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Re: Bush Asks Congress for $700 Billion Bailout
I too enjoy being able to breathe. My mom smoked for 30+ years before she died from cancer. Going smokeless was the best thing that happened to public places in my opinion.
That said, I'm not sure it's the government's job to tell people they cannot smoke in privately owned businesses. If the business chooses to go smokefree, I will likely go there more often as a result, but they shouldn't be forced to go smokefree.
Re: Bush Asks Congress for $700 Billion Bailout
You guys are friggin' scary.
I'm about as capitalist as you can get, but calling national health care a fascist idea is just insanely ridiculous. I also see the terms fascist and socialist being used as if they were one and the same... This sort of indoctrination is just way more extreme than I ever could've imagined.
The impact of national health care upon the economic system is negligible, especially compared to the huge benefits it gives you to your society. Lowering the discrepancy between those who benefit from and those who don't need it only increases welfare. It's not like regular social security where people can abuse the system, you don't choose to be sick. It will not skew your economy towards the lower end, it just removes health as a factor in it.
How the hell can national health care take away freedom? You guys are so far off, it's not even funny anymore.
Trust me: we invented capitalism, we know a thing or two about it. We also have the best health care system in the world and we are one of the biggest proponents of personal freedom in Europe. They are not mutually exclusive.
I'm sorry, but you're the one that's off in this case.
Please, PLEASE name one more country that has national health care that is also a true democracy and a capitalist society. (remember the definitions of democracy and capitalism for this one) You won't find one. In a truely capitalist society, people don't pay a lot of tax revenue. In places with national health care, they do. Some places in Europe that have national health care pay 50% or more of their income to the government. Guess what? those countries are also socialist.
National health care takes away freedom because all of a sudden you don't have a choice what hospital you want, or whether you want to pay a certain premium or not. You have no choice. That to me, is a freedom that has been taken away.
We have a good health care system because it's not controlled by the government- take that away and we won't have such a good one.
We didn't invent capitalism.
If we really knew that much about our economy, would we be in this current predicament where our whole economy is on the brink of a collapse? I think not.
Re: Bush Asks Congress for $700 Billion Bailout
National health care takes away freedom because all of a sudden you don't have a choice what hospital you want, or whether you want to pay a certain premium or not. You have no choice. That to me, is a freedom that has been taken away.
See, that just shows how uninformed you are about this. We can freely choose our doctors, which hospital we go to, which perks we want during our treatment, choice of different sorts of medication, plastic surgery, ... the whole shebang.
Obviously, we need to pay for all those "nice to haves" ourselves, and we can get private insurance on top of the national health care system to pay for them. But that's something you have to decide for yourself. What's important to know is that if you choose not to pay for additional insurance, and you choose to not take private insurance, you will be able to get help for virtually no cost.
Yes, I do pay around 50% of my monthly wage in taxes (and the average Belgian still earns more than the average American), but only a small part of that goes to national health care. The rest goes to unemployment funds, retirements funds, infrastructure, ...
Now, I don't agree with a lot of those government organized insurances. I strongly believe one shouldn't be rewarded for prolonged unemployment, retirement is not something accidental so you can save up for that yourself, I don't feel I have to pay for that. (But a big part of the population does, so who am I to say it's wrong - that's democracy for ya).
If you compare that 50% to the USA's maximum of 35%, where you reap next to none of these benefits, you seem to be royally screwed. Maybe you need to reorganize the way current taxes are spent and pay national health care from the income you already have?
- Randall Flagg
- Rep: 139
Re: Bush Asks Congress for $700 Billion Bailout
A. I didn't realize your article supercedes numerous studies... however if so, then
B. The judge threw out the fact that 3,000 people DIE annually from second hand smoke, he NEVER threw out the notion that second hand smoke may cause cancer or negative health side effects. Unless there's more in the article than what it shows (the full article link doesn't work anymore), by your logic: Because a judge threw out studies which showed 3,000 people die from cancer caused by second hand smoke, then therefore secondhand smoke doesn't cause cancer whatsoever. Pretzel logic. Plus your article states employees make a choice to work for the company, well no ones forcing smokers to goto bars, they make that choice, stay home if you want to smoke.
Anyway, I wasn't even for it when they passed it here. I thought it was kinda useless, however ever since it went into effect, I like it alot. 100% better, and the majority of residents do as well, so our local government worked for us. Don't knock it till you rock it is all I'm sayin.
Here is the article:
The whole issue of the danger behind passive smoking came in 1993 when the federal EPA (warning signs should immediately begin flashing) issued its "Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking: Lung Cancer and Other Disorders." The study claimed that 3,000 people die annually due to second-hand smoke. In 1998, Judge Osteen of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina ruled, "The EPA's procedural failure constitutes a violation of the law" and "... EPA cherry picked its data..." Yeah, you read correctly, the court threw out the study saying it was biased and invalid.
Granted, organizations such as the American Lung Association, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association and U.S. Surgeon General all state that second-hand smoke is a killer. However, all of these organizations cite (yep, you guessed right) the flawed EPA study that was thrown out in a U.S. District Court. Furthermore, these organizations inflate the number of deaths each year from 3,000 to 50,000.
Do they cite scientific data to support this claim? Absolutely not, they simply issue a projection based on mortality rates from heart disease and other causes of death. In other words, if you bite the big one after having lived with a smoker, they simply chalk you up into their fabricated statistic.
But for argument's sake, let's use the EPA statistic and concede that 3,000 people die each year from lung cancer due to second-hand smoke. The EPA claims that you are 25 percent more likely to develop lung cancer if exposed to second-hand smoke. That sounds like quite an increase, but a normal person without exposure to passive smoke runs a 1:100,000 chance of developing lung cancer. According to the EPA, the chance increases to 1:80,000 if exposed to passive smoke. In other words, 10 people out of 1,000,000 will develop lung cancer without exposure and 12.5 out of 1,000,000 will develop lung cancer with exposure to second-hand smoke. This is statistically insignificant. So only 2.5 people per million develop lung cancer due to second-hand smoke, and that's if you buy into the EPA's flawed study.
We get it; some of you don't like second-hand smoke. If you don't like second-hand smoke, persuade a bar uptown to ban smoking and you can patronize that establishment. But don't stand here and tell me you're on some crusade to defend the health of those who work in these places, as well as your own, when you don't have a clue as to what you're ranting about. Those employees make a choice to work in an environment where smoking is permissible. Last time I checked, I wasn't stepping over dead bodies every time I walked into a restaurant or bar that allowed smoking, and I'm sure you haven't either.
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My point is that no scientific study as of 2006 ( I havent looked since then) showed second hand smoke as statistically dangerous. When only 2.5 people out of a million get lung cancer from 2nd hand smoke, we have to ask ourselves do those two individuals outweigh the freedom of the other million, especially when no one is forced to breathe second hand smoke.
They instituted the same law in Ohio and Washington, so I'm well aware of what it's like. The point remains that dictating to a property owner what legal substance he can or can not allow on his premises is wrong. What next, are we going to allow San Fransico to ban red-meat from restraunts because red-meat can cause cancer and the yahoos out there find eating meat barbaric? Second hand smoke is an annoyance, not a threat. The bans amount to people banning stufff that annoys them under the mask of psuedo science and outright bullshit.
- Randall Flagg
- Rep: 139
Re: Bush Asks Congress for $700 Billion Bailout
Saikin wrote:National health care takes away freedom because all of a sudden you don't have a choice what hospital you want, or whether you want to pay a certain premium or not. You have no choice. That to me, is a freedom that has been taken away.
See, that just shows how uninformed you are about this. We can freely choose our doctors, which hospital we go to, which perks we want during our treatment, choice of different sorts of medication, plastic surgery, ... the whole shebang.
Obviously, we need to pay for all those "nice to haves" ourselves, and we can get private insurance on top of the national health care system to pay for them. But that's something you have to decide for yourself. What's important to know is that if you choose not to pay for additional insurance, and you choose to not take private insurance, you will be able to get help for virtually no cost.
Yes, I do pay around 50% of my monthly wage in taxes (and the average Belgian still earns more than the average American), but only a small part of that goes to national health care. The rest goes to unemployment funds, retirements funds, infrastructure, ...
Now, I don't agree with a lot of those government organized insurances. I strongly believe one shouldn't be rewarded for prolonged unemployment, retirement is not something accidental so you can save up for that yourself, I don't feel I have to pay for that. (But a big part of the population does, so who am I to say it's wrong - that's democracy for ya).
If you compare that 50% to the USA's maximum of 35%, where you reap next to none of these benefits, you seem to be royally screwed. Maybe you need to reorganize the way current taxes are spent and pay national health care from the income you already have?
The point remains that one is forced to partake in a plan that is not advantageous to most people. Everyone pays for health care so that the have nots can get it too. This results in lower quality of care and availability. I know a thing or two about social medicine, I am in the Army afterall and our medical system epitomizes social medicine. The only caveat is that the Army excludes extremely unhealthy people from joining and there are no unemployed, so it is a little bit better than what would be available to the general public.
It ultimately comes down to this, what gives someone the right to steal from me to provide for those unable or unwilling to provide for themselves. I understand that this system can be created under a democratic system, but that tyranny of the majority and nothing more. I demand that if my hard earned money is going to provide you with health care, that I have a say in how you live your life. I'll be damned if we have a system where everyone gets health care and the numerous other luxuries you stated in that UN document (by the way you still haven't answered how they derivied that right or where they got the authority to claim it as such) that requires no effort of the indivdual. People should not be rewarded for making poor decsions and adapting to survive in our society. If you choose to work a job that pasy 8$ an hour and have 4 kids, it's not my problem that your quality of life sucks. Now I can make personal, charitable donations (and I do) to help these people, but that is my choice and my decision on how I use my money. Forcing me to do something for the ideals of another is bullshit, especially when a portion of those people imposing those beliefs are the people that will benefit from them.
Re: Bush Asks Congress for $700 Billion Bailout
CNN) '” Barack Obama is laying out his views of the federal bailout proposal at an event in Florida this hour.
Senator Obama's Plan To Protect Taxpayers and Homeowners
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Tampa, Florida
Yesterday, the President said that Congress should pass his proposal to ease the crisis on Wall Street without significant changes or improvements.
Now, there are many to blame for causing the current crisis, starting with the speculators who gamed the system and the regulators who looked the other way. But all of us now have a stake in solving it and saving our financial institutions from collapse. Because if we don't, the jobs and life savings of millions will be put at risk.
Given that fact, the President's stubborn inflexibility is both unacceptable and disturbingly familiar. This is not the time for my-way-or-the-highway intransigence from anyone involved. It's not the time for fear or panic. It's the time for resolve, responsibility, and reasonableness.
And it is wholly unreasonable to expect that American taxpayers would or should hand this Administration or any Administration a $700 billion blank check with absolutely no oversight or conditions when a lack of oversight in Washington and on Wall Street is exactly what got us into this mess.
Now that the American people are being called upon to finance this solution, the American people have the right to certain protections and assurances from Washington.
First, the plan must include protections to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not used to further reward the bad behavior of irresponsible CEOs on Wall Street. There has been talk that some CEOs may refuse to cooperate with this plan if they have to forgo multi-million-dollar salaries. I cannot imagine a position more selfish and greedy at a time of national crisis. And I would like to speak directly to those CEOs right now: Do not make that mistake. You are stewards for workers and communities all across our country who have put their trust in you. With the enormous rewards you have reaped come responsibilities, and we expect and demand that you to live up to them. This plan cannot be a welfare program for Wall Street executives.
Second, the power to spend $700 billion of taxpayer money cannot be left to the discretion of one man, no matter who he is or which party he is from. I have great respect for Secretary Paulson, but he cannot act alone. We should set up an independent board that includes some of the most respected figures in our country, chosen by Democrats and Republicans, to provide oversight and accountability at every step of the way. I am heartened that Secretary Paulson appeared to be softening on this position in his testimony this morning.
Third, if taxpayers are being asked to underwrite hundreds of billions of dollars to solve this crisis, they must be treated like investors. The American people should share in the upside as Wall Street recovers. There are different ways to accomplish this, including putting equity into these firms instead of buying their troubled assets.
But regardless of how we structure the plan, if the government makes any kind of profit on this deal, we must give every penny back to the taxpayers who put up the money in the first place. And after the economy recovers, we should institute a Financial Stability Fee on the entire financial services industry to repay any losses to the American people and make sure we are never asked to foot the bill for Wall Street's mistakes again. We can ask taxpayers to make an investment in the stability of our economy, but we cannot ask them to hand their money over to Wall Street without some expectation of return.
Fourth, the final plan must provide help to families who are struggling to stay in their homes. We cannot simply bailout Wall Street without helping the millions of innocent homeowners who are facing foreclosure.
There are a number of ways we can accomplish this. For example, we should consider giving the government the authority to purchase mortgages directly instead of simply mortgage-backed securities. In the past, such an approach has allowed taxpayers to profit as the housing market recovered. This is not simply a question of looking after homeowners, it's doubtful that the economy as a whole can recover without the restoration of our housing sector, including a rebound in the home values that have suffered dramatically in recent months.
Finally, the American people need to know that we feel as great a sense of urgency about the emergency on Main Street as we do about the emergency on Wall Street. I have repeatedly called on President Bush and Senator McCain to join me in supporting an economic stimulus plan for working families - a plan that would help folks cope with rising food and gas prices, save one million jobs by rebuilding our schools and roads, help states and cities avoid painful budget cuts and tax increases, and help homeowners stay in their homes.
Let me be clear - we shouldn't include this stimulus package into this particular legislation, but as we solve the immediate crisis on Wall Street, we should move with the same sense of urgency to help Main Street.
It is absolutely wrong to suggest that we cannot protect American taxpayers while still stabilizing our market and saving our financial system from collapse. We can and must do both.
In summary, there is no doubt negotiations over the next few days will be difficult. I will continue to keep in close touch with Secretary Paulson, Chairman Bernanke, and the leaders of Congress to ensure that we can work in a bipartisan manner to get this done as quickly as possible. Our country is being tested by a very serious crisis. We are all in this together, and we must come together as Democrats and Republicans, on Wall Street and on Main Street to solve it. And with the proper spirit of cooperation, I know we can.
- Randall Flagg
- Rep: 139
Re: Bush Asks Congress for $700 Billion Bailout
By Ron Paul
Special to CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/23/ … index.html
(CNN) -- Many Americans today are asking themselves how the economy got to be in such a bad spot.
For years they thought the economy was booming, growth was up, job numbers and productivity were increasing. Yet now we find ourselves in what is shaping up to be one of the most severe economic downturns since the Great Depression.
Unfortunately, the government's preferred solution to the crisis is the very thing that got us into this mess in the first place: government intervention.
Ever since the 1930s, the federal government has involved itself deeply in housing policy and developed numerous programs to encourage homebuilding and homeownership.
Government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were able to obtain a monopoly position in the mortgage market, especially the mortgage-backed securities market, because of the advantages bestowed upon them by the federal government.
Laws passed by Congress such as the Community Reinvestment Act required banks to make loans to previously underserved segments of their communities, thus forcing banks to lend to people who normally would be rejected as bad credit risks.
These governmental measures, combined with the Federal Reserve's loose monetary policy, led to an unsustainable housing boom. The key measure by which the Fed caused this boom was through the manipulation of interest rates, and the open market operations that accompany this lowering.
When interest rates are lowered to below what the market rate would normally be, as the Federal Reserve has done numerous times throughout this decade, it becomes much cheaper to borrow money. Longer-term and more capital-intensive projects, projects that would be unprofitable at a high interest rate, suddenly become profitable.
Because the boom comes about from an increase in the supply of money and not from demand from consumers, the result is malinvestment, a misallocation of resources into sectors in which there is insufficient demand.
In this case, this manifested itself in overbuilding in real estate. When builders realize they have overbuilt and have too many houses to sell, too many apartments to rent, or too much commercial real estate to lease, they seek to recoup as much of their money as possible, even if it means lowering prices drastically.
This lowering of prices brings the economy back into balance, equalizing supply and demand. This economic adjustment means, however that there are some winners -- in this case, those who can again find affordable housing without the need for creative mortgage products, and some losers -- builders and other sectors connected to real estate that suffer setbacks.
The government doesn't like this, however, and undertakes measures to keep prices artificially inflated. This was why the Great Depression was as long and drawn out in this country as it was.
I am afraid that policymakers today have not learned the lesson that prices must adjust to economic reality. The bailout of Fannie and Freddie, the purchase of AIG, and the latest multi-hundred billion dollar Treasury scheme all have one thing in common: They seek to prevent the liquidation of bad debt and worthless assets at market prices, and instead try to prop up those markets and keep those assets trading at prices far in excess of what any buyer would be willing to pay.
Additionally, the government's actions encourage moral hazard of the worst sort. Now that the precedent has been set, the likelihood of financial institutions to engage in riskier investment schemes is increased, because they now know that an investment position so overextended as to threaten the stability of the financial system will result in a government bailout and purchase of worthless, illiquid assets.
Using trillions of dollars of taxpayer money to purchase illusory short-term security, the government is actually ensuring even greater instability in the financial system in the long term.
The solution to the problem is to end government meddling in the market. Government intervention leads to distortions in the market, and government reacts to each distortion by enacting new laws and regulations, which create their own distortions, and so on ad infinitum.
It is time this process is put to an end. But the government cannot just sit back idly and let the bust occur. It must actively roll back stifling laws and regulations that allowed the boom to form in the first place.
The government must divorce itself of the albatross of Fannie and Freddie, balance and drastically decrease the size of the federal budget, and reduce onerous regulations on banks and credit unions that lead to structural rigidity in the financial sector.
Until the big-government apologists realize the error of their ways, and until vocal free-market advocates act in a manner which buttresses their rhetoric, I am afraid we are headed for a rough ride.
Re: Bush Asks Congress for $700 Billion Bailout
It's funny how a lot of people attribute this crisis to the free market, when in fact it's the absence of it.
Sadly these highly perceptive commentaries are lost in the shuffle of sensationlist mass media and deceptive politicians.
Getting rid of the FED should've been the major campaign issue this year, and lots before it. The FEDs credentials since its inception are 1 great depression (perhaps 2) and a steady stream of booms and busts every 10 years or so for the last century. Clearly it does not fulfull its stated purpose and should be fully abolished in favor of a market run, debt free economy. This is not rocket science, it's just been hammered down our throats by the world bankers for so long that we know of no other reality.
- Randall Flagg
- Rep: 139
Re: Bush Asks Congress for $700 Billion Bailout
For once I totally agree with you polluxlm.
- Randall Flagg
- Rep: 139
Re: Bush Asks Congress for $700 Billion Bailout
On MSNBC this week, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter tried to connect John McCain to the current financial disaster, saying: "If you remember the Keating Five scandal that (McCain) was a part of. ... He's really getting a free ride on the fact that he was in the middle of the last great financial scandal in our country."
McCain was "in the middle of" the Keating Five case in the sense that he was "exonerated." The lawyer for the Senate Ethics Committee wanted McCain removed from the investigation altogether, but, as The New York Times reported: "Sen. McCain was the only Republican embroiled in the affair, and Democrats on the panel would not release him."
So John McCain has been held hostage by both the Viet Cong and the Democrats.
Alter couldn't be expected to know that: As usual, he was lifting material directly from Kausfiles. What is unusual was that he was stealing a random thought sent in by Kausfiles' mother, who, the day before, had e-mailed: "It's time to bring up the Keating Five. Let McCain explain that scandal away."
The Senate Ethics Committee lawyer who investigated McCain already had explained that scandal away -- repeatedly. It was celebrated lawyer Robert Bennett, most famous for defending a certain horny hick president a few years ago.
In February this year, on Fox News' "Hannity and Colmes," Bennett said, for the eight billionth time:
"First, I should tell your listeners I'm a registered Democrat, so I'm not on (McCain's) side of a lot of issues. But I investigated John McCain for a year and a half, at least, when I was special counsel to the Senate Ethics Committee in the Keating Five. ... And if there is one thing I am absolutely confident of, it is John McCain is an honest man. I recommended to the Senate Ethics Committee that he be cut out of the case, that there was no evidence against him."
It's bad enough for Alter to be constantly ripping off Kausfiles. Now he's so devoid of his own ideas, he's ripping off the idle musings of Kausfiles' mother.
Even if McCain had been implicated in the Keating Five scandal -- and he wasn't -- that would still have absolutely nothing to do with the subprime mortgage crisis currently roiling the financial markets. This crisis was caused by political correctness being forced on the mortgage lending industry in the Clinton era.
Before the Democrats' affirmative action lending policies became an embarrassment, the Los Angeles Times reported that, starting in 1992, a majority-Democratic Congress "mandated that Fannie and Freddie increase their purchases of mortgages for low-income and medium-income borrowers. Operating under that requirement, Fannie Mae, in particular, has been aggressive and creative in stimulating minority gains."
Under Clinton, the entire federal government put massive pressure on banks to grant more mortgages to the poor and minorities. Clinton's secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Andrew Cuomo, investigated Fannie Mae for racial discrimination and proposed that 50 percent of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's portfolio be made up of loans to low- to moderate-income borrowers by the year 2001.
Instead of looking at "outdated criteria," such as the mortgage applicant's credit history and ability to make a down payment, banks were encouraged to consider nontraditional measures of credit-worthiness, such as having a good jump shot or having a missing child named "Caylee."
Threatening lawsuits, Clinton's Federal Reserve demanded that banks treat welfare payments and unemployment benefits as valid income sources to qualify for a mortgage. That isn't a joke -- it's a fact.
When Democrats controlled both the executive and legislative branches, political correctness was given a veto over sound business practices.
In 1999, liberals were bragging about extending affirmative action to the financial sector. Los Angeles Times reporter Ron Brownstein hailed the Clinton administration's affirmative action lending policies as one of the "hidden success stories" of the Clinton administration, saying that "black and Latino homeownership has surged to the highest level ever recorded."
Meanwhile, economists were screaming from the rooftops that the Democrats were forcing mortgage lenders to issue loans that would fail the moment the housing market slowed and deadbeat borrowers couldn't get out of their loans by selling their houses.
A decade later, the housing bubble burst and, as predicted, food-stamp-backed mortgages collapsed. Democrats set an affirmative action time-bomb and now it's gone off.
In Bush's first year in office, the White House chief economist, N. Gregory Mankiw, warned that the government's "implicit subsidy" of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, combined with loans to unqualified borrowers, was creating a huge risk for the entire financial system.
Rep. Barney Frank denounced Mankiw, saying he had no "concern about housing." How dare you oppose suicidal loans to people who can't repay them! The New York Times reported that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were "under heavy assault by the Republicans," but these entities still had "important political allies" in the Democrats.
Now, at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, middle-class taxpayers are going to be forced to bail out the Democrats' two most important constituent groups: rich Wall Street bankers and welfare recipients.
Political correctness had already ruined education, sports, science and entertainment. But it took a Democratic president with a Democratic congress for political correctness to wreck the financial industry.
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Now before you denounce the author, try to denounce the facts.
