[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

However, I personally don't think the $ will ever be allowed to collapse for one simple reason: If the dollar collapses, everything else is levered to it. We saw that this year when the American financial crisis caused the $ to strengthen considerably against the other world currencies, oil and gold. Counter-intuitive certainly, but that's what will happen again if the $ ever comes under siege. It really is the world's reserve currency, and it can never be allowed to fail because too much of it is held by the world, and it props up too much of the world. The $ is literally too important to ever fail, and if it ever did the rest of the world would fail with it.

Yes, the US$ was the worlds reserve currency, and the US stretched that to the max.

Sure, to drop the US $ as world reserve currency will cause, in the short run, huge turmoil. But there is no way around it.

Who would continue to bail out the US, with their crappy fiscal policies and their trillions of wasted dollars on bailouts and such nonsense ?
How much longer will the Asian countries continue to accept a lower standard of living by lending the US the money ? At some point soon, they're going to say f*** it, I'll cut my losses. It will happen. Cutting off the US is the best that could ever happen to them. Instead of financing our pretty lives, they can actually use the money to raise their standard of living beyond their wildest dreams.

The US continues to hand out IOUs to the world, with no way of ever being able to pay it back. So far, China & co. went along, hoping against hope that the US would come to reason. We will not. We will play and pretend until there is no way to hide it any longer.
Then the creditors of the world will cut their losses and dumb their horded dollars (IOUs) and buy whatever assets they can get their hands on. This will cause hyper inflation.

The "too big to fail" is a myth the the US government keeps preaching because they have to. Nothing is ever too big to fail.

-t

[OldManMac]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Really, there are some things you can write off as youthful ignorance, but this isn't one of them. It's actually more common for people to be liberal in their youth and conservative when they're older, so if anything you have it backwards.

Another myth. http://www.livescience.com/health/08...l-seniors.html

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by stumblinmike 

Who said I was common? I think once people see how others struggle, it changes their thinking. I know it did for me!!! And I would say I am a better person for it. (not judging, mind you)

Again, you seem to be assuming that people who support the idea of hard work rather than handouts don't understand struggle — that you simply know better than other people. Several of the fiscal conservatives here have been poor in the past and worked their way out of it. More importantly, my personal emotional reaction to poor people isn't the same thing as a sound fiscal policy. Just wanting to get rid of somebody's suffering in the quickest way possible is what leads parents to spoil their children.

There are good government-sponsored betterment programs like state universities and community colleges. Education is useful and profitable to the country as a whole. But programs that just give goodies to people without any effort on their part? That's harmful to society. I'm sorry for people in bad financial situations, but for everybody's good, they need to improve their status through their own effort, not by leeching off others.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by OldManMac 

Another myth. http://www.livescience.com/health/08...l-seniors.html

It's more of an oversimplification than a myth, just like the whole conservative/liberal dichotomy. Also, that article isn't really disagreeing with me. It isn't measuring how liberal they are versus the mean at the time the poll was taken — it's measuring yesterday's standards versus todays, and primarily civil rights issues rather than financial. In other words, when society became more accepting of various groups, these old people did as well. They were conforming to societal norms, which is essentially conservative.

Taken the way the headline would have you believe, the statistics might also indicate that old people are likely to be more tech-savvy than young people — because they're more proficient with modern computers than they were when they were in the '50s.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Yes, the US$ was the worlds reserve currency, and the US stretched that to the max. Sure, to drop the US $ as world reserve currency will cause, in the short run, huge turmoil. But there is no way around it.

Who would continue to bail out the US, with their crappy fiscal policies and their trillions of wasted dollars on bailouts and such nonsense ? How much longer will the Asian countries continue to accept a lower standard of living by lending the US the money ? At some point soon, they're going to say f*** it, I'll cut my losses. It will happen. Cutting off the US is the best that could ever happen to them. Instead of financing our pretty lives, they can actually use the money to raise their standard of living beyond their wildest dreams.

The US continues to hand out IOUs to the world, with no way of ever being able to pay it back. So far, China & co. went along, hoping against hope that the US would come to reason. We will not. We will play and pretend until there is no way to hide it any longer.
Then the creditors of the world will cut their losses and dumb their horded dollars (IOUs) and buy whatever assets they can get their hands on. This will cause hyper inflation.

The "too big to fail" is a myth the the US government keeps preaching because they have to. Nothing is ever too big to fail.

I would have agreed with a lot of that, prior to seeing the financial events that occurred in 2008. This year would have been perhaps the last best opportunity for the world markets to divest from the United States, but the complete opposite happened. The $ rallied while the other currencies and oil sank against it. Even gold was worth much less at that time, although it has recovered a lot of lost value since. The world is now even more invested in the $ than before, even more dependent. The $ is not just an American currency that foreigners hold, it truly is the one reserve currency in the world. If the $ fails hypothetically, then every other currency on the planet and every other haven for wealth - precious metals and oil - fail with it. That's the evidence we have based on the experience from this year. I think what we saw this year was a $ independent of the fundamentals of the US economy. And really, where will money flee to if it wants out of the $? The natural assumption would be the Euro, but that didn't occur at the height of the crisis this year; besides, the Euro nations have there own outlandish, budget destroying entitlements and their own massive bail-out and subsidy programs.

[OldManMac]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

There are other factors at work here, but unions are not a good or useful thing anymore. They are based wholly around human selfishness and ignorance.

Look back on that stupid Screen Writers Guild strike last year during the prime time television season. Those writers going on strike didn't just affect them. It didn't just affect the actors making hundreds of thousands an episode. It impacted hundreds of employees, from the guy who sweeps the sound stage at the end of a day to the woman who touches up Steve Carell's makeup before each take of an episode of The Office. It was much easier to go on strike to get what they wanted, so they did, and it hurt a lot more people than their little group.

The United Auto Workers union has managed to completely blackmail the Big Three into providing asinine benefits, like lifetime health care coverage and an overpriced, unaffordable pension plan. They've managed to secure for themselves wages that are far higher than what Honda or Toyota pay their factory workers in their American engine plants. It has decimated the financial state of American auto companies.

Yes, the Big Three have been needing to change their business model for more than a decade. They've been too focused on gas-inefficient luxury vehicles like Hummers and large SUVs. They got into the quality control game far too late - only in the past five years have I seen American cars come close to the build quality of even a Hyundai, let alone a Toyota or a Honda or a Nissan.

But even if they fix their business and manufacturing model and improve their output, they are still bound to the UAW. They are still bound to the complex contracts they have to sign with independent dealerships, which prevents them from shutting down many of those dealerships to save costs. They still have to fund the benefits for all those retired employees and all those current employees who are under the current union contract. It's a massive amount of money, and it's more than any sane corporation should have to spend on their employees.

There are multiple groups to blame for the failure of the America auto industry - the UAW is by no stretch of the imagination an innocent victim here.

I've never claimed they were innocent, but I've already pointed out that management is still supposed to be in charge of running the company, and thus determining what pay and benefits it can afford to give employees. This seems to be a hard concept to grasp, for those who continually rant and rave about how the unions supposedly ruined the auto industry. If I go to my boss and demand a raise and better benefits, and he gives it to me, without regard to whether or not the company can afford it, that isn't my fault. Most of would like to think we're underpaid (and more of us are these days, relative to management); you can't blame an employee for asking. As I've also pointed out before, the real problem is that management didn't plan past the end of their noses, and didn't see the forthcoming threat from the imported car brands. They thought, in their insular towers in Detroit, that the good times were just going to go on forever, and that the junky Japanese cars (which they were at first) were always going to be that, and would just be a novelty. The same shortsighted thinking almost killed VW in the early 70s, when their CEO declared that the Beetle would sell in large numbers forever, and there was no reason to build small front wheel drive cars; when they did, in the mid-70s, the result was the horribly unreliable Rabbit, and it took them almost two decades to recover from that hare-brained thinking in America. One more time; what's happening today to the "Big Three" is a result of management's inability to respond to changing market conditions, and to it's short-sighted propensity to give away the company many years ago.

I don't think that most people face those kinds of medical bills. It's more like people who have diabetes from morbid obesity, or respiratory problems from years of smoking. It's stuff that I as a taxpayer shouldn't have to fund, because it's stuff that is unnecessary.

That's the problem; you're guessing. There are others, who have experienced financial difficulties due to tremendous medical bills, not of their own doing.

I don't think we're going to immediately drop into nationalized medicine, but I do think that it is eventually inevitable - quite possibly during my lifetime, even.

One of the main reasons the cost of health care is skyrocketing is because of the enormous administrative costs incurred by the medical establishment, as they have many layers, and many payers, to deal with when we go to the doctor or hospital.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/31-4

That's one of the main reasons that other countries can provide better health care to their citizens (yes, it's shocking, isn't it, that there are other countries who take better care of their citizens, at a lower cost, and where they actually live longer).

I don't get this. At all. There is enough on network television alone to allow broke women to comprehend that having irresponsible, unprotected sex can result in a child.

And, even if you are the rare case where you're so ignorant that you don't realize it, why do these women get pregnant multiple times?

There was this idiotic article in the Indianapolis Star several years ago about how sad it was that a local single mother had her children taken from her. She had six children. By five different men. In a span of about eight years.

I'm sorry, but SCREW THAT. That woman needed to keep her knees shut or get her tubes tied. Instead, because she was single and a racial minority, she was living on government cheese paid for by my tax dollars. I was supporting the fact that she was too stupid to avoid getting pregnant six times.

I understand that an increased standard of living will probably increase the number of high school graduates and intelligent, gainfully employed offspring from low income, low class families. I don't understand how a higher standard of living is required to comprehend the very simple biological fact that unprotected sex causes babies.

It doesn't take a genius or even a junior high education to realize that if you already have to go on welfare to support illegitimate child #1, there's a damn good chance you're not going to be able to handle six of them.

Stop buying into the myth that people are screwing like rabbits just to collect welfare checks. Welfare rolls have declined steadily in the last two decades, so that even the mythical black lady driving the mythical Cadillac, whom Ronald Reagan made up, is off welfare. Just because something is repeated ad nauseam by some group with an ox to gore doesn't make it true. One would have thought we'd learned that by now, but that's obviously not the case, as there are still people who believe that Iraq had something to do with 9/11, and that WMDs did exist there, so I shouldn't be surprised.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by stumblinmike 

Absolutely!
The unions are not perfect, people should work hard to get what they deserve, and the silver-spooners should walk a mile in the other guys boots before calling them lazy, baby popping cretins!
Better?
PS:Now get back to "work"!!!!

I'm going to reiterate again for you - please stop the personal attacks. Stop insinuating that I have a lower work ethic than you. Stop with the attitude that I'm a bad person for working a state-funded job, or that I'm less of a worker because of it. It's rude, mean, unnecessary, and makes me far less inclined to pay attention to anything coming out of your mouth.

Originally Posted by Zeeb 

Ok, I'll try to bring this thread back at little.

I'm actually a manager of unionized employees. (Since I'm the manager, I'm not in a union myself.) After working at my employer for almost 3 years, I can certainly say that my unionized employees do not work as hard as the non-union workers at my company. They punch out at 5pm and whatever work that is not done sits until the next day. All sick days are treated as a benefit and every single sick day is taken by the end of the year.

However, there's flipside to this story. The union workers I have tend to be smarter and highly trained. I can usually trust them to do fairly complex tasks on their own and they are friendly to talk to. Additionally, they have worked at the company for many years making them even more valuable. The security of unions seems to attract people who don't like to change a lot. They'd rather have that security in their lives rather than get paid more to fully utilize their potential in a less secure environment. If the union at my company were eliminated I would lose those workers since the salary for their positions would likely come down to market. My highly skilled union workers who are a bit on the lazy side sometimes would be replaced with the standard, minimum wage fare of the area which are completely unreliable, with almost zero social or work skills. You'll know the type of worker I'm talking about when you call certain customer service lines and get greeted with someone with extreme attitude who wants to get you off the phone.

Additionally, even though I'm not in a union myself the unionized work force sets the tone for all of us actually. Since my workers clear out at 5, I generally stay until 6 or so to tie up loose ends if I need to--rarely longer.

Overall, I acknowledge the inherent problems with some union workers but I'm glad I work and manage them. Do I think unions are good for all types of organizations? NO. There are highly corrupt, counter productive unions out there that think their company exists only to pay them benefits and not serve customers but you can't paint everyone with the same brush.

So do you think that without unions, there would be less of those friendly, intelligent, skilled workers at hand? The thing is, unions aren't required for employee loyalty or to bring in more skilled workers. If that were the case, people wouldn't be so jazzed about working at the newest Asian car manufacturer's domestic plant.

The average union worker isn't a bad person - it's that unions as a whole are more detrimental than beneficial to their industries.

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Again, you seem to be assuming that people who support the idea of hard work rather than handouts don't understand struggle — that you simply know better than other people. Several of the fiscal conservatives here have been poor in the past and worked their way out of it. More importantly, my personal emotional reaction to poor people isn't the same thing as a sound fiscal policy. Just wanting to get rid of somebody's suffering in the quickest way possible is what leads parents to spoil their children.

Indeed. I'm well aware of the plight of others. My family's been involved in local homeless missions for as long as I can remember. I'm not some starry-eyed naive ignoramus who "doesn't get it" when it comes to being broke. I'm just not illogical enough to demand a knee-jerk band-aid to cover up others' inability to help themselves.

Originally Posted by OldManMac 

I've never claimed they were innocent, but I've already pointed out that management is still supposed to be in charge of running the company, and thus determining what pay and benefits it can afford to give employees. This seems to be a hard concept to grasp, for those who continually rant and rave about how the unions supposedly ruined the auto industry. If I go to my boss and demand a raise and better benefits, and he gives it to me, without regard to whether or not the company can afford it, that isn't my fault.

Yeah, and a non-union employee just moves on. When a union asks for a raise and better benefits, however, they can threaten to strike (unless, like my previous employer, the union contract includes an explicit no-strike clause), which could have an incredibly negative impact on the company. Hence the problem of bullying and blackmailing to get their way. Unions have a much higher probability of getting what they want, regardless of whether or not the company can sustain their financial demands long-term.

That's the problem; you're guessing. There are others, who have experienced financial difficulties due to tremendous medical bills, not of their own doing.

Yeah, there are always sob stories in any situation. But the majority of people are not facing cancer or MS or other unavoidable problems that cause hundreds of thousands of dollars in hospital bills.

Stop buying into the myth that people are screwing like rabbits just to collect welfare checks.

My point wasn't really about women having kids to abuse the welfare system. It's more about this BS argument that you have to be educated to avoid having kids. That makes zero sense to me. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that unprotected sex causes babies, babies cost a lot of money, and if you're already broke - GASP - you shouldn't have a baby. Yet we still have women popping out babies because they won't go on birth control (which is cheap as hell through free clinics and places like Planned Parenthood) or they won't use condoms. Yes, more low-income than middle-class women have accidental pregnancies or illegitimate children, but I don't really think the problem is a lack of a good high school education.

[OldManMac]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Yeah, and a non-union employee just moves on. When a union asks for a raise and better benefits, however, they can threaten to strike (unless, like my previous employer, the union contract includes an explicit no-strike clause), which could have an incredibly negative impact on the company. Hence the problem of bullying and blackmailing to get their way. Unions have a much higher probability of getting what they want, regardless of whether or not the company can sustain their financial demands long-term.

It's still management's job to convince them they can't afford to give them what they want. Another factor that's rarely discussed is when management asks for concessions, while earning the highest ratio pay difference of any country on the earth, there's something wrong. You can't lay off people, get an enormous bonus for doing so (or for getting fired and screwing up a company, and still getting an enormous golden parachute), and expect employee loyalty.

Yeah, there are always sob stories in any situation. But the majority of people are not facing cancer or MS or other unavoidable problems that cause hundreds of thousands of dollars in hospital bills.

There's plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise. http://newstandardnews.net/content/?...em&itemid=1439

My point wasn't really about women having kids to abuse the welfare system. It's more about this BS argument that you have to be educated to avoid having kids. That makes zero sense to me. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that unprotected sex causes babies, babies cost a lot of money, and if you're already broke - GASP - you shouldn't have a baby. Yet we still have women popping out babies because they won't go on birth control (which is cheap as hell through free clinics and places like Planned Parenthood) or they won't use condoms. Yes, more low-income than middle-class women have accidental pregnancies or illegitimate children, but I don't really think the problem is a lack of a good high school education.

We're somewhat in agreement on this, except that the uneducated also tend to have less hope for the future, having been socialized via recurring cycles of hopelessness. They also tend not to think of the consequences of their actions (and I'm not excusing that, but it's reality, and it's up to others to make them see how their actions affect others). There's an old truism in psychology; perception is 90% of reality, and the sender of the message has to work harder to make his point, so the receiver can more easily understand it.

[red rocket]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

WRT fair and equal, that is entirely subjective. Is it fair that if I work hard and get promoted at work, I'll be "rewarded" with a higher tax bracket, which means more of my money is stolen and given to people who don't want to work for it?

In Northern and Western Europe, most people would not have a problem with that, it would be considered giving back to the community.

Moreover, since you work for the government, your wages come from taxpayers, a large number of which will be working harder and longer hours than yourself for less pay and much less job security, so, well, yes.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

By moving manufacturing and manual labor work out of the United States, corporations are protecting themselves from the financial black hole that unions have become.

The people who used to do the manual labour, how do you expect them to earn a living now? The corporations still make a profit, they’re not suffering, they have managed to enrich themselves by destroying American jobs.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

The thing is, I don't see a need for unions there, because government jobs are already ridiculously cushy.

I'm a government employee, and the health and retirement benefits here are far, far better than any private corporation could hope to offer. There's definitely no abuse or exploitation going on there - you get paid a little less (the rule of thumb in the US is 15% less than competitive private organizations), but the benefits more than compensate for the salary difference.

All paid for by working people’s taxes.

Of course, there are always exceptions, but in my experience, public sector employees do indeed have it absurdly easy, and really no right to lecture people that do not have cushy jobs about entitlement mentality. You guys are supposed to be providing a service to the taxpayer, not just take his money and sit there complaining about evil unions and benefit sponges. It seems to me that the entire public sector has become some kind of self-serving, arrogant monstrosity, overpaid desk jockeys doing pointless jobs, taking coffee breaks every ten minutes and hitting a key every half hour to prove that they aren’t actually sleeping during the pitiful number of hours they actually are at their desks.

Really, the philosophy strikes me as hypocritical. The ordinary person suffers because the corporatocracy has made them unemployed, and unsackable government employees talk down to them from a pulpit financed by taxes that are hitting people increasingly hard.

[stumblinmike]

Well said, RR...much more eloquent than I was able to spit out!

[ebuddy]

Much has been said of corporate mismanagement, health care bankruptcies, and the nature of the haves and have nots. Here are some very basic facts;

- Of those who filed for bankruptcy citing healthcare debt as the reason (as of 2003); about 20% of bankruptcy filings involve a medical debt of less than $1,000; about 40% involve a medical debt of less than $5,000; and 13% of bankruptcy filings involve a medical debt of over $10,000. The notion that even a significant portion of bankruptcies are due to being saddled with ridiculous medical bills is a myth.
bcsalliance.com

- To those who say that burdensome costs are because of the enormous administrative costs incurred by the medical establishment; this is nothing new under a government administered plan. The bureaucracy under a government-managed plan will be exponentially greater. It should also be noted that the most successful models, such as France for example, employ a healthy dose of privatization, but even they are finding that their burdensome requirements on employers are hurting hiring practices and burdening tax payers increasingly due to the most expensive plans in the world. In 1990, 7% of health-care expenditures were financed out of general revenue taxes, and the rest came from mandatory payroll taxes. By 2003, the general revenue figure had grown to 40%, and it's still not enough. The French national insurance system has been running constant deficits since 1985 and has ballooned to $13.5 billion.
businessweek

- Unions and non-unions; The cost of running a unionized entity has been estimated to be 25 to 35% higher than a non-union operation. Why? Heavier HR staffs to handle grievances, job descriptions, rate negotiations, time and motion measurements, and compliance with government regulations. To maintain that management is somehow to blame when the above terms are invariably negotiated through a union liaison is woefully naive. The first step to sound fiscal management is controlling/fixing your cost structure. Any serious look at your bottom line would have to consider the 35% increased costs due to union labor. Period.

- Entitlement mentality? You bet! The three primary columns shown are 2005, 2006, and 2007 per Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Realizing that over $16k is spent on our homes, almost $9k on transportation, $2600 on eating away from home, and another $2600 on entertainment; perhaps we should live in a more reasonable house, drive a more reasonable car, eat in and stay home more, and sock a little away instead of crying for more help to cover the under $5,000.00 medical debt we're filing bankruptcy for.

- "You're just one of those wealthy blowhards who wouldn't understand what it's like to live paycheck-to-paycheck". My wife and I started off extremely poor. After all, we made a great deal of poor decisions that brought us to that point. No kidding, our oldest child actually slept in a dresser drawer that we set on the floor with bedding placed inside. We quickly found ourselves easing into "the cycle" having enjoyed health care through Medicaid, food stamps and WIC. They've since modified the food payment system to a new one, but at the time selling a foodstamp .50 on the dollar was commonplace. We also noticed that by making more than a certain amount, we were dropped entirely from Medicaid for example. The choices were few. We could raise our children into this system which perpetuates the cycle for them and their children or we could accept that this was the first day of the rest of our lives and break it. It was tough for a little more than a year, but we broke it. I learned a couple of things from this experience;
1) It was good to have the safety net, but there was nothing to bolster a sense of self-worth by using it. In fact, quite the contrary. This is why people refer to it as "pulling yourself up by the bootstraps". It is to imply a toughness, a sense of self-determination necessary to break the cycle.
2) It is most definitely a cycle that draws and maintains people. It is a system that perpetuates an entitlement mentality from those who've become entirely dependent on it.
3) Health care should be one of the most important factors for shopping employers and their compensation packages. Assuming you have a skill. Those who don't will likely make as much as you, but by buying into a union. People like to complain about immigrants taking jobs, but the fact of the matter is that Democrats don't want to lose that voting segment and Republicans don't want to lose the corporate lobby. After all, by absolutely hammering corporations per instance of illegal employment we could quickly curb the number of those taking Americans' jobs.
4) Good financial decisions and stewardship of money is the defining factor between success and failure. When you spend as the above Labor statistics suggest, it makes little sense to turn and ask for more spending on you. This is by definition, an entitlement mentality.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by red rocket 

In Northern and Western Europe, most people would not have a problem with that, it would be considered giving back to the community.

Moreover, since you work for the government, your wages come from taxpayers, a large number of which will be working harder and longer hours than yourself for less pay and much less job security, so, well, yes.

The thing is, a "community" in a European country is more often than not going to be a lot smaller than the "community" here. The United States is huge, and I'm not interested in "giving back" to someone living in Detroit or LA or, for that matter, anywhere that isn't in my own town. The largest tax in the United States is the federal income tax, and the second largest is Social Security. I'm not giving back to the community at all with those. I'm feeding federal programs that don't work.

I don't really like this attitude that I don't work as hard or work as many hours as people who don't work government jobs. I work for a public university. It's not like I'm sitting in some office doing nothing all the time. We have tight budgets too, especially with the current economic climate. Yes, I do have better benefits, but I wouldn't necessarily say that my job security here is much greater than when I was working for a Fortune 500 corporation.

People will be lazy anywhere, no matter who's writing the paycheck.

The people who used to do the manual labour, how do you expect them to earn a living now? The corporations still make a profit, they’re not suffering, they have managed to enrich themselves by destroying American jobs.

I'm not saying that it's a good thing that outsourcing is so huge in the United States. In fact, I personally have less job opportunities as a direct result of outsourcing. I'm saying that the huge financial risk that unions create is a major reason why manual labor type industries are outsourcing their factories to other countries.

Yes, outsourcing also provides cheaper labor, but if unions didn't exist, corporations wouldn't have to feel so damn threatened by their American workforce.

All paid for by working people’s taxes.

Of course, there are always exceptions, but in my experience, public sector employees do indeed have it absurdly easy, and really no right to lecture people that do not have cushy jobs about entitlement mentality. You guys are supposed to be providing a service to the taxpayer, not just take his money and sit there complaining about evil unions and benefit sponges. It seems to me that the entire public sector has become some kind of self-serving, arrogant monstrosity, overpaid desk jockeys doing pointless jobs, taking coffee breaks every ten minutes and hitting a key every half hour to prove that they aren’t actually sleeping during the pitiful number of hours they actually are at their desks.

Really, the philosophy strikes me as hypocritical. The ordinary person suffers because the corporatocracy has made them unemployed, and unsackable government employees talk down to them from a pulpit financed by taxes that are hitting people increasingly hard.

I've only been working at this job since April, so don't get on a high horse about how I have no room to talk. It doesn't matter where you work - the majority of Americans believe that they are entitled to certain concessions, and that the government should provide those concessions at taxpayer expense.

We are not a bunch of lazy fsck-offs at my university. Full-time hourly employees have to work forty hours a week, just like any other business. Full-time salaried employees are expected to work enough hours to complete their work, just like any other business. I work eight hours or more every single day. The amount of work I am given is as much as I would see as a web developer anywhere else.

It strikes me as incredibly offensive that people here are basically telling me that I have no work ethic, that I'm lazy and unmotivated, and that I'm selfish because I work in the public sector.

That's a complete load of crap. Do you know why I work in the public sector? Because I couldn't find a job as a web developer anywhere else. As I already said, this is because of excessive outsourcing, and it's a bad thing. Yes, my job is funded by taxpayers (although more of it is funded by the university budget, which comes from tuition dollars), but you know what? It's actually really nice to know that I'm getting a little bit of my own tax dollars back in my paycheck every month. It's at least something.

I pay just as many taxes as anyone else. Not only that, but the original topic here is about government entitlement to things like health care, housing, education, and retirement. The taxpayer money used to cover the salaries and wages of government employees is a tiny fraction of the hundreds of billions spent on social programs annually.

[ort888]

I don't understand the level of anger some people have toward these government programs. How much of your money do you really think it going to them? Do lazy people really upset you that much? Would you rather live in a country where people were just allowed to die in the streets? Is the amount you are being taxed stopping you from being successful? Is it holding you back?

[OldManMac]

Originally Posted by ort888 

I don't understand the level of anger some people have toward these government programs. How much of your money do you really think it going to them? Do lazy people really upset you that much? Would you rather live in a country where people were just allowed to die in the streets? Is the amount you are being taxed stopping you from being successful? Is it holding you back?

Of course not, but the fundamental issue is that certain people see those less "successful" than them as lazy, and when one of those "lazy" people loses their job it's their own fault, but when one who is "successful" loses his job, it's someone else's fault. There's a term in the field of psychology for that perception, but I'm too lazy to look it up now.

They also, incorrectly, assume that all their own success is based solely on their efforts.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by ort888 

I don't understand the level of anger some people have toward these government programs. How much of your money do you really think it going to them? Do lazy people really upset you that much? Would you rather live in a country where people were just allowed to die in the streets? Is the amount you are being taxed stopping you from being successful? Is it holding you back?

Hah - we are far from living in a society where people are dying in the streets. We haven't *quite* reached that level of barbarianism yet.

Someone else living on welfare is not actively holding me back, no. But somebody on welfare is certainly holding themselves back - scroll back up and read ebuddy's account of his own family living on government handouts, and how and why they chose to get out of that lifestyle.

I'm aware that sometimes, people need a helping hand. I am perfectly fine with programs that provide short-term help. I am not, however, okay with programs that allow people to subsist on government handouts and money permanently. I'm not okay with free housing for people. I'm not okay with giving someone free health care for life. If you find yourself diagnosed with cancer and are not financially capable of dealing with that - and don't have insurance - then maybe it's time to ask for some assistance. If you just want the government to pay for your kid's Ritalin and your insulin for the diabetes that's been caused by your own morbid obesity, you can screw off - I'm not interested in the government funding that kind of crap.

It's not just about how much money I personally am contributing to the system. The problem here, which was stated in the original post, is that Americans feel like they are entitled to crap that they are by no means guaranteed in the Constitution. The problem is that people want an easy way out, rather than taking the steps to pull up out of a system that very clearly perpetuates laziness and mediocrity.

Many people living off government cheese are not thinking "I only need this for a few months until I can get a job". They think "this is a hell of a lot easier than working!" and stay where they are. People demanding free health care are not thinking "I only need this until I can graduate college and get a job that provides health insurance". They're thinking "the government should be taking care of me!"

The entire attitude is problematic. It perpetuates throughout society and manifests itself in many different ways. Our general attitude of entitlement is what has caused many of the problems in America today.

Look at the subprime mortgage meltdown, and the domino effect it caused with "normal" mortgages - it all comes directly back to people feeling as though they are entitled to home ownership, which results in citizens purchasing homes they cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, legitimately afford.

Look at how much credit card debt your average adult is carrying around. Why? Because they feel entitled to own nice things. They think that they have a right to own a 60" TV or a jacuzzi or a new car every three years.

So, although I'm paying comparatively less into social programs than those in higher tax brackets than myself, the real problem is that such programs end up holding people back and drag down society as a whole. Your intent may be to better society by helping those in need, but that's not at all what happens. All it does is continue to support the concept that you are entitled to various personal well-being concessions, and that they should be provided by your federal government.

[shifuimam]

Also, I should add that this attitude of "stop complaining, it's not holding you back" is completely ignoring the flat-out fact that social programs are costing this country hundreds of billions of dollars every year, and that with the influx of baby boomer retirees in the next decade, it's going to kill the federal budget and cause the national deficit to skyrocket.

We can't afford to keep up these social programs in their current state. They are unsustainable in the long term.

[besson3c]

The problem with these debates is that it all boils down to one ideology against another.

What we really need to do is put all of that aside and look at what simply works based on the numbers, and what provides the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people at the minimum of cost (really, the balance you look for when buying into any kind of service).

According to the Wikipedia running a public health care system like Canada's actually costs the country less when you look at health care costs per capita. Does that mean that we should make our health care system like Canada's? Not necessarily, but these numbers are indeed revealing. Why is this so? What are the administrative costs and overhead involved with keeping our system the way it is? That 1.5 trillion dollar number sounds scary, but what are all the costs that are involved?

Social Security... How much would it cost us to not have social security at all? What are the hidden costs of these strains? Ditto for Medicare and Medicaid...

One can't begin to debate and make inroads on these problems when they basically want the solutions to fit in with predefined ideology. Let's figure this out scientific-method style... Test theories, but adjust them to reflect the evidence and information uncovered.

I don't have all of the answers, but I do think that everybody that sort of beats the drums of doing away with entitlement programs really have to stop and answer some of these questions before I'm sold. Until then, it really doesn't do the problem justice to only look at it one way. Please, instead of just proposing to do away with Medicare or Medicaid, please tell us what it should be replaced with, and how that will work...

[besson3c]

In regards to the original post, believe it or not I do understand what the poster is getting at...

I also sense a belief of unconditional entitlement, of apathy towards education, a general laziness, sloppy and lazy thinking, etc. I do see us falling from our superpower status in the coming years for these sorts of reasons.

The problem with many leftist claims that "everybody should have x or y or z" is that they are purely emotional statements based on what they would like to believe. What should be so in a perfect world, and what should actually happen as far as actual legislative changes are two separate matters. All I care about, and all I think we should all care about is what is going to bring us the greatest bang for our collective buck for the greatest number of people. There are times when this is something government run, and there are times when people need an ass kicking and a little drive and motivation.

We can all make emotional cases about person x who works their butt off and is just unable to succeed due to conditions out of their present control, and we can all make emotional cases about person y who is exploiting others and earning riches off of the struggles of others... The single Mom with 230840923 kids and 20394823094 jobs, the evil health insurance companies... Really, to me it is obvious that there is validity to both ideologies in the right context. Instead of trying to cram our ideologies down other people's throats, maybe we ought to try to look at these problems in a way that is completely separated from our respective ideologies?

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

The problem with these debates is that it all boils down to one ideology against another.

What we really need to do is put all of that aside and look at what simply works based on the numbers

Funny you should ask.

May I point out that the current system (SS, Medicare and -aid) are a giant Ponzi scheme ?

Currently, the US is more than $ 40 Trillion (yup, that's $ 40,000,000,000,000.00) in the hole for those future "benefits". There is no pot of money that contains any of that, only IOUs of the US Treasury (called bonds), which are worthless since nobody is going to "buy" (give the cash) for those bonds.

Fact is, the system is beyond repair.

Think of your current Social Security and Medicare payments as a tax, with no future benefit for yourself.

-t

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Funny you should ask.

May I point out that the current system (SS, Medicare and -aid) are a giant Ponzi scheme ?

Currently, the US is more than $ 40 Trillion (yup, that's $ 40,000,000,000,000.00) in the hole for those future "benefits". There is no pot of money that contains any of that, only IOUs of the US Treasury (called bonds), which are worthless since nobody is going to "buy" (give the cash) for those bonds.

Fact is, the system is beyond repair.

Think of your current Social Security and Medicare payments as a tax, with no future benefit for yourself.

-t

So again, sorry to be a broken record but I must... What do you propose we do instead, and what are the pros and cons of doing so?

[besson3c]

I've been wondering lately whether what we're seeing is the effects of globalization catching up with us?

It seems that when Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid were originally conceived they were based around the notion that America will remain an economic powerhouse, and that somehow any wrongs with private insurance plans and health care in the hands of corporations will be made right with increased competition and the free market doing its thing. It just doesn't seem like this model works anymore.

When this model was conceived, nobody knew that the internet would exist, let alone what the affects of it would be. We're still sorting that out to this day. In modern times our wealth can be spread, built, and developed over the entire globe whereas in the past this was much tougher to do the way we do it now. We had the big capital in the US, and the workforce driving these companies generally US based as well. How long has it been that we've had these global corporate monoliths that have spread their tentacles across the entire globe? Obviously this existed to some extent, but clearly the trends of outsourcing and global expansion have really hit their stride in recent years.

Therefore, we are thinking about all of this wrong, and many Americans haven't really caught up to this reality yet. They were raised to think that a certain amount of luxury and comfort is a sure bet for them simply by living in this country. This is that entitlement stuff that Big Mac was talking about...

Alan Greenspan himself said it best during his testimony. He completely miscalculated the free market governing itself. It doesn't, and if it ever did it cannot any longer in this day and age. I'm not suggesting that the answer is socialism, but that Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security to a lesser extent are broken because we really haven't adapted quickly enough to pick up on what is happening economically.

I personally think that the only way out of this mess is by recognizing that we need to spend money to make money. We need to think about what kind of investments are going to really help America, and we need to rethink of our whole economic model so that relying purely on the good will of the free market isn't our default answer to every conceivable problem.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

So again, sorry to be a broken record but I must... What do you propose we do instead, and what are the pros and cons of doing so?

Oh, that's real easy:

1) Stop spending money we don't have.
That means no more consumption purchases on credit.

2) Save money and bring it to the bank.

3) Let those companies fail that need to fail.

4) No government bailouts. It's a waste of money, money that we don't have.

5) Let the housing bubble play out w/o market distorting gimmicks from the government.

6) Lower taxes so businesses can be competitive on international markets.

7) Level the playing field. Get rid of unions and other government interventions (like C.A.F.E.) that enrich a few, paid for by taxes and bailouts.

There.

-t

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Oh, that's real easy:

1) Stop spending money we don't have.
That means no more consumption purchases on credit.

2) Save money and bring it to the bank.

3) Let those companies fail that need to fail.

4) No government bailouts. It's a waste of money, money that we don't have.

5) Let the housing bubble play out w/o market distorting gimmicks from the government.

6) Lower taxes.

There.

-t

Most of these are goals and ideological stances rather than actual solutions. Care to elaborate exactly how you'll go about doing each of these things, and what the ramifications would be?

[turtle777]

I'm sorry, most of what you said above was great, but this is absolute BS:

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I personally think that the only way out of this mess is by recognizing that we need to spend money to make money.

Maybe it just misunderstand what you are trying to say, but here is my take:

SPENDING has gotten us in the mess we're in in the first place.
The American consumer needs to spend LESS.

Also, the government needs to spend less. It has been spending far too much, and financed" it by printing money (i.e. IOUs, i.e. treasury bills).

The only solution is to cut back our reckless consumption, admit that we have partied for far too long, and get back to work cleaning up the mess and paying back our bills.
Basically, most Americans would need to take on a lifestyle just as if they just declared personal bankruptcy.

-t

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Most of these are goals and ideological stances rather than actual solutions. Care to elaborate exactly how you'll go about doing each of these things, and what the ramifications would be?

No, that's not ideology. I mean it in practical ways. IT NEEDS TO BE DONE.

People need to save money, and stop buying things they can't afford.
The government needs to do the same.
The myth that we can continue spending, and that this will revive the economy, must be debunked.

I suggest the following book, it's an excellent read on how we got in this mess, and what the underlying mechanisms are. I know, the title is a bit sensationalistic, but ultimately, this is where we're headed if nothing is changed.



http://www.amazon.com/Crash-Proof-Ec...0869893&sr=8-2

-t

[OldManMac]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

The only solution is to cut back our reckless consumption, admit that we have partied for far too long, and get back to work cleaning up the mess and paying back our bills.
Basically, most Americans would need to take on a lifestyle just as if they just declared personal bankruptcy.

-t

What do you propose to do about the millions of people who would become unemployed, as the result of your scenario, one of whom might well be you?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

I'm sorry, most of what you said above was great, but this is absolute BS:



Maybe it just misunderstand what you are trying to say, but here is my take:

SPENDING has gotten us in the mess we're in in the first place.
The American consumer needs to spend LESS.

Also, the government needs to spend less. It has been spending far too much, and financed" it by printing money (i.e. IOUs, i.e. treasury bills).

The only solution is to cut back our reckless consumption, admit that we have partied for far too long, and get back to work cleaning up the mess and paying back our bills.
Basically, most Americans would need to take on a lifestyle just as if they just declared personal bankruptcy.

-t

That's not really what I'm trying to say.

Yes we all need to spend less, in general, but in order to fix what is broke in some cases we will have to spend money. There are no free transitions from one thing to another without it costing money whether you are talking about technology or anything else. Revolution ain't cheap.

What is necessary is to be able to recognize a worthy long-term investment from a general waste of money, where a long term investment is something that is going to help solve the problem (or a worthy problem that needs to be solved) in the long-term, even if it doesn't in the short term.

Take education, for example. Reducing classroom sizes as shif talked about *will* help American students in the long run, and we know that a generation of better educated students provides us with a number of net gains. However, in order to do this we will have to make expensive changes - expensive in the short term, at least. However, it may also be a worthy investment.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

No, that's not ideology. I mean it in practical ways. IT NEEDS TO BE DONE.

People need to save money, and stop buying things they can't afford.
The government needs to do the same.
The myth that we can continue spending, and that this will revive the economy, must be debunked.

I suggest the following book, it's an excellent read on how we got in this mess, and what the underlying mechanisms are. I know, the title is a bit sensationalistic, but ultimately, this is where we're headed if nothing is changed.



http://www.amazon.com/Crash-Proof-Ec...0869893&sr=8-2

-t

Clicking on that book didn't do anything, what kind of scam here are you trying to pull?

Personal and government debt is indeed a big problem, but deficit spending in and of itself is not the problem (e.g. buying a mortgage for your house) - it's doing this in an unsustainable fashion. The "beyond our means" part doesn't even apply here as far as the government is concerned, because the government and the economic power of this country has great means, it's the unsustainable part that is the most troubling to me.

Watch that IOUSA documentary that shif was talking about (I brought it up before too), and prepare to be scared as to how dangerously unsustainable Medicare and Medicaid are, and to a lesser extent social security. As shif also said, this is a much greater threat than the Iraq war, Bush's tax cuts, or anything else.

The thing is, we just seem to have different perspectives as to what we ought to do. I say that we must take into account the massive administrative overhead and greedy practices of the insurance companies before we completely discard the idea of public health. Maybe the answer is not public health, but we can learn from it, and I definitely think we can do a whole lot more to reduce costs and overhead (of course, the danger is that in making the system more complicated we may also increase overhead in other areas). For example, it seems completely insane to me that Canadians pay annually for their health care in taxes what many Americans pay in one or two months for theirs. You can make the argument that American health care is better in some way, but better to the point that it costs us thousands upon thousands more? Maybe we don't really need "better"?

Now, I know that this is a very emotionally charged issue, and I know that it will be easy to take what I said and go off on a rant or tangent about socialism or something, I realize that my example may not have been the best choice. However, instead of doing that, let's look at what we can actually learn from this difference, and how we can take this information to improve what we have?

I think people grow too impatient and want these massive revolutions, when the way to achieve those revolutions in the first place is to start putting the pieces together just as I'm describing above with this any many other areas enough for there really to be clarity as to what our best path is. This is nearly impossible to do when our own ideologies interfere though.

[ort888]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Look at the subprime mortgage meltdown, and the domino effect it caused with "normal" mortgages - it all comes directly back to people feeling as though they are entitled to home ownership, which results in citizens purchasing homes they cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, legitimately afford.

Those poor banks sure got taken advantage of by those evil low income homebuyers.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

It seems that when Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid were originally conceived they were based around the notion that America will remain an economic powerhouse, and that somehow any wrongs with private insurance plans and health care in the hands of corporations will be made right with increased competition and the free market doing its thing. It just doesn't seem like this model works anymore. <Snip>

No, I'm sorry, what you posted there are based on faulty assumptions, besson. I don't mean to be rude, but if you're going to be post uniformed speculation in a forum like this, there are those of us who are far better informed on these topics who read these posts critically. These programs aren't on the verge of failing because of globalization. Social Security was conceived by our most Socialist president to date, Franklin Roosevelt, during the height of the Great Depression (a recession many credit him with turning into the great depression with his retarded, anti-free market policies). The American economy was far, far, far worse off then than it is now. When Medicare and Medicaid were conceived, under America's second most Socialist president to date, LBJ, America's economy was healthy, relatively speaking, but still far smaller than it is today by any measure.

No, it's not globalization that's causing these pyramid schemes to fail. In truth, free trade has helped, not hindered the American economy - almost any economist will tell you that. The true factors that are causing these pyramid schemes to fail are 1) That they're pyramid schemes that were fraudulent to begin with; 2) Their true costs are hidden from the American people 3) People live a lot longer than they did when these programs were enacted; 4) The baby boomer generation is far larger than the generations subsequent to it. I'll explain these aspects in the next paragraphs.

Social Security and Medicare are pyramid schemes, plain and simple. If anyone other than government were running them, law enforcement would shut them down as illegal. These pyramid schemes make the Bernie Madoff swindle look minuscule in comparison. These programs rely on workers and their employers forking over a huge portion of their wages/salaries up front so that the government can turn around and pay off the current pool of retirees. And after the retirees are paid off, Congress spends whatever is left as part of the treasury's general fund. The true costs of these programs have been hidden from the average American. One can look them up now with some work online, but most people don't know enough to care to look for themselves. When Medicare was debated in Congress, lawmakers assured the country the program was going to be affordable; yet, soon after passage the budget for Medicare swelled far in excess of those projections. And in modern times, it has grown to cost immensely more than it was ever thought to cost.

However, in spite of the fact that these entitlements are legalized cons by government, they would not be failing if not for the demographics of the situation. When FDR introduced Social Security, a large percentage of the population died before reaching the defined retirement age. Now, given our advanced medicine, most people are living far past the current retirement age. That puts a strain on both of these fraudulent retirement schemes. Add to that the fact that the Baby Boomers - a generation that got its name because of the huge population increase at that time in history - are now starting to retire, and you have a huge crisis on your hands. When Social Security was enacted, something like 30 workers supported each recipient - 30:1. But when the Baby Boomers retire, the ratio will be more like 3:1.

Barack Obama got into office by promising the American people the stars and the moon - sometimes literally. He promised expansion of every entitlement program, at a time when these programs are beginning to run serious deficits; he demonized John McCain for broaching the subject of entitlement reform. He completely ignored all of the calls from our country's economic stewards, like Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, to start finding a solution to these very serious problems. Now we're going to see if Obama will be a responsible guy, putting the country's long term interests first, or if he will govern in ignorance and pass the problem down the line until the next president has to deal with a truly dire economic collapse.

[besson3c]

So your assertion is that Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security have never worked, and have never done this country any good? What would *you* propose putting in place of these programs?

[Big Mac]

No, that is not my assertion. I do not deny that Medicare, Medicad and Social Security have "worked" in the past. They have, to the extent that they were designed and defined to "work" by government, although I think the people Social Security has worked for would have gotten much more for their money from private pensions, as has been demonstrated in private pension programs in the United States and private pension systems in other countries; I think there are far better alternatives to Medicare and Medicaid. While they may have "worked" in the past, that doesn't mean they were not pyramid schemes then; it just means that the pyramid worked well enough in the past. My principle assertion is that the pyramids are starting to topple in the present, won't work in the near future, and that instead they will fail spectacularly. As for my solutions, I have outlined some of them previously but will post more on them when I get additional time to devote to this thread.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

No, that is not my assertion. I do not deny that Medicare, Medicad and Social Security have "worked" in the past. They have, to the extent that they were designed and defined to "work" by government, although I think the people Social Security has worked for would have gotten much more for their money from private pensions, as has been demonstrated in private pension programs in the United States and private pension systems in other countries; I think there are far better alternatives to Medicare and Medicaid. While they may have "worked" in the past, that doesn't mean they were not pyramid schemes then; it just means that the pyramid worked well enough in the past. My principle assertion is that the pyramids are starting to topple in the present won't work in the near future, and that instead they will fail spectacularly. As for my solutions, I have outlined some of them previously but will post more on them when I get additional time to devote to this thread.

So then we aren't that far off from each other. My globalization theory was just one idea that tried to account for why these programs and are economy as a whole are failing us. I haven't read the Thomas Friedman flat earth book yet, but I get the sense that he might agree with me too.

Obviously it is not exclusively to blame for the failure of Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security, nor did I intend to suggest that.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I haven't read the Thomas Friedman flat earth book yet, but I get the sense that he might agree with me too.

Thomas Friedman's a tool and a fool. He must be blessed more than others because I think he's got far less talent and merit than his career would suggest. He's not completely out in left field, but nothing of his that I've ever read has impressed me at all, IMO.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Thomas Friedman's a tool and a fool. He must be blessed more than others because I think he's got far less talent and merit than his career would suggest. He's not completely out in left field, but nothing of his that I've ever read has impressed me at all, IMO.

Well, you're going to have to provide more in the way of information before this is worth responding to...

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Oh, that's real easy:

1) Stop spending money we don't have.
That means no more consumption purchases on credit.

2) Save money and bring it to the bank.

3) Let those companies fail that need to fail.

4) No government bailouts. It's a waste of money, money that we don't have.

5) Let the housing bubble play out w/o market distorting gimmicks from the government.

6) Lower taxes so businesses can be competitive on international markets.

7) Level the playing field. Get rid of unions and other government interventions (like C.A.F.E.) that enrich a few, paid for by taxes and bailouts.

There.

-t

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by OldManMac 

What do you propose to do about the millions of people who would become unemployed, as the result of your scenario, one of whom might well be you?

Why would consuming less necessarily lead to Turtle's unemployment? FUD as usual.

As we consume less, we're going to need less cash registers and more tools. Less cashiers and more repair personnel. Skills. At the same time, taking drastic measures to cut illegal immigration up to and including absolutely hammering corporations with heavy fines per instance. Our country needs to absorb the current population of illegal immigrants, focus heavily on skills development, and enter more of a maintenance mentality than the pervasive "I need new" entitlement mentality.

Perpetual growth is a myth. It cannot happen. Any policy that conceals problems by throwing money at it will crash and burn. Any economy entirely contingent upon policies founded on such a myth will likewise crash and burn.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by OldManMac 

What do you propose to do about the millions of people who would become unemployed, as the result of your scenario, one of whom might well be you?

First off, certain adjustments are unavoidable. But the thing is, we will NOT just cut jobs.

Basically, what needs to happen in the US economy is to shift jobs from the reckless consumer sector back to jobs that actually produce things.

Btw, it's also a myth that manufacturing jobs are not competitive in the US.

-t

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by ort888 

Those poor banks sure got taken advantage of by those evil low income homebuyers.

You're funny.

Do you know what the root cause was of all these subprime mortgages that (surprise, surprise) were eventually defaulted on?

In 1977, Jimmy Carter (a Democrat) enacted the Community Reinvestment Act. What this essentially did was allow the federal government to "evaluate" banks to ensure that they were "making mortgages available to all income levels in their community". In other words, it was a way of strong-arming banks into providing mortgages to people who could not afford them.

See, the banks weren't stupid. They were protecting themselves (and their customers' financial investments) by not approving mortgages to people who had neither the credit or the financial stability to back them up. The result was that a lot of broke people (many black, but many white as well) weren't able to own homes.

Why? Because they couldn't afford them. This was, of course, seen as a social travesty by the liberal left, so they decided to yet again get involved in private enterprise and try to "even things out" by making it pretty damn unattractive to banks to not approve mortgages for broke minorities.

Banks are rated based on CRA evaluations. By opening branches in low-income areas, they can raise their CRA rating. By approving loans to people who are essentially enormous financial risks, they can raise their CRA rating. And, to further this mess, Bill Clinton (surprise! another Democrat) further strengthened the CRA in the name of Affirmative Action and "ending minority and low-income discrimination".

The banks are not nearly as at fault here as the left wants you to believe. Yes, there was some predatory lending that went on once banks realized that such lending would improve a bullsh!t CRA rating. The real story, though, is that banks didn't really have a choice for the most part. Either they faced the possibility of federal legal retribution, or they had to underwrite risky mortgages to broke ass people who had zero business buying a home.

[ort888]

Yes, it's all the poor people's fault. This is what I was getting at earlier. Poor, lazy people are to blame for the current economic situation.

Well, poor lazy people and scheming Democrats. It's just too bad that the overpowered and helpless Republicans weren't able to stop the Democrats nefarious schemes before it was too late. Then none of this would have ever happened.

[shifuimam]

Do you enjoy being ignorant?

The subprime mortgage meltdown never would have happened if subprime mortgages didn't exist. They wouldn't exist if broke people who couldn't afford homes didn't greedily and selfishly demand that the government give them something they shouldn't really have. Banks wouldn't have provided the mortgages if there was no CRA rating to hurt them.

Is the subprime mortgage meltdown the only reason the current economy is on a downswing? No. We are where we are because of a general attitude (from all socioeconomic backgrounds) of entitlement - which is what the OP was about.

People want things they can't afford. Broke people want houses. Middle class people want new cars every three years or expensive vacations. Theoretically rich people let their finances get out of hand because they think they can buy the world with their six and seven-figure incomes, and people making a quarter of a million a year are tens of thousands of dollars in debt as a result.

I know that what you want is for the rich to say "this is all our fault", so that broke people can continue to play the poor, helpless victim. Unfortunately, America's legacy of selfishness, greed, immediate gratification, and entitlement runs deep throughout the country - including in broke-ass people who want stuff they simply can't afford.

I'm sorry that you're unwilling to take off your liberal left blinders and recognize that poor people are just as selfish and stupid as everyone else, but there's nothing I can do about that.

Snap.

[ort888]

You are so filled with hatred. It must be hard for you.

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

Oh please. Look who's talking. You can't even give a rational response to an argument, accept to pull out the old crap from the liberal playbook "call everyone who disagrees with you 'full of hatred' and then you won't have to respond with a SINGLE fact, figure, or actual argument.'

We've seen it all before. It got OLD a long time ago.

[OldManMac]

Originally Posted by ebuddy 

Why would consuming less necessarily lead to Turtle's unemployment? FUD as usual.

As we consume less, we're going to need less cash registers and more tools. Less cashiers and more repair personnel. Skills. At the same time, taking drastic measures to cut illegal immigration up to and including absolutely hammering corporations with heavy fines per instance. Our country needs to absorb the current population of illegal immigrants, focus heavily on skills development, and enter more of a maintenance mentality than the pervasive "I need new" entitlement mentality.

Perpetual growth is a myth. It cannot happen. Any policy that conceals problems by throwing money at it will crash and burn. Any economy entirely contingent upon policies founded on such a myth will likewise crash and burn.

Speaking of FUD, what is this about less cash registers and more tools? Are we now going to fix $14.95 Chinese toasters? I'll certainly agree we need to cut back heavily on illegal immigration, but you and I may be the only ones who agree on that; the corporations that own our government certainly aren't going to be begging for heavy fines for hiring $7/hour unskilled, and illegal, labor, so that they can hire more $10/hour toaster fixers. Are we going to just forget about decade's of advancement in scientific fields like quality control, metallurgy, chemistry, physics, etc., so we can have more repair personnel to fix the stuff we bought that worked before, but doesn't now because we've decided to fix things we own that broke? Our country was founded on the "I need new" mentality; we needed new land, we just took it from whomever (and slaughtered a lot of them in the process). Our entire culture is based on getting what we want, when we want it, at no concern for the cost, or the damage done to others, and you're going to tell me that we're somehow going to convince people that it's in their best interests to revert? Of course, upon thinking about it, you may have a point; after all, the "conservative" movement has convinced an awful lot of people to vote for programs and people that are not in their best interests, by dressing their programs in flowery oratory and obfuscatory language. I saw an article yesterday about DRM battles going on in Congress, and there is actually a Progress and Freedom Foundation that is putting together arguments as to why DRM is good for consumers, which of course is a fancy way of saying that they get to make all the money, and you get screwed as to how you get to use the music you paid for. Anytime you hear outfits like this saying they're all for deregulating something, you automatically know that means that you're going to get screwed, and you'll have no recourse in the process. The only major entitlement programs that are out of whack now are the ones where we get to send our money to Washington, or our state governments, and they send it to the big corporations, to bail them out of the ****ups they've created, and we're told to send more when they screw up more.

[ort888]

There is no reason to argue. No one is going to change anyone's mind. What's the point?

Keep on blaming whoever you want to blame... but the truth is that pretty much everyone is to blame. Democrats, Republicans, Banks, Rich people, poor people. Everyone played a roll in this and to single any one group out more then another one is just playing up your own biases.

He's just blaming whoever most conveniently reenforces his world view.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by ort888 

You are so filled with hatred. It must be hard for you.

There's no hatred coming from my end of things.

The liberal left generally operates under the concept that humans are inherently good and unselfish, whereas history as far back as we know it shows the complete opposite. Humans are inherently selfish. Selfishness plays into greed, a desire for immediate gratification, and a sense of entitlement.

Do you believe that it was a good thing that Democrats like Carter and Clinton forced banks to provide mortgages to poor people, which eventually resulted in a major banking crisis? Do you believe that the subprime mortgage meltdown was the fault of the banks, or the poor people who demanded the "right" to own a home they could not afford? Do you believe that it is economically wise, in both the short and long term, to loan massive amounts of money at low initial interest to individuals who very clearly are wholly incapable of managing their finances, as evidenced by things such as poor credit history, low FICO scores, and the complete lack of financial assets and investments? Do you believe that these people are not huge financial risks to lenders?

Do you believe that Americans do not harbor a sense of entitlement? Do you believe that Americans don't feel their federal government "owes" them housing, food, education, and health care? Because from where I'm sitting, it sure seems that way. The rabid support for our president-elect shows pretty clearly that Americans are buying into the myth of government-fulfilled entitlement more and more every day.

It's not about "placing blame on whoever conveniently fits my worldview". I find it hard to believe that you could logically say that the individuals who insisted on buying housing they couldn't really afford are complete victims in this situation.

Think about it - these are people who were incapable of qualifying for a standard mortgage...not even a shitty variable rate one. Don't you think that should be a pretty big red flag that such people are financial liabilities, and they should get their finances in order before they attempt a commitment as utterly massive as home ownership? Or do you seriously believe that such people have a "right" to buy a house?

I'm not denying people the right to a roof over their heads. I'm saying that a person should not purchase a home until they are financially stable, secure, and capable of sustaining the cost of home ownership over a long period of time. Carter's Community Reinvestment Act says otherwise.

It's a weak cop-out to just throw your hands up and say, "okay, everyone's at fault here". The fact is, if poor people did not believe they were entitled to own homes before they are financially prepared to shoulder the burden, the demand for subprime mortgages would be nonexistent, and the banks would not be facing such a huge mess.

Who's at fault when a person dies from a drug overdose? Is it the guy who sold him the heroin, or is it the addict who let his life and his drug addiction get out of control? Who's at fault when a person drives drunk and kills someone in an accident? Is it the bar that sold him the hooch, the company that brewed the beer, or the driver who got behind the wheel when he shouldn't have? Yes, without the dealer there would be no overdose. Without the bar or the brewing company there would be no drunk driving. That does not, however, absolve an individual from their actions. They are still responsible for the damage they cause.

Who's to blame when a person can't make the payments on a loan? Is it the bank who sold them the loan, or is it the person who purchased a loan that their income and financial lifestyle couldn't sustain?

The root of the problem is not that banks provided these loans (which they had to provide, mind you). The bottom-of-the-barrel root of the problem is that people demand home ownership before they are ready. If people were willing to recognize that they need to invest and save money and rent until they can legitimately commit to a mortgage, the problem would be eradicated.

[CreepDogg]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

IMO, unions served a very valuable purpose, when they were created and governments didn't regulate things like working conditions and minimum wages. Now, however, they don't seem to serve any purpose ...

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Absolutely. Back when unions first came up, blue collar employees were being heavily exploited by their employers. Some jobs, like working in mines and in factories, presented safety threats to the employees, and OSHA didn't exist yet to ensure employee safety.

I find this interesting. So, are we agreeing that government can provide a service (in this case, workplace protections) better than a so-called 'free market' entity (unions)? That concept opens up a whole world of possibilities...

I struggle with all the union-bashing I see in current discussions. Undoubtedly, there's a lot of abuse and deplorable actions by the unions, but the question is - what to do? I would infer that some would want to eliminate the concept of unions. I can't get there - to do so is to take a step back from the free market we aspire to. It would be denying workers the right to organize.

Clearly there is room to make changes in the rules around how unions are formed and managed - there seems to be too much potential today for coercion and abuse. In a true 'free market', I would think it would take a lot to get a union of workers to agree to strike to gain concessions. But it seems it's too easy today for union leaders to coerce high dues and/or silly concessions from management to allow for things like strike pay that take some of that 'pain' away and make it too easy to strike and hold a company hostage.

Long story short, I'm saying hate the game, not the player. We should aspire to make rules in the labor market fair and even for labor and management such that neither unions nor corporations can wrest too much power. Checks and balances, man. Checks and balances.

One other thing - unions are certainly culpable in the current situation and entitlement mentality, but no more or less so than any other entity.

[CreepDogg]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

The subprime mortgage meltdown never would have happened if subprime mortgages didn't exist. They wouldn't exist if broke people who couldn't afford homes didn't greedily and selfishly demand that the government give them something they shouldn't really have. Banks wouldn't have provided the mortgages if there was no CRA rating to hurt them.

This isn't exactly true. I think you're placing too much correlation on subprime loans and the CRA. While it's true that a lot of subprime loans were originated for property in poor/minority areas, there was also a strong showing in areas with high levels of new construction and price appreciation. So - subprime loans were not only given for the poor for CRA ratings, but they were also given to people so they could get their McMansions they really couldn't afford.

Point is, banks weren't giving these loans just because they were forced to by the government. They were giving them because, gosh, they thought they could make more money by giving them than by not giving them. Before the crisis, most people, rich and poor, would be able to sell their homes before getting foreclosed, so banks got more and more willing to take the extra risk.

Did the CRA play into this? Could it even have been a catalyst? Sure. But in the end, these loans were given out willingly. So yes, banks are just as culpable as the 'entitled' homebuyers, rich and poor.

Oh, and by the way, George HW Bush, a Republican, signed a law that forced CRA ratings public, a move that strengthened it. Democrats and Republicans: culpable.

[CreepDogg]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Who's to blame when a person can't make the payments on a loan? Is it the bank who sold them the loan, or is it the person who purchased a loan that their income and financial lifestyle couldn't sustain?

That would be the person who purchased the loan, and they should accept the consequences, up to and including foreclosure i.e. losing their investment.

Corollary question: Who's to blame when a bank goes under because they made a large number of these loans, couldn't get their investment back, and became insolvent?

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by OldManMac 

Speaking of FUD, what is this about less cash registers and more tools?

A change in mindset between getting rid of the car with the poor transmission or paying to have it fixed as opposed to socking yourself with another 5-yr debt you can't manage, then filing bankruptcy for your $4500 medical bill.

Are we now going to fix $14.95 Chinese toasters?

... or buy an old American toaster that you could drop from your roof and it'd still make toast. It's not programmable, but what good is programming a Chinese toaster that doesn't work anyway right? I'm talking about larger ticket items OldMan like; building new homes you can't afford, cars, TVs, expensive computers and stereo equipment, etc...

I'll certainly agree we need to cut back heavily on illegal immigration, but you and I may be the only ones who agree on that; the corporations that own our government certainly aren't going to be begging for heavy fines for hiring $7/hour unskilled, and illegal, labor, so that they can hire more $10/hour toaster fixers.

... and liberal politicians aren't going to let go of that assumed vote either, but again it's more than toasters and conservatives.

Are we going to just forget about decade's of advancement in scientific fields like quality control, metallurgy, chemistry, physics, etc., so we can have more repair personnel to fix the stuff we bought that worked before, but doesn't now because we've decided to fix things we own that broke?

Now you're just using my post for something else. The basic gist of my post was to wane off of unskilled into more skilled. Certainly quality control, metallurgy, chemistry, physics and the like under "scientific advancement" comprise "skilled" occupations. You might know these jobs are leaving the country in favor of those who can detassle corn.

Our country was founded on the "I need new" mentality; we needed new land, we just took it from whomever (and slaughtered a lot of them in the process).

Well, you'll be hard-pressed to find a society who hasn't. Who did we take the land from, the Cherokee who took it from the Creeks, who took it from the Chocktaw who took it from (enter peoples here)? More of that fashionable self-loathing that would have you believe the most reprehensible behaviors are exclusively those of the Anglo-Euro white male and his need for conquest.

The "I need new" mentality is prevalent in any society where "new" was readily available. This mindset is fostered by a notion of perpetual growth. It's not until the media cries that the bottom has fell out of the bag that we start taking a good, hard look at what we're spending and where. I'd be willing to bet a great many are looking into fixing the $900 TV with the $250 problem instead of saddling themselves with an upgraded; $1200 TV. Certainly, any measurement of purchase activity in this country would support my view. Who knows, maybe at some point we'll actually return to the time of "quality control" or in your words, scientific advancement.

Our entire culture is based on getting what we want, when we want it, at no concern for the cost, or the damage done to others, and you're going to tell me that we're somehow going to convince people that it's in their best interests to revert?

This seems to be what the populace is doing. The only ones who aren't getting it are the ones who've abandoned conservative ideology in favor of ensuring there is no increase in unemployment on their watch; at any cost, regardless of the damage done to others...

Of course, upon thinking about it, you may have a point; after all, the "conservative" movement has convinced an awful lot of people to vote for programs and people that are not in their best interests, by dressing their programs in flowery oratory and obfuscatory language.

Such as???

I saw an article yesterday about DRM battles going on in Congress, and there is actually a Progress and Freedom Foundation that is putting together arguments as to why DRM is good for consumers, which of course is a fancy way of saying that they get to make all the money, and you get screwed as to how you get to use the music you paid for. Anytime you hear outfits like this saying they're all for deregulating something, you automatically know that means that you're going to get screwed, and you'll have no recourse in the process.

Why is this even a concern OldMan, do you know? Could it have something to do with the immense amount of BitTorrent thievery, illegal acquisition of material, copying of material, selling of material that you've not paid for? Talk about getting what you want, when you want it, at no concern for the cost or the damage done to others.

The only major entitlement programs that are out of whack now are the ones where we get to send our money to Washington, or our state governments, and they send it to the big corporations, to bail them out of the ****ups they've created, and we're told to send more when they screw up more.

Yep and both of us have precious little by way of representation on the Hill to oppose these measures. Bending you over the counter is a bipartisan effort, but since you want to focus on "conservatives", truly conservative ideology mitigates all of these circumstances and in fact it is the pervasive, liberal "I want, what I want, when I want it, at no concern for the cost, or the damage done to others" entitlement mentality that has got us into each and every mess you cite.