Wow.
There is a lot of stress in the world. With the guy crashing his plane into a building in Austin, TX, this bulldozed home is nothing. You will be hearing it more and more. People get desperate when desperate.
If cap and trade goes through, this will be common place. I will ask again; Nick, do you have a class on operating heavy equipment?
People are loosing faith in the system.
They see Wall St. Bankers and others being bailed out and reaching into the taxpayers pocket for their own gain and nothing is done except more of the same.
Those that got us into this mess are not being prosecuted and people are beginning to realize it.
I think these type of events will become more common as the stress increases and the lawlessness continues.
I’d rather be wrong but it seems unavoidable.
The entire economy can be turned around in 48 hours if Obama really wanted to do it.
- Stop printing money.
- Institute a moratorium on all new regulation.
- Renew the Bush tax cuts.
- Cut all corporate taxes drastically.
- Switch military to mostly a drone and smart bomb system.
I think this sort of thing happens when a person feels they have nothing left to lose. Especially if they have played by the rules and worked hard only to be left in an untenable position by forces outside their control.
Bankers are held harmless and made whole. While attempts to address the problems of ordinary people are held hostage to political power struggles. I can understand why the “Bulldozer” option looks attractive.
…yep. Especially when he found a buyer to pay off his note and the bank rejected it.
Nick, that avatar is scary. It gives me nightmares.
Right. Let’s see now.
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The hard money theory. Which means we all walk around with wheelbarrows of coins. If we can find them. No credit cards, no checks, only hard cash.
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So don’t regulate the bankers who screwed us and got the windfall. Don’t let the regulators question their shady deals and just allow any sort of financial shinanigans.
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And while we’re at it make sure the wealthiest get more tax breaks. Ignore the fact (as prince george and his right wing rubber stamps did) that fighting 2 wars costs money and that calling Americans to sacrifice to provide the common defense is appropriate. And it is not right to just put it on the credit card for our children to pay. (Besides they might need some defense then as well)
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There is an argument to be made about corporate taxes being double taxation. But tinkering with corporate taxes or even eliminating them will not fix our financial difficulties.
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Nor would re-structuring our military. Unless we are ready to forego military adventurism and focus only on defense of America. Our military is structured to project power which costs money. Do you really think we could do without the ability to do that as we wish?
If we really want to fix this fiscal mess we need to align spending and revenue. And that means taking real action on both sides of that coin. A job the Senate recently shirked when President Obama asked that they create a mechanism for doing exactly that.
There are no quick fixes or magic bullets to the problem. Which means a serious and respectful discussion over spending priorities and how to tax ourselves to pay for them. And being a pluralistic society that means learning to find compromises and acceptable solutions instead of eternal gridlock over ideology.
You misunderstand. I didn’t mean “stop printing money” to mean stop printing paper money only. Stop coining money too. The phrase “stop printing money” is widely understood to mean to not to deflate the value of everyone’s money by making more of it.
Printing money (or coining it), is basically a way to steal from the poor and give to the rich.
Nearly all the hard assets in this country are owned by the rich. As the printing presses run, the value of the money you have in your pocket becomes less valuable (as does anything that becomes less rare). The money in one’s pocket (meaning cash in your savings or checking account) is a very small percentage of rich person’s wealth. Most of a rich person’s wealth is in real assets. As the real value (purchasing power) of cash goes down, hard assets become worth more (in terms of cash), which keeps the rich flush. However, as the real value (purchasing power) of cash goes down, the poor get harmed.
Adding to the money supply is just a way of taking purchasing power from the poor and increasing the value (in terms of cash) of the assets (mostly owned by the rich).
Obama’s printing press is the anti-Robin Hood.
Well, there are enough regulation on the books now that aren’t enforced (ie Bernie Madoff). But the “shady deals” you speak of are trivial compared to the deals done in the light of day. Our government printed trillions, thus deflating the value of what little cash the poor man has and earns, and then gave much of that money to Wall Street… and they did it right out in the light of day.
I’d rather not compromise, and I prefer eternal gridlock over socialism. I wish we would have had some gridlock when Barney Frank was interfering with the free market and pushing through legislation that caused Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to guarantee ridiculous 103% LTV loans that no lender would normally write otherwise, thus causing an artificial housing price balloon that finally burst and wrecked havoc on our inspection industry in particular.
I’m well aware of the principle’s behind inflating the currency and how it steals wealth from those whose wealth is in cash as opposed to hard goods. Create inflation and cash loses value while hard goods tend to increase in price and thereby maintain relative value over time. Create inflation and debts cost less to repay as they are repaid with dollars that have a lower purchasing power.
But I do find it misleading in the extreme to lay that at President Obama’s door. It is the old political blame game that generates lots of heat but little light. It is no more President Obama’s printing press then it was any preceding administration. Nor do I agree that this idea is a magic bullet to fix our woes without pain or sacrifice. I do agree we should not be purposefully inflating the currency to mask current problems but of itself it is insufficient to solve the problems.
The key to a stable currency is a government that has established a set of priorities and the willingness to pay for spending on those priorities. In other words to get our fiscal house in order we need to align our spending and our revenue. And once we do that we , as the body politic, must stop rewarding politicians who promise us candy that isn’t paid for. Whether that candy is social programs, wars, or tax cuts for rich folks. If our leaders decide that we need to spend then they must also have the courage to establish a means of paying for what we get.
Imagine if the Republican Congress ,that had full control until 2006, had not scrapped the idea of paygo which was so successful pre-bush. Then when the downturn hit the necessity of spending money to try and blunt the effects of the downturn would not be ramping up an already bloated debt and deficit. Imagine if they had insisted that war costs be on the budget and that we, as Amercians , be called on to sacrifice for our defense. Instead of just running the credit card then and complaining about the debt now.
It is my understanding that Obama not only printed more money than any other administration, but printed more money in 1 year than ALL previous administrations combined. Deflating the value of money through printing is a tax on the poor.
What he should have done was bulldoze the bankers home and the bank…now that would send a message. 
What these banks should do is simply reset the principles on these loans to an amount 10% greater than the highest offer and let the homeowner stay put. The bank would be ahead (compared to a foreclosure), the homeowner’s credit would not be harmed, and kids get to keep their bedrooms. They’d have to confirm hardship so that everyone doesn’t do it strategically, but that shouldn’t be difficult.
In this case, the bank turned down a $170K offer on a $160K note because they said they thought they could get more money. Why should they care about any money above and beyond the note they are carrying? By law, they can’t keep it anyway and have to return it to the homeowner.
The bank is crazier than the guy in the bulldozer.
And one side says do we really need this and the other side says tax the productive to pay for it.
This would seem to be unresolvable and the source of much political debate and acrimony.
How about the politicians just follow the original intent of the constitution and let the people keep their freedom.
OK, so this clown in Ohio did this and is now in much more trouble. How does that help. He was, obviously, more concerned with proving that he he had a bigger choad than the bank did, which is a silly arguement.
I, regularly, see litigation in tha affluant North Shore area where people spend $100,000 in litigation to solve a problem that is worth $10,000. It is never halpful and just increases the general stupidity content of the nation.
The guy who flew his airplane into the building in Texas was just a nut job. Not a radical conservative or socialist, just a nut job.
As was this guy in Ohio.
Cut spending, lower taxes and get the economy moving again. Simple as that.
Hope this helps;
Back in the late 60’s Ireland was a very poor uneducated country with a large part of the population on the dole (welfare) The newly elected Prime Minister turned the country around by demanding that children be educated. His interpretation of education was reading, writing and arithmetic and not feel good BS, (every one is a winner, everyone graduates etc)
The next step was lowering the corporate tax rate to 12% and a MINIMAL tax on the incomes of retired people who reside in the country. The result was a massive infusion of capital from companies as diverse as GM to Bose, factories were built, people put to work and the govt tax receipts boomed! Not to mention the massive influx of retirees who were able to keep most of their pension incomes. Before it starts, yes I am first generation in America and I also enlisted
during Viet-Nam, Honorably discharged US Navy, brown water Navy out of Little Creek Va.
In the course of a little over 20 years this poor little country’s economy became known as the “Celtic Tiger” Today, as with most of the EU Ireland is hurting but not nearly as bad as other countries. The lesson is simply, Kennedy, Reagan and Bush all knew it.
Capital will flow to where it is welcomed. Tax revenues are generated by the movement of money, the lower the tax rate(corporate & individual) the faster the money moves (investment) and the greater the revenues (tax receipts)
On many threads you read about “Cash for *fill in the blank” * This is all pure BS! Government does not create wealth it CONFISCATES wealth and income from others. The monies for those programs was seized from you and I the taxpayer. Every dollar that goes into those programs cost the taxpayer 3 dollars. You have to factor in additional layers of govt, waste, fraud incompetence, pork……the list goes on and on. Reagan was right, govt is not part of the solution it is part of the problem and Iacocca summed it up very nicely, lead, follow or GET OUT OF THE WAY! The only silver lining to this whole thing is that, come November, this administration will become lame duck. DAM, this guy makes Carter look good.
Nick. You and I are not that far out of agreement.
The government made sure their buddies were protected. Printing money? It surely has it’s effect.
Protecting Wall Street and the banks? I believe it was the frat boy whose treasury secretary said just give me 700 Billion and I’ll fix everything. (never mind accountability)
The problem is it’s a hydra. If we want to ever fix it we need to go after all the heads. Not just a few. Otherwise anything we do ends up being a waster of effort.