Teh Ricer Civic!

Okay but lets say you make $60,000 now and your bills comes to lets say $54,000 leaving $6,000 after tax income for you to freely dispose. Which is 10% of your wage. Now lets say that we didn't have globalization, you would be making $75,000 a year and your expenses run you $67,500 because stuff is more expensive, that still leaves 10% or $7,500 left of disposable income, but because stuff costs more you really have not gained anything.

12 days of

Hmmm, so he is contributing to the crisis eh? Oh well cant blame him. I feel sorry for all the poor sap investment bank/hedge funds/ whatever that bought freddy and fannie securities because they were "safe" and backed by the government.

Well if they weren't re-enlisting and if our dollar falls precipitously in value then your wish may come true. The weakness of the dollar has been good for USA manufacturing, however as the dollar slowly begins to strengthen we will once again loose what little edge we have in production (other than productivity) on the global market. Besides, during a time of economic downturn i do believe their job security is infinitely better in the military at this given time.

Its not so much the quest for continued growth, it is the government (generally) turning a blind eye to the housing bubble all in the name of getting lower income people into homes (plus all the house flippers but they weren't the intended recipients). The housing market really needs to continue to sink down to their actual market value when it finally hits equilibrium prices should generally be lowish and far more stable, and... guess what... lower income people will be able to afford homes! Reaganomics itself have very little to do with this particular situation. Besides, you realize that if it weren't for low tariffs etc etc, that stuff would cost more? Sure wages may have stagnated a bit, but stuff adjusted for inflation is still cheaper now than it used to be in several cases (food not withstanding but that's due to other causes).

Dude, that's my buddies car! He is planning on getting some WRX STi badges and Subaru badges.

Tim Hortons is slowly expanding in the northern states. They had 2 places down in Florida back in the day but those were eventually shut down.

Which brings me to another question. If 2 NATO countries simultaneously invade the other at the exact same time (literally same millisecond), does that mean that NATO is obliged to fight on the side of both countries? And considering that Tim Hortons has only had marginal success in coming to America, i doubt it, at least not any sooner than they would have come on their own.

Maybe we are getting ready for our third attempt to take over Canada?

kickass (i loved that show)

trapezoid

Meh we oughta send them into to gang-infested cities and have a good old fashion fight on crime. Maybe civilians could join the anti-gang NorthCom National Guard. I'm not particularly worried about this, what are they doing to do? Declare martial law? Do you really think citizens would stand for that? Hell the general populace of the US probably has more weaponry than the entire US army does (granted their weapons are more effective ) But the point is that Americans would not stand for a despot and would fight, violently if need be, to prevent such an occurrence. Now if democrats were in control and re-instated the Assault weapons ban + various other gun measures and THEN did this, then yes i would be worried, but in its current form i find it nothing more than an oddity.

Actually i think i will buy ONE of each stock and attend their shareholders meetings! best $8 investment ever! lol On a side note, since ford is only trading at $2.30 it would only take another $1.15 fall for me to lose half my investment, so im going to wait for it to bottom out. on another side notes is a DAMN SHAME that short selling GM stock is banned right now cause i could have made 20% ROI today! why the hell is short selling banned anyways? that's just asinine, that's the entire point of the option. Just another case of the government telling you that you don't know whats good for yourself. Plus with prices this cheap do you know how easily it would be to LOSE A TON of money short selling if these stocks even had a slight gain?

And the bankers can strike back again by not giving you a loan, and if they are further regulated they can always just close shop and pay out to all the stockholders. Over regulation will lead to FAR more hurt than help. Well sure, what else would AIG use the bail-out money for? Their CEOs gotta be compensated somehow! Not so much that it is a problem of having to 'reacquire' it as for LOSING it in the first place. If more Americans had more savings we wouldn't be in this problem (of course the economy probably wouldn't be quite as large but that's another argument). Mostly playing fast and loose with money and credit for the last 16 years has led to this housing bubble and the simultaneous subprime crash. This same exact overabundance led to the Great Depression and trying to fix it with more credit, while it may work, does a really terrible job of fixing the underlying problems.

Uhmmm no. Banks are still heavily regulated. Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, somehow, managed to escape greater government regulation DESPITE being backed by the damn government, due to the fact that they are not really a "bank" per-se they aren't regulated as such (despite efforts to get some regulation on them in 2004 before the worst of the worst of these subprime securities, which, apparently Barney Frank believed was a republican plot to keep low income people out of homes .) DO you realize how bad of a situation we would be in if glass-segal was not repealed? Many of the current bank buy-outs would not have taken place because it would have been illegal for them to have done it. The deregulation has NOTHING to do with Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac + other investment bankers securitizing these mortgages. The FDIC would be bankrupt due to all the bank closures (with far fewer assets being bought out due to regulations) and people would have even less faith in the system than they do now. We would be staring at thousands if not millions of people who would have FLAT OUT LOST their savings instead of now being with a new company. Right cause massive inflation is exactly what we need right now yeah? We will be seeing another FDR style massive government spending era but with no massive WW3 at the end to finally bail us out. Our deficits will be astronomical and our economy will putter along at very low rates until finally the government of the US of A goes bankrupt. T-bills will be worthless and even those who "play it safe" with their retirement will be screwed.

GM is a decent buy right now too.

Journey

I'm actually not going to watch the debate tonight, so ya'll are gonna have to wait a day or 2 for my feedback.

Motor(s)

why would you get macaroni and cheese on a pizza?

It's damn near cheaper to eat at McD's than it is to cook at home these days. Restaurants that get my approval: Applebees, Chili's (GOD I LOVE CHILI's), Baja Fresh, Subway, Carl's Jrs/Hardees OKay ones: Dominoes, Pizza Hut, McDonalds

What else do you propose? We bail on Iraq, Iran gains an increasing steak in Iraq. Or we stay with them until they are on their own, we help them and gain another ally in a volatile region. WHY we are in Iraq is no longer the issue, the real issue is what do we do from here. We DO NOT abandon our allies (Pakistan notably, and Iraq). We HELP them get on their feet we HELP them assert control of their area. and we GAIN valuable allies in a region fraught with terrorism. I do not disagree that we should not have gone into Iraq. Hell Saddam did a great job of keeping Iran and others (including his own people) at bay. But the point of the matter is Saddam is dead and we did invade Iraq. I would prefer this not to be another Vietnam. What sends a clearer message to the world and terrorists? a Government that no matter what will stick with its burden and will grow that burden into an asset. The world and terrorists might think a little more of a government who stuck with it and won an unwinnable war. It may demoralize terrorists a little if they find themselves unable to rout a committed enemy. We should not leave until the job is done or the Iraq government tells us to leave, failure is not an option. However in the future i would not be opposed to a non-interventionist policy... as in not attacking unless we are attacked first.

General

Right cause Bush is the epitome of conservative thought on the economy right? What few republicans still supported him i believe have fallen off significantly after his handling of this crisis. He would have been far better served if he had come out to the PUBLIC in the earlier part of this decade saying that be believed Freddie and Fannie would become a threat. This would have given him a lot of credibility and could potentially have averted this whole mess. It may be represented in the widespread reluctance to pass the bill in the house by Republicans. And now the Senate has gone and added continuing tax breaks (which is not a bad thing) as well as some pork and other junk which brings the total to around $850 billion and they expect it to pass in the house. This is an example of Keynesian economies, all of it, including bailout freddy and fannie. Keynesian economics is typically the hallmark of the democrats as conservatives either follow supply side (which is essentially neo-classical economic thought) or a few like Ron Paul follow the so-called Austrian Economics (which is generally eerily correct in predicting future market trends and events). Keynesian economists believe the government can control the economy in every way through heavy involvement. I guess they easily forget the massive inflation they managed to cause not but a few decades ago, and starting in 1977 the programs to get banks to make loans to people who otherwise could not afford houses. I guess this same line of thought that brought GSE's into existence is a good thing too (well Fannie Mae came into existence in the late 30s but its a similar idea). We wouldn't be in this mess if it were not for those two. Because they are sponsored by the government people assumed (accurately) that the government would cover anything they put out and so were considered riskless when CLEARLY they were not. and now it is a burden of the state. And don't go around saying this is all the problem of repealing the glass-segal act in 1999. If it weren't for that act you would be seeing many of the current acquisitions that you are seeing today. Many of these financial institutes would have failed and they wouldn't have been bought out by other financial institutes. In fact it has helped through this damn mess. Even a former Clinton-era guy (i don't remember the name off the top of my head) has said that this is not the problem of the 1999 act. Keynesian and liberals think the government can stick their hands in every little thing and everything will be A-OK, and then when things go sour you quickly blame the "Evil market" for destroying everything when it is in fact these same people that have encouraged this behavior! edit:: here is a link to 3 men who hold considerable responsibility for a lot of this mess http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...44554-1,00.html It should be of note that all of these people have at least some ties to economic advising to the Obama campaign (However minute they may be, it still reflects a poor sense of judgment on Obama's part).

I'm sorry for your industry, really i am. I know the pressures that job security has. However blaming banks for this is just wrong. Banks are stingy right now because they are afraid of people making runs on banks, which has already sent the likes of WaMu down the drain (WaMu finally went under when a run on them dropped their $$$ too low to make loans or cover deposits), they are afriad of making loans to people who may or may not be able to repay them. Tightening credit is what banks to in this type of environment, they invest heavily in treasury bonds because they are quite low risk and banks become VERY risk aversive until they get through this mess. And like i said, i know that these are becoming rather desperate times for some, but to cast the blame solely on the banks is quite unfair.