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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dale Baker who wrote (85567)	9/19/2008 11:31:37 PM
From: Sam	Respond to of 541933

parable on a scam from another thread: To: Return to Sender who wrote (40295) 9/19/2008 2:51:13 PM From: Jacob Snyder 3 Recommendations of 40314 OT re "don't like what has been done here" patient, sitting on an ER bed: Doc, I've got a problem. I came home at 2am yesterday morning, and my stupid wife had smashed all the bottles, even the ones I hid. Haven't had a drink in a day and a half, and I'm starting to get the shakes. What can you do for me? doctor, in a reassuring tone: You're in good hands, I know how to make the pain go away. (handing a bottle of vodka to the patient) Drink this down, go home and sleep it off. patient: You are such a wonderful doctor. A real life-saver. My hero. One problem, though. What do I do tomorrow, when the tremors and blurry vision come back? doctor: No problem. I haven't run out of bottles yet. When doctors do this, they lose their licence to practice. When the overseers of the global financial system do this, they are praised for restoring confidence. JS@selltherally.com

To: Dale Baker who wrote (85567)	9/20/2008 12:11:23 AM
From: bluezuu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541933

Of course, there is a crisis. Not the first US has faced. But Bernanke has been wrong repeatedly while spending hundreds of billions. And, now he and Paulson say they just need more money, trillions to buy bad debt. Not believing they have the solution. ------------------------ Here are a few things to watch for when you first come in contact with contractors. Warning Sign 1: Scare tactics "Well, your chimney looks about ready to fall over. If that lands on someone's head -- they're a goner. And you could have one dandy lawsuit." Warning Sign 2: The hasty quote on a big job "I figure $5,800 should do it," says the contractor as he glances at the complicated repair, then quickly scribbles a number on a scrap of paper. Warning Sign 5: Pressure tactics "You'll have to sign up now. The manufacturer says the prices are going up right away."

To: Dale Baker who wrote (85567)	9/20/2008 3:09:44 AM
From: wonk	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 541933

The scam was government allowing financial institutions to introduce so much risk into the system (and make huge profits from doing so) that letting them all fail at once would collapse the economic and financial system that the rest of us need to live day to day. Its been said that every great economic crisis has its root cause in financial excess. You institutionalize the lessons learned in past disasters by creating new laws and regulations. Regulations don't exist to "burden" innovation, or other such Ayn Randian juvenile nonsense. They exist because its cheaper to put in a sprinkler system than to rebuild a burned down building and bury the dead. But as time passes and the people who lived those times die off, someone always thinks they know better. We're at the end of a 30 year cycle of the Reagan Revolution, whose foot soldiers have spent all that time dismantling the structures that were put in place as a result of the hardships of the 1930's. Its ironic - but not unexpected - that at the time of the greatest and most pervasive success in their deregulatory philosophy, economic history rears up and bites them in the butt. Now lets see if the plan offered this weekend, though unfortunately, absolutely and without a doubt necessary, punishes some of the perpetrators for their hubris. I am not confident.