OT - Politics doesn't make sense to me

[JoMal]

God never seems to really be all that supportive of the invading country.

[WayOutWest]

Did you guys catch the protesters and their drama on TV last night?

[Ted]

God never seems to really be all that supportive of the invading country.

It's all about God with you people. 

[westkoast]

God never seems to really be all that supportive of the invading country.

It's all about God with you people. 

He made us right?  Now he is making politicial decisions for the United States...of course it's all about him!!

[WayOutWest]

God never seems to really be all that supportive of the invading country.

It's all about God with you people. 

God hates black people....

[Ted]

God hates black people....

That was random. 

[Lurker]

God never seems to really be all that supportive of the invading country.

It's all about God with you people. 

God hates black people....

Actually God hates all people...that is why She put us on this rock and told us to play king of the mountain.

[westkoast]

God never seems to really be all that supportive of the invading country.

It's all about God with you people. 

God hates black people....

Actually God hates all people...that is why She put us on this rock and told us to play king of the mountain.

Shesus?

[rickortreat]

From the article I posted a link too:

MW: The housing market is freefalling, setting new records every day for foreclosures, inventory, and declining prices. The banking system is in even worse shape; undercapitalized and buried under a mountain of downgraded assets. There seems to be growing consensus that these problems are not just part of a normal economic downturn, but the direct result of the Fed's monetary policies. Are we seeing the collapse of the Central banking model as a way of regulating the markets? Do you think the present crisis will strengthen the existing system or make it easier for the American people to assert greater control over monetary policy?

Michael Hudson: What do you mean ?failure?? Your perspective is from the bottom looking up. But the financial model has been a great success from the vantage point of the top of the economic pyramid looking down? The economy has polarized to the point where the wealthiest 10% now own 85% of the nation?s wealth. Never before have the bottom 90% been so highly indebted, so dependent on the wealthy. From their point of view, their power has exceeded that of any time in which economic statistics have been kept.

Michael Hudson is a former Wall Street economist specializing in the balance of payments and real estate at the Chase Manhattan Bank (now JP Morgan Chase & Co.), Arthur Anderson, and later at the Hudson Institute (no relation). In 1990 he helped established the world?s first sovereign debt fund for Scudder Stevens & Clark. Dr. Hudson was Dennis Kucinich?s Chief Economic Advisor in the recent Democratic primary presidential campaign, and has advised the U.S., Canadian, Mexican and Latvian governments, as well as the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). A Distinguished Research Professor at University of Missouri, Kansas City (UMKC), he is the author of many books, including Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire (new ed., Pluto Press, 2002

[WayOutWest]

Michael Hudson: What do you mean ?failure?? Your perspective is from the bottom looking up. But the financial model has been a great success from the vantage point of the top of the economic pyramid looking down? The economy has polarized to the point where the wealthiest 10% now own 85% of the nation?s wealth. Never before have the bottom 90% been so highly indebted, so dependent on the wealthy. From their point of view, their power has exceeded that of any time in which economic statistics have been kept.

Wow I guess that's positive news for the rest of us.  Earlier today it was 1% owning 90% of the wealth.  wohoooo.....Beverly Hills here we come!!!!!

[ziggy]

From the article I posted a link too:

MW: The housing market is freefalling, setting new records every day for foreclosures, inventory, and declining prices. The banking system is in even worse shape; undercapitalized and buried under a mountain of downgraded assets. There seems to be growing consensus that these problems are not just part of a normal economic downturn, but the direct result of the Fed's monetary policies. Are we seeing the collapse of the Central banking model as a way of regulating the markets? Do you think the present crisis will strengthen the existing system or make it easier for the American people to assert greater control over monetary policy?

Michael Hudson: What do you mean ?failure?? Your perspective is from the bottom looking up. But the financial model has been a great success from the vantage point of the top of the economic pyramid looking down? The economy has polarized to the point where the wealthiest 10% now own 85% of the nation?s wealth. Never before have the bottom 90% been so highly indebted, so dependent on the wealthy. From their point of view, their power has exceeded that of any time in which economic statistics have been kept.

Michael Hudson is a former Wall Street economist specializing in the balance of payments and real estate at the Chase Manhattan Bank (now JP Morgan Chase & Co.), Arthur Anderson, and later at the Hudson Institute (no relation). In 1990 he helped established the world?s first sovereign debt fund for Scudder Stevens & Clark. Dr. Hudson was Dennis Kucinich?s Chief Economic Advisor in the recent Democratic primary presidential campaign, and has advised the U.S., Canadian, Mexican and Latvian governments, as well as the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). A Distinguished Research Professor at University of Missouri, Kansas City (UMKC), he is the author of many books, including Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire (new ed., Pluto Press, 2002

So the chief economic adviser for Kucinich makes an unsubstantiated, undocumented, unverifiable, statement, with no reference to where the data came from and I am supposed to buy it?  As I said before Rick your number is a complete and utter fabrication, from a complete and total POLITICAL HACK.

[rickortreat]

From the article I posted a link too:

MW: The housing market is freefalling, setting new records every day for foreclosures, inventory, and declining prices. The banking system is in even worse shape; undercapitalized and buried under a mountain of downgraded assets. There seems to be growing consensus that these problems are not just part of a normal economic downturn, but the direct result of the Fed's monetary policies. Are we seeing the collapse of the Central banking model as a way of regulating the markets? Do you think the present crisis will strengthen the existing system or make it easier for the American people to assert greater control over monetary policy?

Michael Hudson: What do you mean ?failure?? Your perspective is from the bottom looking up. But the financial model has been a great success from the vantage point of the top of the economic pyramid looking down? The economy has polarized to the point where the wealthiest 10% now own 85% of the nation?s wealth. Never before have the bottom 90% been so highly indebted, so dependent on the wealthy. From their point of view, their power has exceeded that of any time in which economic statistics have been kept.

Michael Hudson is a former Wall Street economist specializing in the balance of payments and real estate at the Chase Manhattan Bank (now JP Morgan Chase & Co.), Arthur Anderson, and later at the Hudson Institute (no relation). In 1990 he helped established the world?s first sovereign debt fund for Scudder Stevens & Clark. Dr. Hudson was Dennis Kucinich?s Chief Economic Advisor in the recent Democratic primary presidential campaign, and has advised the U.S., Canadian, Mexican and Latvian governments, as well as the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). A Distinguished Research Professor at University of Missouri, Kansas City (UMKC), he is the author of many books, including Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire (new ed., Pluto Press, 2002

So the chief economic adviser for Kucinich makes an unsubstantiated, undocumented, unverifiable, statement, with no reference to where the data came from and I am supposed to buy it?  As I said before Rick your number is a complete and utter fabrication, from a complete and total POLITICAL HACK.

So what you're saying is that anyone who advises a political candidate on economics is a political hack?  Or is it just on the Democratic side of aisle?  Never mind that he's a former Wall Street economist who's held positions at three separate firms, or that he has been a consultant for foreign governments as well as the US.

So of course you don't trust his numbers, I mean, they make your right-wing nuts look bad don't they?

No, don't bother to read the article. Keep your ostrich head under the sand and pretend everything is ok, while investment banks take their non-performing paper and trade it in as collateral on loans that have a 90 day-term but get rolled over when they come due, so there is never a payment on it.  Don't let it bother you one little bit that your government is propping up failed financial institutions with money that you and the rest of the American taxpayers are paying for with a declining dollar.

Don't worry about the fact that your neighbors are loosing their homes or that your bank is about to announce that it is closing it's doors. 

Yeah, everything is just peachy isn't it!

[ziggy]

So what you're saying is that anyone who advises a political candidate on economics is a political hack?  Or is it just on the Democratic side of aisle?  Never mind that he's a former Wall Street economist who's held positions at three separate firms, or that he has been a consultant for foreign governments as well as the US.

Lots and lots and lots of right wing Republican political hacks out there.  You know, I know, and everyone on this board knows it.  Same thing on the left.  They all make crap up all the time.

The 3 separate numbers I provided to refute your ridiculous assertions, not one was presented by a political hack.  One was a peer reviewed study from the Sociology Department UC Santa Cruz, hardly a bastion of right wing thought.  The second was from the CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Company, once a again hardly a bastion of right wing thought.  The third was from an independent economist using and citing specific public data.  Clear and transparent. 

Yours was and I repeat "unsubstantiated, undocumented, unverifiable, with no reference to where the data came".  It was as I stated before Rick, Mr Hudson made a number up on the fly, and you bought it without so much as a second of critical thought.  You in fact so bought into a complete and utter fabrication, that when you repeated his utter lie of 10% control 85%, you changed it 1% control 90%.  You should go to work for a campaign Rick you are very good at your own complete, utter, and total fabrications.  You would make a very good hack.

So of course you don't trust his numbers, I mean, they make your right-wing nuts look bad don't they?

No, don't bother to read the article. Keep your ostrich head under the sand and pretend everything is ok, while investment banks take their non-performing paper and trade it in as collateral on loans that have a 90 day-term but get rolled over when they come due, so there is never a payment on it.  Don't let it bother you one little bit that your government is propping up failed financial institutions with money that you and the rest of the American taxpayers are paying for with a declining dollar.

Don't worry about the fact that your neighbors are loosing their homes or that your bank is about to announce that it is closing it's doors. 

Yeah, everything is just peachy isn't it!

Whatever Rick.  You know nothing about me.

[Lurker]

Here is a point of view from a local editorial writer...bolding is mine.

I'm not against elections. They're a lousy way of choosing governments, but every other system is worse. Elections are necessary to purge the body politic, like going to the bathroom, but one need not get worked up over the process.

Now, if I could line-item change the First Amendment, I would limit political speech and fund-raising to say, six weeks. This is what most democracies do today. It does not make them any better governed, but it cuts down on all the BS and ballyhoo that we Americans have to endure. Me, I've had a bellyful of Obama and McCain and all their hangers-on and media flacks, but until November there's no escape.

And then, the cycle will begin all over again. We have created a form of democracy in which governments don't govern, they just campaign. The trouble with that is, during campaigns you don't bring up real underlying problems which require a painful fix ? immigration and over-population effects on environment, realistic health care reform, energy supply and sources, a hostile Russia, nuclear proliferation and a very dangerous world out there which we can survive but not much change.

IMO it boils down what we all have recognized in one way or another.  That our current system...while the best...is still broken.  Our government no longer governs but only works to remain in office.

Here is link to full column...http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/Politics_Not_in_the_mood.html