation. I am in support of deregulation and then let the market flush out the crooks and bad deals. It happens all the time. Just look now. The market wants to flush out all the bad loans and businesses that made tons of poor choices by them going out of business. If you don't punish those that make poor choices then how is the good guy (you and me) going to get ahead? I tell you what lets reward those who should go out of business! I know that's EXACTLY what I learned when I was a kid. Every time I did something terrible like lied to my parents I got rewarded for my poor behavior! It doesn't work things will only get worse just like your kids behavior if you don't let them learn from their mistakes.

I'm just really scared about what's going to happen in this country. We can't afford another 4 years of politicians in the tank for corporations at the expense of Americans. With an advisor like Gramm - does anyone really expect that McCain will be able to clean this up if he's elected?

I would suggest looking at third party. Do you feel your vote is going to be wasted by voting for someone that others say doesn't have a chance to win? If you answer yes to this then there really isn't any hope. Voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil. I say vote your heart and look at all the candidates. You don't like anyone running on the ballot write someone in you do like. Voting is WAY to important to vote down one line or another or vote for the lesser of two evils.

It really depends. If it's just a drop, then yes, let's ride it out. But it doesn't seem that--if it is going to lead to 10 years of stagflation or something--that this would be far sighted.

I strongly believe that it would only be more than 10 years of bad times IF the government keeps intervening in the markets in the myriad of ways it does. The free market is not a place our government should be!

Taking the long view, markets must be stabilized by the govt. They should be stabilized by (limited) regulation and oversight. They weren't. In balance, an economic collapse will cost the federal government much, much more than limited intervention in lost tax revenue, etc. It isn't a matter of picking b/t good programs and bad if the entire economy is at stake because the wave of losses will sweep through everything. It's not like--spend over here and save over there because there won't be anything that is left untouched. The number of people out of work, the number of foreclosures, etc. will be an enormous drag on the economy, sucking everything down with it.

That's just it the markets are TRYING to balance themselves! The government stabilizing won't solve the bigger problem. The market will _still_ be unbalanced if the government does something. They are trying to keep the bubble inflated and that isn't balance. I agree with you that it's going to suck if they do nothing but the bad investments need to be liquidated not bought up by the government.

Some people argue that the govt. itself is insolvent. I mean, you hear a lot of fairly disturbing things. You really don't want to see a total loss of all investor confidence in the United States itself. It won't be pretty, believe me.

If you do see the govt. bailing out more firms then you can pretty much assume that the President and others have been told by (what they regard as) reputable economists that the failure to do so will result in a massive, deep and long term recession. A depression, essentially.

I don't think this time it's like bailing out Chrysler. What they are trying to avoid is the domino effect. Worldwide recession.

One scenario is that ONE THOUSAND BANKS might fail and the FDIC can't guarantee the funds.

AIG could be a one trillion dollar bankruptcy.

Issues with Morgan Stanley

This is not a limited phenomenon.

I believe it's all due to artificially lower than market interest rates. Look at what Greenspan did after the dot com bust. He kept rates lower than the market wanted and poof we have a housing bubble. It finally busted and now they want to continue it?! Look at Lehman Brothers they went bust. Did the world fall apart? Nope. Did their assets get liquidated? Yep. Would it be bad if these businesses went under like you suggest? Probably. But what would be worse? Bailing them out with 100s if not trillions of YOUR dollars and thereby passing along all that debt to our children, their children, and their children? Also, by printing all of this new money to do all the bailouts it devalues the dollar and makes our currency worth less and less and makes other countries not want to invest in the dollar and unload them. It would be horrible to lose the status as the reserve currency. And that's what I worry about.

Hey, Can you explain what you know about Sarbanes Oxley? I've heard bad things about it from a number of quarters but I doubt it is responsible for all this.

I don't believe it is the reason for our problems now. However, it didn't help business. The government after Enron thought it would be a good thing to intervene in businesses to make sure Enron doesn't happen again. Made everyone feel all comfy or something stupid like that. The problem is that a few bad apples ruined it for the whole bushel! The market actually worked in the case of Enron. Was Enron a bad thing. Yep it sure was. How did the market react to the bad things Enron was doing? It put them out of business!! They liquidated all their assets and everyone moved on. This is what is not being allowed right now with this bail out. Can you imagine if Enron was bailed out and was able to keep on doing all the bad things they were doing? That is essentially what is happening with this bail out in Congress right now. But SOX was introduced to prevent Enron and cost American businesses I would suspect BILLIONS of dollars a year that could be spent on new jobs, innovation, and a multitude of different things other than regulations. It really hurts American businesses if you ask me and needs to be revoked.

If I can explain Sarbanes Oxley I would be rich. But basically S/O came about after the whole Enron debacle. Enron and other companies fudged their year end revenue numbers through some creative accounting and just outward lies. This made it impossible for investors to make an informed decision on investing in the company because the numbers were wrong. S/O is a series of federal regulations that protects the investor and basically the CEO of the company is suppose to sign off on the financial reports saying that they are correct. But like anything the government does it's complex.

Funny.. so are you suggesting the government came in to save their buddies (i.e. the investors) from losing money? Wow that sounds familiar. Oh I don't know but isn't that what they are doing now with this huge $700 billion bail out? If I were you I'd be mad as hell.

This current situation came about from deregulation not more regulation.

I would completely disagree with this. It came about not because of deregulation but bad business practices and easy money. Businesses and individuals that make bad decisions in deregulation times need to learn from their mistakes. The free market takes care of those businesses and individuals that make bad decisions. They either go out of business or declare bankruptcy. Regulation only causes more headaches and hinders things in the long run. Just look at the quote below about your DH and hopefully you'll see my point about regulation.

People dislike S/O because companies had to spend time and money to make sure they are in compliance. DH works in IT and his company had to rework their system to meet S/O. DH was in charge of the project and let me tell you he was not a happy camper. Accountants and business schools had to switch gears to retrain and teach S/O regulation also.

Oh, I forgot to mention an additional problem:

The U.S. might be going broke

All I can say is that this election matters, no matter who you are. Even if you think you are in an invincible economic sector (which would only be oil), you must have family and friends who could suffer. Vote your conscience.

The US has been broke ever since August 15, 1971 when we went off the gold standard and went to a fiat monetary policy. Yes I have family and friends that would be hurt (including myself) by a huge downturn. But family and friends will work together to support each other in bad times. It's not the end of the world. Just the market balancing its self like it needs to be because the Market is vastly larger than the government.

I hope I didn't offend anyone here with my responses. That's not my intention. Just giving a different point of view that I didn't read in this thread. If you want to learn more about the current bail out I would suggest the following web sites.

http://mises.org/story/3128
http://nocashfortrash.org/

Thanks for reading.

 

[Indy Vidual]

Is it a large or small forum?

 

[rp4prez]

Is it a large or small forum?

It's fairly large... Mostly liberals, mostly average Americans, middle income with families.

 

[HOLLYWOOD]

go to DEMOCRACY UNDERGROUND


plenty of LIBERALS that attack RP

 

[rp4prez]

go to DEMOCRACY UNDERGROUND


plenty of LIBERALS that attack RP

lol.. yeah but I think that some of the people on the forum that I'm arguing on actually have a chance of changing their mind if they only "hear" the truth... that is if they want to "hear" it.