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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: HULA who wrote (367175)	3/6/2003 1:21:08 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769667

To compare real estate bubble and dotcom bubble is naive. >>> Well, in one respect a valid comparison can be made: both problems were largely created by Congress screwing things up, and throwing favors to their special interest campaign contributors. >>> 1): >>> With the S & L disaster, Congress first 'deregulated' S & L investment rules (i.e., allowed them to make risky investments - a la Michael Milken's junk bond come-ons - far beyond their traditional areas of expertise) and then: A) Raised the insurance limits for deposits (guaranteeing that the taxpayers were on the hook for any defaults), and then B) When the disaster inevitably happened, Congress actually bailed out ALL depositors, all their fat cat special interest country club campaign contributors, for all deposits... even those well over the insurance limits ... sticking the poor suffering taxpayers with the entire load for the whole mess. >>> When was the last time you suffered an insured loss, and your insurance company called up and said "Hey, it doesn't matter how much insurance coverage you have paid for... we are going to pay back your whole investment loss no matter HOW much it is!"? >>> Doesn't sound too likely, does it? But when Congress is forking over the taxpayer's money for the benefit of their crony capitalist friends, nothing is too good. >>> The S & L bailout... originally pegged at some $500 Billion, will actually come in closer to a total cost to the taxpayers - once all the interest on the debt is factored in, and the debt is finally retired - of some 1 1/2 Trillion dollars... making it the most expensive financial bailout in history. >>> 2): >>> The 'dotcom' bubble was also greatly exascerbated by Congress' actions in favor of their special interests who finance their campaigns. >>> When Congress spiked SEC Chairman Levitt's proposed reforms of the Accounting Industry (to require the separation of consulting from the auditing function, to require expensing of Stock Options on P&L statements if the tax deduction was to be taken for the stock options) they paved the way for the financial bubble to come. >>> Tax deductions for stock options that didn't have to show up on the balance sheets allowed companies like Enron and Microsoft to pump-up their apparent earnings. They were the fuel for the fire that was the bubble. >>> "Free Money" back in tax deductions from Uncle Sam... and fake inflated earnings to fool the investing public with - this was all made possible by Congress spiking reforms which would have headed off this idsaster before it happened. >>> Senators Liberman, Dodd, and Billy Tauzin were some of the one's most deeply in the pockets of the financial interests who spiked reforms - though their were many others. >>> The final reform proposed by SEC Chairman Levitt that they killed was reform of the Accounting Industry - separation of consulting from auditing. This was the investing public's last line of defense from the bubble-to-be that became a disaster. >>> Yep, in major part, it was a failure of our leaders to serve the broader public that caused these two disasters. >>> Their absolute subservience to the Crony Capitalists who pay for their elections is the one clear, bright line that points to the true causes of these disasters borne by the American public (some $40,000, for every man woman and child, of the national debt is a result of the S & L bailout. Who knows how much debt will be added to the account as a result of the recent disaster.)