Political Discussion

[backtoschool]

They have to in order for inflation to persist. It's a necessary component. You can reduce standard of living somewhat by making things more expensive, but if wages don't go up then they become out of reach and drop in prices.

I think what BTS is saying that wages will go up but not as much as inflation, which is mostly a statistical point.

I do view double digit inflation for a few years as a positive. Yes, it will ultimately mean a less prominent role for the US in the world for a while, although I do think we can then more easily gain it back, and it will mean the dollar will get devalued ($3 to the Euro is probably a good bet) thereby effecting a partial default, and a number of other things. But it's probably the least painful solution to the mess we're in right now - even on a global basis - AS LONG AS IT HAPPENS GRADUALLY. I think in central bankers know this and are preparing economies for it (hence the gradual shift into the Euro and gold, still oddly coupled with an apparent willingness to finance our debt for a while longer. It seems like a script being played out).

I actually agree with all of what you are saying onwards. Double digit inflation would relieve a lot of our debt by lowering the worth of the dollar.

But...

By "Hyper" inflation, I mean high double digit inflation and that would be a real mess for our economy.

[OhioFiler]

I am not sure which part of the last part of your statement is "fact" OF. Last time I was in Chicago it bore no resemblence to a "Banana Republic". And if the act of trying to raise taxes constituted Marxism, then every politician would be a Marxist.

Have you seen the public housing developments Obama and his entourage left behind in Chicago? If you didn't know they were in the USA you'd imagine "Banana Republic".

Raising taxes is hardly the definition of a Marxist. Marxists wish to eliminate capitalism as the engine of society and create only two classes (the populace and the ruling class). Raising taxes on the "wealthy" and creating more dependence on the ruling class are both in full swing today via Obama's manifesto.

His intent is magnified given the clear majority opposed to his government takeover of health care and his unwillingness to acknowledge the opposition. He knows what is best for us.

He will not succeed with his plan.

[momisery]

My father is 92 so he has a darn good memory of it. The turning points were manufacturing jobs, and a government program that put workers out building bridges and roads. Of course depending upon if your right or left you may disagree with that and think it would have happened anyhow. Time does enter into it of course, but a lot of people were farmers and miners back then and life was a bit less complex too. Service jobs do not pay and basically if your going to import all your products you will drive up the cost of living against wages, ie Hawaii is a good example. We were not involved in a global economy back then either. Today, neither party has stopped or started a thing that helps working class people. When Clinton was in office he increased the number of loans to low income people, raising the number of Americans having the "American Dream" of homeownership. When Bush was in he also increased homeownership. I was working as a loan processor and I will tell you lower income people were very excited about having a "home" and a "investment". Just ask your tax advisor, a home is a good investment, and a good write off. Some where the course on how much it costs to maintain that dream was never given to non-home owners, nor was the course on how to read above the 6th grade level in finance. Most did not understand that I talked to what the heck an ARM was, and those who did had been sold a bill of goods by the loan officer that incomes always go up, or maybe you will get a better job and the payment will be easy to make in 2-5 years, or you could go in for a refi. I can not tell you the number of bright people I dealt with taht did use their homes like a piggy bank. One lady bought a condo close to college for her two kids thing it was an investment to rent out and to sell in the future. Even one of my favorite hardest working Loan officers refied his home often. He would invest the funds to try to pay for his 5 kids college in a few years. People thought it would never end, and you don't know that it will until you live thru this. Even if you do, like my father, he invested in CA beach property in the 60's, and apartments, then remodeled homes and flipped them. Lucky for him he was retired when this hit and the actual houses are all sold, he only owns lots of land now. He work very hard his whole like. Working in a factory, and we farmed with all 7 kids helping out. When he moved to CA he took his farm cash that he made back then about 15,000.00 in 10 years time and put it into a home to remodel. He worked very hard, so I get a bit offended when I hear people say that homes are not an investment, because they are. They are the only investment the working class has. A place to live and retire in that grows in value. Did it grow too fast in some areas? Of course but this happened before. I remember myself that Mission Viejo a very very nice area in CA was hard pressed to sell a home for value back in the late 80's. When gas went up and the recession of the late 70' early 80's hit and when the dot.com bust happened. But property always comes back. Grandfather even told my dad that land is where you should invest, and he owned 8 farms that were left to his kids. We will come back out of this, but I am not sure we will rebound as well if we continue to give a large portion of the wages to one sector and the rest try to exist on service jobs, or construction jobs that will not be trusted as stable jobs for a long time to come. Like Henry Ford, we need to know that people can only buy products if they have the cash. Hence the reason he was so successful, he PAID his people enough so they could BUY the product they were making. Back in 1969 I bought a 1969 javlin, 3000.00 is what it cost, and I made min. wage, lived with a girlfriend and shared expenses. I could afford car insurance, my car, my apartment, I saved a bit, and went where I wanted and bought things. I never felt as pressed as kids do today over money. Gas was 35 cents and you could buy a pack of cigarettes for 25 cents. Today, car insurance is horrible in cost, mine was 50 bucks a year for 50 dollar deductable. I could pay that in just over one week at 1.65 per hour. Prices have gone up per the labor department and wages have dragged behind for about 30 years. so this is not a party issue, This is a gas issue, and a corporate rip off issue.

[onwards]

By "Hyper" inflation, I mean high double digit inflation and that would be a real mess for our economy.

Oh yes, indeed. I am referring to something along the lines of 10-15%. 80% would be bad (I lived through 400%+ in Israel in the 80's and it wasn't fun).

[francis]

thanks for the reply momisery.i thought that it was manufacturing that was in part .what got this economy going again in those days.i do believe that if we started manufacturing again.things would pick up.we need to drop china on her ear.we are making them to rich.because anything you buy from there doesnt last.and if it does last.their products are in some way tainted and not of good quality.i never thought this country would end up in such a sad state.

[backtoschool]

Have you seen the public housing developments Obama and his entourage left behind in Chicago? If you didn't know they were in the USA you'd imagine "Banana Republic".

Raising taxes is hardly the definition of a Marxist. Marxists wish to eliminate capitalism as the engine of society and create only two classes (the populace and the ruling class). Raising taxes on the "wealthy" and creating more dependence on the ruling class are both in full swing today via Obama's manifesto.

His intent is magnified given the clear majority opposed to his government takeover of health care and his unwillingness to acknowledge the opposition. He knows what is best for us.

He will not succeed with his plan.

OF, I am surprised at the incompleteness of your post. If you wanted to quote Rush Limbaugh's views that Obama is a Marxist, then at least cite your ideas and give Rush credit. I have helped you out by going to the Rush Limbaugh website and doing a search on "Obama Marxist". Here are the first 7 out of 70 results that I found. All of them use the same language you do in your above post.


1 President Obama Aligns with Marxist Dictators on Honduras
Jun 30, 2009 ... He certainly clearly seems to have inherited Marxist tendencies from his father, Barack Obama Sr. So I think the question needs to be asked ...

2 President Obama Demands Privacy While on Marxist Vineyard Vacation
Aug 24, 2009 ... RUSH: President Obama has arrived at Marxist Vineyard, has told the press no coverage, just leave us alone, we don't want any coverage here, ...

3 Barack Obama Seeks to Turn America into a Third World Country
Jun 26, 2009 ... In the book, Obama clearly sees himself as an African, ... Loves his father who was a Marxist, and is behaving like an African colonial ... ...

4 Stack of Stuff Quick Hits Page
Sep 29, 2009 ... And he told the Radio Times that he thought Obama wanted to turn the US into a socialist country. "Obama's following Marxist theory. ...

6 Obama Talks to Stimulated Buddies
Sep 15, 2009 ... RUSH: You want to hear some Marxism? There's no other way to describe this. I'll let you hear some Marxism. This is Obama this afternoon in ...

7 Our President is a Laughingstock: Obama Awarded Nobel Peace Prize
Oct 9, 2009 ... Gore equals kook; Carter, anti-Semite; Obama's a Marxist. These are the new standards for the Nobel Peace Prize, and that's how we have to ...

I could have put many many more examples, but I am being brief to keep this post short. I also kept out some of the more controversial examples like the one where Rush says Obama=Reverend Wright=Karl Marx.

And as to the Chicago housing projects, well housing projects are a problem in every large American city and have been for 40 years. I am not sure how urban blight is Obama's fault.

I do agree with you OF that Obama will not succeed with nationalizing healthcare. That initiative is dead.

[OhioFiler]

OF, I am surprised at the incompleteness of your post. If you wanted to quote Rush Limbaugh's views that Obama is a Marxist, then at least cite your ideas and give Rush credit.

And as to the Chicago housing projects, well housing projects are a problem in every large American city and have been for 40 years. I am not sure how urban blight is Obama's fault.

Great minds think alike (i.e. Rush, OhioFiler).

Actually, I consider myself more a student of The Great One, Mark Levin. I have in the past and will continue recommending you study his political philosophy.

Obama positioned himself as a Savior during his run for election. How was he going to save the country when all his efforts as a community dis-organizer and savior of Chicago's south side led to such carnage?

Urban blight is the result of liberal policies. What amazes me is how urban residents continue to believe the liberal politicians are working to improve their lives.

[backtoschool]

Great minds think alike (i.e. Rush, OhioFiler).

Actually, I consider myself more a student of The Great One, Mark Levin. I have in the past and will continue recommending you study his political philosophy.

Obama positioned himself as a Savior during his run for election. How was he going to save the country when all his efforts as a community dis-organizer and savior of Chicago's south side led to such carnage?

Urban blight is the result of liberal policies. What amazes me is how urban residents continue to believe the liberal politicians are working to improve their lives.

I see your point, but conservative policies would not help urban blight any more than liberal policies do. The south side of Chicago was mired in urban blight long before Obama came along. It is very difficult to organize communities that are so disenfranchised. Detroit is an example of this. Community organizers have been trying to affect positive change in Detroit for 40 years, (ever since the riots) and it has done little good. Does that mean that no-one should even try? I am not sure. Even if community organizing keeps one more person in school, or helps one block in one neighborhood get rid of a crack house, then maybe that is a net positive change.

I agree that community organizing doesn't "save the world" though.

[momisery]

Yeah, I know and what worries me the most is all you see is HATE and partyline fighting. One party gets in and they do not work on getting anything done. They simply work on the next elections while the other party works on discrediting them for things they themselves do. Until we get back the RIGHT and LEFT we will not move forward, we will be controled by the talking heads and untrue emails sent to us to control our thoughts. No one sits back after making a statement like... Clinton passed the law to lower mortgage standards yada yada.. but the next part of that is Bush supported it and increased it during his term the lowering of the standards for loans so he could show more home ownership too. He was in for 8 years and did nothing about this horrible thing? The joke is on us I think.. but Clinton and Bush support the same things, their own party agenda to get control and POWER. They are not about making our nation a great nation, they are all about slaming each other for POWER. Until we the people wake up and realize you have to have good paying jobs for our 2/3 consumer driven economy to work we will never prosper again. And paying people less makes them dependant upon us, the taxpayers pretty stupid huh? I would far prefer to pay better so people can afford their own healthcare, dental, food and shelter and etc, then to pay them little and make them beg the rich or our government for help. You create a group of people who lose their self worth that way. Makes no sense to give all the wealth to the upper class so they can write off their charity donations to the lower class so the upper class can feel good about themselves... your destroying the lower and middle class people.

[spearmint]

Great minds think alike (i.e. Rush, OhioFiler).

Actually, I consider myself more a student of The Great One, Mark Levin. I have in the past and will continue recommending you study his political philosophy.

Obama positioned himself as a Savior during his run for election. How was he going to save the country when all his efforts as a community dis-organizer and savior of Chicago's south side led to such carnage?

Urban blight is the result of liberal policies. What amazes me is how urban residents continue to believe the liberal politicians are working to improve their lives.

I had every faith and hope in Obama when he was elected. I truly thought he would bring "change" to this country - good change!

I feel so disillusioned. He has done nothing but put money in the hands of corruption - the banks, the corporations, the entire financial industry - which only means that the dwindling middle class and the working class are making the rich richer and encouraging even more corruption.

I don't think Washington knows what ethics, morals and values are any more. I've lost all hope and faith in Obama.

[spearmint]

Yeah, I know and what worries me the most is all you see is HATE and partyline fighting. One party gets in and they do not work on getting anything done. They simply work on the next elections while the other party works on discrediting them for things they themselves do. Until we get back the RIGHT and LEFT we will not move forward, we will be controled by the talking heads and untrue emails sent to us to control our thoughts. No one sits back after making a statement like... Clinton passed the law to lower mortgage standards yada yada.. but the next part of that is Bush supported it and increased it during his term the lowering of the standards for loans so he could show more home ownership too. He was in for 8 years and did nothing about this horrible thing? The joke is on us I think.. but Clinton and Bush support the same things, their own party agenda to get control and POWER. They are not about making our nation a great nation, they are all about slaming each other for POWER. Until we the people wake up and realize you have to have good paying jobs for our 2/3 consumer driven economy to work we will never prosper again. And paying people less makes them dependant upon us, the taxpayers pretty stupid huh? I would far prefer to pay better so people can afford their own healthcare, dental, food and shelter and etc, then to pay them little and make them beg the rich or our government for help. You create a group of people who lose their self worth that way. Makes no sense to give all the wealth to the upper class so they can write off their charity donations to the lower class so the upper class can feel good about themselves... your destroying the lower and middle class people.

Very well said!

[momisery]

There are some people we can not help, or can ever save. How do you know the difference? Do we then deny help for all? A real problem and impossible to remedy without throwing more money at it to "monitor" it and that may not help. Fact is that if you give good people a job that pays a decent wage they will do better than if you give them free housing, food stamps, ADC, and a job at walmart. They take pride. Honestly doing mortages for subprime proved that to me everyday. These people wanted their own homes, they were excited about being a part of the society that has a home and felt like true AMERICANS when I spoke with them. They paid their bills until gas went up and the whole mess went down. They cared because it was theirs. So, we have to help those who can not help themselves, work to provide better and more jobs and on the job training for the willing and hope we can weed out some of those who are into drugs or do not care. We have no other choice, unless lumping them all together works for you? That will result in larger gangs of course that will come after us the working class...

[momisery]

Thank you..

[MSbklawyer]

There are some people we can not help, or can ever save. How do you know the difference? Do we then deny help for all? A real problem and impossible to remedy without throwing more money at it to "monitor" it and that may not help. Fact is that if you give good people a job that pays a decent wage they will do better than if you give them free housing, food stamps, ADC, and a job at walmart. They take pride. Honestly doing mortages for subprime proved that to me everyday. These people wanted their own homes, they were excited about being a part of the society that has a home and felt like true AMERICANS when I spoke with them. They paid their bills until gas went up and the whole mess went down. They cared because it was theirs. So, we have to help those who can not help themselves, work to provide better and more jobs and on the job training for the willing and hope we can weed out some of those who are into drugs or do not care. We have no other choice, unless lumping them all together works for you? That will result in larger gangs of course that will come after us the working class...

But that is an illusion. And a cruel one at that. Those people didn't "own" their homes -- not in the sense that they bought them with money that they earned. They were being given a home (or buying for next to nothing) through a subsidy that everyone else had to pay for through their taxes. Anyone can "own" a home if the government will give them a loan with payments spread out over 80 years and give a zero interest rate and then send them a check to make even that payment with. If we're going to give people homes through below market interest rates and terms that a free market would never accept, then let's just dispense with the fiction that they're paying for it and just give them the home outright and be done with it. If that's what we're going to do, fine. But call it what it is.

And you don't give people jobs that pay decent wages. People get them on their own by having a skill set and a work ethic that someone else is willing to pay a decent wage for.

All of this giving people homes and jobs is somewhat akin to giving people who are clearly not college material $100K in non-dischargeable student loans so that they can get a doctorate degree in art appreciation. If you reallywant to be compassionate, you would have been doing that person a favor by assisting him in getting training for a trade or skill that he was intellectually suited for that would actually give him a means to earn a living -- and buy a house that he really owns. Likewise, there are some people for whom renting is simply the best option. It's nothing to be ashamed of.

I realize that this sounds elitist or classist and a bunch of other politically incorrect "ists", but it's fact.

[backtoschool]

But that is an illusion. And a cruel one at that. Those people didn't "own" their homes -- not in the sense that they bought them with money that they earned. They were being given a home (or buying for next to nothing) through a subsidy that everyone else had to pay for through their taxes. Anyone can "own" a home if the government will give them a loan with payments spread out over 80 years and give a zero interest rate and then send them a check to make even that payment with. If we're going to give people homes through below market interest rates and terms that a free market would never accept, then let's just dispense with the fiction that they're paying for it and just give them the home outright and be done with it. If that's what we're going to do, fine. But call it what it is.

And you don't give people jobs that pay decent wages. People get them on their own by having a skill set and a work ethic that someone else is willing to pay a decent wage for.

All of this giving people homes and jobs is akin to giving people who are clearly not college material $100K in student loans so that they can get a doctorate degree in art appreciation. You would have been doing that person a favor by assisting him in getting training for a trade or skill that would actually let him earn a living. Likewise, there are some people for whom renting is simply the best option.

I realize that this sounds elitist or classist and a bunch of other politically incorrect "ists", but it's fact.

I agree with most of what you said MSbklawyer. Where I disagree is with only giving student loans to people who study practical subjects. There are plenty of jobs for people with good writing and critical thinking skills, and that is what a general liberal arts education will give you. I am a strong believer in the benefits (both tangible and intangible) of a liberal arts education.

I also do not think it is for any one small group of people to decide who gets to rent and who gets to buy a home. Many middle class and upper middle class people were given mortgages and second mortgages that they couldn't afford, which they are now defaulting on. Most of those people would have been fine in a smaller house, or in the house that they are in, without the second mortgage. Should all of these people rent? I don't think so. Although, if you have no equity in your house, then you are essentially renting from the bank for all practical purposes.