In article ,
"DGDevin" wrote:




Who took the cop off the beat on Wall St.?

Both parties. The cop was taken off by legislative action that, in
most cases, was passed by very large and bipartisan majorities over both
Clinton and Bush. Some of it was actually too much regulation because
multiple areas had jurisdiction, people could go shopping until they
found regulation they liked.
99% of this was psychological and would have happened under any
person. We saw classic behavior that has been seen whenever good times
have come about from the Tulip Bubble forward. The problem this time is
that good times had been good for so long (really since the mid-80s with
long expansions followed by-relatively- short recession) that people
began to figure it would go on forever and started acting like it.
The thing that really struck me is that everyone (gov't,
individual, business) began acting almost like we were in inflationary
times, although for different reasons. Everything was going to go up,
and do so forever because is always had (at least during the adult
lifetimes of a large number of people). So they began to buy things
today even with borrowed money figuring EVERYTHING would be worth more
tomorrow (as opposed to inflationary times when you buy things today to
pay for them which cheaper dollars tomorrow).
What happened this time, though is that everybody had done this.
Thus, when the bubble broke (like it had for dot com, like it will for
gold eventually, etc) EVERYBODY was overleverage and no one could take
up the slack.
Greenspan (who also contributed more than his fair share to this by
keeping cheap money floating around, summed it up" "They [financial
crises] are all different, but they have one fundamental source," he
said. "That is the unquenchable capability of human beings when
confronted with long periods of prosperity to presume that it will
continue."


Who doubled the federal debt in large part due to an unjustified war, which
according to the CBO will end up costing well over two trillion dollars
(much of it borrowed from our dear friend China)?

Which had what to do with the collapse?


Who decided torturing prisoners was a good way to go?

Which had what to do with the collapse?

Who figured the feds shouldn't need a court order to listen to your phone
calls or read your e-mails?


Which had what to do with the collapse.

Who was President when TARP was signed into law, who bailed out GM and
Chrysler and AIG?
After the election, Bush did nothing without consulting with Obama
and at the behest of a Dem-controlled Congress (which okayed it all).



In other words, Einstein, who was in charge when all this **** hit the fan?
So, who is in charge now that the **** storm is continuing.



I have no illusions about the Dems being incompetent and corrupt if they're
left in office long enough, they are no different from the Repubs in that
respect. But I am astonished at how short the memories of some folks are,
people who apparently believe that the clowns who aimed the ship at the
rocks are the ones we should now trust not to do it again.

The Dems committed the Only Unforgivable Sin in politics, they
overpromised and underdelivered.
(Although I would also submit that they show how little impact
government really has on the economy. They can screw things up, but most
of the business cycle is just a cycle.

--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
---PJ O'Rourke