What exactly are they afraid of?

[Tyrone Bigguns]

Add in the complete failure of the free market in our financial sector..

Fanny and Freddie were free?

Strawman argument. You and i both know we will never be in a text book def of free market.

The free market failed before and it has done it again. You take away reg and oversite..and you let the wolves run free.

You can flail around, but it all comes back to the same thing for you and the rest of you free marketers..privatize profits, socialize losses.

You hem and haw and talk about what would happen if we let them collapse..but, that certainly isn't the free market.

[Tyrone Bigguns]

To be relentlessly honest, i wouldn't be surprised if this admin is cooking the books..and that the october-january surprise will be that we are indeed in a recession.

I'm sure it will be a one-two punch where they also introduce the secret sub-atomic weather control particle beam weapon they used to destroy New Orleans.

Exactly.

Yep, this admin hasn't lied before.

Stop pretending that the goal of the conservs isn't to destroy the federal gov't. What better way than to show it doesn't work thru complicit malfeasance.

Should we not take Norquist at his word?.."to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

[Tyrone Bigguns]

Considering this is not a national election the polls in the States that matter now are dead even....and that means Hussein could be toast.

True. But, most polls and pundits still have Obama getting the electoral votes in order to win.

To me, this is playing out just like 92.

And, even the Fox Polls show that more people believe Obama can solve the economy issues better than Mac.

To be relentlessly honest, i wouldn't be surprised if this admin is cooking the books..and that the october-january surprise will be that we are indeed in a recession.

I hope you are right.

Regardless of who wins..dems will control both houses...and whoever is prez is gonna be in a world of shit for 1-2 years..gonna be hard to implement any new ideas with the lack of money.

[mraynrand]

Add in the complete failure of the free market in our financial sector..

Fanny and Freddie were free?

Strawman argument. You and i both know we will never be in a text book def of free market.

The free market failed before and it has done it again. You take away reg and oversite..and you let the wolves run free.

You can flail around, but it all comes back to the same thing for you and the rest of you free marketers..privatize profits, socialize losses.

You hem and haw and talk about what would happen if we let them collapse..but, that [b]certainly isn't the free market.

Strawman argument? A question is an argument? Do you know the difference? You made the foolish 'free market' statement when you know it isn't. You know that at least there was an attempt to restrain 'the wolves' that were running free in the mortgage market. Who proposed the changes and who blocked them? What failed was an unfree market - a market that was forced to make bad loans and was forced to mark to market by the government. The fault of the financiers was to bundle and sell, but otherwise government intrusion in the market played a huge role in the crisis. Or is that just a 'straw man?'

[mraynrand]

Stop pretending that the goal of the conservs isn't to destroy the federal gov't. What better way than to show it doesn't work thru complicit malfeasance.

I see. So now you are arguing that New Orleans was deliberately destroyed and Freddie and Fanny were deliberately allowed to fail to bring down the federal government? And that's why the Federal government is pushing for a 700 billion dollar buyout of the mortgage market - to have less involvement and to shrink the size of government? I guess all conservatives didn't get the same 'destroy the fed' memo that you did.

[Tyrone Bigguns]

Add in the complete failure of the free market in our financial sector..

Fanny and Freddie were free?

Strawman argument. You and i both know we will never be in a text book def of free market.

The free market failed before and it has done it again. You take away reg and oversite..and you let the wolves run free.

You can flail around, but it all comes back to the same thing for you and the rest of you free marketers..privatize profits, socialize losses.

You hem and haw and talk about what would happen if we let them collapse..but, that [b]certainly isn't the free market.

Strawman argument? A question is an argument? Do you know the difference? You made the foolish 'free market' statement when you know it isn't. You know that at least there was an attempt to restrain 'the wolves' that were running free in the mortgage market. Who proposed the changes and who blocked them? What failed was an unfree market - a market that was forced to make bad loans and was forced to mark to market by the government. The fault of the financiers was to bundle and sell, but otherwise government intrusion in the market played a huge role in the crisis. Or is that just a 'straw man?'

Your question isn't a question..it is a loaded question with a perspective. Like i said, strawman.

And, again, your point isn't valid..as pointed out..we will never have a truly free market.

Yeah, they were forced to make ridiculous loans. They were forced into creating the subprime market and and giving no doc loans.

i love how you absolve the repubs...paging mr. gramm.

The problem, as it always is with the financial sector is that they care about making money, not about creating anything. So, after the tech bubble, the biggest area that could make obscene profits was construction. No one forced them into this area..they chose it. They coulda invested in things that would have made money and created jobs. But, that isn't what they wanted to do.

There is nothing inherently wrong about making money, but there is a huge difference between taking over a company and profitting from destroying it (selling off its parts) and giving great returns for your investors and creating/sustaining a company that actually produces something.

[SkinBasket]

Stop pretending that the goal of the conservs isn't to destroy the federal gov't. What better way than to show it doesn't work thru complicit malfeasance.

I see. So now you are arguing that New Orleans was deliberately destroyed and Freddie and Fanny were deliberately allowed to fail to bring down the federal government? And that's why the Federal government is pushing for a 700 billion dollar buyout of the mortgage market - to have less involvement and to shrink the size of government? I guess all conservatives didn't get the same 'destroy the fed' memo that you did.

But at the same time, they're trying to "hide" a recession, because only the federal government has access to this country's financial information. In fact, I think Dick balances the budget in a checkbook and keeps track of the GDP in a notebook he keeps under his mattress.

[Tyrone Bigguns]

Stop pretending that the goal of the conservs isn't to destroy the federal gov't. What better way than to show it doesn't work thru complicit malfeasance.

I see. So now you are arguing that New Orleans was deliberately destroyed and Freddie and Fanny were deliberately allowed to fail to bring down the federal government? And that's why the Federal government is pushing for a 700 billion dollar buyout of the mortgage market - to have less involvement and to shrink the size of government? I guess all conservatives didn't get the same 'destroy the fed' memo that you did.

No, i never said that. How could they destroy NO..are they in charge of hurricanes. What they are in charge of they did poorly, which only gives ammo to the conserv position that gov can't do anything right.

I notice that you can't deny the mr. norquist. For the past 30 odd years conservs have waged war against the federal gov't. You can't deny it.

Freddy: Never said that as well. You have to thank yourselves for that. Free market. Once again you guys screw the pooch..and inadvertently lead us down the path to socialism.

And dividing the repub party. Thank you!!!!

[Tyrone Bigguns]

Stop pretending that the goal of the conservs isn't to destroy the federal gov't. What better way than to show it doesn't work thru complicit malfeasance.

I see. So now you are arguing that New Orleans was deliberately destroyed and Freddie and Fanny were deliberately allowed to fail to bring down the federal government? And that's why the Federal government is pushing for a 700 billion dollar buyout of the mortgage market - to have less involvement and to shrink the size of government? I guess all conservatives didn't get the same 'destroy the fed' memo that you did.

But at the same time, they're trying to "hide" a recession, because only the federal government has access to this country's financial information. In fact, I think Dick balances the budget in a checkbook and keeps track of the GDP in a notebook he keeps under his mattress.

Oh, you are saying that the info is all there..i can just ask for it. LOL

Deny it all you want, but the gov't regularly distorts budgets, etc.

[mraynrand]

Freddy: Never said that as well. You have to thank yourselves for that. Free market.

Freddy was free?

[SkinBasket]

Deny it all you want, but the gov't regularly distorts budgets, etc.

Who's distorting a budget? I thought we were hiding a recession.

[mraynrand]

The problem, as it always is with the financial sector is that they care about making money, not about creating anything. So, after the tech bubble, the biggest area that could make obscene profits was construction. No one forced them into this area..they chose it. They coulda invested in things that would have made money and created jobs. But, that isn't what they wanted to do.

There is nothing inherently wrong about making money, but there is a huge difference between taking over a company and profitting from destroying it (selling off its parts) and giving great returns for your investors and creating/sustaining a company that actually produces something.

You're a little confused and all over the place here. The financial sector finances businesses, which then create. Sure, there is a huge element of making money, but your example of buying an selling of pieces of companies is more like the 80s phenomenon (Read "America: What went wrong" for details). There were and are Wall Street profiteers at present, but the industry we're talking about is the housing industry, where a lot of homes were constructed (somehow without creating anything, making money or creating jobs, as you seem to believe). Why were all these homes created? Low interest rates, easy loans, ARMs, etc. right? And why was credit easy - Greenspan lowered interest rates and the CRA had the requirement to give out high risk loans. People bought homes above their means, trying to make a profit, presumably by fliiping the house in a few years, and others simply built or moved into homes above their pay grade. It wasn't sustainable. People got rich investing in the bubble. Not enough oversight and when repubs tried to reign in Freddy and Fanny, it was blocked. How is that an exclusively republican problem and how is that exclusively the fault of 'the free market?'

[Freak Out]

I think it's time for a visit from...

http://www.khaaan.com/

[Freak Out]

Slave Leia anyone?

[HowardRoark]

The problem, as it always is with the financial sector is that they care about making money, not about creating anything. So, after the tech bubble, the biggest area that could make obscene profits was construction. No one forced them into this area..they chose it. They coulda invested in things that would have made money and created jobs. But, that isn't what they wanted to do.

My spleen hurts after reading this gibberish. Is it happy hour already in Scottsdale?