Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (278559)	3/6/2006 6:25:37 AM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575391

Hazards of Boom-Time Borrowing The last recession in the United States ended in November 2001. Since then, labor productivity and business profits have been strong, but wages have barely budged, the personal savings rate has gone negative, and a record share of household income is now spent to pay interest on accumulated debt. Conventional wisdom holds that the housing boom has made up for those problems. But a recent report from the Federal Reserve indicates otherwise. According to the Fed, rapidly rising home values over the past few years have failed to appreciably increase Americans' net worth because much of the higher value was eaten up by borrowing against home equity. At the same time, overreliance on a hot housing market — while stoking the economy in the near term — appears to have made Americans more vulnerable to the worst potential effects of a housing slowdown. Those would include crushing debt and rising unemployment as a cooling real estate sector dampens consumer spending and job growth. The Fed found that between 2001 and 2004, net worth rose by only 1.5 percent for the median family. That was the second worst three-year stretch since the Fed started keeping track in 1989. The worst period, from 1989 to 1992, occurred when the economy was descending into recession. In contrast, the Fed's current report encompasses the Bush-era economic recovery. As Americans' debt rose, more family income went to paying interest, even as interest rates declined through mid-2004. Families in "the bottom 80 percent of the income distribution" were increasingly afflicted by outsized debt service payments and delinquencies of 60 days or more, the report said. Since the report was completed, the Fed has doubled interest rates, to 4.5 percent, and more increases are expected. So debt service will not be getting any easier. There are also more signs that the housing market is downshifting. Government and industry numbers released last week show that home sales fell in January while the supply of unsold houses grew and the pace of price increases slowed — events that generally presage a leveling off of prices or even a decline. For the typical American family, financial well-being now hangs in an uneasy balance between frothy home values on one side and stagnating wages plus rising debt on the other.

To: combjelly who wrote (278559)	3/7/2006 3:25:50 AM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1575391

But don't lose sight of the apparent fact that the military is being directly used to pimp the Republican party. Military officers take an oath to defend the Constitution, not the President or a particular party. There is a reason for that. Factor in that, in a recent poll, 85% of the soldiers in Iraq think that they are there to punish Saddam for his involvement in 9/11, and we have a dangerous situation shaping up. I am guessing the soldiers there get a lot of Fox News and Limbaugh, and few if any other news sources... From the moment Gore conceded the election in 2000, we have been in serious danger. On that day, Bush and his pals made a mockery of this country's institutions and a created a serious breach in all that this country is supposed to hold dear. Since then, they have proceeded to add insult to injury. And there is no one stopping them. Where is the anger? Do Americans have a clue what they are losing? Do they even care? Yes, the military has been compromised. Ominously, the generals that opposed Bush have been replaced.....by those more loyal? And now some words from Brit Hume of Fox News, making a mockery of Katrina and the relief effort: "Abandonment of Americans? Popular Mechanics takes a bite out of more Katrina myths in its latest issue, including Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard's claim that "Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonment’s of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history." In fact, the magazine calls the response "by far the largest — and fastest — rescue effort in U.S. history,” noting that nearly 100,000 emergency personnel arrived on the scene within three days of the storm's landfall." How much you want to bet that Good Mechanics is owned by loyal and corrupted Republican. And some more: ‘A Model Prison’ "A top Belgian security official has called Guantanamo Bay, "a model prison," saying inmates are treated better there than in his own country. " foxnews.com They spew out these lies 24/7. And their followers suck it up like its nectar from the gods.