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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (13768)	9/20/2003 3:46:56 PM
From: bentway	Respond to of 306849

I totally agree with you Elroy! The definition of Facism is an unholy partnership between corporations and government, and this is just what Bush is the mouthpiecing for. You'd think they could have picked a more euridite spokesman.. I have an old VW van that needs painting, and I was considering a 2 foot-high "Impeach Bush" sign, but now I'm leaning twoard a giant swastika with a "Nazis for Bush" sign.

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (13768)	9/20/2003 6:13:04 PM
From: GraceZ	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

The money is lent out to the housing bubble. Would you prefer that money come from Fed creation or foreign investment instead of from increased national savings? Sometimes money in banks is lent out for student loans. Sometimes it's loaned out for small businesses like my own to buy capital equipment. Sometimes it's loaned out to people to buy cars and sometimes it's loaned out to buy houses. Money put into banks by rich people is loaned out to people who aren't rich. What is mostly an electronic entry to them is a low cost mortgage to me. The money from the tax cuts stays in the economy and it increases the pool of national savings from which we make investments. Some of that money will seek a higher return funding start ups. Some of it will wind up in family foundations like the one that helped pay for my college education and the education of millions more after me. Most college endowments started with one wealthy person's contribution. That money going into banks helps to lower interest rates which is worth a great deal more to the middle class then it is to the wealthy primarily because the middle class tends to borrow to make financial progress. I borrowed to go to college, I borrowed to buy my first house, I borrowed to buy my first big piece of capital equipment. All of those borrowings paid far more back into the economy than compound interest. Higher borrowing costs and inflation are always far higher burdens on the poor and middle class. The lower long term interest rates saves me almost $1000/month in interest expense and that's money that will be used for savings and new capital equipment I need for my business. Not everybody went out and blew their windfall on an inflated house. A great many of us will use it productively or to go back to school and re-tool.

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (13768)	9/21/2003 11:38:57 AM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Read Replies (9) \| Respond to of 306849

what currently passes for capitalism in the US is actually national socialism - only the current Fuhrer is not as charismatic or intelligent as the original well, i agree that it is not capitalism, but despite the socialization of financial risks (regarding which i agree with you) it is not exactly Naziism either, if jackboots and concentration camps count for anything. looking at a significant number of US public corporations, it seems to me they can no longer be considered capitalistic. capitalist means capital rules. if you buy stocks, the managers and workers should try to improve the economic value of that capital. whereas in America, the elite rules. that is the CEOs and other immoral types behind closed doors, who steal the bulk of profits and national wealth (and coopt officials like Grasso with huge pay packages). they then post fake pro forma profits, while real profits decline. worse, we are seeing the decay of the true base of wealth in this country--an industrial manufacturing base which provides for a positive or neutral trade balance through the export of value-addeds, providing the monetary fuel required for the service economy to thrive in the long term. thus we have lost more than 2 million, coming on 3 million, manufacturing jobs in the last 3 yrs. instead, we have more mortgage brokers, lawyers, real estate agents, etc., whose jobs are the result of the RE bubble. this bubble is not real wealth, and it will not last. neither will all the high-paying jobs in this sector, i am afraid. but that will not bother the CEOs and stock market bureaucrats who become centimillionaires or billionaires by scraping off the cream of what remains of our wealth base. they will be too busy having a good time in their guarded palaces. i think the form of govt we have today could be called: soft kleptocratic pseudocaptialistic pluto-socialism. a country run by thieves who lie about profits while implementing socialistic benefits for the rich. soft because it is enforced by propaganda as opposed to gun barrels.