The latest addition to Occupy Wall street... Muslim Extremest... Of course, why not, it's a party of idiots anyway

[timothe]

I'm pretty much right-winged, but I have no problem with the OWS crowd. In fact, I think it's great that people give a shit...even I believe they are misguided.

What really really really gets my goat is the way most news organizations romaticize the OWS movement while they consistently denigrated the Tea Party movement. How about we get one news program...just one....to portray the news without the filter? Is that too much to ask?

[TexRich]

Originally Posted by slims099

Would much rather support the OWS than the Tea Party.

dude, stick to poker and hookers, politics is not your cup of tea.....

[TexTushHog]

Originally Posted by aka

BO wouldn't have bailed out the banks if . . . .

TARP, the bank bailout, was done by the Bush Administration. Hate to burst your bubble.

http://pewresearch.org/databank/dail...?NumberID=1057

[davo1]

[DFW5Traveler]

Originally Posted by TexTushHog

TARP, the bank bailout, was done by the Bush Administration. Hate to burst your bubble.

http://pewresearch.org/databank/dail...?NumberID=1057

You forgot to mention that all spending bills originate in Congress. Bush signed it, but your buddy, BO, voted FOR it.

Originally Posted by Lust4xxxLife;1803
820

...ummm.... but that's exactly what BO is, and that's part of the reason why he's been weak. He's been pandering to the GOP in an attempt to create harmony. If you don't understand that, you're a victim of dogma and/or propaganda.

L4L

As far as dogma goes, the bank bail-outs came with conditions, i.e. gvmt intrusion or extremely close to fascism. I would suggest reading the US Constitution again and understand that there is no left or right to that document. The oath he took is far from defending the intent. If you want to change it, there is an amendment process that NO modern president has ever followed, including our current regime leader.

[TexTushHog]

Yes, Obama voted for it, as I would have under the circumstances. I think it was necessary, although a preferable option would been to have nationalized the banks that were insolvent. But once that option was not going to pass, TARP was a better option than letting the financial system go under, as it almost surely would have.

And in fact, TARP has ended up costing the government very little, thus far. Most of the TARP loans have been fully paid back, as I understand it. It's cost could have been as high as $700B, and was at one time estimated to be almost $400B. Now, the maximum exposure is somewhere just under $19B.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...ak_109356.html

But I find it bizarre how many folks can't get it through their heads that it was a Bush program, not an Obama program.

[Lust4xxxLife]

Originally Posted by TexTushHog

.....

But I find it bizarre how many folks can't get it through their heads that it was a Bush program, not an Obama program.

I agree. TARP was also a needed program and and a good program, regardless of who sponsored it and who voted for it. Without TARP, this economy would have cratered far more than it did. I'm sick to death of the cancerous attitude in America of "Anything GOP is bad" or "Anything Dem is bad". We need less shit-for-brains thinking like that and more intelligent analysis. We need to vote the dummies out of office, regardless of which party they represent. For example, i would rather support 3 John Huntsmans than 1 Nancy Pelosi. But then again, I think Nancy Pelosi is 10x smarter than Michelle Bachmann, who has shown no signs of intelligent life whatsoever.

[timothe]

The funny thing is....it's the OWS crowd who vehemently opposes the bank bailouts. I agree that TARP was necessary and that most of the money has been paid back with interest.

Where I disagree with the left is the reason why we needed TARP to begin with. There is overwhelming evidence that Congress and the Fed forced banks to make loans to people who did not have sufficient credit to buy a house. (Michael Bloomburg explains this in detail here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPXVZ...ature=youtu.be)

I am fiscally conservative because I believe the free markets provide a better system of checks and balances than government. When government passes "feel good" legislation such as the Community Reinventment Act, there is often unintended consequences that require more government intervention to fix. If government would have simply stayed out of the housing market, we would have never had the financial collapse that required TARP.

[Lust4xxxLife]

Originally Posted by timothe

The funny thing is....it's the OWS crowd who vehemently opposes the bank bailouts. I agree that TARP was necessary and that most of the money has been paid back with interest.

Where I disagree with the left is the reason why we needed TARP to begin with. There is overwhelming evidence that Congress and the Fed forced banks to make loans to people who did not have sufficient credit to buy a house. (Michael Bloomburg explains this in detail here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPXVZ...ature=youtu.be)

I am fiscally conservative because I believe the free markets provide a better system of checks and balances than government. When government passes "feel good" legislation such as the Community Reinventment Act, there is often unintended consequences that require more government intervention to fix. If government would have simply stayed out of the housing market, we would have never had the financial collapse that required TARP.

I kind of agree with some of this, but not all of it.

I'm against government involvement and management in anything where it isn't absolutely required, because government management is always less effective and more expensive. The best and brightest among us don't seek government jobs. However, as TARP has shown us, government 'investment' can sometimes be a good thing if it's done strategically.

Without TARP/bailout actions, GM and Chrysler would not exist today. I think that would be a bad thing for America. Yes, I want both to compete on their own merit and I'm happy to observe that both have had a near-death wakeup call, but letting them fail would have had many repercussions. Remember that the next time you're listening to Bachmann go on and on about how she tried to stop the bailouts. I assume she didn't (doesn't) have a clue what she's doing.

L4L

[Randy4Candy]

The OWS "movement" has nothing to do with TARP and the GM/Chrysler bail outs. It has more to do with the unhappiness that more reform has not been instituted in the financial sector. It seems that even with the recent evidence of what an unrestrained "Wild West" approach to financial instruments can cause, the financial sector wants to continue to be highly under regulated with the path wide open to do more of what got us into this mess. The proposed reforms of TARP didn't even approach Glass-Stegall, which, by the way, worked quite well in keeping the excesses of the 1920's from happening again.

The issue is, IMO, that people want the government to keep large corporations and "big business" from having an unfair and unnecessary advantage over them in their daily lives and not to be able to blow up the entire economy with Ponzi-like schemes. They are also upset that the perpetrators of the latest debacle were not punished to any degree. Those "smart guys" who caused this shit to begin with could have "fixed" it from a prison cell with a phone line and a high-speed internet connection as easily as from their corner offices. Most people instincitvely reject the premise that ONLY those who caused it could fix it. Everyone else who works at those financial institutions are NOT a bunch of unlearned idiots incapable of digging into the mess and doing something about it. No, they are not any more altruistic than who they would have replaced, but they would know that if they pulled the same stunts that there would be hell to pay. Fraud is a crime just like any other.

[LazurusLong]

Originally Posted by Lust4xxxLife

Without TARP/bailout actions, GM and Chrysler would not exist today. I think that would be a bad thing for America.

The best thing for this country would have been for GM and Chrysler to both have failed, gone through bankruptcy and then they could have re-emerged hopefully leaner and without the baggage that will destroy them in the near future.

ALL the bailouts did in the last couple years was to extend them on life support but they are both in need of going away as we know them.

GM got rid of a couple car lines and that was great but where did all those union workers end up and where did all the corp flunkys end up from those divisions?

[Whirlaway]

The OWS crowd is protesting the banks; but the banks have paid back TARP with interest....they should be picketing Obama fundraisers at the homes of big Democratic contributors like corrupt MF Global Chairman John Corzine and the other corporate cronies who get very fat with BO in office (GE Jeff Immelt for example).


The best solution to less corportism/crony capitalism is Federalism; not bigger central government with more regulations and more taxation...If you don't know what Federalism is, look it up.......

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/federalism/

[davo1]

[Abraham]

When tea party leaves a place, it's hard to tell they have been there. They clean up and are respectful of others property rights. No urinating or defecating in public on on cop cars. No running around children naked or 1/2 naked. They also do not have a clear cause and goals.
Elizabeth, in your first post you describe much of what the law abiding Tea Party did. The 2010 elections are proof.
JohnJohn, of course of resorted to name-calling. Your ideas do not work.
Randy4, "Ponzi-like schemes..." What in the world do you think Social Security is???????

[69er]

Originally Posted by Lust4xxxLife

This country is in a hole. The only way we can get out of it is to vote smart people into office. That won't happen if we're all voting "anything but libs" or "anything but cons". That will guarantee that we keep voting dummies into office. Demand better and vote accordingly.

I think you have it backwards. We voted a bunch of smart people into office. They are smart enough to know how little influence the public has, and how much power the lobbies have. Unless we get some laws passed to change the amount of power the lobbiests have, we are doomed. I don't see this happening soon. So we need to do something different.

Therefore: We need to vote some dumb people into office!