This Republican Economy is KILLING me

[CrackerDog]

Wow... 8 years ago my Republican friends said "Don't worry man, trust us, things are going to be OK." They said the economy would be strong and they'd bring back ethics in government. George W. Bush was on record as opposing "Nation Building" and as being a guy who supported the troops. We already had a surplus and the cold war was over... Everyone was talking about how to spend the "Peace Dividend". Hard to believe that was only 8 years ago.

 

About 9 months into George W. Bush's term we were hit by the worst terrorist attack in our history. The country rallied behind him. The Republicans used the surge in fear and support to strengthen their control of Congress. They used their 100% control over our Government to cut taxes... Not much else. They were unwavering in their support for this President and his war. On their watch nobody put on the brakes until we had a crisis.

 

We lost an American city to a storm for the first time in our history. Incompetence of the highest order was on display and the American People reacted. It was a wake-up call. We'd made a huge mistake in choosing our leader. Most Republicans don't even support W. these days. His approval ratings are in the toilet and it looks like he's led his party from what they once claimed would be a "permanent majority" to being an irrelevant minority of mid-1970's proportions in only the last few years.

 

And now they come to us with their hats in their hand, begging us for another chance. Saying Obama is risky and they know how to solve the problems we face. We'd be wise to laugh in their faces and send the lot of them packing. And it looks like that might just be what occurs. Not only is Obama positioned to win the Whitehouse but congress may go so far into Dem control they may have a Filibuster-proof 60+ voting block in the Senate.

 

Folks, if there's anything we have George W. Bush to thank for, this may be it. For decades, since I was a young man listening to Jimmy Carter talk about it, we've not been able to accomplish two things... Alternative Fuels and National Health Care. With a bullet-proof congress, who knows? We could accomplish both! This could be the real impact of the Supreme Court giving George W. Bush the Presidency 8 years ago. Who knew then that I'd be thanking them in less than 10 years?

 

But this can only happen if you make it happen. It can only be that way if you want it to be. If you work hard, give money to your favorite candidates and call your friends and family in swings states. Talk to them in straight forward ways about the last 8 years. Use Reagan's famous "Are you better off" lines and don't dig into the details that might cause them to get angry. Nobody I know who's been a Republican all their lives want to vote for a Democrat. None of them. But several have confided to me recently that they will this once. They don't like the party they have now. Many don't recognize it at all.

 

Now is not the time to gloat. Get out there and get it done!

[ostrogoth]

Wow... 8 years ago my Republican friends said "Don't worry man, trust us, things are going to be OK." They said the economy would be strong and they'd bring back ethics in government. George W. Bush was on record as opposing "Nation Building" and as being a guy who supported the troops. We already had a surplus and the cold war was over... Everyone was talking about how to spend the "Peace Dividend". Hard to believe that was only 8 years ago.

 

About 9 months into George W. Bush's term we were hit by the worst terrorist attack in our history. The country rallied behind him. The Republicans used the surge in fear and support to strengthen their control of Congress. They used their 100% control over our Government to cut taxes... Not much else. They were unwavering in their support for this President and his war. On their watch nobody put on the brakes until we had a crisis.

 

We lost an American city to a storm for the first time in our history. Incompetence of the highest order was on display and the American People reacted. It was a wake-up call. We'd made a huge mistake in choosing our leader. Most Republicans don't even support W. these days. His approval ratings are in the toilet and it looks like he's led his party from what they once claimed would be a "permanent majority" to being an irrelevant minority of mid-1970's proportions in only the last few years.

 

And now they come to us with their hats in their hand, begging us for another chance. Saying Obama is risky and they know how to solve the problems we face. We'd be wise to laugh in their faces and send the lot of them packing. And it looks like that might just be what occurs. Not only is Obama positioned to win the Whitehouse but congress may go so far into Dem control they may have a Filibuster-proof 60+ voting block in the Senate.

 

Folks, if there's anything we have George W. Bush to thank for, this may be it. For decades, since I was a young man listening to Jimmy Carter talk about it, we've not been able to accomplish two things... Alternative Fuels and National Health Care. With a bullet-proof congress, who knows? We could accomplish both! This could be the real impact of the Supreme Court giving George W. Bush the Presidency 8 years ago. Who knew then that I'd be thanking them in less than 10 years?

 

But this can only happen if you make it happen. It can only be that way if you want it to be. If you work hard, give money to your favorite candidates and call your friends and family in swings states. Talk to them in straight forward ways about the last 8 years. Use Reagan's famous "Are you better off" lines and don't dig into the details that might cause them to get angry. Nobody I know who's been a Republican all their lives want to vote for a Democrat. None of them. But several have confided to me recently that they will this once. They don't like the party they have now. Many don't recognize it at all.

 

Now is not the time to gloat. Get out there and get it done!

[ostrogoth]

Blame the president on a hurricane huh Cracker? Maybe your smoking crack like the rest of the losers in New Orleans, worst crime rate in the US, poverty beyond belief.

 

Why build a city below sea level when you know there is a chance the place is smack in the middle of a hurricane zone, how bout blaming the leaders of the city, jackass democrat mayor idiot! Maybe they could have gotten the poor out of there in advance?

 

This was actually a good thing that happened there to wake these people up, maybe they will get smart and move inland.

 

Maybe if there levy system was updated, but in the long run it was demolished and I think the Gov't helped blow up levy's to flood the poor downtrodden and cess ridden filth the place had become, maybe they will re-build "stupid idea" but what the hell!

[Connorbear]

This was actually a good thing that happened there to wake these people up, maybe they will get smart and move inland.

Over 1,800 died from Katrina and it was a good thing???? You need to step back and think about what you said. Wow.

 

Peace

[CrackerDog]

Over 1,800 died from Katrina and it was a good thing???? You need to step back and think about what you said. Wow.

 

Wow, I never expected some of my posts would expose so many idiots. I hate to think of my fellow Bears fans in such a negative way. But wow, just wow.

 

First of all, he needs to read a little history to understand why New Orleans exists in the location it does. This may come as a surprise to him but it wasn't built in the last decade by a Democratic mayor. Sheesh.

 

The whole idea that those folks "deserved it" is pure Republican filth. They'd rather blame the victims than look at their own culpability and try to address their own failings. The reasons New Orleans flooded are many and the blame extends to both Dems and Repugs. But the response to the crisis was on the President. He was the guy who picked an incompetent crony to run FEMA and on his watch, a terrible disaster was compounded by failure after failure to respond properly. Say what you want about Clinton's penis, the man had intelligent people running FEMA and his entire cabinet would've had a war room setup to respond in the most direct and helpful manner possible. The hurricane would've still hit but the response (not to mention the preparation) would've been significantly different.

 

And that's obviously what I was talking about in my original post.

[madlithuanian]

I may or may not disagree with you politically, but that's pretty harsh.

 

That hurricane was not a good thing, not matter how it's spun. Real people lost real lives...that is not good under any circumstance.

 

Blame the president on a hurricane huh Cracker? Maybe your smoking crack like the rest of the losers in New Orleans, worst crime rate in the US, poverty beyond belief.

 

Why build a city below sea level when you know there is a chance the place is smack in the middle of a hurricane zone, how bout blaming the leaders of the city, jackass democrat mayor idiot! Maybe they could have gotten the poor out of there in advance?

 

This was actually a good thing that happened there to wake these people up, maybe they will get smart and move inland.

 

Maybe if there levy system was updated, but in the long run it was demolished and I think the Gov't helped blow up levy's to flood the poor downtrodden and cess ridden filth the place had become, maybe they will re-build "stupid idea" but what the hell!

[madlithuanian]

I should have read your post before posting mine...

 

You hit the nail on the head.

 

Over 1,800 died from Katrina and it was a good thing???? You need to step back and think about what you said. Wow.

 

Peace

[ostrogoth]

OK, people dying was not a good thing under any situation so I will retract that portion, a good thing was the realization that hurricanes happen and people need to be able to know they are living in an unsafe area, if no way to get out move somewhere else where the hurricane can't harm you.

 

People in Galveston this year left the area, not hard to take matters in your own hands, people in the south are 65% more likely to die in a tornado than people in the midwest because they believe god will save them rather than getting out of harms way on their own, and....

 

The more I dig into the facts behind our current economic crisis, the more I find that points to Democrat corruption, short-sightedness, and obsession with political correctness.

 

The Bush administration tried to reform oversight of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae back in 2003, but was blocked by Democrats.

 

John McCain co-sponsored the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005 which was, of course, blocked by Democrats.

 

JustBarkingMad.com posted a good article replete with linked evidence pointing to...you guessed it, Democrats: President Clinton and his Deputy Attorney General Jaime Gorelick

Several other bloggers (much more talented than I) have already detailed the evidence...

 

Protein Wisdom:

As with much of their showy populism, Congressional Democrats were more interested in the short term — and wholy self-serving nobility — of being perceived as championing the little guy than they ever were with the long-term effects such socially-engineered practices must necessarily have.

 

Morrissey compares the Democrats’ posture here as being similar to their posture on Social Security reform. But to my mind, the clearest analog in practice is to race-based affirmative action — where the short term pressure on universities to admit students of various ethnic backgrounds has led to a disproportionately high drop-out rate among those same students.

 

I’m all for evening the playing fields, be it in education or credit allocation. But simply wanting to do so doesn’t mean we should rely on easy, superficial remedies — particularly if all we’re doing is putting a Band-Aid over a wound that is deeply infected and requires more than a kind of Democratic Christian Science to heal it.

 

Investor's Business Daily:

...it was the Clinton administration, obsessed with multiculturalism, that dictated where mortgage lenders could lend, and originally helped create the market for the high-risk subprime loans now infecting like a retrovirus the balance sheets of many of Wall Street's most revered institutions.

 

Tough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk areas where they had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that sound business practices had previously guarded against making. It was either that or face stiff government penalties.

 

The untold story in this whole national crisis is that President Clinton put on steroids the Community Redevelopment Act, a well-intended Carter-era law designed to encourage minority homeownership. And in so doing, he helped create the market for the risky subprime loans that he and Democrats now decry as not only greedy but "predatory."

 

Dr. Walter Williams (George Mason University professor of economics):

Many politicians and pundits claim that the credit crunch and high mortgage foreclosure rate is an example of market failure and want government to step in to bail out creditors and borrowers at the expense of taxpayers who prudently managed their affairs. These financial problems are not market failures but government failure. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 is a federal law that intimidated lenders into offering credit throughout their entire market and discouraged them from restricting their credit services to low-risk markets, a practice sometimes called redlining. The Federal Reserve Bank, keeping interest rates artificially low, gave buyers and builders incentive to buy and build, thereby producing the housing bubble. Lenders were willing to make creative interest-only loans, often high-risk "no doc" and "liar loans," in order to allow people to buy more housing than they could afford. Of course, with the expectation that housing prices will continue to rise, it was no problem for lenders and borrowers but housing prices began to fall, leaving some people with negative home equity and banks in trouble.

[madlithuanian]

Both parties are to blame for our ecenomic crisis at the moment.

 

Neither are really good to the public, both are embolden to too many special interest groups with their own hides to cover.

 

 

OK, people dying was not a good thing under any situation so I will retract that portion, a good thing was the realization that hurricanes happen and people need to be able to know they are living in an unsafe area, if no way to get out move somewhere else where the hurricane can't harm you.

 

People in Galveston this year left the area, not hard to take matters in your own hands, people in the south are 65% more likely to die in a tornado than people in the midwest because they believe god will save them rather than getting out of harms way on their own, and....

 

The more I dig into the facts behind our current economic crisis, the more I find that points to Democrat corruption, short-sightedness, and obsession with political correctness.

 

The Bush administration tried to reform oversight of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae back in 2003, but was blocked by Democrats.

 

John McCain co-sponsored the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005 which was, of course, blocked by Democrats.

 

JustBarkingMad.com posted a good article replete with linked evidence pointing to...you guessed it, Democrats: President Clinton and his Deputy Attorney General Jaime Gorelick

Several other bloggers (much more talented than I) have already detailed the evidence...

 

Protein Wisdom:

As with much of their showy populism, Congressional Democrats were more interested in the short term — and wholy self-serving nobility — of being perceived as championing the little guy than they ever were with the long-term effects such socially-engineered practices must necessarily have.

 

Morrissey compares the Democrats’ posture here as being similar to their posture on Social Security reform. But to my mind, the clearest analog in practice is to race-based affirmative action — where the short term pressure on universities to admit students of various ethnic backgrounds has led to a disproportionately high drop-out rate among those same students.

 

I’m all for evening the playing fields, be it in education or credit allocation. But simply wanting to do so doesn’t mean we should rely on easy, superficial remedies — particularly if all we’re doing is putting a Band-Aid over a wound that is deeply infected and requires more than a kind of Democratic Christian Science to heal it.

 

Investor's Business Daily:

...it was the Clinton administration, obsessed with multiculturalism, that dictated where mortgage lenders could lend, and originally helped create the market for the high-risk subprime loans now infecting like a retrovirus the balance sheets of many of Wall Street's most revered institutions.

 

Tough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk areas where they had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that sound business practices had previously guarded against making. It was either that or face stiff government penalties.

 

The untold story in this whole national crisis is that President Clinton put on steroids the Community Redevelopment Act, a well-intended Carter-era law designed to encourage minority homeownership. And in so doing, he helped create the market for the risky subprime loans that he and Democrats now decry as not only greedy but "predatory."

 

Dr. Walter Williams (George Mason University professor of economics):

Many politicians and pundits claim that the credit crunch and high mortgage foreclosure rate is an example of market failure and want government to step in to bail out creditors and borrowers at the expense of taxpayers who prudently managed their affairs. These financial problems are not market failures but government failure. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 is a federal law that intimidated lenders into offering credit throughout their entire market and discouraged them from restricting their credit services to low-risk markets, a practice sometimes called redlining. The Federal Reserve Bank, keeping interest rates artificially low, gave buyers and builders incentive to buy and build, thereby producing the housing bubble. Lenders were willing to make creative interest-only loans, often high-risk "no doc" and "liar loans," in order to allow people to buy more housing than they could afford. Of course, with the expectation that housing prices will continue to rise, it was no problem for lenders and borrowers but housing prices began to fall, leaving some people with negative home equity and banks in trouble.

[CrackerDog]

Both parties are to blame for our ecenomic crisis at the moment.

 

Neither are really good to the public, both are embolden to too many special interest groups with their own hides to cover.

 

A very good analysis of this is found here. In addition to this Vanity Fair article, it should be noted that Paul Krugman, an economist who just won the Nobel Prize and someone not allowed to speak on Fox News, someone the Right Wing refers to as "shrill" was warning of this collapse for 5 years. He's on MSNBC all the time.

 

No, this isn't an issue one can easily pin on one party or the other but THE BUCK STOPS HERE needs to be invoked every once in a while. The Republicans whistled past the graveyard while the entire government, Congress and the White House were in their control. If things were wrong with the way Clinton left them, why no changes? They weren't shy about anything else the rammed down our throats over those 6 years. I'll tell you why, because the crisis we face now is essentially due to Republican policies which began during the Reagan administration and live on today. There have been some benefits as well to deregulation but the collapse is squarely on them and their failures for those years. And the crowd who gave us 8 years of the worst President ever now shamelessly squawk like they have anything we'd care to hear. Well, you don't. You've been discredited. And if I had my way, I'd ban you all from ever voting again. You're too freakin stupid to be allowed to vote.

 

[Connorbear]

OK, people dying was not a good thing under any situation so I will retract that portion, a good thing was the realization that hurricanes happen and people need to be able to know they are living in an unsafe area, if no way to get out move somewhere else where the hurricane can't harm you.

I'm glad you retracted.

 

Peace

[madlithuanian]

Oh agreed!

 

The buck needs to stop at the oval office... And I don't think McCain will alter things from the Bush agenda. Voting Rep is like an approval vote for the most part. I don't approve, and I want a different path. I'm not certain Obama will be great, but I'd like to give him a chance.

 

A very good analysis of this is found here. In addition to this Vanity Fair article, it should be noted that Paul Krugman, an economist who just won the Nobel Prize and someone not allowed to speak on Fox News, someone the Right Wing refers to as "shrill" was warning of this collapse for 5 years. He's on MSNBC all the time.

 

No, this isn't an issue one can easily pin on one party or the other but THE BUCK STOPS HERE needs to be invoked every once in a while. The Republicans whistled past the graveyard while the entire government, Congress and the White House were in their control. If things were wrong with the way Clinton left them, why no changes? They weren't shy about anything else the rammed down our throats over those 6 years. I'll tell you why, because the crisis we face now is essentially due to Republican policies which began during the Reagan administration and live on today. There have been some benefits as well to deregulation but the collapse is squarely on them and their failures for those years. And the crowd who gave us 8 years of the worst President ever now shamelessly squawk like they have anything we'd care to hear. Well, you don't. You've been discredited. And if I had my way, I'd ban you all from ever voting again. You're too freakin stupid to be allowed to vote.

 

[CrackerDog]

John McCain co-sponsored the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005 which was, of course, blocked by Democrats.

 

16 months after it was originally introduced and only a few days after the stories about problems at Freddie and Fanny started to make it into the press.

 

Real leadership there.

 

PS. The bill never made it out of committee. A committee controlled by, at the time, Repugs. So, facts, once again, ain't the friend of the Right Wing whackos.

 

PSS. Dude, when you quote sites, try to use at least something that doesn't sound completely idiotic. Barking Mad something or other? Did Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity send you to that site? LOL!

[Controlled Chaos]

16 months after it was originally introduced and only a few days after the stories about problems at Freddie and Fanny started to make it into the press.

 

Real leadership there.

 

PS. The bill never made it out of committee. A committee controlled by, at the time, Repugs. So, facts, once again, ain't the friend of the Right Wing whackos.

 

PSS. Dude, when you quote sites, try to use at least something that doesn't sound completely idiotic. Barking Mad something or other? Did Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity send you to that site? LOL!

No offense, Cracker, but you are as radical left as they come, so for you to comment on what sites are idiotic is ludicrous. Anything to the right of moveon.org is going to be idiotic to you. You are just as far left as Rush or Hannity are right. All I have heard from you is Repugs, Republican Filth, fool, Republican Ass-clown..... Who the freak do you think you are to be so degrading to other posters? Ever wonder why you're pretty much in here alone preaching to no one?

[CrackerDog]

No offense, Cracker, but you are as radical left as they come, so for you to comment on what sites are idiotic is ludicrous. Anything to the right of moveon.org is going to be idiotic to you. You are just as far left as Rush or Hannity are right. All I have heard from you is Repugs, Republican Filth, fool, Republican Ass-clown..... Who the freak do you think you are to be so degrading to other posters? Ever wonder why you're pretty much in here alone preaching to no one?

 

I thought I made myself clear, I don't respect anyone who voted for Bush twice. Period. If you don't agree with that statement I don't care. And then for those folks to preach to me about how I need to give McCain a chance and how I should trust them again with our nation's future, well, sorry man.

 

When I quote sources here I use credible ones. I use language you may not care for but I'm tired of being the party of nice guys who lose. I'm telling it like it is, your party and your candidates put us where we are today. This shit heap is your fault (assuming you're one of the Republicans you now defend.)

 

And I've always been a moderate to left leaning person. I couldn't care less if you believe that or not. But it's clear to me and MANY true fiscal conservatives (check all of the links I've provided) that this Republican Party has strayed FAR FAR away from it's base in the 1970's. This nation needs a correction to the LEFT in my opinion and I'm not running from the word "liberal" you folks have demonized. I prefer Progressive but call me whatever you like. Your President f*cked up and got us into a war we didn't need to fight, he further screwed up EVERY day since with poorly executing his mistaken war. He's screwed up our economy, buried us in debt and put cronies into every level of government, to the detriment of New Orleans, as just one example. Meanwhile he's spied on everyone and taken so many shits on the US Constitution you can't read the rag anymore.

 

Your god damn right I'm pissed off about that. And my anger is justified and directed at exactly the proper people. If the truth bothers you, don't read posts titled "This Republican Economy is KILLING me."

[CrackerDog]

Ever wonder why you're pretty much in here alone preaching to no one?

 

One last point... I don't know how many people I'm reaching, nor do you. What I do know is I'm talking to BEARS FANS here and they're a straight shooting, tell it like it is bunch. They aren't whiney bitches who need to be held because the big scary terrorists are coming to get us. I'm not worried about hurting anyone's feelings here. And maybe, just maybe, by being this way instead of being the pussy most Conservatives think Liberals are, by showing that it's OK to be a blue collar guy and still vote for the African American... It might change a few minds. It might bring a few people around. It might cause someone to think, to put the country first over their historical preference for Republicans. And it might give some a little ammo when they're talking to someone else who gets their talking points from Fox News and mocks liberals because that's what they're programmed to do.

 

I don't apologize, not one bit.

[DrunkBomber]

One last point... I don't know how many people I'm reaching, nor do you. What I do know is I'm talking to BEARS FANS here and they're a straight shooting, tell it like it is bunch. They aren't whiney bitches who need to be held because the big scary terrorists are coming to get us. I'm not worried about hurting anyone's feelings here. And maybe, just maybe, by being this way instead of being the pussy most Conservatives think Liberals are, by showing that it's OK to be a blue collar guy and still vote for the African American... It might change a few minds. It might bring a few people around. It might cause someone to think, to put the country first over their historical preference for Republicans. And it might give some a little ammo when they're talking to someone else who gets their talking points from Fox News and mocks liberals because that's what they're programmed to do.

 

I don't apologize, not one bit.

Dont worry, Im sure you have changed a lot of minds and are really fighting the good fight...

 

..you get a job yet?

[CrackerDog]

..you get a job yet?

 

Never gets old dude. Never. Keep up the great work!

[DrunkBomber]

Never gets old dude. Never. Keep up the great work!

Its not about getting old. I have a job and am prospering. Obviously, as orchestrated by the thread title youre a loser who cant find steady work, Im looking out for you.

[CrackerDog]

Its not about getting old. I have a job and am prospering. Obviously, as orchestrated by the thread title youre a loser who cant find steady work, Im looking out for you.

 

No, you're pulling this stuff outta your ass. I could tell you I'm a CPA, don't work in accounting anymore because I do something more interesting and make a lot more doing so... And you'd call me a liar. See? I know your game.

 

PS. The old man got PWNED tonight. Barack kicked his ass! LOL! Game changer alright...

[madlithuanian]

Cracker, send me a PM or e-mail... I too am an accountant looking for something more interesting!

 

I'd love to hear what you're involved in...

 

No, you're pulling this stuff outta your ass. I could tell you I'm a CPA, don't work in accounting anymore because I do something more interesting and make a lot more doing so... And you'd call me a liar. See? I know your game.

 

PS. The old man got PWNED tonight. Barack kicked his ass! LOL! Game changer alright...

[CrackerDog]

Cracker, send me a PM or e-mail... I too am an accountant looking for something more interesting!

 

I'd love to hear what you're involved in...

 

Not much to really say other than I've worked for the same company now for close to 20 years. I started out as an accountant, was promoted up through the ranks to controller but then because nobody really understood IT, I was also the de facto IT guy for this region of the company. That ultimately became my "real job" (about 8 years or so ago) and now I manage propeller-heads.

[madlithuanian]

Gotcha...

 

Thanks for sharing!

 

 

 

Not much to really say other than I've worked for the same company now for close to 20 years. I started out as an accountant, was promoted up through the ranks to controller but then because nobody really understood IT, I was also the de facto IT guy for this region of the company. That ultimately became my "real job" (about 8 years or so ago) and now I manage propeller-heads.