The GOP, Conservatives, and Insanity

Great Debates
81

Maybe his friend asks himself different questions, like "why should marriage laws and benefits be changed simply because a gay couple wants to get married?

Or why should a woman have the right to kill a child simply because it’s still in the womb?

He may not be concerned with social issues at all, and care strictly about economic issues. Like Obama tripling the debt in 4 years! Or Unemployment being sky high, gas prices going from $1.99 to over $3.50 and remaining there during Obama’s admin. Maybe he’s concerned that family income is down almost $5,000 per family.

I’d bet that the biggest threat to him and his family’s welfare has been the Right-induced financial meltdown and recession. But the Right has “tradition” and teh bible on its side, and like a Christian who picks and chooses what he wants from his Good Book, that might be the part of right wing ideology that appeals to him now, and he can ignore the rest.

You actually believe that statement you wrote about the “right induced financial meltdown”? You simply can’t be serious?

The financial crisis was caused by Democrats FORCING banks to make loans to people who were not qualified for the loans! THAT is what caused the financial meltdown. I’ve heard some liberals deny this, say it isn’t true. Well I hate to tell you, but it is, and it can be proven easily and definitely. . .

In 2004 there was a Republican called hearing on this problem at Freddie Mac/Sallie May. Republican Rep. Richard Baker warns of the crisis coming if the problem (illegal book keeping and loaning to unqualified subjects) isn’t fixed. Rep. Maxine Waters(D), Rep. Gregory Meeks(D), Rep Lacy Clay(D) and other Democrats testify “there is no problem” and actually complain about the validity of the hearing! Clay even called it “a lynching”.

If you don’t believe this, the hearing can be watched on youtube entitled “shocking video unearthed Democrats in their own words covering up the Freddie Mac Sallie May scandal”.

So, for anyone to have the nerve to say it’s a “right induced financial meltdown” , is hilarious to me. It’s simply NOT the truth, No where close.

82

Welcome to the Straight Dope. I assume there’s supposed to be some quote tabs and links in this, but I’m not going to even try and decipher what you’re trying to say without some cleanup.

83

If you read a detailed report of what happened, they could have come out a lot better with a more competent response. Plus, the power company was less than forthright, and mishandled the response. The engineers at nuclear companies are not the problem, the management is.
I’m for nuclear power, btw, and this frustrates me terribly.

84

Such a giant price to pay for giving millions of people the right to get married.

Because it isn’t a child yet. If you think it is, you are free to not abort it. But keep your hands away from my daughters.

Here are some facts for you. Nothing in the rules required anyone to make loans to people who couldn’t afford it. Nothing in the rules required them to not use documentation. We know plenty of lenders encouraged borrowers to not submit income statements so they could sell higher return loans. Nothing in the rules required banks to call up people to encourage them to get mortgages on houses already paid off. Fannie and Freddie had loans better than the ones that started the problem, though they did screw up because they were half privatized, encouraging their management to take excessive risks in return for bonuses and higher stock prices. Best of all, the worst of the offenders, like Countrywide, weren’t banks and weren’t even covered by the rules.

Plus, the mortgages themselves were only a small part of the problem. A bigger part is the banks taking and reselling them cut apart with the bad loans hidden. If there had been full information about the loans buyers could have made rational decisions. This had nothing to do with any federal rules. And then there was AIG.

The state AGs appealed to Greenspan to let them control the increasingly wild mortgage industry, but he, good Randian that he is, refused.

Go read something not written by cretins about the meltdown, and be enlightened. There is plenty out there.

85

Design might be able to take away most of the ability of people to screw up, wherever they are. I’m thinking about the pebble bed reactor:

I am not a professional scientist so maybe it doesn’t matter that I am not sure which design is best, but some of the generation IV designs on the surface at least look pretty exciting too. ITSM that if people can be patient and endure the drawing-board phase, nuclear power might find new life. But it isn’t something to hurry. And no matter how you do it you are going to get nuclear waste with those interminable half-lives…

86

OMG, the Gays want to have different benefits than normal people? That’s outrageous! I want to get to the bottom of this immediately, can you give me a link?

87

And that’s the truth everywhere :slight_smile:
That said, you do have a point - I’d be uncomfortable with nuclear power being handled with the same cutting corners, delaying repairs until the last minute or letting temporary fixes become permanent etc… that gave us the BP platform fiasco. Or, if delegated to the state, seeing the same shit happen albeit as dictated not by cut-throat business bullshit but partisan hackery.

There’s only one path: it’s time we set up the dictatorship of the engineers ! Hang the last middle manager with the guts of the last consultant !

88

Do you seriously want me to inundate you with Biden quotes? Come on! I can see why you might want to try to defend Obama; but Biden?

And if you want to debate the Iraq war, yet again, then start a post I guess, and we can all slog out the old arguments. I know what you’ll say, you know what I’ll say, and whatever positions we had in the beginning will be the ones we have at the end. Utterly pointless. While we’re at it, we can start a post about the Vietnam war, why Kennedy got us involved and so on.

89

If I recall it right, the lower taxes didn’t create jobs during the Bush Jr. administration, but did lead us to near a depression.

90

To quibble, I don’t think lower taxes led to the recession. That was the unwillingness to control an increasingly out of control financial sector. What they did do was make it harder to stimulate the economy to get out of the recession because we were in such a hole.
Though I think that there is an argument to be made for higher taxes redistributed properly could have helped stagnant middle class wages and reduced the impetus to borrow against their houses to keep up consumption.

91

In other words, “Why should gays have the same rights as everyone else?” Because inequality isn’t what the U.S. is about. Something about “All men are created equal”.

Because she’s been raped, or her life is endangered, to name just two reasons. Notice I said “if a woman needs an abortion”. I personally don’t like the idea of abortion simply as a form of birth control, but I don’t expect any woman to defer to my wishes whatever reason she’s pregnant. And if legitimate birth control was more accessible, and if there wasn’t so much social pressure on some women to forego birth control for stupid ideological reasons, abortion would be less of a problem.

If he thinks that, there’s no hope for him.

Bovine ordure, sir. I assume you’re talking about the Community Reinvestment Act, which resulted in very few bad mortgages because it was closely regulated. The only instances where subprime loans were a problem involved lenders that were not under CRA regulation. Even then, they weren’t a problem until bankers started giving them away to anyone just so they could sell them as credit default swaps where the real profits were, not because Democrats put a gun to their heads.:smack: It was entirely their own doing. The business ethics of the glorious “job creators” flew out the window when they saw a chance to gamble harder and harder with other people’s money.

92

Ooh, can we get “Team Gog” and “Team Magog” t-shirts made up?

93

There was a surplus used up very quickly with 2 wars and no way to finance them.

94

When one has no money to pay for something(wars included) the debt runs up. Sooner or later Peter wants what he lent to Paul.
Even a Millionaire will lose money if he /she spends more than they take in. If one doesn’t live under one’s income they will go under if given enough years of over spending!

95

Of course the debt continued under President Obama, the war costs were continuing and with no money to pay for them the debt went higher. War is our costliest thing, not just in lives, but in money. Millions a week can add up fast. Many made money off the war but not the USA.

96

foolsguinea:

That’s utter nonsense. Dubya was the governor of Texas, who was lauded in political circles for getting a legislature of the opposite party to collaborate with him on issues such as education reforms and tax cuts. His lack of foreign policy experience was considered to be a minor issue, as the Cold War was over and 9/11 had yet to happen.

His election had nothing to do with his father’s name. Leaving aside snark about the Supreme Court (please), those who voted for him did so because they saw an effective, bi-partisan governor.

97

Oh this is glorious! Steeped in and dripping on the plate with the richest irony every seen. Others have done the heavy lifting responding to the points of argument.

I just wanted to note that this is from a guy who spent the period of 2001-2008 making a career out of trying to convince us all that the Bush economic policy was the best thing ever! For eight years it was on the verge of exploding (in a positive way!) and he was here to cheer it more than anyone else.

Then, he was the sage, very serious person who was going to help us understand how devastating the Obama economic policies were going to be. The auto industry, in particular, was going to disappear from the face of the earth because of Obama. Just you wait and see.

Here was a delicious offering this past year: Unleash the Mind - Great Debates - Straight Dope Message Board

Two of the earliest replies help you to understand the material Sam Stone felt was an accurate depiction of his own “mental model” pretty well:

98

Millionaires don’t get to print money, though. And I don’t know what the numbers on defense spending are, but notice we’re not spending a lot on Iraq any more.

Some years over spending is a bad thing, but in some years it is a good thing. And in any case important spending now causing a deficit because the tax rate got cut doesn’t suddenly become overspending.

99

Most of the GOP isn’t insane, they’re just corporate tools and authoritarians. Not too different than the Dems. The main strain of insanity that people notice is the religious fundamentalism which is for some reason usually coupled with a socially regressive outlook, which is both entertaining and somewhat disturbing when they get into positions of power.

100

Complete and utter nonsense. Here’s what caused the global meltdown. I posted this once before but damned if I can find it to link to.

There are all kinds of reasons banks go under, but mostly it was greed. Two local banks that failed, Cape Fear Bank and Cooperative Bank in Wilmington, were among 6 banks that loaned a total of 21 million dollars to a couple of drug store owners who felt like they wanted to get into the real estate business. Here’s an interesting article with a timeline the local paper did on the whole thing.

Nobody forced the banks to loan these guys, and dozens like them, millions of dollars. The government didn’t lean on them. The banks rushed out like suckers at a travelling medicine show to put their money down.

Look at this quote from the article “Even after BB&T refused to lend more money to John and Charlene Waggett, they were able to obtain loans from several other banks in Wilmington that amounted to more than $11 million all within one year. The Waggetts purchased a number of Carolina Beach properties totaling $18 million within a 14-month period, including this duplex at 1204 Canal Drive currently in foreclosure.”

Here’s another quote, "It’s highly unusual for banks to make more than a couple of loans at a time to novice investors – even those well known in the community as successful business people who had the wherewithal to make their loan payments, said Tony Plath, associate finance professor at the UNC Charlotte Belk School of Business.

“You only take on a few projects from a new developer at a time. You need to be able to generate operating cash flow,” Plath said. This enables the investor to sell a property to gain cash to pay on these short-term acquisition and development loans.

This, however, doesn’t appear to have been the banks’ practice in the Waggetts’ case. “It does not appear that the Waggetts sold any of the property that they invested in,” Stubbs said."

The article goes on and on for five pages, and it gives a pretty clear picture of how it happened.

The investors weren’t buying property to live in, they were speculating, and so were the banks. It wasn’t fraud, it was greed and laziness. Nobody wants to make money; they just want to get money.