Many Americans feel economy isn't improving

Discussion in 'Current Events' started by Professor Peabody, Dec 29, 2013.

  1. Jonsa

    Jonsa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    and now the semantic excuse. You call it near I call it nowhere near near. Fact is, that home ownership rates are not at historic lows. Even after the disaster of all those idiotic NINJA mortgages, and the fiasco of the collapse, ownership levels are STILL not at record lows.

    Must bug the crap outta some on the right, tho.
     
  2. bomac

    bomac New Member Past Donor

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    More hyperbole. The right is losing the argument.
     
  3. Iriemon

    Iriemon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    No

    How strawman of you. I can do it too.

    You want women and children and the elderly to starve to death so that guys like Romney can pay even lower taxes on his $20 million annual income than the absurdly low 14% rate he pays in taxes?

    How immoral of you.
     
  4. MolonLabe2009

    MolonLabe2009 Banned

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    This is not even the same argument.

    People keeping more of their OWN money is not immoral.

    People expecting other people to pay for their things is immoral.

    Do you understand now????
     
  5. Iriemon

    Iriemon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It sure can be, when you have "trickle down" policies geared towards diverting more and more of our nation's income and wealth into the hands of a very few, and people dying from starvation because of it.
     
  6. Professor Peabody

    Professor Peabody Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    PLEASE! Unemployment is at 7% and dropping with millions and millions of jobs created. With all those jobs out there who's starving? The Economy is booming. Which is it? Things are bad and folks are starving, meaning the Obama administration is lying to us....AGAIN. Or is the Economy BOOMING with plenty of jobs for all who want one?
     
  7. Iriemon

    Iriemon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Feel free to quote where I've ever claimed the economy is booming. 7% unemployment is too high and we still have millions more people who want a job than there are jobs out there.

    You are typically one of the leaders of the doom and gloomers telling us how much the economy sucks, with those invested in failure for political purposes. Why the sudden change in your view?
     
  8. Professor Peabody

    Professor Peabody Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    So do you admit Obamanomics has failed?

    Go back and re-read mys post I asked a question.

    1) Things are bad and folks are starving, meaning the Obama administration is lying to us....AGAIN.
    2) Or is the Economy BOOMING with plenty of jobs for all who want one?
     
  9. Iriemon

    Iriemon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    No. So you admit you failed to find a quote where I claimed the economy was booming?

    Go back and re-read mys post I asked a question.

    Who claimed folks are starving and how did the Obama adminsitration lie?

    Those are the only two options in your strange world? People are starving or the economy is BOOMING?
     
  10. Quantumhead

    Quantumhead New Member

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    The cause has nothing to do with Obama. The economy was doomed to failure the moment Bush took the decision to bail the banks out. He rewarded the people who had caused the destruction, at the direct expense of the taxpayer, because the job of government is to protect the interests of big business. Obama gave the banks money too, so believe me I am not suggesting he is innocent either.

    The only country I am aware of in the entire world who didn't react to the recession by putting a giant dick in the taxpayer's ass is Iceland. And all credit to them for it.
     
  11. bomac

    bomac New Member Past Donor

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    Sad that some posters have to start another thread because they were beaten so badly in an early thread.
     
  12. Iriemon

    Iriemon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Obama supported the bank bailouts too, as did I. It makes no sense to me to destroy the entire banking system and economy because of fear and panic occasioned by the housing bubble collapse.
     
  13. Quantumhead

    Quantumhead New Member

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    That isn't why I think you should destroy the entire banking system. You should destroy it because it serves no useful purpose to society and is a parasite sucking the life out of the economy. Thanks to the banking system, society has a debt produced by interest which it can never repay, however hard and however long it works for. Society will always owe money to the banks.

    That's a ridiculous system. It's a total economic autocracy. Everybody is working to pay the banks back, whether they like it or not. In fact, when you really think about it that kind of makes it more like enslavement and less like fascism.
     
  14. Iriemon

    Iriemon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Banks provide a very useful function of matching people who want to loan money to those who want borrow. Why can't society repay it's debts?

    Don't borrow money. Simple. No one forces you to. You're taking the freedom we give people to borrow money and blaming the banks for that freedom because people exercise it.
     
  15. doombug

    doombug Well-Known Member

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    Of course the economy isn't improving. The propaganda put out by the left wing isn't working. Sooner or later reality kicks in even for those in the liberal bubble.
     
  16. bomac

    bomac New Member Past Donor

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    Sorry, I disagree. The Financial Industry refused to help each other to work out their financial problems. More efforts should have been made to make them take care of their own problems. If they still refused, they should have been penalized more and the taxpayers should have gotten better return on their investment. The Financial Industry has set up bigger institutions and probably expect taxpayers to bail them out again if they run into problems. No industry should be counting on that while they make decisions for their institutions.

    It would have been better to nationalized this industry than to let their leaders to continue to make bad decisions knowing that taxpayers will bait them out when they get really stupid.

    Oh, and far more white collar criminals should have been put in jail. Paying a fine that is less than you made for your bad actions just says that crime pays and especially white collar crime pays well.
     
  17. Professor Peabody

    Professor Peabody Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I started only this one, so you must be terribly confused.
     
  18. Professor Peabody

    Professor Peabody Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Quote me where I said you did.

    I didn't say it, you did.
     
  19. bomac

    bomac New Member Past Donor

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    You created this thread because you were beaten down in the other thread. Can't you at least be honest about that.

    We have talked about good economic news could turn these figures around quickly before 2014 elections. So you created another thread in hopes that you could spin your story again.
     
  20. Iriemon

    Iriemon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    So you're the one claiming the economy is booming, you weren't trying to imply I was saying it. Thanks for the clarification.


    I don't say it's a "booming economy" in that post, as everyone can see. You're saying those facts indicate a "booming economy"?

    I didn't say it as fact either. You've citing me in a hypothetical discussion.

    So again, in your strange world, the only options are a "booming economy" or people are starving?
     
  21. Iriemon

    Iriemon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    How were banks supposed to "take care of their own"? In 2008 the banks didn't know if other banks or even whether they themselves were insolvent. They weren't going to lend to potentially insolvent banks, much less "take care" of them. The resulting unnecessary collapse of the finance sector would have brought about another depression that would have made the recession look like a party. The only entity with the power and capability to prevent that was the Govt and the Fed, which made the temporary loans that saved us from disaster. And most all of which were paid back by the banks.

    I don't think the Govt could effectively run a banking system.

    They weren't criminals. Most were operating within the law and regulation loopholes that our Republican government put into place. You can't put someone in jail for a bad decision if it is not illegal.
     
  22. Iriemon

    Iriemon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    When Obama took office, the economy was tanking at a -9% real rate, losing 700,000+ jobs a month, unemployment was skyrocketing upward, and the stock markets were crashing in the worst recession in 80 years. The housing market was destroyed and the economy was headed straight for a depression.

    But now the economy has been growing steadily for four straight years, the private sector has added more jobs every month for 45 months in a row, stock markets are up 150% from their recession lows to record highs, corporate profits have hit all time highs, the housing market is recovering, the unemployment rate has fallen from 10% to 7.0%, and over 8 million additional private sector jobs have been added since Jan 2010.

    And this despite an obstructionist Tea Party Republican party whose stated top priority is not to work with the president to improve the economy but get him out of office.

    Only those invested in failure for political purposes would claim the economy isn't improving.
     
  23. bomac

    bomac New Member Past Donor

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    You should have watched the documentary on the financial collapse. The banks could have loan money to others in trouble or buy them. They did it earlier. They were talking about purchasing others and the trouble companies were making backroom deals. Each was out for themselves. They knew the government would step in and Paulsen, the Republican, did. Every bank was just there to see what was in it for them. They cared nothing about America and only cared about their bottom line. The banks made money off the transactions for these toxic assets and taxpayers paid fo those toxic assets.

    They locked up the credit market because they didn't trust each other. There was a hell of lot different things that could have been tried and, if the taxpayers were the last resort, then we should have gotten more out of it.

    Now that is really disgusting. They knew that they had set up a house of cards and were making money off the transactions of toxic assets. They were not telling their customers what was happening. Goldman Sachs was selling their liability while encouraging their customers to buy them.

    Bad decisions were being made by customers and homeowners but not by the banks who knew what they were doing.
     
  24. Iriemon

    Iriemon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I don't know which documentary you are referring to, but that doesn't even sound reasonable. Banks had no idea in 2008 whether other banks were solvent or the value of the toxic assets they held. No bank was going to buy or lend money to another bank without govt intervention when 20% of its assets could be worthless. Nobody knew whether those MBS had any value and those they couldn't even calculate whether the other banks were solvent, much less worth buying.

    Without massive Govt intervention, it was all going down, and the economy with it. And they had very little time to act.

    I don't like mega banks or corporations either. IMO they should not be "too big to fail". But it doesn't make any sense to me to have the entire economy unnecessarily trashed because of the panic that was going on.

    That is the point. Some deals were done because they knew the Govt would step in.

    If the Govt wasn't willing to step, they wouldn't have been done.

    Like what?

    If they pass a law that says its OK to make subprime loans, you can't put them in jail for making subprime loans.

    I disagree completely. The banks of course were making bad decisions as well. They knew they were investing in risky investments, but they wrongly thought that they could reduce/eliminate risk by diversifying the holdings (through securitizations) and then insuring against losses (through credit default swaps). Neither of these practices were regulated in any meaningful way. What they didn't count on was the entire market collapsing and the AAA rated insurers (AIG) going bust.

    This wasn't just one bank making a bad decision. It was the failure of industry wide practices and a calamity which could have unnecessarily brought down the entire banking industry, and the economy with it.
     
  25. doombug

    doombug Well-Known Member

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    Saying "when Obama took office" is a big ruse. Everyone knows Obama took office during a financial meltdown that was a bipartisan effort. What small gains have been made were because he continued the Bush policies. Since then Obama has done nothing to actually improve anything. He did manage to screw up the healthcare system among other things. So please save that crap for someone a lot more naive than myself.
     

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