The Politics of Economic Depression

Politics being what is, we are seeing the elies save the D.C. elites knowingly save themselves at OUR expense. Their belief in their own superiority has been institutionalized. This is not something you can pin on JUST Republicans or JUST Democrats. It's a larger, all encompassing trend htat gains momentum as each year passes.

This decline in our economy should be a signal that reforms and regulation are necessary. Instead, we're seeing the slites think ofit as just one more chance to take power. If you're looking for a real conspiracy, this would be it. Power can be taken from the peole by purely legal means. The proposed 700 billion dollar bailout will demonstrate this point, in spades.

[edit on 23-9-2008 by Justin Oldham]

Certainly any power grab wont lead to a stamping down on corruption or problems that led the global economy to where it is today. Just take a look at China despite the lack of personal freedoms corruption is still rampant there are two recent examples of this the first is the poorly constructed schools that were wiped out in the recent earthquake over there . The 2nd example is the most recent tainted milk scandal which was only very reluctantly exposed by NZ company Fonterra.

It's worth noting that the FEderal response to the current economic crisis appears to be so blatantly geared twoards a power grab. No effort isbeing made to hide this from us. This was NOT hard to predict.

700 billion dollars is still a heap, who's grabbing what. This money, where is it coming from? the defense budget no less, marked as surplus!? When do we get a surplus check? I don't like the looks of the people that food stamp for cash deal is freaking me out. I'd still call the bank and see if something concrete was happening, it's just that the same people who had ill-begotten plans are planning something again, and the percentages of their plans be rotten, is high.

This thing looks less like a bailout and more like a mugging. The money they borrow will come from overseas creditors. It will go to financiers, insurors, and stock holders. The whole thing is going to be sold to us as
a "solution." Ha. You want another real conspiracy? You're lookin' at it.

Well to be frank I don't buy into the majority of conspiracy theory's put forward on ATS because they are fanciful. One exception to this is the idea that has been frequently floated about that from the economic ashes the Amero(SP?) and North American Union will rise like a phoenix . Given that the march of globalization will only continue in the after mouth of the Wall Street melt down and the precedence of the EU and the Euro the weight of logic would seem to support such an idea .

As an American, it hurts me to think that we live in an era where our own leadership is not altogether "for" us. The mere fact that our elected leaders would dare to use economic decline to their most brutal advantage would be fanciful, in better days.

reply to post by Justin Oldham

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Whether it be school kids lunches or the economy the government knows best all the time is bad news all a round . Freedom can come under threat from many differnt directions . I accept that some regulations are required in the likes of stock markets but to much or to little of something can be bad as recent events have shown .

Cheers xpert11 .

reply to post by Justin Oldham

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I will add more later.

This is for reference only.

I think we are all busy just now. Add more when you can. There is no need to rush. Have a good day.

The only thing for certain is that a lot of people are going to lose there homes. Those who planned upon a thirty year mortgage may find the bank reminiscent on there deal and expecting the mortgage to be repaid a lot quicker . Anybody with a pile of cash who avoided the over inflated property market will be able to buy up real estate cheaply. I was having dinner with a family member last night and almost lost it when I was watching a current affairs program and it was stated that banks are no longer giving loans to people who don't have documentation to prove there income .

Edit to add that I have just read that the price of petrol has dropped six cents at the pumps .

[edit on 1-10-2008 by xpert11]

reply to post by xpert11

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This would apply mostly to ARM and not to FIXED mortgages. ARM - Adjustable Rate Mortgages.

The setting for disaster. First, there was a national history of 4-5-6% mortgages running back to the 1940s. We had NO knowledge of or experience with 7-8-9% home mortgages. People born post War 2 and getting ready to buy a home by the 1980s knew only low fixed rate mortgages. We had no collective memory to help us decide what to do when confronted with a way to “save” money!

I first encountered ARMs in the 1980s. Back then, ARMs were not all that bad. Back then, the ARM mortgages were sharply limited. Rate could be re-calculated only once a year. There was a limit on the amount of any single rate increase. There was a cap on the total of ARM rate increases regardless of what the market did. Today’s meltdown ARMs are recalculated as often as monthly. There are no limits on how much one can rise. It is a crap shoot!

The first ARMs were never popular. Like the old - now outlawed - “contact for deed” ARMs would appeal only to people who did not qualify for a fixed rate mortgage. The standard of the industry for a century.

Next, most people alive by 1980 had grown up in a regulated society. They did not know it, they took it for granted. Heck, who was to know one electric outlet per wall, one closet per bedroom and so on was a Federal rule? (FHA). We just assumed everything was :taken care of" as it should be. We assumed a bank would not make a loan they did not believe we could pay back. WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!

By 2000, the housing bubble was running full speed. The whole industry was in flux. Appraisers were no longer the conservative type. Only “team players” high value types were wanted! Banks wanted to MAKE IT BIG and to MAKE IT QUICK. That is NOT a bank, that is a CASINO. Lower and lower credit scores were accepted. Builders overpriced the houses but there was no one to reign them in. Real estate salespersons showed people homes they could not afford.

Gullible and dumb, Americans were RIPE FOR THE PLUCKING. It was only a matter of time. Overpriced houses, sold to over extended buyers, by over eager Realtors, to banks who used other peoples money to “buy” paper they would not have bought for themselves, and you basically have the thing called “mortgage meltdown.” As long as you make the payments required in a timely way, no one can call in your mortgage early. There is one remote caveat on that however. Should the collateral fall so the debt exceeds the collateral, then the holder can call for the borrower to make up the difference. This is what they are talking about putting a moratorium on. If you don’t actually sell your house, there is no way to accurately put a value on it.

As you can see, we are where we are because someone gave up the GOOD (and rational) regulations we enjoyed between 1933 and 1980.

[edit on 10/1/2008 by donwhite]

We've had nearly seven decades of uninterrupted peace. I can understand how it is that we've "forgotten" what it was like to be frugel. As much as it pains me to say, I think w're about to re-learn that lesson. I'm hopeful that we'll also get the banking and investment reforms that we need.

reply to post by Justin Oldham

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Source

I haven't found any details and I probably wont have the chance to so over the next few days . Sure things are made easier in Australia by a drift towards the federal government taking over roles that use to belong to the states and the fact that Labour to my knowledge is in power at the federal level and in every state and territory expect for Western Australia.

I would expect the majority of purely idealogical Republican representatives and there supporters to oppose any much needed reforms and new regulations . I don't say such things likely because almost every has encountered a time they have run into a load bureaucratic paperwork or regulations to follow in order just to continue what they are legitimately doing .

The Good Banker’s Credo

Let no loans be made that are not secured beyond a reasonable contingency. Do nothing to encourage speculation. Give facilities only to legitimate and prudent transactions. Distribute your loans rather than concentrate them in a few hands. Large loans to a single individual or firm although sometimes proper and necessary, are generally injudicious and frequently unsafe.

Large borrowers are apt to control the bank. If you doubt the propriety of discounting an offering, give the bank the benefit of the doubt and decline it. If you have reason to distrust a customer, close his account. Never deal with a rascal under the impression you can prevent him from cheating you.

Pay your officers such salaries as will enable them to live comfortably and respectably without stealing; and require of them their entire services. If an officer lives beyond his income dismiss him even if his excess of expenditures can be explained consistently with his integrity, still dismiss him. Extravagance, if not a crime, very naturally leads to crime.

The capital of a bank should be reality, not a fiction and it should be owned by those who have money to lend and not by borrowers.

Pursue a straightforward, upright, legitimate banking business. Splendid financing is not legitimate banking and splendid financiers in banking are generally either humbugs or rascals.

A letter to ALL national banks, and signed by
H. McCulloch,
then Comptroller of the Currency
and later, Secretary of the Treasury.
December 1, 1863.


[edit on 10/2/2008 by donwhite]

You make a good point. Unfortunately, our leaders don't see it that way. From their point of view, economic decline is an opportunity. I prefer to think of it as a lack of ethics. Perhaps even a lack of good citizenship. Either way, we are dealing with people who no longer have our best interests in mind. That was my point, when I started this thread.

In your own veiw and thought Justin.. When did they ever have our intrests in mind? I grew up in a country that was already rapped and taken over.. Many of people my age never even had a chance.
We where born into bondage.. We where born into a system that was set up to make us slaves.
However slaves is a strong word. And when most people think of slaves they think of a man or woman in chains. However I think we really need to look at the word slave, and it needs new meaning.
AS today I honestly feel we are slaves to this system.

And I feel the dollar will break down.. And they will have a solution for this break down.. And its called the Amero! And its pushing us twords a North American Union.

reply to post by zysin5

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There are no answers except boycott the market or die. They bear the people out to poverty, and what education they have, becomes less. This bailout is not the right move but they have less education so they won't know it. This is good for economic growth. We must understand how to get on the other side of obama and mCcain and don't be losers. Obama is to shifty and is voting bailout now or still. We should find some other market they don't know about so they understand they cannot be in control. What they have done to this market is instituted government regulation. Now we need a non-regulated market. This nation is poor and if it regulates the market when do we get to the big money??
This is why the bailout is also unethical. Poor broke people in charge of my right to earn more, I'm probably dead and don't know it.

Hm. Lots to say here. Let's jump in.

Zysin's question revolves around "civics." In my lifetime, the "national interest" died during the Presidency of George H.W. bush. That's Bush41 to most people. The conspiracy theorists are not wrong to point out the Bush family's globalist agenda.

If you wanted to look at the big picture, it can be argued that "our best interest" stopped being served at the start of the 20th Century. The long slow slide to our present condition has been talked about at lenth by many, here on ATS.

Pawn's point is well taken, too. I started this thread so tha we could talk about this problem from a lot of different perspectives. The terrible truth is htat our leaders don't see what's coming as a economic downturn. They see it as an opportunity. In their minds, its not a catastrophe. It's an opportunity. A condition to be exploited, while it exists. This struggle goes beyond partisan conflict. It's not "political," as you and I think of the term. To borrow a line, "This isn't personal. It's just business."

So, whadda we do? We talk about it. We write about it. We document every dirty rotten part of it, as it is happening to us. We already know how sthis story ends. We just need to be tough enough to see our way through it.

As they exploit our economic and poliitcal pain, today's leaders will go too far. They may even break the system. When this happens, we will vote in reformer,s or we will revolt. Failing that, do a long slow burn until the country falls apart. Either way, somebody will have to step in and pick up the peices after the fact. No nation is immune to this downward spiral. Some take longer to hit bottom than others, but in the end...

I want to be clear on one last point. As citizens, we should NOT hope for failure, or revolt. These things may be cool in books and movies, but they'd suck in real life. We need to understand that whenever and however it comes, our task will be to step in an pick up the pieces. It'll e our job to remember what life what like before it all went to spit...and...it'll be our job to chart a new course in to the future.

reply to post by Justin Oldham

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Let’s suppose we re-run the 1929-1932 scenario. Between 25% and 40% of the workers were out of a job. Not necessarily all at the same time. 80% of thrifty people had seen their life’s savings lost when their local bank went broke. Dozens had jumped to their death from high rise buildings in NYC. The present was bleak and the future looked worse.

About 60,000 veterans of World War 1 - out of 3 million who served - marched on Washington to ask Congress to pay early the bonus they had been promised. Between 10,000 and 15,000 camped on The Mall in makeshift shelters. The President ordered the Army to break up the congregating veterans and to expel or remove them from the District of Columbia. The Army used bayonets and tear gas to force the veterans to flee the city then burned the property they left behind. So much for the much vaunted First Amendment guarantees of “peaceable assembly” and “petition for redress of grievances.”

Fifteen million African Americans were held in “involuntary servitude” primarily in the Deep South, the 11 states of the Old Confederacy. Jim Crow. Jews and Catholics were barred from many private clubs. Police north and south, administered extra legal summary punishment according to their own code and standards. And abused persons had no recourse.

I’ve recited a small number of the actions taken against the poorest of our society, yet even under such dire circumstance, no one revolted. I think the reason for that was this: those people still believed in the basic honesty and decency of the American system. And they had faith they would see better days. All of which is to say, it will have to get very bad before we see uprisings.

[edit on 10/13/2008 by donwhite]