1st they came for the banks......

[Franco]

Bush was no leader nor was he a good business person. He just wanted approval and acceptence from his father. That is why we went to Iraq and that was the undoing of the Republican Party.

The finanacial mess began in the Clinton Administration and Bush was too soft to correct it. Lets don't forget that this mess started in the hosuing market with bad loans encourged by the Dems.

[zeus3925]

OK. Bush is responsible for a significant portion of the financial crisis. Now what? Can we move on? Or do we continue to use this to excuse the actions of everyone else who is taking advantage of the situation to push a leftist agenda and monumental government spending? At what point do you stop looking at what Bush did and start looking at what our leaders are doing TODAY?

Ok, Matt, what do you propose to do in our current situation, if you were POTUS??

[cotts135]

OK. Bush is responsible for a significant portion of the financial crisis. Now what? Can we move on? Or do we continue to use this to excuse the actions of everyone else who is taking advantage of the situation to push a leftist agenda and monumental government spending? At what point do you stop looking at what Bush did and start looking at what our leaders are doing TODAY?

Doesn't seem to me that the leaders in the Republican party have a solution either. That 18 page pamphlet they put out really was a joke, no real specifics except for a huge tax cut for the rich. Their plan is to criticize whatever the president proposes. The facts are that no matter who proposes a budget their will be gigantic deficits in 5-10 yrs because of Social Security and Medicaid. The population is getting older and the commitments the government has made to these programs is enormous.

[road kill]

Bush was no leader nor was he a good business person. He just wanted approval and acceptence from his father. That is why we went to Iraq and that was the undoing of the Republican Party.
The finanacial mess began in the Clinton Administration and Bush was too soft to correct it. Lets don't forget that this mess started in the hosuing market with bad loans encourged by the Dems.

What do you think Afgahnistan will do to the Democratic party??

[Marvin S]

The facts are that no matter who proposes a budget their will be gigantic deficits in 5-10 yrs because of Social Security and Medicaid. The population is getting older and the commitments the government has made to these programs is enormous.

Apparently, you have little understanding of the system. Social Security & Medicare recipients entered into a one sided contract with the US government. They dictate all terms & you get to shell out the cash to sustain same. Had they put that money into treasuries there would be ample funds for all. Both sides of the input are taxed initially & Clinton decided to tax 85% of the outgo above a certain income level. Many of us had those benefits factored into the meager retirement we received from our employers.

Medicaid is a welfare program where no one contributes but receives benefits. I read somewhere the Octo Mom already has 2 of her previous children in Medicare - how that happened is beyond my imagination.

Actually, a bigger threat to the long term financial well being in the US is the large number of public employees retiring at a young age, taking another position & getting into an additional retirement system. Public employees receive entirely too much from the system based on the value they add to it.

My father in law is a retired FF - disability - makes more today than he made any time when he was employed & pays 0 taxes. Not a bad deal at 92 when you were only employed for 25 years.

But didn't you say at one time you were on the public teat? If so, I consider any comments about the private sector & real work to be something you would not understand.

[zeus3925]

Marv, are public employees supposed to be Little Sisters of the Poor?

[Marvin S]

They should be properly compensated for their contribution to society, no more - no less. Compensation meaning, all facets are taken into account. Their are very few Public Employees today that fit that definition.

[zeus3925]

Actually, a bigger threat to the long term financial well being in the US is the large number of public employees retiring at a young age, taking another position & getting into an additional retirement system. Public employees receive entirely too much from the system based on the value they add to it.


But didn't you say at one time you were on the public teat? If so, I consider any comments about the private sector & real work to be something you would not understand.

Marv, I don't know about the State of Washington but the only ones that retire early in my experience is police and fire. I have worked in both the private and public sectors. The wages of public employees are generally much lower than in the private sector. I was a union negotiator for the public sector and I know this to be true.

Take an AS400 programmer for instance. The employees I represented were making in the mid 50's. My wife was doing comparable work for a private firm making in the high 80's. The lawyers I represented with years of experience were making substantially less than the rookies sitting at the opposite desk across the courtroom. Our road workers were earning $4 an hour less than their local counter parts in the private sector. It would have been far less if we had not successfully bargained for some good contracts --good enough to slow the hemorrhage of experienced employees.

Our retirement plan was not subject to negotiation, but it was identical to those my wife and I had in the private sector.

I really resent your characterizing public employment as not real work. You have never had a butcher knife thrown by a mental patient sail past your ear at four inches.

I doubt if you had to rescue a panicked blind senior citizen at two o'clock in the morning after her drug crazed son threw her down a stairway. You never had the same drug crazed individual stalk you, your wife and kids for weeks afterward.

You never had to walk in to a house so filled with rotten filth that firemen with breathing apparatus were called in to video the evidence.

I am also a trained cartographer. Our county cartographers and highway engineers were comparable and often superior to what I observed in the private sector.

Public employees are not welfare recipients. Many of them are highly trained in their fields. There are no apologies needed or forthcoming for the work of the folks I represented. I am proud to have represented them.

[Gerry Clinchy]

On the issue of banks being allowed to become involved in non-banking businesses:

It may not be well-known to the general public, but banks made a bid to become the sole purveyors of title insurance. If such had happened, before this current banking fiasco, one can only imagine that it would have been that much worse. Not only would the mortgages be bad, but the sale of many of those properties might have also been subject to questions about clear title to the buyers ... presuming that the banks would have handled title searching as efficiently and honestly (tongue in cheek) as they handled the lending process.

Possibly only the culmination of the financial mess prevented the banks from also entering the real estate brokerage business. They might have succeeded in doing so had the house of cards not fallen apart when it did. Can one even begin to imagine what power this would have given these financial institutions?

Even though I am a Realtor®, I do not favor today's common practice of real estate brokerages owning and operating their own title insurance agencies and mortgage brokerages ("one-stop shopping" it's called). I believe it is a conflict to remove the "checks and balances" that each of these separate entities should provide during a real estate transaction.

[cotts135]

They should be properly compensated for their contribution to society, no more - no less. Compensation meaning, all facets are taken into account. Their are very few Public Employees today that fit that definition.

Man, can you please tell me what you mean by that. That premise is just laughable on it's face. Who are the decision makers for this. Is it someone who feels that maybe these executives on Wall St. should get these nice fat bonuses or is it someone who decides that an actor or sports star contributes more to society than say a teacher or doctor. This is just a broad based generalization that some people like to throw around and it serves no purpose.