Signs that a collapse is under way.

[DiscoBiscuit]

If I'm not mistaken, Paulson (Bush) engineered the WS bailout. Obama bailed out the automakers and launched economic stimulus.

LB was short traded into bankruptcy prior to the Paulson bailout. ML was said to be more deeply immersed in sub-prime than other banks and somebody (BOA) had to absorb their toxic assets, theoretically preventing another LB scenario.

 

[NFD]

Carrying capacity for the earth is 2 million without a replacement energy source to fossil fuel, that would mean 4 million die off before the planet stabilizes again. The current economic crisis is just the 1st symptom of peak oil. Meanwhile the bankster's, politicians, and super rich will pirate all they can take to try and buy their own survival when this shit goes down. The government is lying to us all. Nobody has ever seen or lived through the type of global depression we will all be facing within the next 2 generations of human existence. Your weed will be worth it's weight in gold.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Lol, we've got 2 million in prison cells.

 

[SpasticGramps]

If I'm not mistaken, Paulson (Bush) engineered the WS bailout. Obama bailed out the automakers and launched economic stimulus.

LB was short traded into bankruptcy prior to the Paulson bailout. ML was said to be more deeply immersed in sub-prime than other banks and somebody (BOA) had to absorb their toxic assets, theoretically preventing another LB scenario.

This is correct. Lehman Brothers was a sacrificial lamb so to speak. Paulson was also setting the sell price per share for other tanking companies. He was literally controlling everything as the ship went down. Again, with the example of letting men control markets instead of free markets control markets. This will prove to be a disastrous folly.

I'd say they know now but they didn't know for sure back then. Just because something similar happened before does not mean it will happen again and in this case it almost didn't happen. Frankly, IMO it only happened this time because Obama came onboard with it and the public was having such a love affair with him at the time that they bought it, hook, line and sinker. Call it naive but that's refusing to face the facts, if bailouts were such a sure thing then what about Lehman Brothers? What about Merrill Lynch & Company?

What is hard for me to understand is how can some, such as yourself, who espouses anti-corporatist views (generally) and would typically align themselves with the "left" can be shown to continuously apologize for fascist moves by the government (ie. bailouts of preferred institutions). You might find this somewhat offensive, but the logical conclusion I draw from this is that you are a fascist apologist. I'm not trying to be offensive. I'm using what I believe to be the correct adjectives to describe your philosophy. Not hyperbole.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

If taxpayer-funded corporate assistance (welfare) is fascist, are we fascist when we draw unemployment? I understand that gains have been privatized while losses were subsidized. However, it appears the government was/is propping up the market, rather than dictating specific course.

 

[SpasticGramps]

If taxpayer-funded corporate assistance (welfare) is fascist, are we fascist when we draw unemployment? I understand that gains have been privatized while losses were subsidized. However, it appears the government was/is propping up the market, rather than dictating specific course.

I consider corporate welfare to be fascism. This is always bad IMO. Bad, bad, bad.

Unemployment is a form of socialism. Not as bad IMO, but can be taken to the certain extremes.

The distinction is whether the tax payer (productive class) money goes to the proletariat or the bourgeois (petty or not) IMO.

I have to say it appears to me the government is dictating the market up when it really should be going down, specifically over the past couple of years. Markets have to and eventaully will always find their natural bottom despite intervention or not. Intervention typically makes the inevitable that much worse. It's why I argue that the first Great Depression was so much worse than all previous ones. What their hubris blinds them to is that while you can dictate market moves for a while eventually you will have to reconcile your economic sins with the free market.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

IMO, the Depression is the one and only. In fact, it consists of two periods that appear to counter your idea that intervention doesn't work. Like now, the depression saw the greatest wealth concentrated in the fewest hands.

Pre 1937 and post 1937 saw increased gov spending (in the absence of corporate spending.) 1937 saw decreased gov spending and economic figures re-tanked. So much in fact, your detractors suggest it wouldn't have taken eight more years to shuck the anemia less the 1937 contraction.

 

[Hydrosun]

Free Market = REALITY, but I wonder if you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, how long can you keep the ponzi going? Seems like it continues for decades longer than I think is rational.

 

[Goodkarma]

Carrying capacity for the earth is 2 million without a replacement energy source to fossil fuel, that would mean 4 million die off before the planet stabilizes again. The current economic crisis is just the 1st symptom of peak oil. Meanwhile the bankster's, politicians, and super rich will pirate all they can take to try and buy their own survival when this shit goes down. The government is lying to us all. Nobody has ever seen or lived through the type of global depression we will all be facing within the next 2 generations of human existence. Your weed will be worth it's weight in gold.

You mean billions, not millions.

 

[barnyard]

maybe we just don't know how good we have it...

maybe we just don't know how good we have it...

BTW Disco, unemployment insurance is just that insurance, its not paid for by the government.

Historically we're at the top of the heap looking down on history and the rest of the world. We got it so good we've lost perspective, IMO.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

It's insurance all right but government didn't always provide it.

 

[NFD]

You mean billions, not millions.

Must've been high! Yes BILLIONS.

Elsewhere, Biden continued to baffle everyone, as he aims to "reduce the country's stubborn budget deficits by $4 trillion over the next 10 years in order to give lawmakers the political cover to raise the debt ceiling." So let's get this straight: these morons can't cut $1 today, but they can cut about 30% of US GDP in deficit spending over the next decade?

 

[Hydrosun]

BTW Disco, unemployment insurance is just that insurance, its not paid for by the government.

Historically we're at the top of the heap looking down on history and the rest of the world. We got it so good we've lost perspective, IMO.

Nope, unemployment funds are monies TAKEN from employers by government mandate (read at the point of a gun) to pay for the government policy to come (read Austerity / layoffs). After forcing the sinking fund the political fucks then vote to extend (or not) the "benefits" paid for by employer's accounts.

Who is this we that are at the top of the heap? The guys getting credit and claiming foresight for paying people not to work for 99 weeks?

Some around this community speak of personal responsibility and paying for the contracts you sign. I personally believe not taking a single dime for unemployment and food stamps is the exact same thing.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

don't forget about fica

 

[Hydrosun]

don't forget about fica

Another sinking fund that fucks the working man and serves as a tool for politicians. Oh how great ameriKa is.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

 

[AntelopeDope]

Unemployment continued up through the Great Depression, almost in-line with Federal spending and ABC Soup Agency creation.

Coincidentally, the Great Depression saw huge change in their statistical accounting of unemployment... ie: workforce valuation (Who's in/out based on timelines and definitions). With less "workforce", the number they can reveal to the people becomes magically soothing.

Progressives has been setting us up with the likes of the money printing Fed, and incidentally the oncoming collapse for many generations. We are now over 100% debt/GDP, the dollar has lost 40% value in the last 2 years, the chinese recently dumped 98% of their Tbills - going on with dim statistics is trivial, get ready folks.

 

[sandawg]

Call me a fascist then, because unemployment SAVED MY ASS. My last employer hired me under FALSE pretenses, allegedly to takeover and run a very specific area of law for their firm.

After a year there I began realizing that I was really only hired to CLOSE out the last guy's files, about 50 open cases. Almost exactly two years after being hired, when I closed out the last file, I was laid-off. The reason I was laid-off? They told me the firm couldn't get the credit to pay my salary. Believe me, if they could have FIRED me, they would have. I can be a bit abrasive if I don't consciously turn on the Charm switch, but I'm very efficient and I don't make any big mistakes. Every interviewer asked me what happened. After my last explanation, my new boss said, "So you got SCREWED?" Damn, right.

I seriously don't know what I would have done if I wasn't collecting unemployment. My landlord literally received 80% of my monthly unemployment benefits, and I found a way to squeeze by on the rest.

After nine months of driving to bullshit interview after bullshit interview, I finally got hired last week. (Those are separate stories in themselves. Like driving 2 hours each way to an interview so I can be instantly told I don't have enough trial experience. You couldn't have asked me about my trial experience during the TELEPHONIC interview the day before? WTF?)

I'm not a big fan of the QE1 or QE2, but can you imagine if we were all on the gold standard? There wouldn't be any money left. It would ALL be in the hands of the top 1%. And I have a feeling you ain't in that clique, Gramps. As much as you aspire to be.

Maybe you got caught up in that Protestant work ethic bullshit where you believe that the poor deserve to be poor. If so, you aren't much different than most white Southerners and Mid-Westerners who blame African-Americans and immigrants for their problems. The problem with this country is NOT that the poor have too much money. I'm sure you think I was really living it up on unemployment, but to be honest, it was quite a setback, yet I would have been HOMELESS without it.

If there was no gov't or regulations, corporations would dump toxic waste in rivers and the ocean. Oh, wait, they still do, but not quite as much as they used to, right?

If there was no gov't regulations, industries would still employ children as day laborers. Arguments can be made against child actors, but I'm talking about kids working in factories.

Would there be any need for safe designs? Who cares if your bridge is off 1"? Without gov't regulations and a good civil court system, who the fuck cares, right? I bet you anything that Gramps is a HUGE proponent of tort reform. Let's limit the amount of money victims can collect when someone designs a shoddy bridge that collapses, killing everyone on it. Let your wife, mother or daughter die on a bridge like that and then tell me about tort reform when your lawsuit is limited to $250,000. Or when the doctor amputates the wrong leg. Now you have NO legs and you are limited to $250,000 or whatever they want to set the limit at. I will ask all of you: how much would you accept to have a doctor remove both your legs?

If the tax code didn't give deductions for charitable donations, I wonder how much money charities would continue to receive every year?

If taxes weren't mandatory, I wonder how many people would voluntarily pay them.

And I will end this rant with this question to Gramps: how much did GE pay in taxes last year? Forget? Its was $0. Not a dime. How much did they pull in? Billions. Of course, instead of raising taxes or reforming the tax code to reach the rich, we could just reduce the military budget by about 700 billion. But I don't think Gramps's type of people like that solution either. Its much more palatable to screw everyone else.

Come to think of it, I could put a quote about ignorance at the bottom of my posts, too. Would it make me any less so?

 

[SpasticGramps]

we could just reduce the military budget by about 700 billion. But I don't think Gramps's type of people like that solution either. Its much more palatable to screw everyone else.

You make a lot of dubious assumptions about me in that last post that are incorrect. You know what they say about assumption? I'll make you look like a school boy doing that.

You should read the last quote in my signature. "War is Racket" by General Butler. The man commanded armies across nations and had the balls to decry the inhumanity on his death bed. He was warrior, a philosopher, and a realist.

If you are going to try and stereotype me at least take the time to fully understand my signature before making yourself look like a total fool.

 

[sandawg]

I read a post and thought I remembered going back-and-forth with you on my Republicans and weed thread awhile back. Please forgive me if I remembered you wrong, bud. You did say you equated unemployment with fascism, though, or was that someone else?