Ron Paul Supporters not welcome in Louisiana GOP

GIThruster · Post by **GIThruster** » Sat Jun 16, 2012 7:29 pm

Skipjack wrote:. . .it was the collapse of your economy thanks to the politics of the Bush administration that caused the world wide financial crisis...

My sister in law living in Spain says their financial woes come from all the green investments they've made and she's been saying this (despite she's a devoted environmentalist) for 6 years. . .since way before the real estate crash here in the US. The Greeks voted to retire at age 50 and let other Greeks support them. It's somehow someone else's fault that the Greek economy collapsed under that kind of weight? Socialism is destroying Europe and it's got nothing to do with the housing bust in the US.

Too, the financial structure that supported all the high-risk buying of bad debt and sub-prime mortgage tinkering that created the crash here, was put into place during the Clinton administration. Senator McCain tried to change this with replacement legislation, but was unsuccessful against the democratically controlled congress. Fact is though, the conditions and policies that gave rise to the real estate crash were everyone's fault. There's enough blame to go around. Hearing Europe is blaming the US for its financial difficulties is pretty laughable though. You live beyond your means decade after decade and blame someone else when your find you can't do that anymore?

And really, riding the coattails of your wife and kids as an excuse to post opinions about things you know nothing about. . .how absurd.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sat Jun 16, 2012 8:18 pm

Greece is not all of Europe, neither are Spain and Italy. The majority of European countries, especially the German and nordic countries are doing very well and will probably be able to support Greece and the others. We dont do that happily, mind you. We are also not happy about the politics in Greece, Italy, Spain, etc. They are an extreme, not the norm. Dont let some propaganda by FOX noise give you a wrong impression of the real situation. The situation is not great by any means, but it is not as bad as you may think. AND yes this is the fault of some bad policy decisions. I would never question that.
As usual there is no black and white to the whole situation, but a whole bunch of grey.
Anyway, I was not referring to the current crisis in Greece, but rather the economic problems that culminated in the crisis in 2008.

GIThruster · Post by **GIThruster** » Sat Jun 16, 2012 8:50 pm

Your right. I'm sure Fox regularly photoshops together the pics of Greeks firebombing their police during riots. The videos of the cars and buildings burning across Great Britain still less than a year old must have been fabrications. The riots in all of Spain's major cities back in March must have been exaggerated. Italy's financial concerns are little more than an inconvenience that I'm sure the EU won't need any help to solve. Reports yesterday that Romania's troubled economy can expect half the recovery they've been telling everyone unless they get a bail out were fabrications (though from their government.) Today's reports of thousands taking to the streets in Portugal are likewise being blown all out of proportion.

Socialists instigating and supporting the Occupy movement here in the US have our best interests at heart so we should not be concerned when people riot here, either. There is nothing to be concerned about, so don't ask the US again for more money, and don't blame the US for your troubles. Don't ask us to supply our armed forces to retrieve your oil from across the Med, and then turn around and whine that we spend too much on our military.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sat Jun 16, 2012 9:17 pm

Greece, GB and Spain are not all of Europe. They only make a small part of it. Also, dont interpret localized events as being representative for an entire country, no matter how FOX noise may try to make it appear. Yes, there were some riots and there was lots of mayhem, but it all pales compared to any ordinary day in Detroit, or LA...
Besides, the US has had its share of protests as well, lately.

GIThruster · Post by **GIThruster** » Sat Jun 16, 2012 9:36 pm

The rioting across Greece the last few years, across GB last August, the riots in every major city in Spain last March and the protests across Portugal today are not "local". They're indicative of what what Margaret Thatcher warned: "The trouble with Socialism is that sooner or later, you run out of other people's money." If all along people had seen the common sense dictate that Socialism has never and cannot ever work, we would not be seeing these troubles in Europe at all and if Socialists had not been forcing their economics into the US, we would not be seeing these outbursts either.

I don't remember which country you're in Skippy, but I can tell you that as an American who's country fought more than one war to keep this insanity in check, that to see Socialism destroying Europe and threatening the US now is most alarming.

How much evidence do people need that Socialism does not work before they stop the insanity?

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sun Jun 17, 2012 7:57 am

The rioting across Greece the last few years, across GB last August, the riots in every major city in Spain last March and the protests across Portugal today are not "local".

Gross exaggeration of the situation.

I don't remember which country you're in Skippy, but I can tell you that as an American who's country fought more than one war to keep this insanity in check, that to see Socialism destroying Europe and threatening the US now is most alarming.

Gross exaggeration of the situation.

I do agree that socialism is not the solution. Uncontroled capitalism is not the solution either. It is a matter of balance. People like you dont seem to understand that. They tend to think in extremes and black and white.
In my experience there is no such thing.
But when I am critizising US conservatives, then I am not critizising them for not being socialist enough. I am critizising them for being to socialist with their military spending. They do not make use of free market and competition. They use cost plus contracting instead of fixed cost contracts. Contracts are handed out based on political ruling not ruling of the market. By doing all that they have been driving up defense spending uncontrollably and in the same breath they critizise the democrats for doing the same thing just in a different area of government.
They are also pretty quick at forgetting about the constitution when it comes to providing the military with more rights. NDAA being one good example where they packed with the dems to pass unconstitutional laws.
I call all that dubious morale and dangerously one sides politics. Scientific and technological superiority (which do require a well educated public) are just as much a matter of national security than military spending. I even want to argue that especially today finding a new source of energy would probably the single most important thing for national security. Yet spending on the research for that is very weak compared to spending on a hand full of cruise missiles.
To me it appears that both reps and dems seem to be controled by the flow of lobbying money. Your vote just decides which lobby you wish to support.

Diogenes · Post by **Diogenes** » Sun Jun 17, 2012 10:50 pm

Skipjack wrote:
The arrogant assumption that Foreign opinions should hold any regard here in America is as astonishing as it is unwanted. Mind your own D*mn Country SkipJack! STFU about ours! Interference from the socialism minded nitwits in Europe has already causing enough trouble over here.
So are yours. I want to remind you that it was the collapse of your economy thanks to the politics of the Bush administration that caused the world wide financial crisis...

Stop. Just stop it. Anyone that has a clue about what happened knows the truth. You can parrot that idiot Democrat Propaganda, but you cannot make it into the truth.

CLINTON caused the Financial Meltdown by his implementation of the CRA (Community Reinvestment Act) which forced Banks to make loans to Racial Minorities just because they were minorities without regard to their ability to pay.

One of my Best Friends got hurt in that mess. He married a woman who had bought a beautiful house in Arlington Texas. When I saw it I was dumfounded because I knew instantly that both him and his wife together could not possibly afford such a huge (and Brand New) house. I stayed in that house many times, (On visits) and while it was not a McMansion, it was d*mned close.

Sure enough, when the Markets went into turmoil, (Initiated by High gas prices) he and his wife ended up losing that house. They really couldn't afford it, and no one should have ever loaned them the money to buy it. (By the way, I'm the God father to their son Michael. )

Using the force of Government to compel loans to people solely on the basis of their racial status without regard for their ability to pay it back is what CAUSED the financial crises over here. It was just another stupid Democrat "Diversity" idea, and an attempt at social engineering.

Skipjack wrote: Further, since another world war actually any larger war would very much affect me and my country as well (most wars have a negative economic impact), I think it is natural for anyone with brains to be concerned about that.
Also, if you remember both my wife and my son are US citizens which puts me very much in a position to worry about their savety and the future of their home country, not to mention that in many of my posts here I represent my wife's opinions as well.

Finally, I do feel a very strong connection with the United States and its people. I have many friends and business partners there, all generally very nice and likeable people. So I do feel concerned about things happening in the US.
And maybe my wife and I will move to the US together...

You are the problem of California all over again. Currently, people and businesses are fleeing the "Golden State" and moving to Texas, Arizona, Colorado and Nevada. (Among other places.) The problem is, they are bringing their brain dead stupid ideas along with them, and infecting healthy states with the same ideas that are causing the collapse of California.

Till you get a freakin clue, I'll thank you to just remain over there. Things are going decently here if we can just keep the idiot socialists out of power.

GIThruster · Post by **GIThruster** » Sun Jun 17, 2012 11:18 pm

Skipjack wrote: But when I am critizising US conservatives, then I am not critizising them for not being socialist enough. I am critizising them for being to socialist with their military spending. They do not make use of free market and competition. They use cost plus contracting instead of fixed cost contracts. Contracts are handed out based on political ruling not ruling of the market. . . I even want to argue that especially today finding a new source of energy would probably the single most important thing for national security. Yet spending on the research for that is very weak compared to spending on a hand full of cruise missiles.

Seriously Skippy, you don't have any idea whatsoever what you're talking about and it shows. With all the cruise missiles we launched into Libya over months, that came to less than $1B. The annual DOE budget is $30B, up 12% since 2010, and DOD spends more on energy that DOE and NASA combined. Likewsie, the National Science Foundation is due for a 3.3% increase this year, while private industry is still busy cutting back so your nonsense about cuts in science is just misinformed jibberish.

All you're doing is demonstrating that you're willing to offer judgements on subjects you're completely ignorant of, and if there were a bunch of Americans criticizing your country in this way, I'm sure you'd get your panties all in a twist.

Cost plus contracts exist for very specific reasons and are at times necessary. Where there can be competition there usually is. Hence the two different classes of Littoral Combat ships. It is also true however, that the US needs to be able to rely upon General Dynamics, Northrup Grumman, etc. and these get cost plus contracts at times. The reasons for cost plus contracts are complex and I'm sure, quite past your ability to understand, as obviously, you do not understand.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Tue Jun 19, 2012 9:18 pm

Best example, NASA, commercial crew. 30 years of failed cost plus contracts. Billions wasted, billions over budget, no results. COTS a few hundred million, milestones, milestones met, capsule docked with ISS.
Commercial crew will go the same way... provided certain socialist conservatives will let it happen. They rather hand a big billion USD earmark to a large defense company (ATK) as a cost plus contract of course... This is "big government" and that from so called conservatives that then turn arround and complain about just that. Double talk!

Cost plus contracts exist for very specific reasons and are at times necessary.

When?

The reasons for cost plus contracts are complex and I'm sure, quite past your ability to understand, as obviously, you do not understand.

Oh, I do hear the alleged reasons for them. The real reasons are that these are big government earmarks for someones favorite lobbies.
Free market preaching and big government doing. That is all that I see!
But obviously you are too brainwashed to understand.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Tue Jun 19, 2012 9:29 pm

CLINTON caused the Financial Meltdown by his implementation of the CRA (Community Reinvestment Act) which forced Banks to make loans to Racial Minorities just because they were minorities without regard to their ability to pay.

LOL, I do find it worth mentioning that nowhere have you desputed the second part of my post where I claimed that this caused the global financial crisis of the time

That was my main point, actually. I think that both Bush and Clinton might have contributed. Bush certainly did not help.

and DOD spends more on energy that DOE and NASA combined

Uhm it also has A LOT more budget?
Also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Sta ... _of_Energy

DOE also sponsors more research in the physical sciences than any other US federal agency

palladin9479 · Post by **palladin9479** » Wed Jun 27, 2012 6:41 am

So are yours. I want to remind you that it was the collapse of your economy thanks to the politics of the Bush administration that caused the world wide financial crisis...

It was not caused by Bush nor any single administration. It's the aggregate result of many administrations using Reganesque policy's of borrowing future earnings to finance routine expenditures. There is nothing evil or wrong about borrowing money for emergency / unforeseen / uncontrollable expenditures. Wars, natural disasters and economic hardships are all valid reasons to borrow money. What is wrong is basing budgets and tax's are consistent borrowing, as in your now treating borrowed money as a stable source of income and not an emergency resource.

Secondly the repeal of the Glass-Steagal act is the most direct cause of the worldwide financial meltdown. There are other contributing factors, yet it was the mixing of consumer banking and high risk financial banking that caused the spreading meltdown. Consumer banks leveraged their ability to create fictional money to finance risky multi-billion USD gambles. The eventual failure of these gambles and the resulting default on those debts is what caused the tsunami to sweep the financial world. Packaging consumer loans (mortgages) and selling them as a financial commodity that was further insured and gambled on was the root cause of the whole mess. Remove that lynch pin and what you would of had is a regular bubble / burst cycle which is part of the natural economic cycle.

Back to the original point, as a nation we need to change our attitude. We can no longer afford to be a nation of divided lemmings being lead by the same pipers (on both sides of the isle). It's going to take some serious sacrificing, especially amongst the privileged who have for so long manipulated the system to hide their wealth. And don't even attempt to make excuse's for them.

Banks in Switzerland have reported a shortage of safety deposit box's as demand has recently vastly exceeded supply. The cause is the EU financial deals being discussed and the higher taxes that may be soon leveraged on the wealthy. They've started to take their money out of the banks and convert them into swiss francs to be stored as cash along with gold bullion, art, and other high value items that maintain their value. This is due to contents of safety deposit box's are being exempted from pending tax's. The wealthy in the USA have long ago learned to stash as much of their wealth outside of the governments reach as possible. They don't want to be taxed on it though they do want the benefits that wealth brought them. They have received the greatest boon from the stability afforded to them by the USA, they have reaped the greatest rewards, yet refuse to pay for their share. It's the middle class who pays for everything, yet receives the least. That needs to change, as you can't tax the poor and the middle class is taxed out (some would say over taxed).

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Wed Jun 27, 2012 7:54 am

In Austria, if you are really rich, all your wealth is usually in a family trust/foundation of some sorts. You live in a castle owned by the family trust, ride in a Maibach that is owned by the family trust and fly on private jets owned by the family trust. You have tons of personnel paid for by the family trust.
You get a monthly allowance that you can spend on whatever you want to. That is the only thing you pay income tax for. And theoretically, you can do whatever you want and even go bankrupt, you will still have the same lifestyle as always.
On top of that the super rich (or rather their family trusts) own lots of forrests here. That makes them count as "farmers" for which they get money from the EU. Since the amount of money they get is defined by the amount of land that they have, they get a lot more money than the real small famers that are struggling to make ends meet every day. The super rich use the forrests for wood that is then going to their industries like paper mills or parquet flooring, etc.
In the end they get about the same amount of money from the government as they are paying taxes, probably even more...

seedload · Post by **seedload** » Wed Jun 27, 2012 10:42 am

palladin9479 wrote:
So are yours. I want to remind you that it was the collapse of your economy thanks to the politics of the Bush administration that caused the world wide financial crisis...
It was not caused by Bush nor any single administration. It's the aggregate result of many administrations using Reganesque policy's of borrowing future earnings to finance routine expenditures. There is nothing evil or wrong about borrowing money for emergency / unforeseen / uncontrollable expenditures. Wars, natural disasters and economic hardships are all valid reasons to borrow money. What is wrong is basing budgets and tax's are consistent borrowing, as in your now treating borrowed money as a stable source of income and not an emergency resource.

Our dept is a terrible thing but I don't see it as a CAUSE of the financial crisis.

palladin9479 wrote: Secondly the repeal of the Glass-Steagal act is the most direct cause of the worldwide financial meltdown. There are other contributing factors, yet it was the mixing of consumer banking and high risk financial banking that caused the spreading meltdown. Consumer banks leveraged their ability to create fictional money to finance risky multi-billion USD gambles. The eventual failure of these gambles and the resulting default on those debts is what caused the tsunami to sweep the financial world. Packaging consumer loans (mortgages) and selling them as a financial commodity that was further insured and gambled on was the root cause of the whole mess. Remove that lynch pin and what you would of had is a regular bubble / burst cycle which is part of the natural economic cycle.

I don't know, man. I agree that the bundling of loans and the commoditization of them was a serious problem. The ridiculous overleveraged insurance probably more so.

But I don't see how you can call this a regular bubble. You ignore the fact that these were irregular loans. My take is that giving terrible loans to terrible credit risks is a bad idea. Legislating for it is even worse. I just don't see how you can ignore that and label it a regular bubble.

palladin9479 wrote: Back to the original point, as a nation we need to change our attitude. We can no longer afford to be a nation of divided lemmings being lead by the same pipers (on both sides of the isle). It's going to take some serious sacrificing, especially amongst the privileged who have for so long manipulated the system to hide their wealth. And don't even attempt to make excuse's for them.

Banks in Switzerland have reported a shortage of safety deposit box's as demand has recently vastly exceeded supply. The cause is the EU financial deals being discussed and the higher taxes that may be soon leveraged on the wealthy. They've started to take their money out of the banks and convert them into swiss francs to be stored as cash along with gold bullion, art, and other high value items that maintain their value. This is due to contents of safety deposit box's are being exempted from pending tax's. The wealthy in the USA have long ago learned to stash as much of their wealth outside of the governments reach as possible. They don't want to be taxed on it though they do want the benefits that wealth brought them. They have received the greatest boon from the stability afforded to them by the USA, they have reaped the greatest rewards, yet refuse to pay for their share. It's the middle class who pays for everything, yet receives the least. That needs to change, as you can't tax the poor and the middle class is taxed out (some would say over taxed).

Did you really just say that we can't be led by pipers "on both sides of the isle" immediately followed by echoing the piping of your side of the isle?

"We need to change our attitude." They need to pay.

When people talk about stashed wealth, they aren't talking about income, they are talking about assets. They don't want to take more of the wealthy's income, they want their stuff. Capital gains isn't enough anymore, they want the capital. Fair share means confiscation. Why? Because simple math tells you that taking more of the wealthy's income won't even make a dent.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Wed Jun 27, 2012 11:29 am

Let me add that if government sponsored Fannie and Freddie hadn't "bought" the toxic loans from the banks no banker would have ever agreed to the loans. No. Matter. What.

Now you might want to look up how much of the US Mortgage industry Fannie and Freddie represents.

In effect the government owns much of the housing in the US.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Wed Jun 27, 2012 11:29 am

The problem is that the people were actually quite capable of paying back their loans as they were when they took them. The problem is that the loans had variable interest rates (something many of those taking the loans did not understand). When the USD plummeted, the interest on the loans exploded and so did the monthly rates. Then people were unable to pay them back. Had the interest rates been fixed and had the banks not being so greedy to sell the loans to foreign banks, a lot of the damage could have been prevented. In fact, I want to argue that if the banks would not have simply forclosed on the houses, but had given people a few extra months, the worst could have been prevented. There would not have been that many forclosed houses on the market and the housing market would have stayed much more stable. The government should have rather covered the extra increase in interest rates for those that were faced with the issue early on, instead of throwing all those billions at the banks after all the damage had already been done. I think it would have cost less in the end and people would have kept their homes.