I, uh, . . . wow. That's not the point at all. Different subject entirely.



Lack of regulation got us where we are, you can't blame the economy on Reaganomics.



This is true.

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Frrrrrt!

Part of Reaganomics was deregulation, it was all about "trickle-down" economics.

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Political Buddies

I'm sorry. It's SO much larger than that. You HAVE to look at the whole thing when it comes to this current economy. Anything else is just irresponsible. There is no single thing that carries more weight than the conglomerate of ridiculousness that is our leadership.

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Frrrrrt!

You're right, there's no one set thing that caused this situation--but some of the BIGGEST causes are deregulation and being too relaxed on existing regulations.

We wouldn't have had to do the bailouts if regulations were being enforced.

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Political Buddies

See, that was a rather vapid comment on Obama about his leadership. I don't like Obama, but I think for a different set of reasons: He's continuing many of the awful Bush policies. I also think we should have considered more options than a full-fledged flat-out bailout--and on that part we might agree. I also think the compromised healthcare bill is horrible, I would have been *much* happier with a flat-out socialized healthcare plan.

For a long time I argued the idea that in a time of a bad economy, the last thing we want to do is spend. Then I started to research how we got out of the Great Depression--much of it was spending on our infrastructure. I think spending money on our healthcare would be a good investment, since it *does* cost people SO much money and is such a necessity. What we ended up with was mandated health insurance. The first person to go to jail over this and there'll be a huge shitstorm.

But anyway, "our leadership" didn't cause the banks to fail. "Our leadership" isn't responsible for the actions of private companies. It goes back to the whole "evil capitalists" thing--we bailed out some of the people who really SHOULD be considered "evil capitalists". Unfortunately, we rewarded their behavior with the bailouts. Had THE REUPBLICANS not have laxed the rules for banks, had they have not went for deregulation during the Bush years, the bailouts would never have had to have happened. I put this whole situation *solely* on the republicans who believe so strongly that the free market will automatically fix problems like corruption if we just pull out all the stops, it's fucking ridiculous. Please don't take this as if I'm pissed at you--you're an independent, I don't consider you to be a republican.

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Political Buddies

Negative. The "Leadership" I refer to is entrenched, and perhaps I shouldn't assume that anyone would know that, it's just that it seems plain to me that no one person could do this much damage. It takes YEARS of it to make what we have. Obama doesn't have NEARLY the mental capacity to screw up the country this bad, especially in just a couple of years.



Indeed it did. Only now you know that I was referring to entrenched leadership as a whole. Blaming Obama, or Bush, or a single party, is much too limited thinking. I agree with you on the horrid lack of rules with the bailout. Comparing the medical potentials to the infrastructure spending of the past is an interesting concept. I'm intrigued.

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Frrrrrt!

Thanks for clarifying

But as far as the actual failings themselves, we pretty much have the high-ranking employees of those banks to blame--we have greed to blame.

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Political Buddies