What happened over the last 10 years was that the American people borrowed hundreds of billions of dollars from "savers" all over the world, and then decided that they wouldn't pay back the loans. What the heck. So, the American government has one of two choices: 1) Go, what the heck, let all the banks default or their loans, and let the economy collapse with a death spiral of job losses, or, 2) Pay back the bills with inflated (cheap) dollars. Take your choice. The only people to blame are those 50% of the public who voted the dimwit into the Presidency, and allowed his government to bankrupt us by allowing banks to lend to do-nothings, who never had any intention of paying back the loans - because they never had the money. Not to mention the trillion dollars pissed down the drain to support the never-ending war. And who says it doesn't matter whether Democrats or Republicans win. Anyone want to compare the Bush economy to Clinton's. Rich
Looking back, I wish Newt Gingrich hadn't fucked around with other women. I mean literally, damnit. Had he practiced abstinence that he zealously preached as part and parcel of his âContract With America,â Bush would have never made it into the White house in 2000. Dumb idiot!
If we'd ONLY borrowed "hundreds of billions", this wouldn't be so bad. $10 trillion is just an amazing amount of money to owe, soon to be $11 trillion. I fear there is no end to this madness of borrowing. I sure hope they don't have any expectation of being repaid. I sure don't see anyone willing to even stop borrowing more, let alone pay enough taxes to ever repay any of it.
You see, this is where the damn math doesn't add up. Why is the whole smaller than the sum of its parts? For instance, even if you were to add all the foreclosed homes on the market as well as those that are at high risk, they still wouldn't add up to $10 trillion and counting. Paulie and Bernie will go down in history as the bozos who fucked up America.
Well, Ben is probably right to inflate. The problem is : "Heli Ben" give Paulson the heli and money bags and Paulson keeps his heli above CEO mansions only. What's with the no question asked bailout for citi, but not autos? I am against all sort of bailout but even an idiot can see that this is not fair. The 700B TARP should be used to form a brand new national bank and do what banks do, lend. Shouldn't try to dick with those wallstreet banks.
In a lopsided recession, by which I mean a recession limited to a particular region, countries deflate currencies all the time by artificially inflating prices, namely by printing money. One reason for this is that currency devaluation stimulates export. This is a win-win for both the importing and the exporting countries. But in a GLOBAL recession, when every nation is in dire strait, such an action makes no sense. BTW when we start printing money en masse, do you think the rest of the world will just sit back and watch? No, they're not stupid. They will also crank up those printing presses to the hilt.
Leverage, credit default swaps (insurance any any diddly stuff that the institutions felt like insuring in order to make a quick buck), credit card defaults, auto defaults, corporate defaults, you know it all adds up.