Re: Secret Assessment

nospam@xxxxxxxx wrote:
On Sat, 18 Apr 2009 18:37:08 -0400, JMark <woof@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The question, did you ask those that propose to "let the banks fail"
if they had anything to lose?, Did they actually tell you they had
nothing to lose? I know we do, and I'm dead set against the bailouts.
I didn't see that question.

that;s fine, but I'm asking now ok

But, in answer, yes. That's where I learned that a couple of different people still favored only the limited protection of the FDIC covering their deposits - as I mentioned. I spoke with several younger than me folks who were somewhat eager to debate calmly - and just flat out felt the banks should be allowed to fail - and asked if they had any pensions or investments that might be lost if the banks were allowed to fail - particularly if that precipitated deflation and depression. One nice fellow said he didn't own bank stock. Others indicated "not really." Others felt that the economy wouldn't fail as long as depositors were insured to the FDIC limit. When I'd then ask if the FDIC would cover them, they said yes.

uneducated about the whole issue, or at least partially so, if not
they would had known little about fhe FDIC and pension , and many
retirement funds

When I had the opportunity to follow-up and ask about people whose investment in the American economy exceeded the FDIC insured funds or were not covered - and who number in the millions - and depend on those investments for their eventual retirement, I didn't get any responses - except one that thought social security might take care of it. A couple of guys about my age lost their cool at either being asked follow-up questions or not being able to answer...don't know for sure. There were a couple of other interesting encounters, but they frayed into democrat versus GOP stuff.

Perhaps those that thought a bailout was good, were just far more
verbal at justifying (to himself) why they thought our grandchildren
should pay for all this bailout, ya know to save grandpas ass now and
to heck with the grandkids future.
Those who I described earlier who appeared mostly older favored a bailout but not a blank check didn't necessarily want their kids and grandkids to have to pay the piper and also weren't happy about possibly not being able to pass on a little something to their offspring. I didn't see or speak to any younger folks who even appeared concerned about those two aspects of loss.

there is a big gap IMO. the only "mostly" older in favor of this mess
with any amount of what I consider to me money, are democrat, the
other older republican with what I consider money were dead set
against the bailout, but know the risk batter than I, they seem to
have more "land worth" than investment in stocks, so maybe there lies
the difference, I personally only know a couple folks with greater
worth than I mention above, one is a die hard right wing that owes
nothing, Die hard American, would die for his country at the drop of
a dime.

I don't readily monitor party affiliation or die-hard status. But, there's an old coot who fits who you describe above that I have known for almost 30 years. He served in the Navy, owns a lot of property and probably has coffee cans filled with cash buried all over the place. The first time he received a personal property assessment from the county for the contents of his office - he was raging about busting up county benches to get his revenge. He listens to conservative radio broadcasts religiously. His latest cute expression was something like OBAMA - "one bad assed mistake after another" - or maybe "again" - I forget. At first in any discussion, Obama is absolutely personally responsible for every thing that this man disagrees with. When pressed, he'll spread the venom to Pelosi who he also personally despises. Aside from the fact that this man has some problems with regard to race and also has a fairly low opinion of women (including his wife of almost 50 years), when pressed he admits we cannot let the financial system collapse and understands this would not be in his best interests. But at first contact, he gives the impression he is against any bailout - period. It's an illusion. And what's not really funny is that he is so wrapped up in liquidity and keeping control of everything that he fails to see that Uncle Sam and the state he lives in are going to take a lion's share of his estate - even if he died last year, right now or in 2010 - because he's focused on raging. He rages outside about the time while refusing to look beyond the bezel and face plate to see how the watch actually works.

What is he really pissed off about? He resents having to pay for the frivolity and excesses of others who enjoyed the high life and took unnecessary risks while he was being restrained, prudent and frugal. Hell, I felt the same way when the S&L crisis hit a couple of decades ago - and I am more than dismayed that many of the reasons for that crisis were repeated again and the regulation identified as necessary to prevent another such crisis was never properly implemented or discarded.

Shortsightedness, greed and irresponsibility is practiced by democrats, republicans and folks some might describe as die-hard Americans. Our nation's history is replete with such people.


me, I knew it was going to come to an end eventually, if anyone
thought differently they are foolish, there is only so many times
profit can be made, it can only be split so many times, prices can
only go so high on any item, be it cars, clothing, housing, food.

The 60-Minutes interview with Bernanke was telling in that he mentioned all the foreign money being invested in America - private money.

Bernanke - "Well, a lot of mistakes got made. No question about it. But, you know, this was a much bigger thing than any single firm or any single individual," Bernanke replied. "Over the last dozen years or so, enormous amounts of savings has flowed into the United States, and some other industrial countries. That savings has come from China and East Asia. It's come from oil producers. And hundreds of billions of dollars, it has come into our financial system. And, you know, that would be great if we took that money and invested it wisely, and got a high return. But instead, our financial system didn't do a good job. We had a regulatory system that was like a sandcastle on the beach..."

Boatloads of money being invested in - or through financial firms within - a country whose economy was 80% service sector and a country that depends on cheap energy. The only game was derivative paper and real estate. This apparently contributed to the excessiveness of the "bubble".


Many of these items have hit it's limits, it had to crash sometime, if
not now, it wont be long before we see a total collapse. in the mean
time, we have more spending on bull*** (agreeing it has been approved
from both stupid sides) spending that is doing nothing for the gov and
our immediate economy.

The average American will bitch when his roads and other infrastructure are failing - and really bitch when he gets the bill to fix it.

Car companies can't compete, jobs get outsourced overseas, school and civil infrastructure remains underfunded and manufacturing costs are too high to sustain the overall industry - why? The cost of labor maybe?

Big question - if we give money for infrastructure - will it go toward building something? I've got neighbors who work for the local school board and friends who still work in civil service. The chunk of their annual budgets spent on employees is staggering in relation to the overall budgets. They have fair pay, cost of living increases, generous pension plans, good medical benefits and generous holiday and vacation allowances.

now we have the whole media bashing of the fair tax, in an way I don;t
blame them (at least the left sided media) think of that for a second,
as good as the fair tax may be, and I think it is good even though it
still needs work, (we can get to that reason later) but to name the
rallies a Tea party was just begging to get fucked with by the media,
IMHO another stupid stunt by the supporters of the fair tax, it was a
great way to ruin any support they could possibly get from the
left.......




--
Screw Spell checkers, Deal with it or tno.........



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JMark
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