How Government Created the Financial Crisis
 

Wallstreet Journal Article - How Government Created the Financial Crisis
Research shows the failure to rescue Lehman did not trigger the fall panic.

Please read the full article before posting. Thank you, Yar-El

...and? I always knew that government allowed extreme deregulation to happen, with little to no oversight. They were too busy with the Iraq War to watch all of the domestic problems, i.e., Hurricane Katrina.

What I'm saying is that government involvement doesn't work. Our government can't save the economy. Its part of the problem.

So, we should the corporation fix the economy themselves? They've done a pretty spot-on job doing that, since they've allowed themselves to go bankrupt, while their executives get all of the loot to themselves. Hence why the government is giving the corporations money; they're too incompetent to police themselves.

Oh, and Reagan sucked. Especially how he allowed poverty to climb to record levels. But hey, we had to stop the Evil Empire by investing more resources in our defense to allow the USSR to collapse by playing catch-up.

I have a solution. We fix the economy by rebuilding the government from the ground up. Restoring the industrial age or evolving it into another industry. Americans themselves are the solution. It is our responsibility as Americans to stand up and do what the government cannot.

We the people.

Out of curiosity, did you understand the article you used?

Edit:And who would buy theese products? Would "we the people" be willing to pay the insane prices? And why would you want a new industrial age, when you can make a lot of money without the problems industry brings?
It seems pointless, why go industrial when "we the people" would end up a lot poorer for it?

So now you're proposing Revolution?

Yes, but the industrial age allowed monopolies to exploit Americans, by forcing them to work to death.
Anarchy? We're too lazy to do that.

No. I'm proposing that we the people take upon ourselves what others before us have done. We roll up our sleves and get to work. We can open farms again. Open small food stores to sell corn, bread, and wheat. Using the skills we were founded upon will stabilize our nation and make it stronger. Create shops for shoe repair and making. Get where I'm going?

We have to take back the industrial age; however, with a sence of environmental responsibility. Rebuild yesterday with technologies of today.

Start our own commune? Isn't that a bit socialistic, and ultimately primitive?

How about you take into account the human element and the suffering a revolution would cause both here and abroad and instead campaign for people to use their minds instead of their bodies so that they can make informed decisions and force a little accountability on the government?

Not true. Primitive and advanced yes. Socialistic no.

Supermarket prices too high? Why not go to a mom and pop market?

But still...

Rebuilding a government would require that it be torn down before it is rebuilt. Now that could definately sound like Revolutionary sentiments.

But Joe McCarthy told me Socialism was evil!

You have GOT to be kidding me. Do you really think we could agree on that long enough to do anything? This is optimistic at the very best, and realistically would never actually be able to happen. The reason we have so many checks and balances in government, the reason the people are not the direct representatives of themselves, as it was with early greece, is both because our population is too large, and we're pulling in too many ways at once because of it. There's no way you're going to get enough people to go along with your plan and cooperate with you to make it work.

You need the government, housing our elected representatives, which are smaller in number, and pull in fewer ways, to achieve anything.

Whats has happend is that our foundation is gone. Jobs for good working Americans have been shipped to other countries. Why not create a whole new automotive buisness from the ground up; however, build the technology on environmental friendly technology? Let the large American car companies of yesterday fall, so we can rebuild them into a modernized industry. Who need Ford when Joe and Jane Doe are making solar cars.

Allow the current banking system to collapse, so they can declare bankruptcy and go out of buisness. Homes will become more affordable, and we can rebuild our banking system to be stronger.

Says the person who probably votes for the same ticket President Bush was on, and President Bush nearly destroyed environmental, and even scientific, policy in government altogether. A bit hypocritical to start changing your tune now, eh?

People who aren't convinced of Joe and Jane Doe's ability to manufacture solar cars and at some point along the line want at least a minimum level of safety standards guaranteed to them by a 3rd party.

I voted for Bush the first term. I knew he was a problem. I'm singing the same policies I have allways had. Its about how to do it that gets people to disagree.

What do we have to lose?

Our lives and brand new homestyle solar car.

MSNBC Article - Stocks tumble as bailout plan is unveiled
Geithner short on details, but says plan could be worth $1 trillion

I called this one earlier today. I knew this would happen.

I am not an economic expert nor do I profess advanced knowledge of the subject but I can see that right now we are currently in trouble economically. The author has listed some very good points as to why our economy is doing so bad. I am inclined to think that the corporations are to blame as well.

Taking the area of communications, corporations screamed for a deregulation and now we have a resulting monopoly of communication industries and a huge ditigal divide. Granted that deregulation allowed for globalization, it ultimately worked in favor of the big capitalists. I am not saying that capitalism is evil or anything like that but like any economic system, there are the good points and the bad points. Marx was good at pointing out the bad points of capitalism especially when he said the poor man's work power was a commodity that could be bought or sold.

We do have a problem with deregulation. The deregulation allowed coporation to pay wages of pennies on the dollar for finished good made in other (Third World) countries and sell them at exhorbitant prices back home. People I have met have said that the corporations have gotten too big for their britches.

The article though mentions the federal government playing a big role in the problem. I remember when the Economic stimulus package was placed into effect in 2008 and even then not all working people received a check. The goal was to stimulate the economy through incentives to increase consumption but that went bust. As I believe Addy pointed out, who is going to buy when prices are too damn high? We may be a consumerist culture but when you have a majority of the people in lower middle and lower class status, they are going to be careful with their money. They couldn't afford the thing anyway.

Well I take that back since I work at schools in low income areas. I have noticed that people in these areas tend to emphasize the material things. I see kids from this neighbor with iPods and new game systems yet their parents can barely afford to pay the rent. So maybe the stimulus package did have some effect.

We do have a problem and it does need to be fixed. The plan and means of doing so are going to be met with opposition. That's just the way it works in our democratic republic. President Obama spoke of side to the mom and pop places. At least the small business owners get to rummage through the cookie jar. Whatever the plan is we have to live with it whether we tell our reps to vote for it or not.