Talk me down: Anyone get the feeling our current economic woes were deliberate?

[Taverner]

Sure, there was fraud as far as the eye can see, but there has ALWAYS been fraud.

But think about it - Republicans, afraid that the new Democratic Congress and President would levy more taxes, move off fossil fuel, etc...they stage this market crash so the new President is too busy saving the economy instead of building safety nets. Remember, the Republicans want us all ignorant, angry and desperate. We work for less that way.

The reason I say this is the tech sector is only getting hit with the ripples that make it across the market. Usually the tech sector is your best bellwether for the real economy, since its one of the few meritocracies left.

Talk me down guys and gals...

:tinfoilhat:

[ensho]

1. of course it was deliberate

one benefit: more poor, more men going into the military

a military the neo cons need to keep the money rolling into their pockets and to keep power over resources.

[JohnnyBoots]

6. Another bonus: It is agiant albatros around O's neck, it will prevent him

from getting all those pesky changes implemented. It also gives the Pigs something to rabble rouse about.

And the BIG reason: It allowed Bush and Paulson to pull off the biggest smash and grab heist in history.

[KittyWampus]

2. Possible. After the Civil War, didn't a lot of people go into the South and buy up property cheap?

at this point, it seems there will be a lot of "destroyed" property that will either go to a few who can afford it or it will be somehow channeled to working families.

Which way will we go?

Sometimes it seems less by design than just the results of weak governmental oversight.

[Mari333]

3. a lot of the democratic congress is also beholden

to corporations and their perks. and wasnt it Clinton who played the Nafta card that led to some of this? the economy has been f*cked for a long time, and I am surprised the crash didnt occur sooner. GOPers and DINOs arent too different to me these days.

[nradisic]

4. Just like 9/11...

LIHOP.

[Taverner]

10. Well yeah, I do buy a limited LIHOP

But the whole idea that the planes were unmanned drones makes about as much sense as David Icke

[LakeSamish706]

5. I think it was deliberate, but the source was the Bush Administration.....

I have always thought that Bush & thugs caused this, and planned it a long time ago.

[JohnnyBoots]

9. It was the end game of 8 years.

[ellenfl]

20. the PLANNED end game. i totally believe it was by design. did you say talk you down? sorry.

however, i do believe they bit off a little more than even they could chew. i can only hope that the big shots lost their shirts.

ellen fl

[natrat]

24. or sadly just the end of a chapter 1 in a horror story

yea they swoop in for cheap assets

[butterfly77]

7. Yes,It was deliberate...

don't you remember what Hillary said about the repugs and Grover Norquist talking about drowning the government and breaking every program..

[Lex]

8. Yes, it's been researched & written about. Read the book "The Wrecking Crew"

http://www.amazon.com/Wrecking-Crew-How-Conservatives-Rule/dp/0805079882/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233852688&sr=8-1

[peacetalksforall]

11. I won't talk you down. I believe it's been a serious 'purpose driven' plan

since Nixon when there was some 'magic' that caused the USSR and China to become capitalists and the U.S. to become a serf nation. We're not all serfs yet, but the seeds were sowed then. Kissinger could explain it all. Armand Hammer.

The message was to hate Communisms while trade was trade talks took off - for the benefit of whom. We've never had balance with China. And while we continuted to hate, we got into the weapons business big time.

The 'warming up' negotiations was a deal - a long term deal.

The efficiencies of having a world wide labor force was born.

Your sentence is correct in part -

"...the Republicans want us all ignorant, angry and desperate."

The part that's wrong is that it isn't just Republicans.

[Warpy]

12. Nah, I think the ideologues are genuinely astonished

that their rehashed mercantilism has led to another collapse. They truly believed all that crap they were spouting and having that idiot Milton Friedman given the Nobel (presumably for the density of his prose rather than the soundness of his ideas) only sealed the deal. They honestly believe that everything flows from the top down, their most basic fallacy.

Every empire has had to face the awful truth that expanding on the backs of starving peasants only rots the whole enterprise from the inside, leading to collapse. This is just another chapter in a very old book.

[The2ndWheel]

13. I'd say it's more physical reality catching up

It's always right behind us, and we're always running from it. The problem would be that we need safety nets. The image that phrase suggests would be of walking on a very thin tightrope. Why are we all up there? We don't all need to be up there. How did we all manage to get up there? Why have we built such a system where if we fall, we're going to break our necks? Why don't we climb down? Why can't we climb down?

[Kashka-Kat]

14. Read Naomi Klein - she says it all much better than I can (and shes way cuter than me too:-)

Bankrupting the social programs has been the modus operandi of the Friedmanite disaster-capitalists world wide, for many decades.

[Autumn]

15. Definitely deliberate, so I can't

talk you down. Sorry The whole thing sucks and I am not sure it's going to get better any time soon. Our politicians seem to think that the same old crap that got us into this mess will get us out. Go figure .

[tosh]

16. Deliberate and calculated.

[lib2DaBone]

17. Depressions are large transfers of wealth.

As soon as deflation sets in.. Warren Buffet and the Citi Bank Crowd will swoop in and buy up huge chunks of shopping centers and office buildings for pennies.

Bush has already sold great numbers of public-funded toll roads and bridges tp private companies.

If the public knew what JEB Bush has done in Florida with offshore oil drilling leases and mineral deposit leaseholds in Federal Parks... their heads would explode. (Of course the public will never be party to those documents... they are hidden DEEP in the stolen booty)

For instance, I read an article that said Jeb Bush had brokered a Billion dollar deal involving Carbon Credits, oil and gas leases beneath Everglades National Park and offshore oil leases.

"I'll give you Boardwalk and Parkplace if you put 5 hotels on my property and I throw in a Turnpike".
Pass Go and Collect $200 Billion at taxpayers expense. Get out of jail FREE".

[Still Sensible]

18. I promise you the rich did not purposely

lose trillions of dollars in wealth in some vast conspiracy. Did they fuck up, you bet, but the collapse was not deliberate.

[ProfessorGAC]

23. Correct!

This is the ultimate example of unitended consequences. The powers that be behind the repubnican idiots had no idea that this would be the result of the their silly two dimensional theories.

They actually thought these were good ideas. They were simply idiotically wrong.
GAC

[HughBeaumont]

26. Depends on how you define "fucked up".

Also assumes that the collective Fortune 1000 rich actually CARE whether we lose money/jobs/livelihoods or not.

What did the Depression and all of the Reagan/Bewsh I/Bewsh II recessions have in common?

There were STILL rich people when all was said and done.

Whatever economic plan they follow is never an accident to them. They will always win the class war a thousand fold.

[Orsino]

19. Accidental consequence of a myriad deliberate actions.

They've been bleeding us for decades, of course, but since the Reagan era they've grown greedier and greedier. They meant only to squeeze a little bit more out of us, but in their haste inflicted near-mortal wounds.

But no, they wouldn't deliberately crash the economy. They need their dollars to hold value, so as to remain objects of our worship. They just got too greedy too fast.

[xiamiam]

21. much of the mortgage meltdown has unconnected dots..which makes me question..like

5 banks own the lionshare of mortgages
banks continue to be unwilling to write down the mortgage to reflect market rates
market rates keep tumbling with no end in sight..
foreclosures are causing the problem but banks refuse to stop it
prefer to take the loss and keep driving rates down

EXPLAIN THIS TO ME

it is illogical..Joe public is confused and still believes the immigrant workers buying subprime mortgages did this..or the millions of americans who bit off more than they can chew...still buying that bullshit ...but thats what they've been told..and it is as real as flying pigs

we know they made BILLIONS on the credit default swaps..BILLIONS...before this even started..

millions of homes are sitting empty...homeless people are still sleeping outside...the ads for rent instead of buy have tripled on the internet...

somebody please connect these dots...

am i suspicious...you betcha

[soothsayer]

22. yep, and we're still being fleeced. only the names have changed.

the same agenda is being played out.

[B Calm]

25. Con's goal was to bankrupt the country and do away with FDR's new deal.

Thus forcing the working poor to be over a barrel and willing to work cheap or starve!

[slipslidingaway]

27. Both parties were responsible for this mess, those who tried to

warn were marginalized.

:(

[TWiley]

28. Yes ..... The Rethugs bankrupted the new administration.

They did it in Michigan too. I believe it is part of their plan to end social welfare. We just will not be able to afford it.