World Politics

[Anonymous]

The insurance business is a license to print money. The crisis in home loans was made worse by the bloated insurance companies looking to re-profit on their already enormous bank role. People in the NE bought houses with 100-110% loans with no income verification. And sorry to say the lure of home ownership was strongest in some low income areas. The NY Times had an article about a medical/home health worker who cleared 2600 a month.She was a single mom and had a young son. She bought a 440,000 dollar house, with NE taxes @6000 per year. Her mortgage payment alone was 2400. The appraiser never got out of his car,did a drive buy appraisal. and her paperwork was filled out at a diner,she was approved in less than 3 weeks.

I worked for a company who at one point would have done that loan.

Boy don't we all wish there was one guy to blame.

Listen to Rush, Hannity, or any other Republican rhetoric machine, they think there is. It is why I am sure they are either stupid, liars, or both. I am leaning toward the latter.

 

[fatandfast]

I don't disagree. But some here want to paint the situation as entirely a one-way street.

Friends that live in Ireland say that the housing bust there is 2 times as bad as the US. 1 friend,school teacher in Belfast says his flat is worth 65% of what it was 3 years ago. I have also been told that all the Poles and Africans can't get out of Ireland fast enough now that the economy tanked.

 

[Anonymous]

I don't disagree. But some here want to paint the situation as entirely a one-way street.

I think both sides do that, and being one of the people who can have a finger pointed their way, I can tell you that neither is fully correct. Dodd and others really should pay for having been in bed with that over cooked walking turd Mozilo. Those guys may not have created the market for subprime loans, but none of them did anything about it. At the same time, Republicans were introducing legislation that allowed banks to hold more of these types of assets right up until the end. It was a big cluster fu*k.

 

[CentralCaliBike]

No, the private sector is much more corrupt and is an active force in corrupting government.

Perhaps you are right http://www.deadline.com/hollywood/obama-thanks-hollywood-with-coveted-invites-to-his-first-white-house-state-dinner/

 

[Anonymous]

The insurance business is a license to print money. The crisis in home loans was made worse by the bloated insurance companies looking to re-profit on their already enormous bank role. People in the NE bought houses with 100-110% loans with no income verification. And sorry to say the lure of home ownership was strongest in some low income areas. The NY Times had an article about a medical/home health worker who cleared 2600 a month.She was a single mom and had a young son. She bought a 440,000 dollar house, with NE taxes @6000 per year. Her mortgage payment alone was 2400. The appraiser never got out of his car,did a drive buy appraisal. and her paperwork was filled out at a diner,she was approved in less than 3 weeks. Katrina should teach us all about insurance companies, if they place a loosing bet, they pull out of the market all together, If live where it floods or storms have names you can forget about getting insurance,one a couple dozen of totally crocked industries in the US. Lots of brokerages have had to change their status to "Bank" after this, insurance exec's where doing banking without any rules. Boy don't we all wish there was one guy to blame.

Of all the Katrina claims (hundreds of thousands) the last data I saw showed at rate of about 1.1% ever went to litigation. I won't bore you with the details of how the lawsuits came about but let's just say the much of the damage was 'complicated'.

Flood insurance in the US can only be purchased from the National Flood Insurance Program. If you have a problem with how it works then you can blame the govt. Insurance companies that were not already in the banking business looked at acquiring a bank for TARP money. It's why the govt should never have bailed out AIG, Citi and others because once money starts getting handed out everyone's gonna get in line.

 

[Laszlo]

I say we take a poll. All the conservatives who say they support the war in Iraq get entered into a special draft. We randomly select a hundred thousand of these chicken hawks from the right, put them into Iraq, and see how quick their support for the war erodes.

We could fund the war in a similar way. Everyone who supports the war gets a monthly bill. With forty million conservatives supporting the war and a monthly cost of, say, $15B each of them will get a bill for $375 every month.

Being an American, you are more entitled than I to have a say in the matter.

I choose to insert my opinion to counter some of the rhetoric I've read in this thread.

Anything the United States or the President does or fails to do is subject to political football; things get taken out of context when viewed in retropect- and the opponents have a far easier time because they sit on the sidelines and actually do nothing.

Beyond dollars and cents, the more significant cost is that of the lives lost in Iraq- if you are living in the States you are more likely than I to personally know that cost. I don't know what the bill was for the US for the 2nd World War; or the 1st; or the Korean too- but one thing I do believe is that if it wasn't for the States, we would not know the freedom or luxuries we do today. Sometimes these things take a long time to become apparent- so maybe it is too early yet to pass judgement on the American invasion of Iraq. Bottom line though is: Americans are there now. No real point in critising how or why- because that does not change the reality.
Obama does have a mess on his hands-and Iran is not helping it one bit. I do wonder who has the political skill to clean it up; or how.

 

[CentralCaliBike]

Anything the United States or the President does or fails to do is subject to political football; things get taken out of context when viewed in retropect- and the opponents have a far easier time because they sit on the sidelines and actually do nothing.

You do not have to be American for this scenario - it is simple politics worldwide. Of course, everyone blames the President for the budget - forgetting he only gets to sign the bill submitted by the congress (our current President, being a member of Congress during the first bail out has some responsibility there).

Politics is epitomized by compromise. Representatives vote for the bills that will make them popular at home and get them reelected first. Often this means they have to vote for bills (even those they are not in favor of) that will buy the vote from the congressman next door on those bills.

I doubt any democratic political system stays far from this model.

 

[Anonymous]

No wonder the health reform bill is 2000 pages long.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/wm2706.cfm

Below is a list of the tax increases Congress and the Administration have proposed to finance health care reform. This list includes taxes in the bill passed by the House of Representatives, the bill the Senate is currently debating, and other taxes mentioned as a possible way to pay for health care reform.

An income surtax on taxpayers earning more than $500,000 a year,[1]
An excise tax on high-cost "Cadillac" health insurance plans that cost more than $8,500 a year for individuals or $21,000 for families,[2]
An excise tax on medical devices such as wheelchairs, breast pumps, and syringes used by diabetics for insulin injections,[3]
A cap on the exclusion of employer-provided health insurance without offsetting tax cuts,[4]
A limit on itemized deductions for taxpayers with a top income tax rate greater than 28 percent,[5]
A windfall profits tax on health insurance companies,[6]
A value-added tax, which would tax the value added to a product at each stage of production,[7]
An increase in the Medicare portion of the payroll tax to 3.4 percent for incomes great than $200,000 a year ($250,000 for married filers),[8]
An excise tax on sugar-sweetened beverages including non-diet soda and sports drinks,[9]
Higher taxes on alcoholic beverages including beer, wine, and spirits,[10]
A tax on individuals without acceptable health care coverage of up to 2.5 percent of their adjusted gross income,[11]
A limit on contributions to health savings accounts,[12]
An 8 percent tax on all wages paid by employers that do not provide their employees health insurance that satisfies the requirements defined by the Secretary of Health and Human Services,[13]
A limit on contributions to flexible spending arrangements,[14]
Elimination of the deduction for expenses associated with Medicare Part D subsidies,[15]
An increase in taxes on international businesses,[16]
Elimination of the tax credits paper companies take for biofuels they create in their production process--the so-called "Black Liquor credit,"[17]
Fees on insured and self-insured health plans,[18]
A limit or repeal of the itemized deduction for medical expenses,[19]
A limit on the Qualified Medical Expense definition,[20]
An increase in the payroll taxes on students,[21]
An extension of the Medicare payroll tax to all state and local government employees,[22]
An increase in taxes on hospitals,[23]
An increase in the estate tax,[24]
Increased efforts to close the mythical "tax gap,"[25]
A 5 percent tax on cosmetic surgery and similar procedures such as Botox treatments, tummy tucks, and face lifts,[26]
A tax on drug companies,[27]
An increase in the corporate tax on providers of health insurance,[28] and
A $500,000 deduction limitation for the compensation paid by health insurance companies to their officers, employees, and directors.[29]

Yes. I think this will fix everything.

 

[BroDeal]

I guess you missed that this is for one year of interest (2019) - that the $500 billion (short of the one year rate) is more than what is being spent on both wars, homeland defense, education and energy.

Again you have reading comprehension problems. Defense! That is D, E, F, E, N, S, E. Defense. Not homeland defense. Defense. The current defense budget is slightly more than $500B. RIght now. Today. By 2019 the paranoids will have jacked that up even further. That $500B is just for the Department of Defense. It does not include the cost of the two wars; that is a suppplemental spending. It does not include the cost of nuclear weapon development and maintainance; that is in the Department of Energy's budget. It does not include the cost of spy satellites; that is in NASA. It does not include veterans affairs, homeland security, counter-terrorism, military pensions, foreign aid, etc. Altogether we spend around a trillian dollars on defense.

Bush was not a conservative. Conservatives were not happy with the way he spent money.

And are you at all concernd with the exploding debt under your guy?

I don't have a guy. I hate both parties. The Republicans now get special consideration because over the last thirty years they have turned the party into a group of right wing, hypocritical religious crazies who have no solutions.

Funny how conservatives were so unhappy with Bush that they backed him to the hilt and have only cast him off the island after his term ended.

 

[Anonymous]

Again you have reading comprehension problems. Defense! That is D, E, F, E, N, S, E. Defense. Not homeland defense. Defense. The current defense budget is slightly more than $500B. RIght now. Today. By 2019 the paranoids will have jacked that up even further. That $500B is just for the Department of Defense. It does not include the cost of the two wars; that is a suppplemental spending. It does not include the cost of nuclear weapon development and maintainance; that is in the Department of Energy's budget. It does not include the cost of spy satellites; that is in NASA. It does not include veterans affairs, homeland security, counter-terrorism, military pensions, foreign aid, etc. Altogether we spend around a trillian dollars on defense.



I don't have a guy. I hate both parties. The Republicans now get special consideration because over the last thirty years they have turned the party into a group of right wing, hypocritical religious crazies who have no solutions.

Funny how conservatives were so unhappy with Bush that they backed him to the hilt and have only cast him off the island after his term ended.[/QUOTE]

Let's see, as a conservative I had Bush v. Gore, and Bush v. Kerry. Not all that difficult to understand given the choices.

 

[CentralCaliBike]

Again you have reading comprehension problems. Defense! That is D, E, F, E, N, S, E. Defense. Not homeland defense. Defense. The current defense budget is slightly more than $500B.

Someone has a comprehension problem. No military budget means no military, perhaps that is ok with you but I think it might cause some problems around the world. Then there is the fact that the interest payments are still there, and do not forget the actual debt, then one might consider paying down the principle - of course that leaves out the fact that social security is running out of funds as well.

 

[BroDeal]

Let's see, as a conservative I had Bush v. Gore, and Bush v. Kerry. Not all that difficult to understand given the choices.

There certainly was a choice. Kerry and Gore at least live partially in the real world. Aside from being as dumb as a bag of rocks, GWB is a nut who believes we are living in the end times and it is his calling to do battle with evil. After that fool was elected, all these true convervatives that now disavow Bush could have stood against him at any time. Instead they spent their efforts defending torture, violations of the Constitution, and mad spending. Now they are putting their weight behind the only politician dumber than Bush: Sarah Palin, a candidate so stupid that while running for vice president she did not know what the Bush Doctrine was nor could she name a single newspaper that she reads.

 

[BroDeal]

Someone has a comprehension problem. No military budget means no military, perhaps that is ok with you but I think it might cause some problems around the world. Then there is the fact that the interest payments are still there, and do not forget the actual debt, then one might consider paying down the principle - of course that leaves out the fact that social security is running out of funds as well.

A $120B spent on defense puts the U.S. at equal spending with the country that spends the second most on its military, China. That is more than a $500B in savings from next year's defense budget (which includes the war costs and not spending in other departments).

Social security has an simple but unpopular solution: Raise the retirement age.

 

[Anonymous]

Again you have reading comprehension problems. Defense! That is D, E, F, E, N, S, E. Defense. Not homeland defense. Defense. The current defense budget is slightly more than $500B. RIght now. Today. By 2019 the paranoids will have jacked that up even further. That $500B is just for the Department of Defense. It does not include the cost of the two wars; that is a suppplemental spending. It does not include the cost of nuclear weapon development and maintainance; that is in the Department of Energy's budget. It does not include the cost of spy satellites; that is in NASA. It does not include veterans affairs, homeland security, counter-terrorism, military pensions, foreign aid, etc. Altogether we spend around a trillian dollars on defense.



I don't have a guy. I hate both parties. The Republicans now get special consideration because over the last thirty years they have turned the party into a group of right wing, hypocritical religious crazies who have no solutions.

Funny how conservatives were so unhappy with Bush that they backed him to the hilt and have only cast him off the island after his term ended.

There certainly was a choice. Kerry and Gore at least live partially in the real world. Aside from being as dumb as a bag of rocks, GWB is a nut who believes we are living in the end times and it is his calling to do battle with evil. After that fool was elected, all these true convervatives that now disavow Bush could have stood against him at any time. Instead they spent their efforts defending torture, violations of the Constitution, and mad spending. Now they are putting their weight behind the only politician dumber than Bush: Sarah Palin, a candidate so stupid that while running for vice president she did not know what the Bush Doctrine was nor could she name a single newspaper that she reads.

Is that how you describe Gore? Living in a 22,000 Square Foot house taking something like 20x the amount of electricity compared to the average American home, flying on private jets lecturing the rest of us about how we need to change our ways all the while making millions from selling carbon credits to solve a problem that does not exist (at least the way Gore portrays it). He's quite the capitalist as it turns out. That's just funny.

And Kerry married well. Good for him.

Palin's book is doing really well, runnaway bestseller. So how much of the American public do you want to insult with your next comments? And please remember, you brought her up.

 

[Anonymous]

A $120B spent on defense puts the U.S. at equal spending with the country that spends the second most on its military, China. That is more than a $500B in savings from next year's defense budget (which includes the war costs and not spending in other departments).

Social security has an simple but unpopular solution: Raise the retirement age.

Are you suggesting the govt mis-calculated and has to break a promise? How high shall we go with the ss benefit elgibility age?

 

[BroDeal]

Are you suggesting the govt mis-calculated and has to break a promise? How high shall we go with the ss benefit elgibility age?

Are you suggesting that anyone or any organization can predict the future? Mistakes happen. Changes of plans happen. Well, they do if you are not George W. Bush, who cannot seem to think of any mistake that he made. Any business (or government) uses a process of adjusting plans to reality. It is a continuous process. You make the best decision you can and then adapt as the situation changes.

The social security system was never meant to support people for twenty or more years. The average person did not live that long. As life spans have increased and the cost of healthcare has skyrocketed, the simple solution is to increase the retirement age until the system is financially viable. The other solutions are to increase taxes or reduce benefits.

 

[CentralCaliBike]

A $120B spent on defense puts the U.S. at equal spending with the country that spends the second most on its military, China. That is more than a $500B in savings from next year's defense budget (which includes the war costs and not spending in other departments).

Social security has an simple but unpopular solution: Raise the retirement age.

Perhaps we should outsource our military defense to the Chinese like everything else - you might have heard they have much lower production costs which is why most electronics come from China.

I wonder if any of our soldiers could live on the amount the Chinese pay theirs?

The government has raised the retirement age - still not going to prevent it from running out of money.

 

[BroDeal]

Is that how you describe Gore? Living in a 22,000 Square Foot house taking something like 20x the amount of electricity compared to the average American home, flying on private jets lecturing the rest of us about how we need to change our ways all the while making millions from selling carbon credits to solve a problem that does not exist (at least the way Gore portrays it). He's quite the capitalist as it turns out. That's just funny.

How much money someone has has nothing to do with how connected with reality he is. Living in the real world means the ability to recognize facts, come up with practical solutions, and adjust or reverse those solutions when mistakes are found. Bush was completely incompetent in that department. Kerry and Gore at least actually went to war. They have an understanding of war actually means that far exceeds Bush's entire administration of cowards who avoided their opportunity to serve but plotted, schemed, and lied to send other people's children into combat. Kerry and Gore would not have sent us into Iraq, and that makes those two more financially conservative than the Republicans ever pretended to be.

Palin's book is doing really well, runnaway bestseller. So how much of the American public do you want to insult with your next comments? And please remember, you brought her up.

Palin is dumb, and that is not a pejorative. It is a quantifiable fact. Her popularity among Republicans just goes to show how bankrupt the party really is. Her and Joe the Plumber , backed by conservative talk show hate mongers, have become the face of the Republican party, a party that now worships extremist ideology over competence.

 

[CentralCaliBike]

...Gore at least actually went to war.

As a reporter

 

[BroDeal]

Perhaps we should outsource our military defense to the Chinese like everything else - you might have heard they have much lower production costs which is why most electronics come from China.

The Republicans have already been busy outsourcing our mlitary to private companies. More accurately, they have been busy transferring defense dollars into the pockets of mercenaries working for companies owned by connected insiders, mercenaries who are paid many times more than regular soldiers.

A conservative complaining about outsourcing to China. That is rich since the conservatives and their push for unrestrained, unregulated markets have been at the forefront of hollowing out the U.S. economy.

The government has raised the retirement age - still not going to prevent it from running out of money.

Maybe this happens in the wacky world of conservative accounting but in the real world businesses are sustainable when cash inflows meet or exceed cash outflows. Raise the retirement age until that situation it met and the system will be sustainable. It is a simple mathematical fact that holds true as long as the age required is lower than the ability of the affected to work.

 

[CentralCaliBike]

Palin is dumb, and that is not a perjorative.

Normally I do not do this because I know how the keyboard gets away form me from time to time, but the spelling is "pejorative"

Dumb on the basketball court (State Champions) - so dumb she was unable to go to college and they just gave her a degree out of sympathy - someone thought she was cute so offered her a position in the local government - again, based on her stupidity, she was elected Governor of Alaska - and when offered the opportunity to run for Vice President she only took it because of her husband and a desire to do ask he asked - she signed a book deal thinking the publisher was a fan asking for an autograph.

I wonder why someone is not calling out her opponents as blatant sexists.

 

[CentralCaliBike]

A conservative complaining about outsourcing to China. That is rich since the conservatives and their push for unrestrained, unregulated markets have been at the forefront of hollowing out the U.S. economy.

I wonder why you keep missing the comments about modern conservatism - I am a fiscal conservative in case you missed it.

Maybe this happens in the wacky world of conservative accounting but in the real world businesses are sustainable when cash inflows meet or exceed cash outflows. Raise the retirement age until that situation it met and the system will be sustainable. It is a simple mathematical fact that holds true as long as the age required is lower than the ability of the affected to work.

So we make the guys who actually work, past the 50 years that they have already been working in order to save enough to pay for the ones who are not interested in making their own decisions regarding insurance - not to speak of insuring the ones who are not interested in working have a roof over their head and food on the table. Interesting...

And when a conservative suggests putting off the retirement age we are considered mean and selfish Yuppies. Then again, I guess it does sound a lot better when you say the retirement age needs to be increased.

 

[BroDeal]

Dumb on the basketball court (State Champions) - so dumb she was unable to go to college and they just gave her a degree out of sympathy - someone thought she was cute so offered her a position in the local government - again, based on her stupidity, she was elected Governor of Alaska - and when offered the opportunity to run for Vice President she only took it because of her husband and a desire to do ask he asked - she signed a book deal think the publisher was a fan asking for an autograph.

How many colleges did she attend to get that degree? Was it:

A) 1
B) 2
C) 3
D) 4
E) 5

Normally a good bet for multiple choice questions is C, but in this case the answer is E. Five colleges to get a journalism degree. And she cannot name a single newspaper she reads. Her list of books she claims to have read reads like a list of every book that was ever assigned reading during her storied struggle in education.

Her stint as mayor of Wasilla showed what the smart conservative she really was. She increased the debt of the poor little town from $0 to $20M, in part by building a sports complex to aid a political benefactor. She did that in her spare time when she was not trying to prevent the townsfolk from reading books.

As governer she quit under an ethical black cloud, having been found guilty of charging the state the per diem travel rate for living in her own house, using state money to fly her family and friends on far off vacations, and abuse of power as she pursued a vendetta against those who had crossed her family.

As a candidate for vice president, she destroyed John McCain's hopes of being elected, making him a laughing stock among those who had supported him in the past. Her interviews became the stuff of legend as people like Seth MacFarlane of Family Guy travelled the country, stopping at colleges, and getting hearty laughs by merely reading verbatim her answers to simple questions.

Ayup, she is a real mental giant, a beacon for intellectualism in the Republican Party.

 

[Hugh Januss]

Palin may actually be a beacon of intellectualism in the Republican party, but that certainly doesn't mean that isn't false praise.

 

[CentralCaliBike]

How many colleges did she attend to get that degree? Was it:

A) 1
B) 2
C) 3
D) 4
E) 5

Normally a good bet for multiple choice questions is C, but in this case the answer is E. Five colleges to get a journalism degree. And she cannot name a single newspaper she reads. Her list of books she claims to have read reads like a list of every book that was ever assigned reading during her storied struggle in education.

Her stint as mayor of Wasilla showed what the smart conservative she really was. She increased the debt of the poor little town from $0 to $20M, in part by building a sports complex to aid a political benefactor. She did that in her spare time when she was not trying to prevent the townsfolk from reading books.

As governer she quit under an ethical black cloud, having been found guilty of charging the state the per diem travel rate for living in her own house, using state money to fly her family and friends on far off vacations, and abuse of power as she pursued a vendetta against those who had crossed her family.

As a candidate for vice president, she destroyed John McCain's hopes of being elected, making him a laughing stock among those who had supported him in the past. Her interviews became the stuff of legend as people like Seth MacFarlane of Family Guy travelled the country, stopping at colleges, and getting hearty laughs by merely reading verbatim her answers to simple questions.

Ayup, she is a real mental giant, a beacon for intellectualism in the Republican Party.

I do not care much for Obama as President but at least capitalize the title out of respect to the office - it is interesting to see the courtesy of the left, you will capitalize a cartoon but not a title (apparently to show your disdain for the office holder).

McCain would have lost by a far larger margin without Palin, even with the political satire set out by Saturday Night Live. Personally, I would have preferred Romney for President but he did not get the nomination.

I am aware of those who attended a number of colleges before graduating, my father being one of them. Of course since he decided against medical school (he was accepted), dental school (also had a letter of acceptance), and left law school early to cover family expenses, he probably was not all that bright either.

My point, which you apparently chose to ignore, was that she might not be a genius like Biden but she certainly is not mentally impaired.