With the way the GOP are representing themselves, I would actually vote for Obama. The GOP is just a circus. They need to step their game up but instead, they decided to bring these guys to represent them in 2012:
I want some sort of change but not the type that the Republicans candidates are visioning right now.
Edit:
I’d like to voice my true feelings on our “elected” officials and their superb job in handing our country over to corporate interests. However, I’m very sure if I actually posted my thoughts, I will wind up in prison.
yeah, Obama basically stated he is gunning for a minimum 30% tax on everybody who makes over 1 million dollars a year. He pulled out Warren Buffet’s secretary as his trump card. Basically pointed out that as a secretary for Warren Buffet, she is taxed more than he is, which is fucked considering Warren’s the fucking billionaire.
And Romney produced his taxes for the last two years, which showed he is only getting taxed at roughly 15%.
So yeah, whether anything is actually dont about it or not, I truly feel that the rich ARE going to finally have to pay a little more to help the rest of us out. I think even they have to realize if they bankrupt us all, they dont really get to keep on living life the way they are right now.
Lets just see if the Republicans will allow Obama to do any of this shit, when/if he gets re-elected.
Making money via straight salary income is much different than making it off straight investments. There is a risk reward ratio to consider when investing (and its not easy). If you skew that ratio too much, people are not going to invest. What do you think is going to happen to the economy then?
That is what fucking pises me the fuck off. And shows the level of corruption in this piece of shit country.
Wall street was doing beyond fucking great, making record breaking profits during the 00-07 age. But what about the rest of us motherfuckers. We had to deal with steadily rising food prices starting since 1998. rapidly rising oil prices from 02-07, rapid inflation of the American dollar, and our economy was failing, but Wall street was making fucking bank.
Wall street fails, and oh shit, jobs suddenly dissapear for no reason, people lose homes?
Its fucking ridiculous and absurd that wall street matters only when its in danger. Every morning when I listen to the radio, and hear that investors and brokers are worried because stocks fell a quarter of a percent, I can’t help but laugh at the absurdity and stupidity that is the human collective.
This is why heads like Buffett/Romney have such low tax rates (capital gains rates)
What basically happened with ‘wrecking the economy’ is that one entity took control of a form of credit (lets say mortgage) while they sold off the mortgage as a financial innovation such as mortgage-backed securities. Bad idea to be sure, but the gamble paid off for those involved thanks to a special player…
An analogy is; if one entity is selling, say homeowner’s insurance. They would want to be as responsible as possible in approving clients for the insurance unless they wanted to go under. In order to minimize risk involved they would check to see history, finances, personal habits, smoker?, etc… Now somebody at the insurance company comes up with the bright idea that they can eliminate the risk involved by packaging and selling it to a third party. This would effectively be insurance on the fire insurance that the first entity is selling. Now instead of the first entity having to worry about checking on people’s backgrounds before approving an insurance contract, it is in the company’s best interest to just sign and sign and sign people up. Sign as many people up as possible to get as much $$$ as possible, why not since it is the second entity that is going to have to worry about paying out if fires break out. And until then all is going to go just dandy. But in most every real life scenario entity 2 is just not going to exist because such a business plan would be stupid, unless they have a trump card
What happened in the US collapse is that the govt pressured and even mandated that loans be made easier so everyone can have a house, blahblaa. This made our entity 1 (mortgage loaner) very nervous. But they managed to pass off the excess risk by finding a market for types of a new financial innovation called the mortgage-backed security package (similar to the insurance-on-the-insurance from above analogy). And entity 2s began popping up to accommodate and everyone was happy; entity 1 were able to comply with new govt pressures and in the meantime business was booming for all, more artificially than usual. The entity 2s materialized because they had confidence that the risk of the mortgage-backed securities would be covered due to the federal goverment views on what they call systemic risk. They really didnt even have to hedge their bet on what would happen when the morgages began defaulting, since the CEOs of these financial institutions (among the biggest in the world) were well connected with the executive branch of the government. Because of this everyone knew the govt would be the ultimate backer in effect assuming all the risk. This basically gave them free reighn to do as they plaese (moral hazrd; now they know they can do whatever and the govt will keep subsidizing it). Look what happend after the govt did what everyone expected and bailed the banks out. They just starting setting up expensive events, giving out bonuses, increasing officer salaries, and everyone now knew that the taxpayer had to subsidize it. Except of course Lehman bros. Someone there miscalculated, and just look how indignant they were when they ccomplained to congress; they knew they were left out of the party* (They deserved our moiney!).* This is what happens in an economic ecosystem when risk is mismanaged.
Now, how is anyone but the federal government to blame for this situation? This stuff just does not happen in a healthy market that is not distorted to oblivion by govt mandates meant to manipulate businesses into conforming to a political agenda. The govt mandated the easy credit and established the moral hazard by subsidizing it with taxpayer $$$$. How is anyone but the govt the crooks here?
How, so suddenly these big banks don’t have a voice and the intelligence to say no that won’t be possible and here is why? They are smart enough to repackage loans that shouldn’t be made to begin with, smart enough to make trillions out of thin air, smart enough to fool the American government that they are to big to fail, but not capable of showing a few graphs to the government to make a point?
Funny how these crooked politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, pushed for this shit. How strange that many of these people where also heavily involved in wall street before they became politicians. Strange that the head of the Federal Reserve, somebody who was heavily involved and still was heavily connected to wall street pushed for these policies.
This happened because wall street wanted this to happen. They are solely to blame
this is something the lower class cant do though. They have zero money to invest. If these other people can afford to take these RISKS then they can afford to pay more in taxes too. Off shore tax havens gotta go too.
Hahaa. When people told them what exactly what ended up happening with this policy (prior ro the fact) Barney Frank stood up and started yelling calling them all racists and bigots. He was very animated. Dont be fooled, the govt wanted this too. By the nature of any organization, the drive is to expand to consolidate more and more power, even if the machinations by which they do this seem completely honorable (you can see this in any succsessful person/business/organization/etc). The govt reinforced there position with following through with the bailouts. The businesses have absolutely no power in this scenario, unless the govt surrenders it to them.
exactly.
of course poorer people cant, this is why as you go up the income ladder more and more % of income comes from investments. But not only rich people invest. In fact, my grandparents were extremely poor (too poor to buy food, they lived off the land and sold what they could) but even they were smart enough to pack away most of their worth in sound investments. That may be unusual, but many, many middle income invest. And beleieve it or not, they all play by the same rules as the uber rich. They assess risk vs benefit. If you pile on the risk, nobody, nobody is going to consider it worth their while. You can say to them "hey, you can afford it!’ all you want. But they are not going to play if they think there is too much risk. And, againh, what do you think is going to happen to the economy when people stop investing?