Rahvin writes:
As another President once said, "the buck stops here."
I have mixed feelings about that statement. It makes me ask myself, just what is the role of our U.S. government. Recessions caused by the price of gas, and greedy banks giving out loans, as well as the stupid decisions of millions of Americans to take loans when they shouldn't have, IMO should not be made accountable to our government. It's freedom. When you come to America, you have equal opportunity, that includes failure.
This massive federal debt was spent on an unnecessary war, when it would have been more useful now as part of genuine economic stimulus plans. Bush's administration promoted tax cuts during a time of war, an completely unprecedented and wholly stupid position.
I totally agree.
When building a weapon, for example, there is profit involved, but the manufacturer must also use a significant portion of the purhase price for materials, labor, and research - not all of which is spent in the US. If 80% of the materials used in teh construction of a $5 million military plane are imported, claiming that the $5 million used in the plane's construction remained in the American economy is inaccurate at best and dishonest at worst. Clearly I pulled the specific numbers from nowhere, but the point remains.
That's not a very good point. The stimulus package is going to encourage spending money outside of America as well. There is free trade, and hopefully if we spend money in other countries, they will spend money with us.
Further, we got nothing for our money, as opposed to infrastructure spending which would have spent money in return for goods and services of lasting value. It's far less effective economically to spend $1 on a bomb to blow up a bridge in Iraq than to spend that $1 on maintaining a bridge in the US so that it doesn't collapse and cause further economic harm.
There is also two sides to that statement. Some people actually believe that spending $1 to blow up a bridge in Iraq, will prevent someone from coming over here and blowing one of ours. It may also encourage it at as well. This is an entirely gray area, and nothing can be proven otherwise, so you or I, can not really comment on the effectiveness of spending money either way.
But I understand why you'd take exception to blaming everything on Bush - he wasn't solely responsible for the economic meltdown. Unfortunately, the media is forced to condense all of their news (often including extremely complex stories like the causes behind the economic crisis) into not only an allotted timeframe, but also into something the average person can understand without advanced degrees in the subject matter. Politicians have the same problems, but more so, becasue the responses we hear from them are typically small soundbytes, not full reports.
Look, when I hear the news, I want the truth. I listen to fox sometimes, and WABC radio here in NY, but in both those stations, I here the ravings of lunatics, just like the liberals. News, should be unbiased, and it's not. I will forever complain about it. If you are biased, then you need to present yourself that way. If you are just reporting events, then you should be unbiased, and stating facts.
This is very true. Household debt has increased significantly, and while not all debt is "bad," in more recent years it's spiraled out of control.
I wasn't implying that all debt is bad.
The people taking the loans, as well as the banks who gave them are both equally responsible.
I do have a problem with needing the government to protect us from ourselves. Where does it start, and where does it end?
We finally found our feet again when the US government started spending and developing new programs to actually combat the problems. FDR's first order of business was to get the banks open again - and regulate them so that only solvent banks could re-open. Massive amounts of money were spent on public works projects, much like the recently-passed stimulus package intends to do, to give jobs to the unemployed in exchange for lasting infrastructure improvements. The New Deal also gave us Socuial Security and other programs to help people who were suffering at the moment. This is parallelled by increasing available money for unemployment benefits, food stamp programs, and others that will help the poor actualy survive the hard times.
Lesson learned.
I just heard as part of the stimulus, they are going to be giving $250 checks to people on food stamps. Makes wonder just what they will spend the money on. If it will actually make it back into our economy.
What we're seeing now is a massive domino effect, and at various points in the chain where it could be stopped, policies are put in place to make it worse. If Bush can be credited with a great deal of the American collapse, he can be credited with the global ramifications as well.
I hope that the people responsible for the price of oil learned a lesson from all of this. I still feel that was a major contribution in this whole mess. I know it screwd me up royally.
But guess what? Rich people aren't suffering. They aren't in jeopardy of starvation. Who suffers, not just a loss of money, but actually suffers during an economic collapse?
Average people. The middle class and the poor. The people whose blood, sweat, and tears allows the wealthy to continue to live in excess and priviledge. People who cannot afford their own healthcare, who literally cannot survive being laid off without public assistance, people who have to choose between gas money and food instead of choosing to rent out their private jet.
There are two sides to that story. The "rich" people that I know and work for, work pretty dam hard, and have the brain to get where they are. I don't know any people who were fed with a "silver spoon" so to speak. I have no problem with them being rich.
On the other hand, there are those that literally steal from us, and abuse there power. With money comes power. I don't think that is right either.
Then on the poor side, you have genuine people who for whatever reason just do not get that opportunity to make an honest living, they deserve help.
Then there are those that are just leeches, and suck off our economy. I work in the city hospitals, and I was exposed to a lot of those kind of people. Section 8 welfare and food stamps can sometimes be a joke. People make a living out of stealing from the government (aka us)
Just what is fair, I am not sure. Thanks for taking the time to explain some of it.
Edited by riVeRraT, : No reason given.
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