Pabst, if all the bad assets have to be taken away, deleveraged, how is leftism make it worse? It is a situation where everyone wants to sell, and not many buyers, right?
Only the true nut cases refuse to mention or acknowledge George W. Bush and his Administration's role in the economic crisis we find ourselves mired in right now; you know, the guy that was president for the last 8 years? Money was for nothing, and loans were for free for eight long years. No restrictions on lending; no regulation of the very banks receiving taxpayers (responsible savers) intraveneous infusions of hundreds of billions of dollars (very soon, it will exceed a trillion, and may approach 2 trillion before this crisis ebbs). I wonder why these apparent dogmatic people refuse to invoke George W. Bush's name, but would rather blame someone who yet to hold office for 3 weeks? Hmmm....
Do you really get the sense that folks are blaming NObama for anything yet? I don't. And you are right about the Bush Adminstration. But in all honesty and fairness you must acknowledge all of the "money for nothing, loans for free, no restrictions on lending..." BEGAN with the DemoCraps in 1999, and their Affirmative Action Lending.... and all efforts to reign-in or supervise the reckless lending were VEHEMENTLY resisted by those same DemoCRAPS! Had they not been so politically GREEDY, and RACIST, and FINANCIALLY IRRESPONSIBLE... we might have none of this mess we have today.
Wow, you part of KKK by any chance? It's quite ironic that you want to blame minorites when the perpetrators are generally in the WASP category.
Who mentioned Obama? So the immense lending/leverage/economic problems in Iceland and Ireland are the fault of Bush? The failures of Fortis, Royal Bank of Scotland, Northern Rock and dozens of "immune" institutions on the Continent is the fault of Bush? The Bailout Bill was REJECTED by the majority of GOP caucus members and APPROVED by the Democrat House majority. Obama is seeking the SAME relief as proposed by Paulson. Markets look forward and for TWO YEARS they've anticipated the ineptitude of a Democrat Congressional majority coupled with an empty suit socialist ideologue like either Hillary or Obama at the helm. Does anyone here have a clue as to what heir tax rate will be this year? I have income (or losses) in futures, stocks, dividends, Treasury interest and earnings through a corporation. Not to mention a possible transaction tax. A different rate for each and no idea of what my ultimate tax liability will be. Listed corporations certainly have more complex revenue streams than me and even if one can predict a companies gross income we haven't an iota of accuracy as to what net incomes will be. Every friggin' day this administration and Congress are floating a different tax proposal. Today it's a revenue neutral gas tax coupled with a cut in the payroll tax. If oil rallies then of course the gas tax will be tabled and some other tax will emerge. Investors fear nationalization, tax hikes, populist class warfare rhetoric-literally dozens of intangibles. You like to go on and on about the cost of Iraq. Well now you've got a Vice President, a Secretary of State, a tax cheating HHS czar and a Senate majority leader who all voted yea on Iraq. Along with a White House Chief of Staff who volunteered with the Tzahal during the Gulf War. To Jews like you Obama is Nirvana. Another neo-con leaning administration but with socialist domestic policies. Oy vey........
No, he is very competent at his job, better than Clinton. Brainwashing the masses into a cult like following by convicing them he is the Mesiah & Savior.
Major problem is that there just aren't enough JOBS. The world can pretty much function with only about 20% of the folks working. Doing real productive stuff - growing food, transporting goods, healing the sick, ministering, some degree of politics/lawyering. What do you do with the other 80% who need to earn a living, be employed, etc...? A service economy is a nice way to create make believe jobs that are paper pushing & deal with sales, advertising, compliance, legal, etc... but don't really add anything to the productive economy. And that's what we saw the last decade with everyone being a real estate agent, mortgage broker, banker, stockbroker, (trader : gulp etc... Until the system is no longer sustainable because someone screwed up. And then all the non-productive jobs are shown up for the farce they are as people retrench into more productive (and lower paying) productive jobs. In a perfect world, we would recognize this and allow people to pursue creative pursuits more actively, or rotate people through productive jobs and so forth. But it doesn't work like that and many will suffer as a result, until the engines of the economy develop new 'needs' and create new opportunities. By the way to the idiot who talks about population control, its population control for everyone ELSE but us. People are power in multiple ways.