Give me a break!

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-16-2008
Give me a break!
45
Sun, 09-21-2008 - 9:38am

So now the McPain campaign is saying that the Obama campaign is 'using the economic crisis' to advance their campaign. Just curious - isn't this another way for the McPain campaign to use the economic crisis??? Kind of like the pot and the kettle thing going on here? Maybe it is just sour grapes since McPain sounded out of touch when he said last week that the fundamentals of the economy were sound? Then on the other hand McPain is criticizing the Obama campaign for not coming out with a plan right away - wouldn't that be using the crisis as well?

McCain: "We must not bailout the management and speculators who created this mess. They had months of warnings following the Bear Stearns debacle, and they failed to act.”

McCain also called for “strong and effective regulation” of the financial services industry, which he has done repeatedly over the past few days of the financial meltdown, but something he has not always supported. McCain called for deregulation of the banking industry in his support of the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which knocked down the obstacles between banking, investment and insurance companies."

Palin: "“Disappointed that taxpayers are called upon to bailout another one,” she said. “Certainly AIG though with the construction bonds that they’re holding and with the insurance that they are holding very, very impactful to Americans so you know the shot that has been called by the Feds its understandable but very, very disappointing that taxpayers are called upon for another one.” "

I guess if you can't utter a coherent statement or feel you have to rush in to issue a statement before considering the implications you might need to deflect the negative attention you receive from your actions. Personally, I prefer a president who takes the time to check with financial advisors before issuing a statement that later has to be back peddled.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-28-2004
Mon, 09-22-2008 - 9:08pm

If you think Obama will magically make things better, you might be disappointed.


Everyone needs to learn to live on less credit. These things didn't happen over night, it took many years to get where we are, way back to Clinton.


No, I don't fall into the high tax bracket.


But I have learned a couple things.


#1 You will never get a job from a poor man.


# Tax it and you will have less of it.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-04-2003
Mon, 09-22-2008 - 9:08pm

I'd always thought that it was also up to the financial institution to investigate who they give loans to and grant (or not grant) loans based on peoples' financial history and present financial situation. Also, many people who go to a financial advisor or banking institution would expect that those working there (who are PAID and supposedly trained to do this)

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-02-2008
Mon, 09-22-2008 - 9:38pm
That is near 25% of their income toward a housing payment, I would have told them do not sign that at all.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-02-2008
Mon, 09-22-2008 - 9:41pm
How can you blame Mccain or Bush when someone signs a balloon note?
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-02-2008
Mon, 09-22-2008 - 9:56pm

and who are his advisors?

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-02-2008
Mon, 09-22-2008 - 10:01pm
if they are going to come back and say I didn't understand what i was doing yes yes yes yes.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-20-2008
Mon, 09-22-2008 - 10:36pm
Obama had it right. McCain has been around Washington for decades longer than Obama. McCain's non-solution to this crisis is to try to blame it all on Obama for being the Washington insider. So much for accountability, or actually rolling up your sleeves to tackle a real problem in the real world. It's time for a change.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-20-2008
Mon, 09-22-2008 - 10:52pm

"No, I don't fall into the high tax bracket.

But I have learned a couple things.

#1 You will never get a job from a poor man.

# Tax it and you will have less of it."

Actually, the statistics show you have point 2 backwards. Most people in your category do better under Democratic rule than Republican rule. Vote Republican, vote against your interests. As for your point 1, I don't get it - who is the poor man who won't give you a job?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/business/31view.html?_r=3&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1220925717-m0PHN3OD5ZOh/hLN4UUk1A&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

"The stark contrast between the whiz-bang Clinton years and the dreary Bush years is familiar because it is so recent. But while it is extreme, it is not atypical. Data for the whole period from 1948 to 2007, during which Republicans occupied the White House for 34 years and Democrats for 26, show average annual growth of real gross national product of 1.64 percent per capita under Republican presidents versus 2.78 percent under Democrats.

That 1.14-point difference, if maintained for eight years, would yield 9.33 percent more income per person, which is a lot more than almost anyone can expect from a tax cut."

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 09-22-2008 - 10:54pm

Your post reminded me, appropriately enough, of the old story of the elephant in a gathering of blind men. One felt the elephant's tail and pronounced the creature to be long and snake-like, another felt the elephant's ear and stated that the beast was flat and flexible, another felt the elephant's foot and said the animal resembled a tree stump.....etc.

To blame borrowers alone is to be woefully distanced,like those blind men, from full perception and truth. More reading about the current crisis reveals that lenders were indulging in duplicitous and predatory practices.
"...providing “the best loan possible” to customers wasn’t always the bank’s main goal, say some former employees. Instead, potential borrowers were often led to high-cost and sometimes unfavorable loans that resulted in richer commissions for Countrywide’s "smooth-talking sales force, outsize fees to company affiliates providing services on the loans, and a roaring stock price that made Countrywide executives among the highest paid in America.
Countrywide’s entire operation, from its computer system to its incentive pay structure and financing arrangements, is intended to wring maximum profits out of the mortgage lending boom no matter what it costs borrowers, according to interviews with former employees and brokers who worked in different units of the company and internal documents they provided."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/business/yourmoney/26country.html?pagewanted=all

Nor were lenders the only greedy ones. Investors were DEMANDING more of the "investment vehicles" based on subprime mortgages.
"One of the things that changed with Wall Street in this non-prime model, they thought they had built a better mousetrap where they used these independent loan brokers. They get table-funded through a non-bank lender, which Wall Street's also financing.
Wall Street takes all the loans. They outsource the underwriting, the review of the documents, to a company like Clayton. And then, again, they package the loans into bonds. They have as little cost as possible. They don't want full-time employees. They thought they had built a better mousetrap. That was their goal."
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec08/econtrouble_08-20.html

I have a great deal more sympathy for first time buyers trying to get into a house than the greedy lenders and investors who ignored, purposefully, the SUB-PRIME aspect of such perilous paper.

Caveat emptor? Blame the victim by calling borrowers "irresponsible"? Boy, have we seen a lot of that out of the Republican regime. But I sure as you-know-what don't intend to give the same sad-assed lot more opportunity to screw the country as they have for the most part of the last eight years.

November's vote will, for me, be punitive. A "thumping", if you will, which the GOP deserves far far more than anything else.

Gettingahandle


Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.


Facts stifle the will, hobble conviction.

Gettingahandle

Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-12-2008
Mon, 09-22-2008 - 10:59pm
Read blog #14. It will show you who voted for the deregulation and who didn't.