The American Economy

[Icarus94]

And the effects it has on the global economy
could this have been avoided?
what can we do to fix it?
who's to blame for this?

[Darknezz]

Dec 9, 2008 22:57:44 GMT -5 Icarus94 said:

And the effects it has on the global economy
could this have been avoided?

We could have not poured funds into a pointless war in Iraq, we could not pay farmers to not farm, we could not bail out banks to put ourselves into an even larger sinkhole.

Fix it? Well, we could start by actually taxing the people with money, not people like us who barely scrape by. We could have farmers actually FARM and produce crops that we could then sell over seas. We could do a multitude of things, none of which will be done.

Who's to blame? Seriously? That's rhetorical, right?

[str4ngerd4nger]

i blame the canadians




i kid


but in all seriousness i blame Bush for being a retard
this COULD have been avoided but we chose to just walk on in and take it

Here's to a second Great Depression!

[SnowOwl96]

There's a lot of people in this country to blame. The banks for lending money to greedy insipid people for things like a new house which they can't afford and will never pay off for one. Bush and kerry were horrible candidates for president to begin with. There's a ton of things and it begins with GREEDY and SELFISH PEOPLE that only care about themselves! Those kind of people I love to strangle and b Itch slap them into the next county.

[mypallyowndu]

Here are some links that may be helpful.

A NY Times article on the role that Moody's played.

www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/magazine/27Credit-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Basically, Moody's is a credit rating agency that is very powerful. If they give something a triple A rating, it's supposed to be a safe investment. Banks started selling their mortgage loans into bond pools and Moody's gave many of those bonds triple A ratings. Not a good idea.

This website has a liberal bias but, still, I found it helpful.

howdidthishappen.org/facts/

Here, the blame is placed on the deregulation of the financial markets. Without government oversight, agencies like Moody's began rating bonds poorly. The website has plenty of footnotes to sources so you can always check those if you have doubts about credibility.

Nobel laureate and Princeton economist Paul Krugman talks to Newsweek:

www.newsweek.com/id/171871/page/2

Krugman is a liberal and does not hide it. However, he's also one of the best and most respected economists of his generation so you should take what he says seriously even if you don't ultimately think it's right.

I'm trying to figure this all out myself. I know very little about finance (except that investment bankers are rich douchebags who have ruined all the once hip places in Manhattan). I found Doug Henwood's book "Wall Street" a very helpful guide to the world of finance. You can download the PDF for free here:

www.leftbusinessobserver.com/WSDownload.html

Henwood is no economist and he is something of a social democrat. Still, the book is very helpful, especially to the uninitiated amongst us.

[Icarus94]

Thanks Pally for these Contributions, they should prove useful

[inquisition]

The banks and the people are mainly to blame.

There was this really interesting show on BBC3 a while back, "How to rob a bank." Pretty interesting, insightful into how much a bank is willing to lend out to a totally new customer. Check it out if yoy can.

[Ultimatum]

Yeah I blame the pointless
war in iraq

[rabbeseking]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've heard that occasionally war's are good for a countries economy. Apparently it's not so in our case.

[ard]

Sorry, America is a land of where the rich rule the poor. In this case, the rich screwed up. And so the sheperd's sheep suffered from the pain.

Will giving these screw-ups money change anything? No. I suggest we just completely re-design out government. Capitalism is destined to fail, unfortunately for the small portion of us.

[SnowOwl96]

"When the rich wage war, it's the poor that die." Linkin park "Hands Held High."
Who truly knows how long this will last?.

[rabbeseking]

Dec 29, 2008 0:23:03 GMT -5 SnowOwl96 said:

"When the rich wage war, it's the poor that die." Linkin park "Hands Held High."
Who truly knows how long this will last?.

"From the force to the union shops
The war economy is making new jobs
But the people who benefit most
Are breaking bread with their benevolent hosts

Who never stole from the rich to give to the poor
All they ever gave to them was a war
And a foreign enemy to deplore"

Bad Religion. "Let Them Eat War"

The war will continue, and more and more poor families will send their sons and daughters into the military, in hopes of a brighter future, when in fact all that awaits them is hatred from the Iraqi and Afghan people, ridicule from us Americans, and possible bodily harm, or death. For the lucky ones that do survive, there's the inability to hold a job because of injuries, and the government's lack of care about veterans.

So in an essence Bad Religion and Linkin Park are saying the same things. Albeit Bad Religion isn't a terrible band, but you get the point.