Thread: Are you "Furious".

Originally Posted by northpaw

You mean the young, black, left-handed, Christian one? With the funny name?

We are a country of immigrants, we all have funny names.

Charlie

As a Brit I have followed this thread with a lot of interest - I don't profess to know anything about the original post but the arguments that have developed are interesting to an impartial observer. The original poster did however mention the current problems in Europe and put this down to a Socialist cause - I think i can comment on this and have to say that it is a naive and uninformed opinion. Remember that Europe is a vast continent of differing nations - (all of whom are represented in the USA in terms of citizens who emigrated by the way). To put them all in the same pot it totally wrong. The current diffculties of some of the Western members of the Eurozone (Spain, Portugal, Greece and Ireland) stem from the fact that they accepted fiscal unity without political unity - there are parallels with what happened in the USA - easy and cheap money. This led people to take on what they were sure were good investments in property that were unsustainable when the bubble burst.

I don't see this as a purely Socialist problem as their Governments are made up from all colours of the political spectrum and all failed to regulate the flow of easy money. In that respect the European problem can be seen as exactly the same as the USA. Marxist/Socialist political theory has tended to favour central control of the money supply ergo you could argue that the problems stem from a lack of socialist dogma.

Originally Posted by UKRob

I think i can comment on this and have to say that it is a naive and uninformed opinion.

I think this pretty much covers the entire thread.

Just because somebody gives the rope (too cheap and easy credit) you don't have to go hang yourself with it. A huge portion of the blame for a lot of personal financial woes sits directly on the stupid and greedy consumer class we have managed to raise. Not much of the financial shenanigans of the past 20 or so years would be possible with out them. You live above your means sooner or later you are gonna pay for it and not, unfortunately, the people who implemented these schemes. No they will be the last to loose their standard of living.

Bob

Originally Posted by northpaw

You mean the young, black, left-handed, Christian one? With the funny name?

GIVE THAT MAN A SEE-GAR!!

[QUOTE=thebigspendur;983507

I think the housing mess is the best example I've ever seen to illustrate what happens when the Govt gets out of the way and allows the free enterprise system to operate freely.

It runs amok.[/QUOTE]

Wow! This is actually humorous. I think it is an example of what happens when the government meddles in the free market.

Originally Posted by Crotalus

Wow! This is actually humorous. I think it is an example of what happens when the government meddles in the free market.

How do you meddle in the free market by deregulating things so free enterprise run amuck? Are you saying government should have regulated things to keep banks and financial institutions from creating insane lending practices and dubious investment instruments?

Bob

Originally Posted by BobH

How do you meddle in the free market by deregulating things so free enterprise run amuck? Are you saying government should have regulated things to keep banks and financial institutions from creating insane lending practices and dubious investment instruments?

Bob

It was the government that pressured the banks into unsound loans with the CRA.


This is my last post in this thread. It is about to degenerate into personal attacks and that was never my intention.

Originally Posted by Crotalus

It is about to degenerate into personal attacks and that was never my intention.

What, exactly, is your intention?

Originally Posted by Crotalus

It was the government that pressured the banks into unsound loans with the CRA.


This is my last post in this thread. It is about to degenerate into personal attacks and that was never my intention.

Well, I don't know who pressured who but it probably served both sides for different reasons. I know the Canadian banks here were more regulated but in their US operations they were just as bad as US banks in their practices in the US. They too carried bad debt and maybe still do carry bad debt from their US operations. I don't think the US government pressured them into it, they just took advantage of the situation because they could there.

These types of postings always seem to get personal. Maybe this is what you need to cool things down a bit.



Bob