Sad day for America

And signed off by Bush.

Requiring people to take responsibility for their healthcare and get private insurance is not Marxism.

That's because liberals are not a "bunch." Nor are Republicans. Different liberals have different values and ideas. Just as there are more central Republicans and more right-wing Republicans.

What about the loans that Bush signed off on in 2008?

And not nearly enough oversight. The problem was not with GM or Chyrsler (although there were plenty of problems there), but the problem was with the banking industry and the way the US let them get away with so much crap, like giving loans to people who could not possibly give them back, and then repackaging them and selling them, often lying to the borrowers.

Jeff

Leaving alone for now that it could be argued that it is, taking money at extremely disproportionate rates from those who are wealthy (otherwise known as redistribution of wealth) to pretend to pay for it definitely is. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is definitely a philosophy of those running the country right now.

Sure do. Made money on predicting that it would come. Initially I thought the democrat congress might try to stop it but it became readily apparent they were stunded deer square on the tracks looking into a railway locomotive coming right at them.

Ditto GM... denial of debt, they just went crash.

While government would blame the home mortage crisis, that is blame on the symptom not the cause.

And at the rate Obama is going, America will soon not be able to afford it at all.

That's one opinion.

Foreign affairs experience, your kidding right? The only thing they did right was send more troop to Afghanistan, everything else they have the done with foreign affairs has been screw up. From bowing to kings and dictators to fighting with the Israelis.

Unfortunately for us the voters SHOULD have considered the ONE person, of the four running for most important EXECUTIVE positions in the world President and Vice President of the United States, who had far MORE EXECUTIVE experience than all THREE of the others COMBINED.

Perhaps if they had considered EXECUTIVE experience the country world not be in the mess that the two with NO EXECUTIVE experience, have gotten it into.

Everything has gotten worse ever since Bush left office and the Dims called him a dummy. What does that make those two bozos who are destroying the economy and spending the county into bankruptcy to buy votes, and the dummies like you think that's a good thing. LOL

I guess at your age it's easy to forget that Obama inherited this failing economy from Bush.

In message , charlesgrozny writes

Do you know anything about "netequette", top posting says no.

While that is true, it's time to start judging Obama based on what he has accomplished. The Cash for Clunkers program did little to help the environment and made used cars more expensive. He doesn't have a space exploration plan. On the other hand, he got the health car plan passed and helped prevented employment from dipper further. And he's thinking (something Bush rarely did) about what is good for American education (hint: Nothing will make kids enthusiastic about science as people exploring space).

Jeff

Mostly, it was a bailout program designed to hand money to the auto manufacturers...and most significantly to Ford since they made, by far, the most 'clunkers'.

Yep, we know Obama is a liberal and that means it is always someone elses fault.

I agree with this. The overwhelming desire to keep the snowball rolling is shared by Republicans and Democrats alike...and fueled by a consumer that always wants more than they can actually afford.

I'm not sure why you assign the '401k' to a Democrat philosophy. If anything, I'd assign it to a Republican philosophy while company pensions are more in tune with a Democrat philosophy. In either case, lets all be really glad that the government didn't succeed in getting Soocial Security funds into the stock market investing game a few years ago.

Not sure what this has to do with 401k. Americans are content to offshore jobs as long as the job isn't theirs and as long as the result will be cheaper products for them to buy here in America.

I don't know about that, but I am one of those that believes that a global economy is one of the best ways to avoid global warfare...and all the expenses that go along with destroying rather than building.

If there is a line in the sand where you can point and claim that America suddenly felt this way (as opposed to always feeling this way), I'd point at the 1980s, not the 1990s.

The money went to the owners of clunkers, not the car makers. However, Ford makes cars people want to buy, so a lot of people bought Fords with their money.

Jeff

You seem to be the one falling for a lie. People know exactly how much they paid for their previous mortgage or for their rent. they know exactly how much they were saving (or not saving) before. So, when they sign on for an even bigger mortgage, they knew full wel that it was beyond their means. The problem is that most people practice the 'fantasy mentality' where they 'promise to eat out less, promise to buy fewer new clothes, promise to work more hours, etc... once they get the new mortgage. The consumers were lying to themselves.

As for the 'bait and switch' of fixed rate vs. adjustable rate...well, what those people really heard was 'the rate stays fixed for the first two years and then, if you do as you claim you will do and work towards establishing a better credit score) you can refinance to a fixed rate loan. Few/none of those people really failed to undetrstand that their loans would go up (heck, even fixed rate loans go up nearly every year because taxes and insurance go up with the home's rising value). The point was that they didn't care if the adjustable rate was coming (who cares about the 'distant' future) because they all felt that their own incomes would go up (doesn't everyone hope for that), that their would be able to improve their credit (lied to themselves about what kind of person they were), that they would be able to refinance (a lie that worked for nearly everyone for a couple decades), or that they would be selling this home and moving on to a different one in a few years anyway (starter home mentality).

True. Some people really got shafted by timing, especially in places like Nevada, Florida, and Arizona. Still, the other half of that is that the 'intelligent' people (those that chose not to buy beyond their means) that were being priced out of the home ownership market in those areas now have their pick of affordable homes.

Yep. The root of the problem was/is people buying beyond their means. Not bad government, not bad banks, just bad consumers. And, despite what some people her ebelieve, the vast majority of those consumers were not lower income families.

The news mentioned something this morning about Citibank stock being sold off (recouped) over the rest of this year. All of the money won't get recovered GM/GMAC will always be a real loss for the government/taxpayer, but a significant portion of it will.

Side note: Bank of America recently expanded their program to simply reduce the amount of money that people owe on their home mortgage. Owe $200,000 on a home that is currently only worth $150,000? Well, fine, the bank will give you a magic gift for your fiscal irresponsibility and reduce the amount you owe to $150,000. I hate this plan as it only promotes a return to irresponsible borrowing by the consumer. If the consumer doesn't get 'hurt' when they spend beyond their means, how will they ever learn? At the very least, these reductions in the mortgage amount due should be modified so that the bank itself takes an ownership share (non-voting share if you will) in the home and that the bank will get a share of any equity/profit that exists when the home is eventually sold.

GM (as well as Ford and Chrysler) have been bankrupt for decades due to irresponsible demands/contracts with unions. There is no real value in any of these companies due to the pension promises.

If a bus drives over a cliff and the driver suddenly turns over the steering wheel to someone else as the bus plunges towards the ground, do you blame the new guy for the impact?

The Cash for Clunkers program was designed to spur people to buy new vehicles when they would have otherwise NOT bought at all. The government 'cash' may have gone to the consumer (wink wink), but the purpose odf the program was to provide yet another form of bailout to the auto industry.

Ford makes the cars that people most wanted to get rid of. The fact that many of them went back to Ford and said 'thank you sir, may I have another', is a really sad commentary on American consumers.

Of course, if you wanted to get rid of an old Toyota you were likely out of luck since old Toyotas got such good gas mileage that you would have had to buy an electric/hybrid vehicle in order to see a 'clunkers' qualifying level of improvement.