thegreekdog wrote:First, thanks for sending me that lecture question. It was interesting.
Glad you thought so. If nothing else, it shows you, I do know how to look at all sides.
thegreekdog wrote:Second, your list above ignores a whole swath of other factors, focusing on the financial implications of bundled mortgages only.
That was not my focus at all. My focus was on lack of patriotic ethics killing our country.
thegreekdog wrote:While you point to one (the impropriety of the financial institutions), I could point to another - the impropriety of the government incentivizing banks to give mortgages to people who could not afford them. If the government had not incentivized this sort of bad business loan system, there would have been no toxic assets in the first place.
So perhaps that was the biggest contributing factor.
Warped viewpoint. Sorry, but it is. Incentivizing didn't cause the problem. What caused the problem was unethical lenders who encouraged people to take out bigger loans than they had originally planned to take out when the incentives would help them buy a home - because they made more money on bigger loans.
I didn't fall prey to it, but they sure as heck tried to get me into a home that was 6x a larger mortgage than the shack I settled on. If it hadn't been for the incentives, I wouldn't have been able to get the home I have. If I'd fallen for the unethical strong-arming "Look look you can qualify for a mansion and your payment will only be $25 more for years, and before that rate goes up, you can refinance or sell the place for profit! Don't miss out!" I would've lost this home when I lost my job... which I lost because too many production/manufacturing jobs were being shipped overseas.
And jobs were being shipped overseas because business leaders made more money if they screwed Americans in favor of Mexico (then screwed Mexicans in favor of Pakistan and India, now planning to screw Pakistanis in favor of Vietnam).
And when jobs were shipped overseas, people couldn't afford the gigantic mortgages for as long as those unethical lenders had convinced them they could.
These bad things that occurred, occurred because many businessmen do not practice Patriotic ethics, but instead, only the ethics of, "more money in my pocket, please."
thegreekdog wrote:But I didn't want to type that because I don't agree with you that this is a partisan issue. The president and other Democrats can throw out their rhetoric, which you seem to be grasping on to, that the Republicans will strip away all the great regulations the Democrats created in Dodd-Frank, but if you go back and read the analysis of Dodd-Frank, the law basically codifies that the government will (WILL) be bailing out financial institutions in the future for similar reasons as the initial bailouts.
On the contrary, I'm not grasping onto any rhetoric. Nor do I support Dodd-Frank, I said it's a knee-jerk reaction that won't fix the real problem. I don't care for Barney Frank or most of his ideas.
I do agree that our financial institutions shouldn't fail, but, "Socialist" as this may appear, I do believe bailouts should come with strings attached like happened with the GM bailout. I may not like all the particular strings that came with the GM bailout, but at least the people who are putting up the bailout money in GM's case are "technically" represented (by the government) and "technically" have a sayso. The banking bailouts that occurred didn't come with the power-strings attached which just throws more money at those who've already shown they won't handle money issues with Patriotic responsibility. Their ONLY concerns are with their own and stockholders' pockets. And that's just not good for our country.
thegreekdog wrote:Third, my ultimate point here is not to assign blame to one particular party or another. My ultimate point is to try to persuade you and everyone else that electing President Obama (or a Democrat) is largely no different than electing Mitt Romney (or a Republican) in terms of a few things, including regulation of the financial industry, regulation of industry generally, taxation, and spending. Almost all national politicians are beholden to groups of companies and rich people given the way our political system works.
Romney doesn't want to regulate the financial industry, doesn't want to regulate industry generally, and I've already explained that that means we trust folks who do NOT have our nation's best interest, or the general people's best interest, at heart; and that's my problem with neo-Republican plans. Unlike Reagan's plans, which DID have our nations' best interests at heart, the neo-Republican plans twist what Reagan intended, to the detriment of our nation.
thegreekdog wrote:The bailouts, the Dodd-Frank Act, and money for "green energy" are great examples of how the Democrats are just as beholden to companies and the rich as the Republicans are. I've written these things in multiple other threads over the past few years and I'm not going to type them all out again here.
Newsflash: GE got big because someone on "one side" of the government subsidized its early industry.
Pratt got big because someone on "one side" of the government subsidized its early industry.
Colt and other firearms makers got big because someone on "one side" of the government subsidized its early industry.
Tang, Spam, and other food products got big because someone on "one side" of the government subsidized their early industry.
Velcro got invented because someone on "one side" of the government subsidized..
Getting the point? It's always happened. What's changed is that some businesses have gotten big and powerful enough to no longer need the government subsidies, and have moved their allegiance from their country to their stockholders.
thegreekdog wrote:I'm also not going to say you should or should not vote for President Obama, but you should at least be looking past rhetoric and looking to actions.
I never subscribe to "rhetoric," thank you very much. Critical thinking about the history of the United States may make certain ideas that are spouted be more palatable to me than other ideas, but I don't share the ideas just because some neo group or other shouts louder.
thegreekdog wrote:Fourth, there is no Democratic plan which would raise taxes on the rich or on big companies. There are Democratic plans which would raise taxes on the "working rich" (i.e. rich people who earn ordinary incomes), which include people who work at law firms for 80 to 100 hours a week after going through 7 years of post-high school education and people who own their own small business.
Oh, not really true - YOU are buying into rhetoric.
Repayment of school loans, educational expense, is a tax deduction. Small business owners reinvest most of their money back into the business, which means they're putting their profit into deductible expenses. They can also form different types of corporations to separate their home and personal food money from their business revenue to lessen the burden further.Obama's plans do not intend to kill any of that. Finally, their expenses for hiring folks such as payroll expenses are not part of their profits, and Obama's plan was to give them a higher deduction for hiring folks (but that was killed by Republicans.)
Meanwhile, Romney's latest idea is to not increase taxes on the wealthy, but instead, to minimize or eliminate these sorts of deductions for all - which potentially has a worse impact on the 100-hour-week lawyer and on mom and pop trying to make a success of a small business.
thegreekdog wrote:There are Democratic plans that take away some credits and deductions that favor certain businesses or industries over others, but there are no Democratic plans that take away all credits and all deductions such that one business or industry is not favored over other businesses or industries. In that way, the Democratic plans are no different than the Republican plans. So again, I urge you to look at the plans, not at the rhetoric behind them.
True. But look at why, rather than assuming I'm looking at rhetoric.
1) One of the most notorious "favoritisms" is the Democratic plan to hurt the petroleum industry. We are too dependent on foreign oil because we are overall too dependent on oil; our nation has realized it for years, and the oil we could produce within or just off our own shores will not last forever, Estimates differ, some say a decade, some say longer, but the point is, it's not inexhaustible. But changing to something else isn't going to happen without incentive. It would be nice if the change could be painless, but it isn't now, and will never be painless UNLESS we have something else just as lucrative to replace it. Hence, Obama's favoring "green energy" sources, in hopes we make another brilliant technical breakthrough not unlike the one that brought us the efficient petroleum combustion engines we are so comfortable with now (but have been around for only about one century).
2) Another "favoritism" hurts the coal industry. Both plans are schemes to address two ongoing American problems.
We signed treaties to reduce pollutions of various types, but have reneged on those treaties because it's too hard and too costly to put in the "scrubbers" needed to enable us to burn coal more cleanly. We should either officially "unsign" those treaties or bite the bullet to try to adhere to the treaties. Un-signing the treaties might collapse our standing i the world, and cause the entire world to renege on their sides of treaties with us. Further, emphasizing "clean" and "green" could help spur tangential technological breakthroughs that could help us with the first issue I mentioned here.
These treaties, and that we are far too reliant on petroleum, aren't rhetoric, they're facts. Obama just had balls enough to try to do SOMETHING rather than ignore the problems.
And not one Republican has offered a better idea. Drilling out our oil (the only thing Republicans propose) helps us in the short run, but then when our supplies are exhausted and we'd never taken steps to investigate new forms, then what? Our government SHOULD be looking to our nation's future, and SHOULD take action on the treaties we've signed, one way or another - not just ignore that they exist.
Ultimately, greekdog, I'm extremely conservative, and I don't buy into rhetoric.
It's just that, emotions aside, Republicans want to repeat old mistakes rather than try new things that might make our country stronger in the long run while (some) Democrats are trying to spur changes that, if they work, would put us back on top.