I want to know when the riots commence so I get my pitchfork ready.

[Skidmore]

Someone care to give me a heads up? Come on, people. This financial meltdown didn't just happen because the rich had an orgy. The middle class partied like they were rich. Some of the working poor even crashed both parties. The poor, well, the poor--who remembered they were there?

The wealthy double and triple dipped. Sleepy little middle-class neighborhoods saw ranch and frame houses replaced by McMansions. Joe Six-Pack traded in the Vega for a shiny SUV with 12 cupholders and then couldn't afford to fill its tank. Corporations were allowed by REPUBLICAN AND DEMOCRATIC legislators and a frat boy in Animal House to run amuk. And you thought Amway was a Ponzi scheme? Now everyone's screaming.

Get a fricking grip. Where's our money? Our money has been spent a million times over.

The truest words uttered by Obama has been a reminder that we are all in this together and we ALL need to find a way out. The problem is that no one wants to admit that the pain is self-inflicted on this nation, and no one wants to acknowledge that real sacrifice by all will be needed to reconstruct our economy and infrastructure. We will rise together or fall together. Period. We all need to get ready to work.

[sandnsea]

1. Uh, yes, the investment bubbles

which are primarily caused by the rich - is the cause of the financial meltdown. The bottom half owns what - 10% of the wealth? No. We did not cause this problem in any way, shape, or form.

[Skidmore]

2. "We" own a small portion of it.

When a nation collectively adopts a practice of living beyond its means, there is shared responsibility, from top to bottom.

[closeupready]

3. But THEY share more of the responsibility than we do.

I think that's what you're not getting. They have a heavier burden, both in absolute and relative terms, to supply the means of fixing this mess.

[Skidmore]

13. "We" have a moral burden as well.

"We" allowed them to run roughshod over the nation. "We" collectively have millions of votes which could have stripped power from the corrupt politicians before now. "We" collectively spent millions of dollars and chose not to spend them wisely. "We" refused to exercise the power that we have--to rein in power and to reward good service and enterprises which benefitted the nation as a whole.

[Idealism]

5. Which hurts worse

Living beyond your means (and ultimately defaulting) hurts more when your net worth is:

a.) $200,000
b.) $2,000,000

Simple math.

[sandnsea]

10. The bottom 50% didn't live beyond its means

We've been hurting for decades. The investor class. That's where the blame lies.

[Skidmore]

15. The "investor class" now includes us.

If you have a retirement plan through work, chances are it is invested in the market and other funds. The company store closed a long time ago. Investment was marketed in the 80s as your ticket upward and in the 90s you were promised jobs of the future if you would just embrace the service economy brought with NAFTA. Wealth will little work and relatively painless. No sweat required, no aching back, no calloused hands.

[sandnsea]

19. The bottom 50% do not have retirement plans

Get a clue. The number of Americans invested in the stock market is at 50%, even if it's only a few thousand dollars you managed to squirrel away. The top 20% really needs to take a walk outside their gated communities once in a while.

[Idealism]

21. Investors aren't the biggest problem

The government and the Fed is. Heres cause and effect:

-Greenspan lowered interest rates to 45-year lows (1%) after 9/11 and kept them there for a year to spur lending in the face of recession.
-Lower prices for lending made it profitable for banks and bank affiliates to loan money, even to risky borrowers, because the overal default rate is still highly positive
-Bush promoted universal ownership by telling the fed to keep rates low, supply couldn't meet the demand: home prices skyrocketed to unrealistic values. This led to overproduction in new home construction
-Allowances by banks were made that should not have been in some lending, cases being: lack of income verification, allowing you to buy a home with no downpayment (HELOC as principal- taking a 2nd mortgage out on a house essentially before you have a 1st), utter lack of regulation and oversight from the banking sector.
-50% of subprime loans were made by mortgage service companies not subject comprehensive federal supervision; another 30% were made by banks or thrifts which are not subject to routine supervision or examinations.
-There was a shift in loan to value from 80% to 120%, partially due to home values soaring, another part because banks saw profits rise and wanted more of that gravy train.
-Several laws passed over the past decade stripped the banking industry of guidelines for instruments and allowed the creation of sophisticated vehicles that many did not understand well (ex. collateralized debt obligation, collateralized mortgage obligations, credit default swaps)
-These became quickly abused, as you had banks underwritting high risk mortgages because they wouldn't have to hold to debt on their balance sheets. Thanks to securitization they can ship off their bad loans to another entity, then purchase 'insurance' on that bond (CDS') so that if they failed the company who wrote them incurred no penalties.
-Moody's, S&Ps and Fitch keep rating this junk paper as AAA grade, the highest, even though it was obvious these were the high-risk, low-income borrowers. Federal regulators neglected their oversight on rating agencies
-You had entire companies (Countywide, AmeriQuest) pushing ARM's and no-interest mortgages as ways of pushing the envelope. Anything with a pulse could get a home loan.
-When the ARMs' rates got adjusted, many couldn't afford the payments and defaulted, house goes into foreclosure and the CMO bond that holds hundreds of mortgages turned 'bad'...one bad apple ruins the barrel.
-These obligations dropped in value because no one knew how much they were worth, bankrupting Fannie and Freddie literally overnight.
-These toxic mortgages almost took down Citigroup yesterday; the system was as close to meltdown as it could've been.


This was more from a housing standpoint because its failure has infected the global markets, but also leveraging was a problem aswell. Some companies, like Goldman Sachs, were leveraged 33:1 and should never have been allowed to get to that point. Again, regulators failures, but that also falls on the CEOs. A huge problem is CEO compensation being directly linked to stock values. Executives manipulate short-term stock value growth to boost their own net worth before they can cash out, but this usually errodes long-term solvency, which is why we are seeing so many institutions fail or almost fail.

[sandnsea]

22. compensation linked to stock values

Hello? Investor class? Investment bubbles?

Average people did not cause this shit.

[Idealism]

23. Thats a very small group

Execs pay are linked to stock values, but they didn't cause this. It was just another layer of the onion

[sandnsea]

24. Who own the majority of the wealth

Yes. They did cause this. They concocted this crazy mortgage investment scheme, sold it completely out of proportion, and then stand around with their thumbs up their ass, shocked that it all fell apart because they're too damn dumb to know that people making $15 an hour cannot just pull another $500 a month out of their ass.

[Idealism]

26. Who stripped the regulation allowing their scheme to be legal?

The government and the fed is to blame. If interest rates weren't so low that you could literally buy a house for the same money as you could rent one, you wouldn't have people applying and getting mortgages that they couldn't pay for. period.

[sandnsea]

29. Who asked for the regulation to be stripped?

Criminy. And do you not hear what you said about renting costing the same as the mortgage payment? Oh yeah, if a person can make the rent, they can make the mortgage payment. And there's NO REASON it shouldn't cost the same. The problem only came about because that was never the CEO's plan. The plan was to make a bundle off the interest difference when they reset all those loans. They caused this.

[Idealism]

31. Asking for deregulation doesn't mean you have the power to undo it

Congress voted for it to be done, so it came to be. Lobbyists did their job trying to bring about that vote but they didn't cast the ballots, neither did the CEOs they represent. Stop trying to blame corporations for playing by the rules the government rewrote for them. They were doing what they thought was good for business, which is intuitively bad for taxpayers. Its the governments fault for allowing us to be subjected to these failures.

And in the beginning, because the interest rate was so low, renting and buying was roughly priced the same, but when home prices jumped, renting did not because home values were a mix of speculation and demand for home ownership, whereas renting wasn't.

[sandnsea]

32. OMG. Corporations playing by the rules???

This is the fault of the CEO's and global finaciers who DICTATE government policy. That is what has been going on since Reagan. "free trade" And you blame government?? Just. Wow.

[Idealism]

34. Wow, listen to yourself

Is lobbying ILLEGAL? No.
Do lobbyists cast VOTES in the House or Senate? No.

The government enabled these businesses, and the companies did what they thought would increase their revenues the most. They didn't do anything illegal, they asked Congress to change these laws and they did. You can tell me how 'bribed' or whatever these votes were but ultimately the Representatives and Senators casted them, NOT LOBBYISTS.

ps. Lobbyists have been trying to tear down Glass-Steagall before Reagan.

[sandnsea]

35. Excusing corporations is how we get here

You fall for their bullshit propaganda, hook, line and sinker. As long as people like you keep repeating their excuses for bad business practices, politicians will pass the laws so that business can "increase their revenues". These laws could never have been passed except for the investor class who bought into all the deregulation and all hail the shareholders mentality. Companies have been operating as if rising stock prices was their business model for years. Nobody made them do any of this. No business should fail if they are basing their operation on production.

[Idealism]

36. The GOPs mantra has been deregulation and free market policies

for decades. Yet when they enact these policies you blame corporations. Companies are to blame for this too, but the government enabled them. If Congress would've been firm on regulation we wouldn't be in this financial mess to begin with.

On another note, this country is no longer based on production. It is primarily services and financial sectors that make up our GDP which is why we have businesses failing.

[sandnsea]

37. Who does the GOP represent? Corporations. Duh.

Oh, and services and financial sector? Uh. Yeah. The investor class and those who serve them.

Which is precisely what I said. This is not the fault of the "service" sector, or the bottom 50%. It is 100% the fault of the investor class, more specifically the top CEO's and financiers who dreamed up this mortgage "investment" to begin with.

[Idealism]

38. You are being militant to the point here

Corporations don't own Congress nor do they have a vote in it. End of story, they get nothing unless Congress votes for it. Our elected leaders have failed in protecting us

[sandnsea]

39. You damn right I'm militant about starvation

and people like you who refuse to put the blame on corporatism - which is exactly where it lies. It doesn't really matter what the laws are - people who make millions of dollars a year are supposed to be smart enough to manage these massive banks without crashing them and the entire global economy.

[Idealism]

40. Thats a failure of managment, which did happen yes, but

back to my point, you wouldn't have had AIG near collapse three times if Congress in 2000 didnt pass the Futures and Commodities Modernization Act because there wouldn't be any such thing as a Credit defaul swap. You wouldn't have Wachovia and Washington Mutual going bankrupt and having to be bought because hundreds of billions in write downs due to toxic securitized debt because you couldn't package deriavitives this way before 2000. These problems would have largely been avoided if we didn't pass these laws. If Glass-Steagall didn't get repealed in 1998, we wouldnt even have Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley leveraging themselves $30:1 in order to buy more debt to securitize and ship off because they wouldn't be ALLOWED to. Congress voted these things to happen and companies didn't do them prior to that. I am not saying corporations shouldn't be blamed for running themselves into the ground but you have to look at WHY they are failing: Citi has over $600 billion estimated in toxic mortgages that are basically worthless. Why did they issue these bad mortgages, and buy many of the collateralized mortgage obligations (CMO's)? Because they were profitable, because the government kept interest rates low- allowing lending for essentially nothing- and because they were supposed to be the safest investment you could buy. Mathematically speaking, this used to be correct. You would have a default perhaps 1 in every 50 mortgages, which means these securities would pay out 98% of the time, which is an amazing rate. These corporations that dealt in these intruments should have known what was happening, and perhaps did and turned a blind eye to it, but nothing was done before congress made it legal to do. The government enabled this all.

[sandnsea]

41. Congress didn't force corporations to do ANYTHING

The corporations did these things because they CHOSE TO. They WANTED TO. The only reason any of it is legal is becaue they either found loopholes in the law, or pushed Congress to change laws in a manner that would give them the loopholes.

I sincerely hope you're just bored because if you really believe the crap you're writing, well then no wonder this country is in so much trouble.

[Idealism]

42. You keep trying to argue all you want

you are the one who makes no sense. Its obvious you rather make generalities and use stereotypes for your basis of an entire industry. Try reading what I have wrote to you a few days from now and you will understand why this is the governments fault just as much, if not more than corporations.

[sandnsea]

43. Tell it to Obama

His campaign was based on the premise that the laws are being written for Wall Street and not Main Street. It made sense to all the people who voted for him.

I have things to do. cya.

[jobycom]

4. Careful. Those who make sense will be the first against the wall. nt

[Midlodemocrat]

6. I *think* we're waiting until after we win the War on Christmas.

[iamjoy]

7. We're Too Lazy and Complacent

Sure we care, but not enough to give up our comforts. And they give us just enough of those to keep us content.

"What, be mad about this - well sure I am but Dancing with the Stars is on now and I just have to see if (insert name of celebrity here) gets booted off."

[Skidmore]

17. Exactly.

And don't forget whatever group is trying to figure out how to become one of the "Real Housewives of Whateverville."

[Rosa Luxemburg]

8. Phil Gramm didn't help

[Democrats_win]

9. Some of us were in the valley below while sh** rained down.

We are the innocent who watched the supreme joke steal an election. We watched a liar president lead us to an immoral war while the MSM sat back and did nothing but collect big paychecks. They all partied as Fraud Street hit 14,000. The worst will hit people in third world countries. That will remind us of the foolishness of riots (even though they are justified.)

[OffWithTheirHeads]

11. Oh really? How much of tax dollars are trickling into your wallet?

The Uber rich are even now stealing the last crumbs from the table helping themselves to all Paulson can serve them while the rest of us, the folks who actually work for a living are left to beg Mr. Gingrich for another cup of gruel.

[last1standing]

12. It's true that everyone is to blame, but they are not equally to blame.

Yes, the working classes overspent but it was the ultra wealthy who raided trillions of dollars from the financial institutions who inflated the stock market with dubious prospectuses (prospecti?). They are the one who also bundled good mortgages with bad debt and inflated the housing market with three card monte tactics. And it was the corporations who lobbied congress for obscene deregulation so that they could close down plants here and invest in the slave labor markets of Vietnam and China. They are the major reasons behind our tanking economy. Claiming there's a problem but not looking for the root cause is equivalent to Sarah Palin's assertion of the same regarding global warming.

Sure, we're all going to have to reign in our profligate ways but we're not going to end this nightmare by driving a Ford Focus instead of an Escalade. Massive changes are needed at the top of the food chain to turn things around. We must re-regulate corporations to bring solid jobs back to this country and we must have oversight in the banking industry to ensure that executives cannot create riches by sleight of hand. Unless that happens, nothing you or I do will make a difference.

[SlowDownFast]

14. Already happening in China and Iceland.

Chinese officials fear more unrest over job losses

Only a few days after Beijing announced it is putting up $586 billion US to try to stave off the worst effects of the looming global recession, a government minister last week said the job picture is "grim" and prospects of increased social unrest the "top concern."

China's state-owned Xinhua news agency reported Social Security Minister Yin Weimin saying on Thursday shrinking demand for Chinese products and consumer anxiety is hitting small, labour-intensive businesses especially hard.

Many such businesses -- probably largely privately owned, though Yin did not say that -- have closed down and contributed to the average urban unemployment rate of four per cent in the first 10 months of this year.

more:
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/editorial/story.html?id=4712b707-8b4f-4644-b3d7-ba1f6e4f7690


Top official meets rioters as China seeks stability

BEIJING (Reuters) - The governor of a Chinese province sat down with protesters after they fought pitched battles with police, a rare concession by a leader and a sign of government concerns about stability as the economy slows.

Xu Shousheng held a meeting with 10 representatives in Wudu in the poverty-stricken northwestern province of Gansu two days after the riot in which dozens were injured, state media said.

Minister of Human Resources and Social Security Yin Weimin said on Thursday stabilizing employment was the top priority for China as he revealed a rise in jobless workers triggered by a weakened export sector.

more:
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE4AK1NQ20081121

THOUSANDS of Icelanders have demonstrated in Reykjavik to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Geir Haarde and Central Bank governor David Oddsson, for failing to stop the country's financial meltdown.
It was the latest in a series of protests in the capital since October's banking collapse crippled the island's economy. At least five people were injured and Hordur Torfason, a well-known singer in Iceland and the main organiser of the protests, said the protests would continue until the government stepped down.

As crowds gathered in the drizzle before the Althing, the Icelandic parliament, on Saturday, Mr Torfason said: "They don't have our trust and they are no longer legitimate."

The value of the Icelandic krona has been cut in half since January.

Four Nordic countries, as well as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), have pledged to lend the country a combined $4.6 billion to help revive its deflated economy. The loan would be the first by the IMF to a Western nation since 1976.

One young man climbed on to the balcony of the Althing building, where the president appears upon inauguration and on Iceland's national day, and hung a banner reading: "Iceland for Sale: $2,100,000,000" – the amount of the loan the country is getting from the IMF.

A separate group of 200-300 people gathered in front of the city's main police station, throwing eggs and demanding the release of a young protester being held there.

Police in riot gear used pepper spray to drive back an attempt to free the protester during which several windows at the police station were shattered. The pro-tester was later released after his fine was paid.

As daylight began to wane, demonstrators drifted away into the nearby coffee shops. Here, as currency tumbles, the price of a cup of coffee has shot up by about one-third since before the crisis struck.

The demonstrators accuse the government – elected last year – of not doing enough to regulate the banking industry and have called for early elections.

Iceland's next election is not required until 2011.

Opposition parties tabled a no-confidence motion in the government on Friday over its handling of the crisis, but the motion carries little chance of toppling the ruling coalition which has a solid parliamentary majority.

Gudrun Jonsdottir, a 36-year-old office worker, said: "I've just had enough of this whole thing. I don't trust the government, I don't trust the banks, I don't trust the political parties, and I don't trust the IMF.

"We had a good country and they ruined it."

more:
http://news.scotsman.com/world/A-nearriot-and--parliament.4722970.jp

[Eric J in MN]

16. That is garbage.

I don't live in mansion or a McMansion.

I never have.

If you've been enjoying riches on debt for the last 10 years, then speak for yourself.

You don't speak for me.

[Two Americas]

18. dangerous premise

This is akin to blaming slaves for participating in the system of slavery.

"We are all in this together, and all share the blame" completely ignores who has the power and access to resources, and the fact that most of us have already been paying a stiff price and taking the blame for everything.

When challenged on this - that the slaves have little power, and are already suffering, and are already being blamed in many ways, and that those with power and wealth are calling the shots - you say that the slaves are to blame for not rising up.

Blaming the people is contradictory to and entirely inconsistent with the traditional principles and ideals of the Democratic party.

[Skidmore]

20. We are citizens in a democracy and are tasked as such

with preserving equality and justice. We sat and collectively waited until we have become the next best thing to being slaves and were stripped of our rights. I do assert that we have responsibility for contributing to this mess. We are all in this together and sitting back waiting for the wealthy to fix it is the first error many are making. We need to step up and do our part as citizens of this nation by working to restore equality and justice, including economic and social, to the nation.

I do not buy into the notion of that economic status negates active citizenship.

[Two Americas]

30. depends upon who "we" is

If by "we" you mean the activists, those involved in and knowledgeable about politics, those who are relatively privileged, those of us who are in a position to have a disproportionate effect in the national political discussion, those who could potentially be voices for and leaders of our fellow working class people who are not as fortunate as we are, then I agree.

If by "we" you mean the struggling working people, the abused and persecuted, the left behind and left out, then I do not agree with you.

[lunatica]

33. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by 'stepping up'

Because I've been stepping up since the theft of 2000. I have written my Congresswomen dozens of letters. I have written letters to just about every major publication in the country. I have supported so many petitions that it makes one wonder if anything was ever going to come of it. And I've given money to all kinds of organizations and causes.

I'm not into pitch forks since I'm 60 years old and taking care of my 83 year old bedridden mother, but I don't think there's much else I could do. So I think I've stepped up quite a bit, and I don't foresee where I I will ever cease and desist from stepping up, yet I also feel quite screwed by the Bush Error.

[Neshanic]

25. And they shall turn their stainless steel appliances into plowshares.

[Skidmore]

28. That would be Greenspan 11:1...

As in Chapter 11.

[TahitiNut]

27. I've had my torch and pitchfork ready since before December 2000. Is it time yet?

I have NEVER bought into the "Own A Piece Of The Plantation (and profit from the labors of others)" mythos. Any retirement funds created on my behalf in the last two+ decades were removed from the 'market' within days of my having ANY choice whatsoever in their allocation. The absolute STENCH of greed and predation has been overwhelming since the early 80s, and didn't smell good even before that.

There aren't enough guillotines on the planet to get the job done.