Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General A Contrived Crisis? - You Decide

Another Simplistic Opinion...

Brother Mick, not only is the party over, but the corporate party planners’ cleanup crews are overwhelmed by the residual mess. They obviously don’t have the resources needed to effectively do their jobs. It appears that the party planning coordinators squandered their working capital.

Nancy, ever hear of the Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000 and the Gramm-Bailey-Leach Act of 1999? In short, these pieces of legislation have played a significant role in our market and lending institution crashes…and thus the domino effect into a severe recession. Our government (Republicans and Democrats) worked in concert with major corporations to construct these legislative acts that have produced the systematic rape of the wealth of our nation…and other nations…without legal accountability or consequences.

Nancy…the days of viewing our political system as conservative, liberal, Republican, Democrat…is history and irrelevant. We now live with a government controlled by Corporatism, regardless of claims by any elected or appointed officials’ party affiliation. They can’t survive without their allegiance to The Corporation. Now you may believe that’s a good thing, but the reality has finally landed square on our heads…our government and corporations have a symbiotic…reciprocal relationship and that is not in the best interest of We The People, and they will leave very deep claw marks if there is any movement to disjoin them.

Talk about a Conspiracy...

Why has government totally ignored addressing and implement laws that would fight and considerably reduce corruption? It would only take 4 reform initiatives to restore sanity to our system.

1. Stop contributions from lobbyists or political action committees,

2. End earmarks,

3. Increase congressional transparency,

4. Support public financing of congressional campaigns.

Obama was elected because of the opposing party’s arrogance, failed financial and economic policies, failed foreign policies, and sheer laziness. But more amazing, despite the obvious failure to deliver sound government…they still won’t fess up. They still cry out their innocents and being victims of circumstance. Uh huh...

That Nancy is called jailhouse mentality…when all of their self-contrived problems are always claimed to be the fault of others. They can’t give it up…they’ll take it to their cold, cold political graves. But they won't be alone...because the did have co-polticial-conspirators.

And Nancy…I’m not a Democrat. I never have been. I guess you can call me a “Recovering Republican”. The party lost its identity and ideologies long ago. The 2000 election was the straw that broke my Republican back. I lived with George Bush as Governor long enough to know of the impending doom.

But, we all know in our hearts that George Bush was but a symptom of a much grander problem.

Contrived Crisis…uh huh…you betcha. But this “contrived crisis” was really designed for the participation and pleasure of the little people. It is a well thought out legal plan that was concocted for a win-win situation for a few (our elected officials and their partners in crime…the corporations who fill their pocketbooks). If the money party happened to continue on for eons…that was “contrived” for a few, super, fantastic, and great. If the party masters got caught with their hands in the party favors…then they were legally removed from accountability.

Certainly, Schlack. A point or two, Nancy. America has a mixed economy. it is market-based (thus not socialist) and can be described charitably as sorta, kinda, freeish, but it is certainly not a "free market" economy. It has been moving away from being sorta freeish for at least a century, and has been moving toward a less freeish economy by the conbined efforts of the Democratic wing and the Republican wing of the Party.

Charles Schumer is a powerful Senator, but he is not powerful enough to whisper and cause the world's financial institutions to shake and fail -- though it would be nice if the good Senator were to shut up and speak no more, forever (to paraphrase Chief Joseph:-)).

The recent contribution of a completely Republican controlled government was engaging in massive borrowing, massive new spending, and growing Leviathan to ever greater dimentions while adding the first new federal entitlement program in decades and engaging in a costly and un-necessary invasion and occupation of the former nationstate of Iraq. All the while the Federal Reserve was pumping out cheap and easy money -- a historical prescription for a credit bubble -- and lenders were scrambling to put it into play where ever there was chance of fast profits.

There is little likelihood of a change in direction because the two political movements in America today are New Left influenced modern 'liberalism' and Nationalist-influenced modern social 'conservatism'. Neither reflects its uncorrupted roots, and both are politically collectivist and thus anti-American.

That suffice, Schlack?:-)
Your Servant,
Issodhos

We are in agreement on this part, AustinRanter. It is symbiotic. Such a relationship is considered a government-corporate alliance which can be best described as soft fascism. It is the preferred system of most any power Establishment.
Yours,
Issodhos

Nancy,

I thought you would enjoy this link. It outlines how we got into this mess, and who did what.

Community Reinvestment Act

From Lone's link:
Good link, Lone!

Yes, I was definitely under the impression that this happened some very long time ago... maybe when the federal reserve was first established... but definitely by the time of FDR.

I realize its really important to fix blame for the current problems. Right now it seems that there are two camps; Republicans and Democrats ('progressive', 'liberal', and 'conservative' seem to have gone away). If I am right then its ALL politics! This is probably too verbose - I apologize in advance.

I tend to believe that we go through periods of re-adjustment. This seems to be when things are perceived, by the electorate, to be out of control and not right to be point of being kinda offensive. I suspect that is what is happening right now. There is an upside. When these things happen a LOT of fat gets sqeezed out of the system - this includes many who were taking advantage. Their money dries up and they get caught. We are seeing a lot of this right now. In this particular case the majority of hard working, bill paying Americans, watched as our financials, with the full connivance of gov, threw our money, and security, into the street and got caught.

No matter how it started we are in it now, right up to our necks. The only way to fix it is to restore faith in the system. I personally don't think this will happen until a few of them in charge of financials get tarred and feathered. Then people can understand that 'bad guys' (irrespective of the the facts) are going to get punished. I suspect that this is one of those situations wherein 'fair' is a dream. We all want blood!

The Republican side is grasping firmly to the side that says that folks with big bucks are being accused when its really not their fault. The Democrats are taking the exact opposite view. In this case the Dems have won this battle and folks are attacking the castle with pitchforks and torches. The Republicans are sitting in the castle deploring the actions of the underclass while defending, with vigor, their 'rights'. This didn't work in 18th century France and its not going to work here.

What I cannot figure out are the people fighting the Obama plan which is, now, reality. ITS THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN! If he fails we ALL fail. The time for fighting it is over. The battle is a little like arguing over the shade of a blue sky. We demanded that somebody do something - Obama did something. This, in spite of those (Republicans) who demanded that NOTHING be done. Now we ALL have to live with it whether we like it or not. If the Republican side continues, and the plan fails, and we are all broke, do they really believe that they are not the ones that will be blamed? Are they so divorced from reality not to understand that they are considered, right or wrong, to be the bad guys? Their current efforts are simply reinforcing that. No matter what happens I suspect they are in trouble. I also suspect the Dems are in not much better shape. The house has proved that they can do business as usual even when not appropriate. I suspect our entire political system is in deep s... They ALL gotta stop acting like the fools (they apparently are), stop the self indulgence, and start doing their jobs!

Another myth that has already been debunked, but is a required belief among our right wing brethern.

See here,

and here,

and finally, here.

The CRA had little, if anything to do with "the mess" we're in.

Nancy you are NOT an economist, not a modern one nor an Austrian one. Neither am I.
But I will tell you this much, the policies engendered by the last seven crops of Congress critters, Dems and Repugs alike, are the reason for our failure.
Like it or not (and I do not) we're about to get a good sized dose of socialism. Either we fail as socialists or we fail as capitalists. We all know now that failed socialists become neocons, despite Perle's protestation to the contrary.

One thing's for sure, we'd better succeed at something, even if it is fomenting another revolution.
Simply standing off to the side and lamenting the evils of one failed political party while lionizing the other hasn't worked yet.
It didn't work for Bill Kristol either, who turned out to be wrong on nearly everything he ever wrote.

Chuck, adding to one of your source links who also published another study CRA of 1977 - "Not Guilty" I would like to add that if you read the article posted by Lone Hawk regarding the CRA...you'll see a chronology of legislative actions (beyond the CRA) that seem to stair-step the the following:

I still reference two legislative acts that clearly are related to our financial woes.

1. Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000

2. Gramm-Bailey-Leach Act of 1999

There are two individuals who have a history of being completely correct about our financial and economic condition and they are:

1. Warren Buffett has been making it well known about the severity of our financial problems since 2003.

In more recent times:

In an interview with Marketwatch, Mr. Buffett labeled derivatives “the financial weapon of mass destruction.” He stated that the derivatives market is approximately $500 Trillion ($500,000,000,000,000). To put things in perspective, the same magazine tells us that America’s gross domestic product (GDP) is around $15 trillion. The GDP of all nations combined is around $50 Trillion. The total value of all the real estate in the world is estimated at $75 Trillion, and the total value of all the world’s stocks is about $100 Trillion. But there is a $500 Trillion market in derivatives!” Obviously derivatives are weapons of mass destruction.

<Snip>

Wall Street Didn't Listen to Buffett. Derivatives grew into a massive bubble, from about $100 trillion to $516 trillion by 2007.

The new derivatives bubble was fueled by five key economic and political trends:

a. Sarbanes-Oxley increased corporate disclosures and government oversight

b. Federal Reserve's cheap money policies created the subprime-housing boom

c. War budgets burdened the U.S. Treasury and future entitlements programs

d. Trade deficits with China and others destroyed the value of the U.S. dollar

e. Oil and commodity rich nations demanding equity payments rather than debt

In short, despite Buffett's clear warnings, a massive new derivatives bubble is driving the domestic and global economies, a bubble that continues growing today parallel with the subprime-credit meltdown triggering a bear-recession.

Data on the five-fold growth of derivatives to $516 trillion in five years comes from the most recent survey by the Bank of International Settlements, the world's clearinghouse for central banks in Basel, Switzerland.


2. Nouriel Roubine, an economics professor at New York University, stood before an audience of economists at the International Monetary Fund and announced that a crisis was brewing. In the coming months and years, he warned, the United States was likely to face a once-in-a-lifetime housing bust, an oil shock, sharply declining consumer confidence and, ultimately, a deep recession.

He laid out a bleak sequence of events: homeowners defaulting on mortgages, trillions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities unraveling worldwide and the global financial system shuddering to a halt. These developments, he went on, could cripple or destroy hedge funds, investment banks and other major financial institutions like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

This man was virtually 100% right...and everybody blew his warnings off.

Our government and Wall Street have had plenty of warnings!