Credit crisis

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Originally Posted by denmason

Here’s the raw truth: The growth we’ve seen over the past few decades wasn’t real! This economic crisis is akin to a balloon that bursts because you blow too much hot air into it. Pretty much all of us--consumer, homeowner, businessperson, and government official alike--have been making bad choices and bad economic decisions. These all started to add up over time. Consumers and businesspeople and investors lost confidence. Some started holding back while others kept steaming ahead. That mysterious entity we call “the economy” or “the market” is really the sum total of countless transactions and trends in which we all play a part. There is no conspiracy; the economic “crisis” functions as an unfortunate but necessary correction of all the gluttony we’ve partaken until now. Time to crash and burn. Let the fire purify. Time to start over with a clean slate, and this time with our eyes open.

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Succinctly put and spot on!

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Originally Posted by hoglahoo

capitalism isn't a force of nature

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Do you really not know what a metaphor is? See, when the stock market goes up, that's like a sunny day ... and when it goes down, well, that's like rain ... and when China decides to unload its dollars, that's like a Tsunami, in the sense of something happening in your environment that is beyond your control.

Now, in contracts, there is the concept of "force majeure," which is sometimes called "an act of God". But events of force majeure are not just forces of nature but can be social phenomena, too, like strikes, war or government legislation. Your saying that capitalism is not a force of nature is a kind of whistling in the dark ... a way of denying that there's something in the way the economy works that can blindside you.

I think people are scared sh**less about what's happening in the economy ... they're so scared that they can't even admit it. They are grasping every straw that will give them a sense of security and they are shutting out the threat by blaming the victim. "They" are in trouble with "their" mortagage because "they" were irresponsible, but I'm not, so I'm OK. I won't lose my job because I'm smart and anyone who loses their job, it's their fault. And you know what? Not everyone is going to lose their job or get sick and some people will get through this more or less unscathed. On the other hand, there are people who worked hard all their lives and planned for the future but had the bad luck to work for Enron and saw their retirement funds wiped out from one day to the next oh, and let's not forget, it was their fault.

It's people that make the market go up or down, and people bear responsibilities. It's people that decide to take risks with unknown variables. You and I still have to fulfill the obligations we make regardless of the weather.

Rain doesn't make decisions or bear responsibility, it's just rain

If we can't be good to our word and fulfill our obligations, then do we run to the government? I hope not. I'm not against socialism at all as a form of society. I help people and have been helped at hard times in my life by others. But I have never asked a law enforcement officer to force someone else to help me though. That's socialist government, isn't it?

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Originally Posted by Chimensch

When there is an illness in the family (which you don't understand because you're young and are still immortal) or when you lose your job because your company decided to move production overseas (which will never happen to you because you think you'll always be one step ahead of the game) a family can get in financial trouble and it's not their fault

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Wow, an ad hominem response to my argument, yay! Why don't you cut all the extra verbiage and just say, "you're young, and therefore an idiot, and I'm old, and therefore wise."

you presume much, and as it happens, you presume wrong. I have endured both of the hardships you mentioned, despite not being as old as you evidently are. Things got hard. But in the end, the only help I needed was my own. Even if someone is in trouble and it's not their FAULT, it's still their RESPONSIBILITY to take care of themselves.

someone else said it a lot better than I could:
"I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."
-John Galt

I truly find some of the thoughts presented here ridiculous.This is America and you all have a right to your opinions,thanks to the men who died to give it to you.I get so tired of hearing about big oil,and its not the fault of the individual that they are in the shape they are in.None of us deserve a handout from the government ,which the government used to be us,the people.The government takes in money from the production of what?the government produces nothing,grows anything(other than themselves)but they regulate all of us and stand in our way of producing and inventing,growing our economy.Do you know what goes into finding,refining,transporting oil?you complain about the price of gas ,but not the price of a gallon of milk.What goes into producing a gallon of milk?.As far as jobs going elsewhere,may people should actually do some work for the money they are paid?would you not agree?

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Originally Posted by Chimensch

The elephant in the living room is globalization, which is pitting poor workers in third-world countries against workers in developed countries. The problem is that no country has enough high-tech, hard-to-export jobs for all its citizens. As global capitalism continues to rape the common man, the standard of living in both United States and Europe is going to fall drastically. Even countries like your's, Bruno, will not be able to resist chipping away at the welfare state until its entirely gone. If you're young enough, you may live to see what's happening in the US happen to Europe, too. But, on the bright side, I won't be around to say I told you so.

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Amen to that. (i.e. Globalization being the elephant. As far as Belgium is concerned, I can't divine what will happen to them yet until I get the power up and get a +3 in my "discerning" abilities...)

What incredible absurdity that the government seems ready to spend $700 billion to bail out countless crooked, mismanaged and greedy companies (and similar money on the Iraq war) and not ever seriously propose to spend that kind of money on rebuilding the nation’s crumbling physical infrastructure that would immediately create millions of new good paying jobs desperately needed by the middle class. We are all witnessing a far worse situation than the taxation without representation that spurred the American Revolution. But most Americans will continue to vote for Democrats and Republicans without ever looking to the other parties. I have a strong feeling that some Americans will regret not voting for Ron Paul during the primaries. But, that time has past. If we had just one shred of the conviction that the founders of this country had, we would overwhelmingly vote for third party presidential candidates. We need to wake up and vote for new leaders, and we need to make sure these leaders have our interests in mind at all times. I look at McCain and Obama.... this is the best WE could come up with? It's time to get our poop in a group and change the way we allow our country to be run. But first, we all need to be awake, aware of how we got to where we are. It's going to be a damned hard time for most. The Republicans and Democrats need to be voted out, they are in the pockets of the big money boys and will do as they are told. It's time for us to send them a message, while we can. This is the first necessary step for we the people to take back OUR country. Are we ready for a revolution???

Me thinks I'll duck and cover. :w

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While there is some blame to be laid on the doorsteps of the banks, the vast majority of the blame is to the be laid on the buyers of these homes, and their overinflated sense of entitlement.

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I disagree.

The banks should not have leant money to people who could not afford it. That is thier BUSINESS!

The banks hedged their bets by thinking that real estate only goes up in value. They gambled, they lost, they should go belly up. That's business.

I feel that the market should self correct.

If that leads to a great layoff, well, then the 700billion dollars can then be used to write unemployments checks, not funneled into corporate coffers. The heads of AIG will get their share in the unemployment line.

Real estate values will fall? Great, the price for a home in the US is ridiculously high right now. Perhaps we are in need of that bubble to finally burst as well.

I would agree that we need to get back to what our founding fathers laid out in great detail.I think term limits was a good idea.Look how many of these guys in Washington have been there for twenty or thirty years or more.They go there average income makers and become millionaires.So we can agree?yes?

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Originally Posted by Bruno

The desire to own a house is both:
-instinctive : it's mine, noone can take it away and I can do with it as I please
-logical : when you paid off your house, you have spent a lot of money, but your house is worth a lot too. If you sell your house, you have lived for free, whereas if you've rent for 20 years, that money is gone.

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This is plainly just NOT TRUE.

Instinctive- its not yours, it belongs to the bank. You can do stuff with it, decorate it, improve it etc but at the end of the day if you dont keep up repayments you'll lose it.

Logical- When you have paid off your house it IS your own and you HAVE spent alot of money. But there is absolutely no guarantee that the amount you spent is the current market value of your house. Granted you can use it as collatoral on your retirement but there is no way of telling if its gonna be enough to keep you going. Lived for free? Hmm.... you did PAY that mortgage didnt you?